Breaking Bones by Helen Slavin

Author:Helen Slavin [Slavin, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Agora Books

* * *

The group of Year Sevens had been unruly from the moment they were lined up to board the coach. It occurred to Calum that some parents didn’t walk their offspring anywhere. Many of the girls in unsuitable footwear had complained of having to walk from the History building to the coach in the car park.

“What?” he’d barked. “It’s a hundred yards.” He’d herded them on past the science labs. They were moaning and mewling, and the boys were already breaking off into fisticuffs and horsing about. He half hoped they’d all get a bit carsick in the coach. At least that might quiet them down.

They arrived at Woodcastle Castle and were instantly hungry, even though the whole journey from school had taken less than fifteen minutes.

“Lunch is at 12:30,” he informed them. “We’re going to look around this part of the castle first, then lunch, then we will move on into the eastern part of the complex.” They all knew, there was no arguing with Mr Atwood.

He understood that there were some children who would never be interested in anything, not history nor traffic regulations nor the meaning of life; but this did not deter him from trying. He had devised an interactive tour of the castle that involved more than the simple hunting down of artefacts and ticking boxes on a worksheet. Mr Atwood tried his damnedest to time travel.

“Dressing up?” David Thomas, a boy whose head was filled with cigarette smoke and not much else, wrinkled his nose. “I’m not fucking dressing up.” Some of the group were still enthusiastic and were dressing up in the garments offered.

“Then you’re going in the dungeon for treason,” Mr Atwood offered.

“Fuck that.”

It took only a few minutes for the group to assemble in the dungeon. David Thomas looked out at his classmates through a small iron grille with a put-out expression edged with doubt. Mrs Bentley, the castle’s warden, had a key and, as it turned out, was not afraid to use it.

“This is abuse,” David Thomas moaned.

“This is interactive education,” Mr Atwood informed him and used him as the centrepiece in a short talk about punishment and politics and threw in some ghosts for good measure.

They emerged a short while later, David Thomas chastised and quiet and hanging at the back of the group.

The usual route through this end of the castle was up via the eastern keep, across the barbican tower and the guard tower, and down via the western tower; however, the group were forced to wait as a lady with white hair made her leisurely way down the wrong spiral stair. Calum was polite but irritated. It was a tightrope of discipline that they walked whenever they brought a group out. Any delay in activity that left the almost-teenagers loafing about could create trouble. He distracted them with techniques for boiling oil and otherwise despatching your enemies.

At lunchtime, he did not notice the woman with bright white hair standing in the window of the tower looking down.

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