“It’s time!”
I hesitate for a moment or two, just in case the dream is still floating around and I can slip back into it for that crucial moment. But the flashlights hurt my eyes and when I’m able to push them away I can see the ignorant impatience in the faces of the year twelves.
“If you want us to scare you, Taylor Markham, we’ll scare you.”
I climb out of bed and pull on my jumper and boots and grab my inhaler. “You’re wearing flannelette,” I remind them flatly. “How scared should I be?”
They walk me down the corridor, past the senior rooms. I see the other year-eleven girls, my classmates, standing at their door, watching me. Some, like Raffaela, try to catch my eye, but I don’t allow it to hold. Raffaela makes me feel sentimental and there is no place in my life for sentimentality. But for just one moment I think of those first nights in the dorm five years ago, when Raffaela and I lay side by side and she listened to a tale that I have no memory of today about my life in the city. I’ll always remember the look of horror on her face. “Taylor Markham,” she had said, “I’m going to say a prayer for you.” And although I wanted to mock her and explain I didn’t believe in anything or anyone, I realised that no one had ever prayed for me before. So I let her.
I follow the seniors down two flights of stairs to a window that is supposedly the least conspicuous one in the House. I have actually mastered the climb down from my own window but have never dared to tell anyone. It gives me more freedom and means that I don’t have to explain my every move to the year-seven spies in the dorm. I started off as one of those. They hand-pick you young out here.
A thorn presses into my foot through the soft fabric of my boot and I let it for a moment, pausing until they push me forward. I walk ahead, allowing them to play out their roles.
The trail that leads to the meeting hut is only distinguishable in the pitch black by the sensation of soft dirt under my feet. In the darkness, one of the seniors stumbles behind me. But I keep on walking, my eyes closed, my mind focused. Ever since they moved me from the communal dorms to my own room in year seven I have been trained to take over, just like the protégés in the other Houses. Five years is a long time waiting and somehow during that time I got bored. So as we reach the hut and enter and I feel the waves of hostility smack me in the face, I begin to plan my escape from Jellicoe. Except that this time I will not be fourteen and there won’t be a Cadet who tags along. There will just be me. According to Dickens, the first rule of human nature is self-preservation and when I forgive him for writing a character as pathetic as Oliver Twist, I’ll thank him for the advice.
Candles illuminate the canvas-covered dirt floor where the seniors from all the Houses sit with their successors, waiting for the verdict.
“This is officially the passing-on ceremony,” the one-in-charge says. “You keep it simple. It’s not a democracy. Whoever’s in charge rules. They can only be superseded if five of the six House leaders sign a document deeming him or her incompetent. The one-in-charge has final say in what gets traded with the Cadets and the Townies. He or she, only, has the right to surrender to the enemy.”
Richard of Murrumbidgee House makes a sound as if he’s holding back a laugh. I don’t know whether it’s because he’s sure the job is his or because he is laughing at the idea that anyone would ever surrender to the enemy, but the sound grates on me.
“The important thing is to never give anything away,” the one-in-charge continues, “especially not to teachers or dorm staff. Every time your dorm co-ordinator calls a meeting, just sit there and look like you’re taking in every word but don’t let them ever understand what goes on around here after hours.”
“Which is?” Ben Cassidy asks politely.
“I beg your pardon?” says one of his seniors.
“Well, what exactly does go on here after hours?”
“What are you getting at?” the senior persists.
Ben shrugs. “Everyone’s always going on about what goes on after hours but nothing actually seems to go on at all, except maybe meetings like this.”
“Then to begin with,” the one-in-charge says, “don’t discuss these meetings.”
“Well, it’s not as if they don’t know what’s going on,” Ben continues. “This one time I was with Hannah and we were eating her scones and she was asking me one hundred and one questions, as per usual.” He looks around at the other protégés as if we’re interested. “She makes them herself. Hmm hmm. Beautiful. Well, we got to talking and I said, ‘Hannah, you’ve lived in this house ever since I’ve been here and it’s got the best bird’s-eye view of all the Houses, so what do you think goes on here out of school hours?’”
“That’s a great question to be asking someone who’s constantly speaking to the principal,” Richard says. “You’re a stupid prick, Cassidy.”
“We didn’t have much to choose from,” the leader of Clarence House says, sending Ben a scathing look and whacking him across the back of the head. Ben looks resigned. In year seven he got bashed up at least once a month, mostly by his seniors. He’d go visit Hannah, which I found irritating because he had his own adult looking after his House and the one thing I hated in year seven, after living with Hannah in her unfinished house for the whole year before, was sharing her with the rest of the school. The revelation that she’s a question-asker is even more irritating. Hannah never asks me anything.
“What type of scones?” I ask him. He looks up at me, but his senior whacks him again.
“Okay, I’m over this,” Richard says impatiently. “Can we just get to the point?”
Those-in-charge look at one another and then back to us. And then at me.
I hear the curses instantly, the anger, the disbelief, the hiss of venom under the breath of almost everyone in the room except the seniors. I know what is about to be said but I don’t know how I feel. Just numb like always, I guess.
“You’re not a popular choice, Taylor Markham,” the one-in-charge says, cutting through the voices. “You’re too erratic, have a bad track record, and running off with one of the enemy, no matter how young you were, was bad judgement on your part. But you know this place inside out and you’ve been here longer than anyone else and that’s the greatest asset anyone can have.”
One of my seniors nudges me hard in the ribs and I guess I’m supposed to stand up.
“From this point on,” the one-in-charge continues, “we answer no questions and offer no advice, so don’t come to find us. We don’t exist anymore. We go home for study tomorrow and then we’ll be gone and our role here is over. So our question is are you in, or do we give this to our next candidate?”
I didn’t expect a question or an option. I would have preferred if they just told me to take over. There is nothing about this role that I desperately want. Yet being under the control of any of the protégés in this room for even the slightest moment is a nauseating prospect and I know that if I’m not in charge I’ll be spending many a night on surveillance, freezing my bottom off in the middle of the bush.
When I’m ready, I nod, and the one-in-charge hands me a purple notebook and a thick crisply folded piece of paper, which I suspect is the map outlining who owns what in the territory wars. Then the year twelves begin to leave and, like all things insignificant, the moment they’re gone it is like they never existed.
I sit back down and prepare myself for what I know is coming. Five House leaders ready for a battle. One common enemy. Me.
“You don’t want this. You never have.” I think the comment comes from the leader of Murray House, who has never really spoken to me. So the idea that he thinks he knows what I want interests me.
“Step down and the five of us will sign you out,” Richard says, looking around at the others. “You’ll be put out of your misery and we’ll get on with running the underground.”