The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School Read Online Free PDF Page B

Scrubbing the Heel is a let-off next to the Encouragement visited upon those who are Not School Spirit. Keep a straight spine, moth-girl. Shoulders back. Eyes up, chest up. No, eyes down, showing
la modestie propre…
’
    Amy looked down and felt the book tip – but she recovered in an instant.
    ‘There only remains the matter of contraband,’ said Gryce, signalling to Buller, who reached down into Amy’s trunk and pulled out a blue slip. ‘What’s this?’
    ‘A gymslip, Sid.’
    ‘Not a Drearcliff slip, though. Excluded.’
    Buller tossed it in the air, and Crowninshield caught it.
    Mother had not bought new gym clothes from the recommended dressmaker, believing Amy had the proper items – now, it seemed, the
improper
items – already. Her kit bore no emblems associated with her old school, but did not pass.
    ‘Navy is not Drearcliff blue,’ Gryce explained. ‘Sea-green is Drearcliff blue.
Comprenez-tu
?’
    ‘Yes, Head Girl.’
    Yes, you Simpering Witch!
    ‘Don’t think of Head Girl like that,’ said Paule quietly. ‘She won’t like it.’
    Amy felt stabbed. Paule was an Unusual. Her Abilities included some species of mental telepathy.
    Gryce rocked, as Buller raised item after item. Skirts, socks, blouses. The Head Girl didn’t even look at them.
    ‘Excluded, Excluded, Excluded, Acceptable, Excluded…’
    An old scarf had passed muster, at random.
    Amy breathed evenly, trying not to float. She tried to present a bland countenance, tried not to feel anything. This ordeal would soon be over. The Murdering Heathens would not be here all night, could not devote the rest of their year at Drearcliff to this testing of the new bug.
    She thought of moths, fixing their distinguishing marks, wing-patterns and antenna shapes in her mind. Moths made sense.
Hepialidae
:
Hepialus humuli
(Ghost Moth),
Hepialus sylvina
(Orange Swift),
Hepialus fusconebulosa
(Map-Winged Swift). Moths were various, but finite.
Cossidae Zeuzerinae
:
Phragmataecia castaneae
(Reed Leopard),
Zeuzera pyrina
(Leopard Moth). Moths flew, purposefully.
Limacodidae
:
Apoda limacodes
(The Festoon),
Heterogenea asella
(The Triangle). Moths were hardy, yet delicate.
Tineidae Tineinae
:
Monopis laevigella
(Skin Moth),
Tinea pallescentella
(Large Pale Clothes Moth),
Monopis weaverella…
    Amy was slapped…
    She instinctively raised her hands, to catch the book, but Gryce caught her wrists. Amy cobra-necked and the book didn’t fall. She made the book light, almost to the point of floating.
    ‘I said,
what is this contraband
?’
    Amy moved her eyes only. Crowninshield held up Roly Pontoons, invading his ballooning clown suit with her hand, waggling his big-nosed, jug-eared head, jingling the bells on his fool’s cap.
    A tear rolled down Amy’s cheek.
    She remembered her father making exactly the same gesture. Roly was as much puppet as doll.
    ‘Are you a little child? A little child who
plays with dollies
?’
    ‘No, Head Girl.’
    ‘Then, what is this vile specimen?’
    Amy kept quiet. To speak would be a betrayal.
    ‘Not your
poupée
, then, Thomsett,’ stated Gryce. ‘You wouldn’t care if it were hurt, then?’
    Crowninshield tore off Roly’s left arm, trailing stuffing, and dropped it.
    Amy felt a sympathetic pain. The book held firm.
    Crowninshield made a scream come out of Roly’s open mouth…
    ‘The whip hurt meeeeee, Ameeeeee,’ said Crowninshield, in a strange doll-voice. ‘You did nothiiiing, you beast. You were supposed to be meee ickle fwend! Meeee not love you any more. Meee hate you, Ameeee.’
    ‘Don’t talk like that to a Drearcliff girl,’ said Crowninshield, in her own voice, rapping Roly on the nose. ‘It’s not your place…’
    ‘Nooooooo….’
    Crowninshield tore off Roly’s right leg and waved the puppet from side to side, screeching from the back of her throat.
    Tears dripped off Amy’s chin now. But she made no sound. And her book held level.
    ‘Give her the wretched thing, Beryl,’ said