The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School by Kim Newman Read Free Book Online

story. Girls might hope for Valentino as the Sheik, Charlie Chaplin as the Little Tramp or (in Kali’s case) Lon Chaney as a gang boss with no legs (Kali described this film,
The Penalty
, over and over after Lights Out, with elaborations – she proclaimed it as the Greatest Motion Picture Ever Made). However, they made do with ‘The Coughing Horror’, one of
The Mysteries of Dr Fu-Manchu
, or ‘The Bruce-Partington Plans’, one of
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
. These were thought to be ‘proper stories’, held in higher esteem than serials of American origin. In Yank films, soppy heiresses were constantly imperilled by villainous uncles and masked masterminds out to obtain their fortunes. Because they were utterly useless, they often needed to be rescued by handsome fellows. Fossil taught QMWAACC girls how to slip out of even the most elaborate sailors’ knots, but such skills were evidently not part of the education of the average American heiress.
    The flickers drew venomous hisses from the audience whenever it seemed the hero was on the point of planting a passionate smacker on the heroine’s cupid’s bow lips but they chickened out at the last moment and rubbed cheeks instead. Scornful of the breed of ringleted and ribboned Paulines, Elaines and Helens, Kali dared express a preference for the honestly naked crookery of the wicked uncles and clutching hands above the hollow charms of the unmanly youths held up as heroes in the chapterplays. Amy’s favourites among Mrs Wyke’s flickers were not American or British, but French – especially those in which adventuress Irma Vep prowled the rooftops of Paris in a black bodystocking and mask, murdering and robbing at the behest of a secret society called Les Vampires. It occurred to Amy that her Ability might come in handy if she were ever called upon to prowl rooftops. Should she ask Light Fingers how to go about beginning a career in crime?
    In three weeks, she had seen and sketched twelve new moths, including the nationally scarce
Discoloxia blomeri
(Blomer’s Rivulet), though the Drearcliff grounds were poor moth country. Her
enthusiasm
was noted by Fossil Borrodale, who – when not thwacking Infractors – was a surprisingly good teacher. She didn’t baby-talk like Wicked Wyke or insist on rote copying like Digger Downs. Called after lessons to see Fossil, Amy dreaded punishment for some unintentional Infraction – only for the teacher to ask politely if she might look at Amy’s Book of Moths. While casting an eye over the sketches, Miss Borrodale admitted she had kept a Book of Fossils when she was Amy’s age. Fossil allowed that Amy could examine the Calloway Collection if she liked. The naturalist Damina Calloway – who had taught at Drearcliff around the turn of the century then disappeared in Patagonia – had donated a great number of specimens to the school, including several trays of mounted lepidoptera. Though against killing for science, Amy thrilled at the prospect. The trays had grown dusty and ignored, awaiting someone who shared the
enthusiasm
of the long-gone collector.
    Leaving Hypatia Hall – the smelly edifice which contained the Biology and Chemistry Laboratories and the Machinists’ Workshop – Amy spied Inchfawn peeping round a corner, boiling with envy. ‘It’s all right, Inchfawn, I didn’t get the thwacks.’ That didn’t assuage Inchfawn, who darted away, spectacles up in her hair, heels of her hands pressed to her eyes.
    Amy now knew her cell-mates intimately. They were together in lessons, at meals, on QMWAACC exercises, between lessons, at the flickers, doing prep, rambling in the grounds, playing sports and games and in the cell, talking in the dark after Lights Out. To everyone else, they were Frecks’ cell; among themselves, they were the Forus, a contraction of ‘the Four of Us’. If School had a language, the Forus had a dialect – a slang or code comprehensible only by themselves. Frecks was skilled at