Shiverton Hall, the Creeper by Emerald Fennell Read Free Book Online Page A

the scoop!’
    ‘Steady on, Xanthe,’ Penny said. ‘ The Whisper is hardly The Times , is it? I mean, they publish George’s cartoons, for a start. Do you remember the one he did last term about lasagne? It didn’t make any sense! He didn’t even spell lasagne right.’
    ‘True,’ Xanthe admitted darkly. ‘But things can change – there’s a new editor this term.’
    The girls opened the door to the newspaper room, and froze on the threshold.
    ‘Oh no,’ Xanthe whispered.
    Sitting behind the editor’s desk was Chukwudi Pike. The son of a billionaire newspaper magnate and a former Miss Nigeria, Chuk Pike was a sixth-former who made every girl in the school go completely soppy at twenty paces. There had been rumours that a girl in the third year had once fainted when he smiled at her in the dining hall. Penny could see why when he looked up at the girls and grinned. ‘You must be Penny and Xanthe,’ he said. ‘Take a seat.’
    Penny stammered something incomprehensible and Xanthe, for some unknown reason, curtsied, and then stumbled to a chair.
    The Whisper ’s headquarters consisted of a single, poky room at the top of the main school building. Past issues were pasted all over the walls, going back to the Sixties, with hard-hitting headlines such as: BREAK TIME SLASHED BY FIVE MINUTES and STUDENT WINS THIRD PRIZE IN LOCAL POTTERY COMPETITION . Penny and Xanthe tried not to stare too obviously at Chuk as they waited for the room to fill up with would-be journalists.
    Once the last student had wandered in, Chuk stood up and surveyed his new staff: the selection did not look promising. Apart from Penny and Xanthe, there was a boy named Hilary, who already had his finger up his nose; a sixth-former called Freya, who was doodling on her hands with a pink felt-tip; a couple of sniggering boys, who were hitting each other with rulers; and a smattering of other disinterested students, who kept on glancing at their watches.
    ‘Right,’ Chuk said, ‘I know that since Long-Pitt insisted on allocating the WAAs this year, none of you have chosen to be here. I also realise that for the past . . . well, ever , The Whisper has been a pretty rubbish paper.’
    A few of the students nodded in agreement.
    ‘Well, I’d like to change that. As some of you may know, my dad owns a couple of newspapers himself.’
    One of the sniggering boys rolled his eyes at this.
    ‘And what he has taught me,’ Chuk continued, ‘is that there is always a story. I’m not interested in publishing articles about broken vending machines or stale toast rations.’
    Chuk walked over to one of the yellowing front pages pinned to the wall and pointed to it. ‘September 1973,’ he said. ‘What does the headline say?’
    Xanthe read it out, ‘ TEA LIMITED TO ONE CUP A DAY. ’
    ‘Right,’ Chuk sighed. ‘Do you know what else happened that month?’
    The students shook their heads.
    ‘A kid went missing from the maze. Just disappeared.’ Chuk clicked his fingers. ‘Like that. And how about this one?’
    Chuk moved to a paper on the other side of the room. ‘ COSTUMES IN SCHOOL OLIVER PRODUCTION “TOO REVEALING” SAYS VICAR. May 1985.’
    Penny giggled.
    ‘Do you know what else happened in May 1985?’ Chuk continued. ‘The school bus went missing on a trip to the Lake District. Vanished into thin air. And then turned up again a month later, only none of the kids on it could remember a single thing about where they’d been.’
    Chuk now had the entire room rapt – even Hilary had taken his finger out of his nose.
    ‘What I’m saying is,’ Chuk said, ‘we need to be investigating this stuff. This is what should be going on the front page. A kid went missing in Grimstone over Christmas. What happened to him? The police have no idea. But I want to find out.’
    Chuk turned to Penny and Xanthe and smiled. ‘How do you girls fancy a trip to Grimstone?’
     
    Arthur looked at the address written on the paper in his hand. ‘Mrs Todd,