Room 13 (8 page)

‘No, Sir. We saw her, Sir, honestly. There was a thirteen on the door and it’s not there in the daytime.’

The teacher’s lips twitched. ‘And somebody lives in the cupboard, right? Now let me guess who that might be.’ He looked at the ceiling for a moment, then slapped his hands together. ‘I know – it’s Dracula, isn’t it?’

Fliss gazed at him, appalled. ‘D’you – d’you think it could be, Sir?’

Mr Hepworth looked at her. The smile faded from his eyes. ‘Good heavens, Felicity, I do believe you’re serious. Somebody’s frightened you half to death, haven’t they? Now who’s been telling you stories, eh? Gary Bazzard, was it?’

‘No, Sir. It’s not a story, Sir. Honestly. Will you have a look in the cupboard?’

The teacher sighed, gazing at her now with sympathetic eyes. ‘All right, Felicity. I’ll have a look, and you’d better look too. A cupboard’s just a cupboard, as you’ll see.’ He looked along the line of waiting children. ‘Waseem – come and give out the rest of these lunches, will you?’

‘Sir.’

Together they climbed to the top of the house and crossed the landing. Fliss hung back as Mr Hepworth twisted the doorknob and pulled. Nothing happened. ‘It’s locked,’ he said.

‘You pulled, Sir,’ said Fliss. ‘Try pushing.’

‘There’s no point, Felicity – it opens outwards.’

‘Ellie-May pushed it last night, Sir.’

‘But that’s impossible, Felicity. It’s made to open outwards – you can tell by the hinges.’

‘Get the key, Sir – please.’

He sighed. ‘If it’s locked now, it must have been locked last night. I think you had a nightmare, Felicity. You dreamed you were watching, but you were asleep. Dreams can seem very real sometimes, but if it’ll set your mind at rest I’ll go and ask Mrs Wilkinson for the key. Wait here.’

She waited till he turned on the half-landing and passed from sight, then followed quickly, seizing her chance.

The door of room four was closed. Fliss twisted the knob and pushed gently, praying that neither
Mrs
Evans nor Mrs Marriott would be in the room.

They weren’t. The room, like her own, contained a double bed and a pair of bunks. Ellie-May was in the bottom bunk. She lay on her back with her eyes closed. Her face was almost as white as the pillow. Fliss knelt down and touched her shoulder.

‘Ellie-May. Are you awake? It’s Fliss.’

Ellie-May’s eyelids fluttered. She rolled her head towards Fliss and mumbled, ‘What? Oh, it’s you. I thought everybody’d gone out. What d’you want?’

‘I want you to tell me what happens in that cupboard, Ellie-May. I want you to tell Mr Hepworth too.’

Ellie-May’s brow puckered. ‘Cupboard?’

‘On the top floor. You went there last night. We saw you.’

‘No.’ She shook her head. ‘Nowhere last night. Here. Not very well. Flu, Mrs Evans says. Tablets make me sleepy. Give me dreams.’

‘What sort of dreams?’ she tightened her grip on the other girl’s shoulder. ‘What sort of dreams, Ellie-May?’

Ellie-May grimaced. ‘Horrible dreams. Dark house. Empty, I think. Stairs. Lots of stairs, and a room. The room of – oh, I forget. Why don’t you bog off and leave me alone? I’m off to sleep.’
She
rolled her head towards the wall, and the movement exposed the side of her neck. Fliss’s eyes widened and she almost cried out. In the pale skin under Ellie-May’s ear were two spots of dried blood.

AS SHE STARED
at the marks on the sick girl’s neck, Fliss heard footfalls on the stair. Mr Hepworth was on his way up with the key. She didn’t know whether to rush out and drag him in now, or wait till he’d seen inside the cupboard. The cupboard, she decided. Once he’d had a look in there he surely wouldn’t need any dragging.

She waited till he’d passed by, then left the room and followed him up. When she reached the top landing he was there, dangling a key on a piece of thick string. He said, ‘Where’ve you been? I told you to wait here.’

‘I had to go to the bathroom, Sir. I was scared to use this one.’

He looked at her and shook his head. ‘Silly girl. Now watch.’

He inserted the key in the lock, twisted it and pulled. The door opened. Fliss saw darkness and hung back. The teacher beckoned. ‘Come along,
Felicity
– you’re the one who thought we should look inside.’ She moved forward and looked.

It was just a cupboard. A walk-in cupboard with a narrow gangway between tiers of shelving. Stacked neatly on the shelves were sheets, pillowcases and towels. Two metres from the threshold, the gangway ended in a blank wall. There was nothing else.

‘There you are, you see.’ Mr Hepworth closed and re-locked the door. ‘No bats, no monsters and no number thirteen. Does that make you feel better?’

Fliss shook her head. ‘It’s different at night, Sir. It changes. Could you keep the key and look tonight?’

‘Certainly not!’ He gave her an angry look. ‘Now see here, Felicity – this nonsense has gone quite far enough. You asked me to come up here. I was busy, but I came. You asked me to fetch the key. I did. You’ve seen for yourself that this is just an ordinary cupboard. Either you had a nightmare in which it became something else, or this whole thing has been a silly prank dreamed up by Gary Bazzard. Either way, it stops right here. D’you understand?’

Fliss nodded, looking at the floor. There was an aching lump in her throat and she had to bite her lip to keep from crying. What about Ellie-May?
Those
marks. What would he do if she mentioned them now? Go out of his tree, probably. Yet she must tell him. She must.

‘Sir?’

‘What is it now?’ He was striding towards the stairs.

She trotted at his heels. ‘Ellie-May’s got blood on her neck, Sir. Dried blood.’

They began descending, rapidly. Without looking at her he said, ‘Rubbish, Felicity Morgan! Absolute rubbish. One more word out of you, and you’ll find yourself writing lines this evening while everybody else goes swimming. Right?’

Right. Miserably, she followed him down. Everybody was out on the pavement, waiting for them, hacking at the flagstones with the toes of their strong boots and scowling into the hallway. All except Ellie-May.

Hallway – Ellie-May – Bed – Dread.

Dead.

THEY WALKED THROUGH
the old town, up the one hundred and ninety-nine steps and across the graveyard to the abbey. They were in their groups, so Fliss didn’t get to talk to Lisa who, with Trot, was in Mrs Marriott’s group. She talked to Gary, who these days always smelled of peppermint. She told him how she’d seen inside the cupboard, and that it was just a cupboard. She told him how sick Ellie-May looked, and about the blood on her neck. When she told him about the blood, his cheeks went pale and he whispered, ‘Crikey – are you sure, Fliss?’ She assured him she was, absolutely sure.

He told her he’d overheard Mrs Evans and Mr Hepworth talking. Mrs Wilkinson had been there too. They were discussing Ellie-May. Mrs Evans said she thought they should phone Ellie-May’s parents. Mr Hepworth was in favour of waiting another day – it was probably just a touch of flu,
he
said. Mrs Wilkinson mentioned homesickness and the change of water. It happened all the time, she assured them. Children were in and out of The Crow’s Nest every week between Easter and October, and in nearly every group there was one child who grew pale and listless and lost its appetite through homesickness and the change of water.

‘I didn’t hear the end of it,’ said Gary, ‘but I think they decided to wait till tomorrow.’

Fliss scowled. ‘Grown-ups are so stupid,’ she muttered. ‘They never believe anything you tell them. If Ellie-May goes in that cupboard again tonight it might be too late to call her parents.’

‘What’re we going to do? Shall I have a go at talking to old Hepworth?’

‘No. I told you – he thinks the whole thing’s a tale and that it was you who made it up.’

‘Yeah,’ sighed Gary. ‘He would. I always get the blame for everything. It’s the same at home.’

‘When we’re looking round the abbey,’ said Fliss, ‘they won’t keep us in our groups. Let’s talk to Trot and Lisa – see what they think.’

There wasn’t much left of the abbey – just some crumbling sections of wall, very high in places, with tidy lawns between. There were a lot of sightseers though, including other school groups, and it was easy for Fliss and the other three to get
together
behind a chunk of ancient masonry and talk. Fliss told Trot and Lisa her story, and they tossed ideas back and forth. In the end it came to this. None of the teachers would believe them, so they were on their own. They were all agreed that Ellie-May must not be allowed to enter the cupboard again, so they’d watch and if she came they’d stop her, by force if necessary.

‘Right,’ said Fliss. ‘That’s settled. Now, d’you think we can forget about Ellie-May and that ghastly cupboard, just for a few hours, and have some fun? We’re supposed to be on holiday, you know.’

Gary pulled a wry face. ‘It won’t be easy, Fliss.’

Trot shrugged. ‘I’m scared as a rat thinking about tonight, but what’s the point? Fretting isn’t going to make it go away, so we might as well enjoy ourselves while we can.’

‘Trot’s right,’ said Lisa. ‘We’re on holiday. Let’s at least explore some of these ruins before the teachers get bored and call us together.’

They split up and wandered about, gazing at the walls and the high, slender windows. Fliss tried to imagine what the place must have looked like long ago, with a roof, and stained glass, and flagstones where all this grass now grew, but it was impossible. Anyway, she told herself, I like it better as it is now. You can see the sky. There are birds,
and
grass, and sunlight, and I don’t like gloomy places.

She shivered.

THEY STAYED AN
hour among the ruins, then assembled for the clifftop walk to Saltwick Bay. It was just after eleven o’clock. The sun, which had shone brightly as they left The Crow’s Nest, was now a fuzzy pink ball. A cool breeze was coming off the sea, and the eastern horizon was hidden by mist.

Mr Hepworth gazed out to sea. ‘This mist is known as a sea-fret,’ he told them, ‘and sea-frets are very common on this coast. You probably feel a bit chilled just now, but once we start walking you’ll be all right.’ He turned and pointed. ‘That collection of buildings is the Coastguard Station. The path goes right past it, and that’s where this morning’s walk really begins. Who can tell us what coastguards do? Yes, Keith?’

‘Guard the coast, Sir.’

‘Well, yes. What sort of things do they look out for, d’you think?’

‘Shipwrecks, Sir. People drowning and that.’

‘That’s right. Vessels or persons in trouble at sea – including those silly beggars who keep getting themselves washed out on lilos and old tyres. They also watch for people stuck or injured on cliffs, and for distress rockets and signs of foul weather. Right – let’s go.’

They filed across the Abbey Plain and up past the Coastguard Station. The path was part of the Cleveland Way, and countless boots had churned it into sticky mud, permanent except in the longest dry spells. Because of this, duckboards had been laid down, so that most of the path between Whitby and Saltwick was under wooden slats.

‘What a weird track,’ said Maureen. ‘It’s like a raft that goes on for ever.’