Prince of the Wind Read online

  ‘But … isn’t it all there? In my file?’

  He smiled thinly. ‘Unfortunately many of the records appear to have gone astray. Personal records pertaining to residents of Highgate, as well as records of a — ah — financial nature. This applies particularly to children whose residency is longer-standing, as I believe is true of you.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘How long have you lived at Highgate, Adam?’

  ‘My whole life.’

  He made a note in black pen on a clean sheet of paper.

  ‘And who are — or were — your parents?’

  I flushed again. Even though I’d never known them, I hated the thought of talking about them to this cold-eyed stranger. ‘I dunno,’ I mumbled.

  He capped his pen and set it down on the desk with a tiny click. ‘Come now, Adam. Let us work together here. Cooperation will be in your own best interests, as I shall shortly make clear. Now: who were your parents, and why were you brought to live at Highgate?’

  I glowered at him. ‘I told you: I don’t know!’ My voice sounded rough and angry in the stillness of the room. ‘I was left on the doorstep. I was less than a day old. No one ever saw her … my mum.’ My voice cracked again on the last word. ‘I don’t know who she was — or my dad. No one does. OK?’ Glaring across the desk at him, I thought bleakly that it didn’t matter much about my records going missing. Those few stark facts were all the history I had.

  He nodded sadly. ‘A classic scenario, alas. Yet another example of how low moral standards coupled with a complete absence of responsibility encumber charitable institutions such as this.’

  It took me a second to work out what he was saying. Then I was on my feet, fists clenched, my chair crashing over onto the floor behind me. ‘Listen to me, mister,’ I snarled, and for once my voice stayed low and growly: ‘whether I knew her or not, whether she dumped me or not, it’s my mother you’re talking about!’

  He didn’t so much as flinch. Just shook his head and sighed, as if my reaction confirmed something he’d already suspected. His pen scratched tidily across the paper again. Then he glanced up. ‘So: is there nothing more?’

  I shook my head. I wasn’t about to tell him about the things that were with me when I was found — the shawl I’d been wrapped in, my penny whistle, and the heavy, odd-shaped ring I wore on an old bootlace round my neck. Not now, after what he’d said. No way.

  ‘Sit down.’ I picked up the chair and sat. ‘No doubt you are wondering what in fact this folder does contain.’ I hadn’t been, but I had a feeling he was going to tell me anyhow. I was right. ‘Your latest school report, for one thing. It describes a sullen, angry youth with a chip on his shoulder and an attitude problem.’ I shrugged. I’d heard it all before.

  ‘In addition, I have here the results of the recent aptitude test undertaken by the careers councillor at your school.’

  My heart sank. I’d tried my hardest to forget about it — but I knew from long experience that things like that come back and bite you in the bum when you least expect it.

  ‘Try to think of it in positive terms, Adam,’ the guidance geezer had told me after I’d battled my way miserably through the truckload of tests. ‘You have a learning difference, rather than a disability — a difference in the way your brain handles information other children find easy to access and process.’ Well, at least now I knew why I was always bottom of the class. ‘We prefer not to label children these days,’ he’d gone on, scrawling MODERATELY DISABLED in red pen across the top of his report. ‘I’m sure you’ll find your niche in life eventually. You’ll never be a rocket scientist, of course — haw haw — but there are other, more practically-based options. Everyone is good at something, you know — or so we must keep telling ourselves. You scored quite highly on the leadership scale, relatively speaking,’ he’d finished off doubtfully.

  My friend Cameron had bounced out of the interview room with his specs misted over with excitement, babbling away about subject choices and universities and whether he’d eventually opt for law or medicine. But then he noticed I was quieter than usual, and peered anxiously at me. ‘How about you, Adam?’ he asked. ‘What did Mr Guthrie say about your future?’ I didn’t want to burst Cam’s bubble by telling him the truth: that I didn’t seem to have one.

  And now Mr Smigielski was skimming through the report, shaking his head and tut-tutting. ‘I don’t see what all this has got to do with Highgate,’ I muttered. I’d almost said ‘with you,’ but stopped myself in time. ‘With the … the future, and what’s going to happen now Matron’s gone, and all that.’

  ‘It is relevant,’ he said frostily, tearing himself away from my report. ‘Highly relevant, I am afraid.’ He put his long, narrow fingers together to form a steeple, and watched me over it. ‘You see, Adam, Highgate is to close down. Alternative arrangements are to be made for the children: foster homes and adoption, wherever possible. The normal criteria for prospective guardians will be substantially relaxed to increase the chances of success. We call it Positive Placement Policy; it has worked most effectively in the past.’

  He smiled thinly.

  ‘Some children, however,’ and he tapped my file lightly with his pen, ‘are harder to place than others.

  ‘And some — alas — prove impossible.’

  Positive Placement Policy

  The world as I knew it came crashing down around my ears.

  In my heart, I’d hoped maybe Cookie would be given Matron’s job, and we’d all live happily ever after.

  But life isn’t a fairy tale.

  I don’t know how long it was before I realised Mr Smigielski was still talking away, as matter-of-fact and unemotional as if he was reading a shopping list.

  My mind reeling, I tuned back in. ‘We will leave no stone unturned in our quest for suitable homes for you children. Naturally, our first port of call will be relatives — even a biological parent, once traced, may prove to be in a situation enabling them to revisit the issue of parenthood. Other than that … well, under normal circumstances we would insist on married couples within a certain age range, carefully screened for suitability. But as I have mentioned, under the Positive Placement Policy, virtually anyone prepared to take on the responsibility of guardianship will be considered. I am constantly astonished by how many people long for a child. There are godparents, aunts, grandparents, even family friends … in most cases, that is. But not in yours.

  ‘I will be frank with you, Adam. Your solitary state in the world will not count in your favour. Neither will your track record, your learning disability, your gender, your age, or, I regret to say, your appearance. Puberty is an unsavoury stage, even in one’s own children. It would take a remarkable person — almost a saint, dare I say — to take a boy such as you under their wing.

  ‘Yes, painful through it is for me to admit it, your chances of adoption — or even of a medium-term fostering arrangement — are marginal, to put it kindly.’

  I stared at him. I felt as if I was falling into a bottomless void. Where there had once been solid ground — rough ground, but solid — now there was nothing. Highgate — closing? Why? What about Cookie? But most of all …

  ‘What then?’ I croaked. ‘What if you’re right, and no one takes me in? Where will I go? What will happen to me?’

  He smiled, his eyes like black pebbles. ‘There is no cause for alarm. The Board will continue to honour its obligations to its dependants, should any remain. There is another orphanage which falls under the auspices of the Trust. It is situated some distance from here, on the coast.’ For a second, I felt a flicker of hope. The seaside! ‘However, we should regard it as a last resort,’ he continued. ‘The rocky peninsula on which it is sited is not without a certain dramatic appeal, but the building itself is older, and somewhat austere. Yes, unfortunately there can be no doubt that Rippingale Hall lacks many of the modern comforts and additional facilities you enjoy at Highgate.’ What was he talking about? What modern comforts? What additional fac
ilities? The television? The tool shed? But if it was worse than Highgate …

  ‘Why does it have to close?’ Even to me, my voice sounded squeaky and pathetic. ‘Highgate, I mean?’ Half an hour ago, I’d have thought Highgate closing would be the best news ever. Not now — now that it was actually happening.

  For a moment, something flickered deep in his eyes. ‘You would not be aware of the fact, but this building is situated on an extremely valuable piece of real estate, young man. In the current market, demolition, subdivision and redevelopment is the logical way forward.’ He was leaning across the table now, and as he spoke little flecks of spit landed on the polished surface between us. ‘Yes,’ he continued, ‘in a year’s time an exclusive residential subdivision named Highgate Hills will stand where this building and its grounds do now … and I …’

  ‘You?’

  ‘I shall have discharged my duties to the Trust, and will stand down to pursue … other interests.’

  ‘But Cookie …’

  ‘The cook has been given one month’s notice,’ he said coldly, ‘as laid down in her contract.

  ‘Send the next child in.’

  I am at Quested Court, playing hide and seek with Hannah — and Tiger Lily and Bluebell too, of course.

  I’m hunting for Hannah in her bedroom — and I know she’s somewhere there. I look in the cupboards, one by one. Under the four-poster bed. Behind the chair. Then I hear a stifled giggle. It’s coming from the big wooden toy box. I tiptoe up to it, hesitate, grinning to myself. ‘Don’t be so dumb, Adam,’ I say out loud, so she can hear. ‘She couldn’t possibly fit in there — not a big girl like Hannah!’ I allow her a long moment of delicious suspense … then lift the lid. Sure enough, there she is: scrunched up with her knees around her ears and a cat on either side purring fit to bust. Then she’s out of there, hopping up and down and squeaking, ‘Your turn, Adam! Your turn to hide!’

  She covers her eyes and starts to count.

  I race off and up the wide staircase. As I climb it starts to narrow and twist. The broad carpeted treads shrink down to dark stone wedges, crumbling at the edges. I run on up the spiral stairway, stumble, fall. Scrabble the last few metres on hands and knees, my breath rasping in my throat; clamber to my feet and stumble down the dark corridor, scanning the dripping walls desperately for somewhere to hide.

  At last I see a door recessed into the stone. There’s no doorknob, only a tiny keyhole almost blocked with rust. Footsteps echo down the corridor after me. I know the door will be locked, but I push it anyway. It swings open. Behind it is a tiny room, the size of a broom cupboard, pitch dark. I squeeze inside, heart hammering, and push the door closed again behind me.

  I wait in the darkness.

  Footsteps, growing closer. Heavy, slow footsteps. Footsteps that could never belong to Hannah. They stop outside the door. I wait, the blood pounding in my ears.

  A voice reaches me, muffled by the stone. A deep voice, strangely familiar, but somehow smudged, the words dragged out ghoulishly like a tape recording on slow. The words are my own, but I feel the hair on my neck stand up at the sound of them.

  ‘He couldn’t possibly fit in here — not a big boy like Adam.’

  The door creaks slowly open.

  Shaw is staring down at me, smiling.

  ‘Why, ’ello there, Adam,’ he says. ‘Wot in tarnation are you doin’ ’ere at Quested Court?’

  I shuffle out of the cubbyhole, blushing, feeling like a prize idiot. ‘D-didn’t you know, Shaw?’ I hear myself stammer. ‘Q … he adopted me. Remember?’

  Shaw looks down at me, and slowly, pityingly, shakes his head. The face is Shaw’s, but the eyes are flat and unreadable … and suddenly, horrifyingly, the voice is Q’s.

  ‘No, dear boy, I’m afraid you’re wrong. I adopted Geoffrey.’

  My eyes jerked open. The shock of Q’s words rang in my head. My heart was thudding sickeningly in my chest, and a tinny taste like shroud was on my tongue.

  It was a dream, I told myself roughly. Only a dumb dream. But behind that voice was another one, harsher still.

  And you were dumb to dream it.

  I lay on my back staring at the patterns made by the moonlight shining through the leaves of the tree outside. The thick stripes of the bars — to keep burglars out, us in — looked black and solid beside the watery, shifting shadows. But I ignored the bars and focused on the leaves.

  Watching them, I gradually felt my heartbeat slow and my breath come deep and even. My skin felt cool and smooth under the thin, scratchy blanket.

  In my mind, I answered the second voice.

  It’s never dumb to dream. Sometimes you have to dream — just to keep going.

  Lying there, I acknowledged the truth at last. Examined it, turning it carefully this way and that.

  Yes. Deep down inside me was a longing — a yearning so strong it was almost an ache — for something I knew I could never have. It was a longing to be part of the life I’d had a taste of at Quested Court, with Hannah and Q. If I could have anything in the world, it would be that.

  Not the luxury; the love.

  But it was a world I could never belong to, except for a week here and there if I was lucky. It was as distant and unreachable as the far-off universe of Karazan.

  It was a dream … and that’s all it would ever be.

  The truth was, I hadn’t heard from them for weeks. I knew Q was busy putting the finishing touches to his latest computer game, the last in the Karazan series … and as for Hannah, she’d started school, written me one very careful letter with a picture of Tiger Lily at the bottom, and then gone quiet. Busy, learning lots. Making new friends. I was glad for them both — but that didn’t stop me missing them, and dreaming …

  As my thoughts drifted, the room lightened into grey pre-dawn. Gradually, the flickering shadows of the leaves faded and disappeared, till only the stark shadows of the bars remained.

  Sometimes reality is all that’s left.

  Reality

  The first ‘prospects’ — as Mr Smigielski called them — were due to visit Highgate that afternoon, once we were all home from school.

  Instead of the usual supervised playtime, we spent fifteen minutes racing round like whirlwinds tidying — not that there was much to tidy — and sprucing ourselves up. There was a weird atmosphere, like nothing I’d ever felt before at Highgate — excitement, tightly bottled up among us older kids, and a strange kind of shyness.

  At 3:25 exactly, Mr Smigielski lined us all up in the rec room with our backs to the wall, in strict order of size. I was last in line. I was wearing the jeans and shirt I’d been allocated from the latest consignment of what Cookie called ‘pre-loved clothing’. The jeans would probably have fitted me OK a couple of months back, but these days everything I put on seemed to end just above my ankle bones and wrists, leaving them sticking out in a knobbly, lost-looking way. The checked shirt felt tight over my shoulders. I hoped I wouldn’t sneeze — the fabric was worn so thin that any sudden movement could easily make it split.

  Hating myself for doing it, I’d washed my hair in the shower that morning. There was a tight knot of nerves right in the centre of my stomach, just under my ribs.

  We were facing the clock on the rec room wall, every eye glued to the second hand as it jerked its slow way round. I glanced down the line of tidy heads, all neatly combed, some blond, some dark, some straight, some curly. They were exactly evenly spaced — Mr Smigielski had made sure of that. But to me, there was a gap in the line.

  A gap where Weevil used to be.

  It seemed everywhere I went were empty spaces where he would have been once, and never would be again. But I didn’t think of him as Weevil now.

  Staring up at the clock, I thought of Blue-bum. Where was he now? Had he gone back to the forest to join the other chatterbots? We’d all agreed that was most likely. Safely back in Quested Court, we’d had one of Jamie’s ‘secret meetings’ and decided not to mention that Weevil had been left
stranded in Karazan — or that he’d ever been there. As Rich said, no one except Q would ever have believed us … and what could be done about it? Blue-bum could hardly be brought back to Highgate to swing from the washing line while the rest of us kids were at school.

  At first Matron had been suspected of being involved with his disappearance, but without any evidence no charges could be laid. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, Willie Weaver had simply vanished without a trace … and that’s how we left it.

  Now the minute hand of the clock jerked onto the 6 and the knot in my gut tightened. Chatterbot or not, I’d have changed places with Blue-bum in an instant — swapped the stuffy rec room and the ordeal that lay ahead for the freedom of the treetops in Karazan.

  ‘And this,’ said Mr Smigielski, as they finally reached me, ‘is Adam Equinox.’ He gave the couple a meaningful look. The husband was shorter than me, but built like a tank. He had a very red face with watery blue eyes and a square, jutting chin. His hair was short and curly like wool, and when he stuck out his hand to shake mine the back of it was covered in the same ginger hair. There was a funny smell about him I couldn’t quite place.

  I looked down at him and tried to smile, but my lips felt strangely stiff. I held out my hand — and instantly the bones were crunched in an agonising grip. Pain flared up my arm, and my eyes filled with tears. Shocked and confused, I blinked them angrily away. ‘So,’ he grunted, watching my face, ‘not so tough now, eh?’

  ‘Oh — is this the boy you were telling us about — the one who …’ The wife’s voice trailed away into silence. She was tiny — only up to his shoulder — and frail-looking as a bird. There was a kind of nervousness about the way she moved and spoke that reminded me of a bird, too.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mr Smigielski coldly, ‘this is the one.’