The Spin Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  1. Compost

  2. Otto

  3. Stealing

  4. Guards

  5. Crash

  6. Luck

  7. Academy

  8. Spitfyre Keeper

  9. Ralf

  10. Araminta

  11. Spitfyres

  12. The Director

  13. Yellow Powder

  14. Hector

  15. Cosmo

  16. Maud

  17. The Spin

  18. Tell-tale

  19. Shock

  Part Two

  20. Time

  21. Break-out

  22. Mr Topter

  23. Student

  24. Test

  25. Where?

  26. Thirteen

  27. Names

  28. Nightmare

  29. Night Visitor

  30. Secrets

  31. Remorse

  32. History

  33. Ceremony

  34. Race

  35. Cheat

  36. Moleman Mount

  37. Mungo

  38. End

  About the Author

  Copyright

  For fan-tastic Maud Mellish

  PART ONE

  1

  Compost

  Stormy felt as if he were being cooked – steamed like a pudding, baked like an apple pie. The kitchen was so hot he could barely breathe. He yawned. Scooped up the eggshells and onionskins into the bucket of scraps, yawned again.

  Uh-oh. Otto the cook had spotted him.

  ‘You! Stormy! Wakey-wakey!’ A sieve sailed through the air towards his head. Stormy ducked. ‘No yawning in here!’ Otto yelled. ‘Take that bucket to the compost heap! And be quick about it! No snoozing in my kitchen! Zero yawning! D’you hear me?’

  ‘Yes, sir. No, sir.’

  Stormy picked up the heavy bucket and got a whack on his ear. A size five whack.

  Otto was tall, and as wide as the black stove, and when he hit you with a size five spoon it felt as if your head was splitting open, like a conker bursting out of its shell.

  ‘Ouch! Yes, sir.’

  He ran to the door as Otto reached for the number six spoons.

  Stormy perked up in the fresh, cool air. He staggered across the yard, down the path and past the crooked beanpoles and rows of shrivelled sprouts, the bucket bumping against his thin legs.

  If I were taller and stronger I’d give Otto what for! I’d show him. If I didn’t have to do what he told me to do, I wouldn’t do it!

  The steaming compost heap at the very end of the path was hidden behind bushes. Beyond it, the garden sloped away in rocky terraces and giant boulders down the side of the mountain.

  Stormy tossed the contents of the bucket onto the pile, set it down and stood a moment.

  In the evening gloom, every edge and outline was beginning to fade.

  The twilight sky was a beautiful purple, with tiny brilliant stars just beginning to appear like holes in the dark. Two spitfyres were wheeling around the Academy castle on the summit of Dragon Mountain. They were looping, tilting and swooping like birds, as if they were searching for something on the mountainside. It was unusual for winged horses to be out so late. He wondered what they were doing. Lucky things, those sky-riders. They weren’t orphans like him; they had rich parents who paid for them to go to the Academy. He looked up at the spitfyres adoringly. If only he could get close to one, touch one – it was what he most wanted in the whole world.

  A sudden chink of metal against metal made him spin round.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  A man leapt out of the shadows, grabbed him and without a warning, locked his hands together round his neck and began to squeeze.

  ‘Silence!’ said his terrible voice. ‘Don’t move. Not a word!’ His grip on Stormy’s throat was like a metal claw, cutting off air, pushing him to the ground.

  Stormy stopped breathing.

  The man was strong, but no taller than Stormy. His long grey hair hung in rat-tails around his grizzled face. Inside his beard his few teeth were broken into yellow spikes. He was shivering and wet.

  ‘I won’t say a word!’ Stormy managed to say, terrified. ‘I’m not moving, only you’re just about throttling me – sir!’

  The awful hold on his throat lessened but did not go away. A dank, damp, marshy smell, a smell of wet undergrowth, cloggy soil and worms, crept into Stormy’s nostrils.

  ‘Name?’ The man’s voice was a croak, as if it hadn’t been used for years or had been strained by shouting.

  ‘Stormy. Sir.’

  ‘God help us! What sort of name is Stormy?’

  ‘The one the orphanage gave me, sir. Found on a stormy night, thunder and lightn—’

  ‘You a norphan?’ the man interrupted, looking around in a distracted manner as if he expected someone to appear.

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Listen then, norphan, and you’ll not be hurt. I’ve a gang back there in the bushes and if I give the sign they’ll leap out and rip you limb from limb and chuck the pieces over the cliff for the vultures. They would, soon as butter a slice of bread.’ Stormy nodded to show he understood. ‘But I won’t give the sign if you –’ he looked about nervously and gave Stormy a shake, ‘you bring me food. And a file for the chain. A coat if you can find one.’

  ‘Food and a file and a coat if I can find one,’ Stormy repeated. His heart was beating madly. The man held him so tight his toes barely touched the ground.

  ‘A big file, mind, for this here big leg chain.’ He rattled it softly. ‘Strong. Come back at midnight. If you’re not here by the time the clock strikes the last of the twelve, we’ll be in that place there two ticks later.’ He nodded towards the kitchen. ‘I know where you sleep; know your very bunk. We’ll come to you and slice your throat. Got it?’

  Stormy gulped. ‘Got it.’

  The squat man pushed him away roughly, then he turned and limped away, holding his chain from the ankle cuffs so that it didn’t clank.

  Stormy stood frozen for a few minutes, waiting for other figures to rise up out of the dark. No one appeared. What a terrible man! Escaped from the Academy dungeons, no doubt – a convict, a murderer, probably, and he knew where Stormy slept . . . His very bunk!

  Stormy crept ever so quickly back to the kitchen.

  2

  Otto

  Otto’s few strands of long grey hair were drawn over a scabby, turnip-shaped skull. His eyes were like two burnt potatoes and his nose was a knobbly ancient parsnip.

  The only time Otto had left the kitchen was when his sister ran away to the circus. He went to bring her back, but before he could coax her home, she died in an accident. It was after he returned that he started throwing pans and counting the strawberries in a bowl, daring anyone to steal one.

  Stormy was one of Otto’s kitchen skivvies, the lowest of the low. They washed, cut, peeled, cored and mashed. They prepared plain food for the orphanage and fancy casseroles, puddings and tarts for the Academy.

  The convicts in the dungeons got what was left.

  Brittel ran the spitfyre kitchen, a much smaller place than Otto’s kitchen, hidden away down a narrow corridor. Brittel was as thin as a stick and as mean as a snake. He prepared all the spitfyre food. He used strange ingredients – rare herbs, minced bark, molluscs, special flowers and copious amounts of grass which he combined in mysterious, secret ways.

  The food was sent up through the core of Dragon Mountain in lifts. The Winder, always the strongest boy in the orphanage, had the job of wheeling it up.

  Stormy hoped to make it from skivvy to under-cook in Brittel’s kitchen by the time he was thirteen or fourteen. He could never expect to get closer to a
real spitfyre than that.

  Stormy opened the kitchen door nervously, hoping no one would notice how long he’d been at the compost heap, or that he was shaking. His friend Tex gave him a wink.

  ‘Where have you been, you little worm?’ Otto yelled. He was a simmering pan with the lid off. ‘It’s taken you an hour to empty a bucket. Is our compost five miles away?’

  ‘I –’

  Otto picked up a size six wooden spoon and ran at Stormy, waving it. ‘I’ll show you, you cheeky little slice of sausage! How many ounces of flour in a three-egg cake? What ingredients in a chocolate sauce? Wasting my time, lingering and loitering! Time is food, Stormy! Lobster pancakes! How d’you make puff pastry? Crème caramel? Food comes first!’

  The other skivvies sniggered. Stormy didn’t mind – he’d laugh too if it were someone else being chased round the kitchen.

  Sponge, Otto’s old dog, staggered up on his stiff legs and pretended to nip at Stormy’s ankles. He and Stormy were friends; Sponge would never really bite anyone.

  Otto battered Stormy’s back and shoulders with the wooden spoon, whooping every time he made a good, loud sound. ‘Splat! Whack! Crack!’ he cried. ‘Batter! Smash!’

  Otto was large and slow and Stormy was small and quick. After the first few blows, which didn’t really hurt, Stormy escaped under the kitchen table. Sponge joined him, grinning.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Otto . . . sorry, sir . . . sorry, Mr Otto, sir –’

  ‘Moron!’ Otto yelled at Tex, seeing him about to sweep bits of bread into the bucket. ‘Keep those! Crumbs is food. No waste here! Don’t forget the little birdies!’

  ‘No, sir.’

  Stormy was forgotten. He stayed under the table. His encounter at the compost heap had chilled him to the marrow, and despite the warmth he was shivering. Otto could be scary, but it was the wild man outside he was most scared of. There had been anger and misery in the bones and hard flesh of those hands around his throat.

  The old dog sank down and snored, and Stormy crawled out, picked up a knife and began chopping.

  Otto was standing by the window that looked over the mountain track, slurping a mug of mint tea. He watched that stretch of path a lot, as if he were expecting someone.

  Stormy worked all evening, anxiously watching the time slip away. Ten thirty. Eleven o’clock. Eleven thirty . . . How was he ever going to get out to the convict with the food and the file by midnight?

  At last the kitchen was tidied and cleaned, the food prepared, ready for breakfast. Team by team the staff left; the skivvies were the last. Stormy glanced at the clock. Oh, if only they would all hurry up! He let the other boys go out ahead of him, then went back to pick up an imaginary speck from the clean floor before following them, making sure he was the last to leave the kitchen. But he didn’t climb the stairs up to his dormitory as they had done. He slipped quickly into the darkness at the bottom of the stone stairs, where Otto kept his coats and wellingtons. He pushed his way through the heavy mackintoshes and tweeds and slippery leather until he felt the cold stone wall. He was well hidden. He stayed very still, waiting. The smell of Otto was all around him.

  The clock struck quarter to midnight. Sweat broke out all over his body. Come on, Otto! At last the cook shuffled out, Sponge padding beside him. He slept in a damp stone-flagged room beside the kitchen, dreaming of piecrusts, brandied cherries, apple crumble and cake.

  He was yawning and scratching at his greasy head. His footsteps came closer and closer. Then stopped.

  ‘What’s the matter, Sponge?’

  They were right there, right beside the coats!

  Sponge was sniffing loudly. Stormy closed his eyes and prayed his shaking limbs wouldn’t give him away. Go away, Sponge! Go away!

  ‘Come on, you daft old dog. It’s only a mouse. Bed!’ And at last his bedroom door shut.

  3

  Stealing

  Stormy waited a few minutes, then crept out from his hiding place, dragging with him a vast green tweed garment he had never seen Otto wear so would never miss. He put it on to save carrying it, and headed for the kitchen, the coat hem trailing on the floor.

  He tiptoed in, feeling like a burglar; feeling like a thief.

  Black beetles scattered, scurrying back into the cracks and crevasses behind the stove. The only sound was the crackling fire and the scratching of mice and lizards in the skirting board.

  The great coat was suffocating in the hot kitchen but still he was shaking; even his lips were quivering. He almost couldn’t do a single thing.

  He went to the big stone larder. Otto knew every item of food on every shelf. If one thing was moved, he’d go crazy! Once he’d prepared a dish, he had it recorded in his brain forever. No skivvy had ever managed to steal so much as one mulberry from here without Otto knowing about it – nor lived to tell the tale.

  But Stormy had no choice.

  He shut his eyes. If I can’t see what I’m doing, I’m not responsible, he told himself. He pushed back the enormous coat sleeves and let his fingers close around whatever food they happened to touch. Stormy’s mouth watered when he opened his eyes and saw a muffin in his hand, baked golden with the red fruit oozing out of the top. There were four other muffins – it would be missed, but what could he do?

  He lifted the cheese cover but the cheese beneath was cut into triangles and beautifully arranged in a swirl. The muffin, might, just might have fallen on the floor and got eaten, but not the cheese. He put three crumbs of muffin on the shelf and three on the stone slabs. There, it had fallen and Sponge had eaten it, or the mice. He put the muffin in the coat pocket. What else? There was a long loaf, and since the end was jagged he hoped Otto would not miss another inch or two. Then an apple, but as he reached for the apple, he set three others rolling off along the wide stone ledge. He froze. No one came. He left the fallen apples. A bat had got in or some rats, giant beetles or . . . There was the end of a fat sausage, just two inches of it; he added it to the rest in his pocket.

  Now the file; where would he get a file? The man wanted something to cut through the chain that hobbled his legs together; it would need to be a huge file. Otto kept tools for mending the stove and the turning spit beneath the stone sink. Stormy pulled the cupboard door open and rummaged around quietly. There was a heavy chisel and hammer, and he considered taking them before he spotted a massive pair of pincer things that Otto had used to cut the bars on the pantry window when his friend Purbeck had got his big head stuck through them. Otto had made Purbeck wait for two whole days before freeing him. It had been snowing at the time too.

  The back door was locked, but the key was in the lock and Stormy turned it slowly. The clock in the tower began to chime the hour. Midnight!

  He ran.

  A dim yellow glow flickered in the dark by the compost heap. Stormy headed towards it, his heart booming, and his mouth dry. With his eyes set on the light, he saw nothing, only heard a hideous wheeze as the terrible man leapt out and flung him to the ground. The man was on top of him in an instant, settling on his chest like a heavy toad, and smelling like one too.

  ‘Alone?’ The convict’s voice rasped close in his ear. ‘Anyone see you?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Tell anyone?’

  ‘I swear I didn’t, sir.’

  ‘Food?’

  ‘Yes, here, if you’d just let me . . .’

  The man rolled off him and, reaching for a shrouded lantern, opened it so a sliver of light shone out. Stormy managed to get his hands into the deep pockets of the big coat and squash the stolen food into the convict’s hands. ‘Sorry, it’s a bit broken and –’

  He didn’t notice a folded square of paper escape from his coat pocket to the ground.

  The little man grabbed the muffin with shaking hands and rammed it into his mouth. His teeth were chattering so badly that much of it flew out again and had to be scooped up several times before it was eaten and swallowed once and for all.

  Stormy had a moment in which to nervous
ly study the convict. His eyes were black and very round, like polished stones. And his ears, half hidden by the straggly hair, were pointed.

  A grubbin! That accounted for the smell of old leaves and wet earth.

  ‘What you starin’ at?’ the grubbin said, and food sprayed out of his mouth as he spoke. ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing, sir, nothing.’

  ‘Is it the ears? Is that it?’ He chewed away furiously, swallowing in great hungry gulps; saliva dribbling down his chin. ‘Ears? Been paying all my life for them ears. Locked up for years and years, little norphan, for a pair of ears. A pair of pointed ears! Locked up there.’ He indicated the dungeons, the tiny black-barred windows set into the castle walls below the Academy. ‘Get the file?’ he added, gripping Stormy’s arm tight. ‘Did you?’

  ‘There wasn’t one,’ Stormy said, quickly, pulling out the pincers. ‘I got these. I hope they’ll do. Otto’s going to go crazy when he finds out!’

  ‘Fierce is he, this Otto?’

  Stormy nodded. ‘Can be.’

  ‘Well, I’m grateful to you, and sorry. There. Can’t say fairer than that. I’ve done nothin’ wrong and shouldn’t be locked up, and that’s a fact. I needs my freedom. What about you?’ The grubbin stuffed the last of the sausage into his mouth and nodded at him. ‘Know what it’s like to need something? Need it bad?’

  ‘I do. Yes. I need to be a sky-rider,’ Stormy blurted.

  ‘Ah ha. Good, good,’ and the grubbin held out a dirty hand for the tools. ‘Got a dream, lad, hold it. Now give me them.’ He weighed the heavy pincers in his palm. ‘Good. Done well.’

  ‘Can I go now?’ Stormy whispered.

  ‘Yes. Thank you. You can go. Away to your bed before my men come back. ’Ere, give me the coat.’

  Quickly Stormy stripped off the coat and the grubbin put it on. It was huge on him too, drooping off his shoulders and long on the ground, but he hugged it round himself gratefully.

  ‘You done me proud, young man. Thank you. Thank you for your help and I hopes you get your dream. Brave lad. Here – don’t forget this.’ He scooped up the fallen paper and thrust it into Stormy’s hand. ‘Might be important.’