LITMIR.BIZ

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around the side of the building, and as Daniel caught up, he was horrified to see the dog bounding in through the automatic sliding doors of the front entrance.

      Sweating with embarrassment, Daniel followed, smiling apologetically at the flustered receptionist who had emerged from behind her desk.

      “Sorry,” said Daniel. “Can I go and get him?” He pointed down the long carpeted corridor leading out of the lobby, from which distant barking was clearly audible.

      “Please do,” said the receptionist faintly.

      “Has somebody lost a dog?” a voice said, and a woman appeared from one of the corridor’s many doorways. Although she was smartly dressed in a suit and had her hair twisted up and fastened in a clip, it was unmistakably the same woman he had met on the cliff path. She had one hand hooked under Chet’s collar; with the other she was tickling him behind the ears. She didn’t seem remotely annoyed. “I thought I recognised those muddy paws,” she said, smiling at Daniel. “Hello again.”

      “Hello,” mumbled Daniel, hastily clipping Chet’s lead back on. “Sorry. He was chasing something.”

      “No harm done. It was probably the caretaker’s cat. He loves a scrap.” She looked at Daniel with interest. “How are you getting on?”

      “Er, OK, thanks.”

      “I’ve been meaning to call round.”

      “Oh…” said Daniel without enthusiasm. The last thing they needed was someone pressurising them to come to school.

      “I didn’t mean an official visit. I was just going to say hello. See how you were getting on.”

      “We’re OK. My mum’s teaching us at home, so…” It was difficult to find a way to tell someone to back off that didn’t sound rude.

      “In that case I won’t disturb you,” Mrs Ivory said, smoothly. “I only wanted to say that you and your sister are very welcome to come in and use our facilities any time. We’ve got computers and a swimming pool and a gym and a lovely grand piano that doesn’t get nearly enough use.” She smiled encouragingly, and Daniel wondered how she knew that he had a sister. Information travelled like smoke on a breeze here.

      “You mean walk in any time?”

      “Well, yes. Although after school hours would probably make more sense. The computers and music room are in use during the day. But we’re open until seven on week nights and all day Saturday. We’ve got the best facilities on Wragge, so the students are often here outside of school hours. Don’t feel you can’t use the place just because you’re not a pupil yet.”

      Free computers sounded good, Daniel thought. Though the rest of the island must offer zero entertainment if people willingly spent their free time back at school. “So I just turn up. I don’t have to let anyone know?”

      “You just turn up.”

      “How do you stop things getting nicked, if people just wander in and out?” At school in London they’d had security gates and keypads on all the doors – even the teachers had swipe cards to get in – and everything still got nicked, anyway.

      She laughed at his pessimism. “Theft isn’t really a problem on an island this size. Everyone knows everyone. There’s nothing much to steal, and nowhere to dispose of anything stolen. Nobody here bothers to lock their doors.”

      They were interrupted by hesitant throat-clearing noises from the receptionist. “Emma, there’s a Mr Chancellor on the line? Do you want to take it?”

      Mrs Ivory said goodbye to Daniel, gave Chet’s back a last ruffle, and returned to her office to take the call.

      “Do you know who that is?” the receptionist whispered to Daniel. “That’s the headteacher – Mrs Ivory.” And she gave him a significant look, as though he’d had an audience with the Pope or something, Daniel thought later.

       Chapter 7

      DANIEL WASTED NO time in following up Mrs Ivory’s suggestion; he was desperate to get on a computer again, since it looked increasingly unlikely that there would ever be an internet connection at The Brow. His mum’s efforts to call out an engineer to connect them seemed to have stalled in the face of unexplained delays and hitches.

      His plan was to spend an hour or two online, maybe check out the piano, and then do fifty lengths of the pool. Louie refused to come with him; she wouldn’t swim in public, anyway, and didn’t want to set foot in Stape High. In spite of Daniel’s assurances, she was suspicious that Mrs Ivory was trying to lure them back to school.

      “Go without me. I’m fine here,” she said, without looking at him. She was sitting at her easel, smearing thick daubs of black and blue oil-paint on to a stormy-looking canvas. However they began, most of her paintings ended up looking dark and stormy.

      “That’s good,” he said, nodding at the picture. “What is it?”

      Louie gave him a withering look. “It’s not meant to be anything.”

      “Oh. Right. Well, it’s good, anyway, whatever it is. Or isn’t.” He was glad he was going out now. It was better to keep your head down when Louie started getting artistic. She’d once taken a bread knife to one of her paintings because it wasn’t turning out the way she wanted and slashed the canvas from top to bottom.

      Mum was in the kitchen, working at a translation, as he put his head round the door to say goodbye. One end of the table was covered with the pages of a manuscript and her own handwritten notes; the other, with vegetable peelings. A large pan of greenish liquid bubbled and frothed on the hob. Some species of soup for dinner, thought Daniel, making a mental note to buy proper food while he was out.

      He stuffed his towel, swimming trunks, goggles and wallet into the drawstring bag with the smiley logo and set off.

      It was five-thirty by the time he reached Stape and the students had long gone. The automatic doors swished open to admit Daniel into the empty lobby. At the reception desk the switchboard lights winked unheeded. He began to make his way down the corridors, half expecting someone to challenge him and ask what he was up to. It hadn’t occurred to him until now that he wouldn’t be able to find his way around. The students would know where the music practice rooms and computers were, but there were no signs or directions to assist a stranger. Daniel wandered past silent classrooms and laboratories releasing the faint scent of sulphur and leaky gas-tap into the corridor. A cleaner appeared from a doorway dragging a squat hoover by its flexible trunk.

      “Where’s the computer room?” Daniel asked, unable to shake off the feeling that he was an intruder.

      He was in the wrong block altogether. The woman gave him directions to a distant corner of the building and went on her way, the hoover following her in fits and starts like a badly behaved pet.

      As he walked, Daniel checked out the displays on the walls: one whole board was taken up with students’ portraits. The standard was dismal – figure-drawing only one step up from stick-men! Daniel assumed it must be the work of the youngest pupils, but the year group was the same as Louie’s. Unbelievable. She’d produced better stuff than this at primary school.

      There were half a dozen other students already in the IT suite when Daniel walked in. To his relief they were sitting separately, spread out around the room, and did no more than glance up at him and back to their screens. Individuals were always much less intimidating than a group. Over the hum of computers and the air-conditioning, he could hear the soft rattle of fingers on keyboards; apart from that all was quiet.

      Daniel found an empty terminal and followed the onscreen instructions to set up a password. A feeling of warmth and contentment began to steal over him as he logged on to his favourite sites, as if he was a traveller coming in from the cold to find a welcoming fire in the grate. He felt reconnected to the world of online gamers out there. Even somewhere as remote and isolated as Wragge you could still belong.

      These elevated thoughts were

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