‘Check,’ he murmured, arching one eyebrow.
Allie glared at the board but couldn’t find a way out. ‘Balls.’
‘What if our parents try to pull us out?’ Zoe asked.
They all fell silent.
‘That guy dragged Caroline to the car,’ Rachel said. ‘Are they going to do that to half the people in this room?’
‘What can we do, though?’ Allie asked.
Sylvain picked up a discarded chess piece. Holding the white knight in his hand, he looked at it thoughtfully for a moment. Then he held it up.
‘We can warn them.’
Sylvain’s statement caused an instant outcry. How could they do that? If they did, wouldn’t everyone know what they’d been up to? How should they say they found this information out in the first place? Besides, it wasn’t like they could send everyone an anonymous email. If they spread the word, the instructors would find out what they were up to and put a stop to it.
It was Rachel who’d found the solution.
‘Never underestimate the power of gossip,’ she said simply.
They all looked at her with blank incomprehension.
‘I do not understand?’ Nicole looked around for an explanation.
It was Carter who figured it out first. ‘Oh you are awfully clever, Rachel,’ he said, as understanding spread slowly across his face. ‘Tell the gossips and they’ll tell the world.’
‘Exactly,’ Rachel said. ‘We tell five of the biggest gossips in the school what Nathaniel’s doing, and that their parents might be coming for them next.’ She looked at them expectantly but they still didn’t get it. She rolled her eyes. ‘They’ll tell everyone else… Come on, you lot! It’s better than Facebook. Everyone will know what’s happening by sunset and it won’t be traceable.’
As they absorbed this information, the others exchanged looks.
‘And what happens then?’ Nicole asked the question that was in all their minds.
‘Then they can make a choice,’ Sylvain said. ‘What happens after that is up to them.’
‘What could they do, though, really?’ Carter asked. ‘Run away?’
‘They could run away,’ Allie said. ‘Or they could fight back.’
EIGHTEEN
The next morning, Allie was up and out in the frigid walled garden by six. It was the first real day of pretending everything was normal when nothing was. Her stomach was tight with nervousness and excitement – today they would put their plan into action.
She’d nearly forgotten about detention amid all the excitement, but as they all split up to their respective dorms the night before Carter had called after her, ‘See you in the garden, bright and early…’
Allie had stopped in her tracks, staring at him in disbelief.
‘Seriously? Do you think Isabelle actually expects us to stick to detention with all this going on?’ She swung her arm around in an irritated gesture.
‘Uh… yes?’ He shot her a look that said he thought she was being dense on purpose. ‘You have indefinite detention. Indefinite. She will not be happy if we just decide not to show up because of the apocalypse we haven’t been told about.’
‘Fine.’ Allie stomped up the stairs after the other girls. ‘Because I have nothing better to do.’
‘I’m busy too, you know,’ he’d called after her but she hadn’t looked back.
Clutching a torch, she slipped through the open garden gate. The weather had warmed slightly, and the frozen earth had thawed into a soupy mud. Her head filled with thoughts of spies and Nathaniel, she sloshed through it in search of Mr Ellison.
She found him setting up at the edge of the orchard, whistling tunelessly to himself as he worked.
‘My best worker is the earliest one,’ he said cheerfully. ‘How are you today?’
‘Fine.’ She stood up straight, trying to look fine.
‘That’s good,’ he said. He carried a massive armload of equipment out of an open shed. ‘Makes an improvement. Feel good and others around you will feel good by association.’
Allie didn’t notice she’d wrinkled her nose in disbelief until he waved a finger at her. ‘It’s true. Try it if you don’t believe me. You’ll see.’
‘OK…’ Her tone was doubtful.
‘You’re going to be working in the berry section today.’ He handed her a rake and clippers. ‘Getting the bushes ready for spring. Follow me and I’ll show you what to do.’
They headed back across the dark garden.
‘Where’s Carter?’ Allie asked, jumping over a muddy hillock.
Mr Ellison’s brow lowered. ‘Late is all I know.’
‘Oh.’
The gardener was demonstrating how to tell the leafless blueberry branches from the blackberries when the sound of fast heavy footsteps made them both turn.
Before Allie realised what Mr Ellison was doing, he’d moved in front of her wielding a heavy iron hoe in his right hand as lightly as she might hold a pen.
The gardener was very tall, about six foot five, and always had a lumbering gait, but suddenly he seemed capable of great swiftness and grace. Seeing this, Allie felt both awe and despair. Was nobody at Cimmeria what they seemed to be?
Within seconds, though, he’d relaxed and she heard him murmur under his breath, ‘What is wrong with you, boy?’
Standing on her toes, she saw Carter pelting it across the mud, his torch flickering on and off weakly.
‘Sorry,’ he panted, skidding to a stop in front of them. ‘I overslept.’
‘Late.’ Mr Ellison uttered the word with the same contempt some might use for ‘Traitor’.
As Allie watched in astonishment, Carter hung his head. ‘I’m sorry, Bob,’ he said. ‘I can come back later to make up the time.’
‘We’ll see about that,’ the older man muttered. But he seemed mollified by Carter’s contrition, and soon he left them working on the berry bushes alone.
After Carter’s mood swings the day before, Allie approached him with wariness. She didn’t know what was going on in his head – but he couldn’t just pick her up and put her down when he wanted to, like a toy. They were either friends or they weren’t.
It wasn’t easy work – the blackberry thorns were like tiny daggers and the way they worked through gloves and sleeves seemed almost malicious.
‘Ouch, you bleeding, bloody, stupid… plant!’ Yanking off her glove, Allie examined the dot of blood on her fingertip. ‘I am never looking at blackberries in the same way again. They are vicious little bastards.’
‘You OK?’ Carter, who was gathering pruned branches for burning, glanced over at her with a mixture of concern and amusement.
It was the first time he’d spoken to her directly and Allie looked up at him in surprise but recovered quickly, giving a nonchalant shrug. ‘I’ll live. I guess nobody was ever thorned to death.’
‘As far as we know…’ he said.
‘Maybe it was covered up by the berry industry.’
They exchanged a smile; Allie relaxed a little.
As she pulled the glove back on, she thought about the way Mr Ellison had leapt in front of her a few minutes before. ‘Is Mr Ellison Night School?’
Carter’s expression darkened. ‘Yes and no.’ He looked around to make sure the gardener was nowhere near. ‘He was once. He went to school here. Studied philosophy at Oxford. Went to work in the City for one of the big banks. Then something happened – something bad.’
Allie tried to imagine Mr Ellison, young and dapper, in a suit. It was almost impossible. She’d never seen him in anything but dark green overalls. Never seen him without dirt on his hands.
Allie stared at Carter, willing him to continue. ‘Do you know what happened?’