The matron, who had left her glasses indoors and would never admit she had dreadful eyesight, swept the babe up in her huge pink arms. She tickled its bottom lip fondly. “Oh, bless you for the kindly soul you are, Headmaster. Poor little mite, shame on the one who abandoned you. Coochy-cooch, my little cherub!”
The infant left off chewing his frog long enough to inflict a bite on Mrs. Twogg’s index finger that a tiger shark would have envied. The matron wore her glasses at all times after that afternoon so that she would be able to immediately decipher further communications left on the pillows of abandoned children. That is how Archibald Smifft came to be inflicted on his present school.
For my more gentle and nervous readers, I will draw a veil over the intervening eleven years. Except to mention, in passing, four teachers’ resignations (diagnosed as mentally traumatised), an explosion in the pupils’ chemistry laboratory, the disappearance of four cats belonging to the gardener’s wife, several major floods in the washrooms, a fire which destroyed the sports pavilion and a school mastiff that vanished without trace. These, and a host of other indignities, atrocities and miscellaneous mishaps—students absconding to foreign territories, etc.—were all in one way or another attributable to said Archibald Smifft. However, the headmaster’s kind heart, plus the prompt arrival each term of a bag containing rubies by special delivery to Aubrey Plother, I.O.U.E., insured the boy’s continuance at Crostacious the Inviolate Boarding School for young gentlemen. Granted, there were frequent staff walkouts, but the headmaster furthered his name as a good man by rewarding injured, faithful and long-serving staff members by giving them a ruby apiece as an annual incentive.
Archibald’s dormitory was a long, draughty room. It contained only two boys besides himself. Wilton Minor and Peterkin Soames were far too frightened to cut and run like the others—they lived in constant terror of their small but vengeful roommate. Together each night, the wretched pair huddled on their beds at the room’s far end, constantly casting fearful glances at Archibald’s den. This was a high screen of assorted rubbish which he had coerced them into building at the other end of the dormitory. Wilton and Soames both had families posted overseas in the military and colonial services. As a result, they were permanent boarders, spending all holidays, vacations and non-term times on the school premises, with Archibald Smifft for company. He delighted in terrorising the hapless duo, each day bringing fresh horrors for Wilton and Soames. Wilton Minor, the more delicate of the two, had found grey hairs whilst parting his hair on his eleventh birthday! Both boys had a wan-faced, hunted look about them.
One day close to the summer term break, all the pupils were taken on an educational trip to a local dairy farm. Everybody, even Archibald, was required to go. This provided the headmaster and matron with a golden opportunity to inspect the Smifft dormitory. They were forced into this task frequently. The area occupied by Archibald was a place where any intruder had to tread with extreme caution. It was a task which Mr. Plother and Mrs. Twogg did not relish. However, if the dormitory where the Smifft boy laid his scheming little head to rest each night went unchecked, the possible consequences could prove both horrendous and dire.
Filled with trepidation, the pair made their way upstairs. The headmaster was armed with a pair of fire-side tongs, some stout leathern gauntlets and a golf club. Mrs. Twogg carried a furled umbrella, a bottle of strong disinfectant, a sharp knitting needle and a flashlight.
A notice was posted on the dormitory door, pinned to the tail of a rat skeleton.
KEEYP OWT WEN A. SMIFFT IZ NOT HEER.
YOO HAV BEAN WORNED!
Being a more regular visitor to boys’ dormitories than her superior, the matron placed herself in front, reas surring him, “Stand back, Headmaster, I’ll deal with this!”
Keeping her distance, the intrepid lady took a fencing stance, then lunged, giving the door a sharp push with her brolly tip. The customary avalanche of flour, soot, glue and sour milk thundered down as the booby-trapped door swung inward.
The headmaster’s knuckles whitened as he gripped his golf club. “Capital work, Matron, you’re an absolute brick!”
He ventured forward, but Mrs. Twogg thrust him aside with a cry. “Wait!” With a neat twist of her knitting needle, she snapped the almost invisible length of black cotton which was stretched across the threshold.
Zzzzzip thunk!
A lethal-looking spear stood quivering in the door-post at neck height. She studied it and identified the weapon.
“Hmm, Jivaro headhunting spear, probably tipped with some kind of poison. Curare, I suspect. Don’t touch it, Headmaster.”
Shaking his head, Aubrey Plother entered the room. “That’s odd. Smifft got an F minus in geography and chemistry last term.”
Mrs. Twogg gave the headmaster another shove, which sent him skittering in a semicircle. “Don’t step on that floorboard—as I recall, that’s the one with the steel-jawed foxtrap beneath it!”
Mr. Plother stepped gingerly around the offending timber. “A revelation indeed, Matron. Smifft showed no interest in either carpentry or nature study. Hmm, resourceful boy, eh?”
Mrs. Twogg narrowed her eyes. “Right, let’s see what holds the little villain’s attention these days, Headmaster.”
Their search brought forward the usual stuff. Some detonators, various stink bombs, a complete flea circus and an inflatable rubber cushion capable of producing a variety of extremely rude noises. Mrs. Twogg surveyed the haul. “Nothing of any great note here. Anything under there, Headmaster?”
Mr. Plother, who had been exploring underneath Archibald’s bed, scrambled out backwards on all fours, red-faced and excited. “Help me to move this bed out from the wall, Matron, there’s a lot of stuff hidden beneath it.”
He jumped aside as the matron moved the bed with a single heave. They stared in horror at the collection of books, jars and apparatus which lay uncovered. Mr. Plother gasped.
“Sorcery, necromancy, wizardry! Oh, deary me!”
The worthy matron shone her torch over the unsavoury heap. “We were fortunate to have found this in time, sir. Look at the labels on these jars. Eye of Lizard, Skin of Worm, Tooth of Rat, Limb of Toad! Oh, the vile boy!”
Craning her head sideways, she read the titles of the books which were strewn about the floor.
“The Secrets of Medieval Warlocks. Voodoo in Six Easy Steps. You Too Can Conjure Up the Spirits. Tortures of the Spanish Inquisition. How to Become a Master of Malice. This is a library of the dark arts, how did Smifft get it all?”
Mr. Plother was studying a deck of tarot cards and a Ouija board. He dusted absently at his gown. “Well, at least he’s reading. Hello, what’s this?”
The matron swept a shrunken head from his hand. “Don’t you realise the danger this school is in, Headmaster? Archibald Smifft is learning the forbidden arts, black magic!”
Aubrey Plother blinked nervously over the rim of his glasses. “Oh, good grief, you’re right, marm. What do you suggest we do?”
A shrill, harsh voice interrupted them. “I suggest you leave my stuff alone, and get out of my room, right now!” Archibald Smifft stood framed in the doorway, his beady eyes flickering angrily from one to the other as he hissed, “Go on, clear out, or you’ll both be sorry!”
The headmaster wilted under the fiendish glare. He dithered, “Ah, yes, er, Smifft. Back from the dairy farm early, aren’t we?”
Archibald strode forward and tugged his bed back into place. “The others are still there, I wasn’t allowed to stay. Huh, just because all the milk turned sour and a big cheese fell on the farmer’s wife. Just as well I came right back, eh? What do you two think you’re doing in my dorm? Speak up!”