Beswitched (3 page)

“Why don’t you run along the corridor,” the woman suggested, “and splash your face with some water?”

She went back to reading her magazine, as if nothing unusual had happened.

Flora stood up, suddenly eager to get out of the compartment, still wildly hoping things would somehow get back to normal. Once she had pulled open the sliding door, however, and stepped out into the corridor, she saw that the entire train belonged to the new and baffling world.

All the compartments were filled with oddly dressed people. Every single woman wore a hat. The men wore heavy suits and stiff collars. Many people were smoking. Flora saw one man puffing on a pipe. The air was dim and reeking with smoke. It swirled in blue columns around the lights. Nobody seemed to think this might be unhealthy.

The toilet door was made of heavy wood, and said “WC.” Flora darted inside and shot the bolt. Her head felt muddled and woolly, and she needed to think. If this was not a dream, there had to be some rational explanation.

Hallucination? Reality television? An elaborate joke?

There was a gleaming white basin, with brass taps. The lavatory was solid and thronelike. A cool wind knifed in through the frosted window, and Flora’s mind felt a little sharper. She turned, and jumped to see her own face gazing back at her in the small mirror above the basin.

It’s me
, she thought—
but it’s not me
.

The Flora in the mirror had light brown hair cut into a short, neat bob with a side parting—a hairstyle worn by nobody over the age of three. And where were her fabulous blond streaks? Where were the holes for her earrings? Somehow, as part of the general horror, her ears had become unpierced. She had been turned into a freak. She looked like a little girl!

Feverishly—longing for a full-length mirror—Flora examined her clothes. Under the green jacket, she was wearing a hideous black pinafore dress with boxy pleats all the way down. It was tied at the waist with a belt of bright orange. Underneath the pinafore was a scratchy white shirt, with the stiff collar and striped tie.

And underneath that—

“Bum
!
”
whispered Flora.

Her underwear was unbelievable. Under the shirt, she was wearing a mad vest. It was very long and it had straps fixed to the hem. These straps held up thick brown stockings. Worst of all, over the vest-and-stockings thing, she was wearing huge, baggy, dark green knickers, with elasticated legs that came halfway down to her knees. One of the legs had a cotton handkerchief tucked into the elastic.

Though she was alone, Flora blushed hotly with embarrassment.

Thank goodness none of my friends can see me
, she thought—
I’d never hear the last of these comedy bloomers
.

It felt odd to be wearing so many layers of clothes, like a pass-the-parcel at a party. She wondered what to do next.
Phoning for help was impossible—she didn’t have a phone anymore, and she had a strong feeling that mobile phones were unheard of in this weird new world. So were laptops and iPods, she suspected. She didn’t even have her own watch anymore—the new one was very plain, on a brown leather strap, and obviously didn’t do anything except tell the time.

She used the royal lavatory. It was so high that her feet did not touch the ground when she sat down. There was a little notice beside it, which said, “Passengers Will Please Refrain from Pulling the Chain While the Train is at a Station.”

Flora pulled the chain, and for a moment was distracted by the sight of a flap opening at the bottom of the toilet bowl and suddenly showing the ground rushing past beneath them.

Her parents would be worried sick when she didn’t call. But how could she get in touch with them? How could they rescue her? Her stomach lurched with fear. She had a horrible, sick certainty that there was no way on earth her parents would ever find her here—wherever “here” might be. She didn’t even know how she should ask for help. Because there was nothing else she could do, Flora hurried back to the woman who seemed to know her. She was still hoping someone would explain.

In the compartment, the woman was lifting two brown leather suitcases from the luggage rack. Flora was surprised and confused to see her own name—Flora Fox—on the labels.
Perhaps
, she thought desperately,
this is all something to
do with Penrice Hall, and this woman is Fiona, and I’ve lost my short-term memory—

“Here you are,” said the woman who might be Fiona. “Poor thing, you’re awfully pale.” She handed Flora a hat made of dark green felt, with a ribbon round it that matched the striped tie. “We’re going to have a breezy drive in my car, so you’d better put on your mackintosh.”

“My—what?”

“Do try to wake up, Flora.” The woman swept a bulky green coat off the seat. “Your school mac.”

Flora struggled into the coat and put on the hat. The train was lurching and shuddering to a halt. Clouds of steam hissed up outside the window.

“And don’t forget your hockey stick!” The strange woman pushed a hockey stick into Flora’s hand. “I wish you’d managed to eat something—you’re as white as a little ghost, and you’ve missed lower-school tea.”

“I think there’s been a mistake,” Flora said. “Are you from Penrice Hall?”

“Come along. Best foot forward.” The woman strode out of the compartment, swinging the two heavy cases as if they had been filled with feathers.

Flora hurried after her, down the corridor and out of the train. The evening air was cold on her face. Along the platform, a whistle shrilled. The train pulled out of the station—puffing loudly, like Thomas the Tank Engine—and away into deep silence. This was a very small station, marooned in a great lonely sea of dark nothingness.

Out of the darkness a figure appeared. It was a brisk old
man in a peaked cap and little round glasses, whose mouth was invisible behind a large gray mustache. He wheeled two big wooden boxes on a trolley. In the gleam of light from the windows of the station building, Flora saw her own name painted on the boxes.

“Evening, Miss Bradley,” said the old man.

So this was the name of the woman in the suit.

“Good evening, Watkins,” said Miss Bradley.

“I thought your girls all came back yesterday.”

“Flora is starting a day late,” Miss Bradley said. “Her parents sailed out to India this morning.”

“Oh no—that’s wrong,” Flora said quickly. “They’ve only flown to Italy, and I think there’s been—”

“It’ll be at least another two years before she sees them again,” Miss Bradley added.

“Two years? Oh no, that’s completely wrong! They’re only staying for a few months!” Flora meant to speak very firmly, but her voice refused to obey her brain and came out as a toothless burble.

“She’s dog-tired, poor little thing,” Miss Bradley told Watkins, as if she had not heard. “And no wonder, when she’s come all the way from Southampton.”

“But I haven’t!” Flora protested. “I’ve come from London, and there’s been a terrible—”

“I met her at Paddington,” Miss Bradley went on. She took a cigarette out of a packet that said “Sweet Afton,” and deftly lit it with a match she struck on the bottom of her shoe. “And she’s been jolly brave, I must say.”

Watkins looked at Flora, and his mustache stretched into a friendly grin. “That’s the spirit, Miss. Keep smiling.”

Flora said, “I’m sorry, I think there’s been a mistake. I think you might be taking me to the wrong school.”

This time, Miss Bradley heard. She chuckled kindly. “I’ve been at St. Winifred’s for eight years—I ought to know where it is by now. And I do assure you, we’ve been expecting you for weeks.”

“Are you from Penrice Hall?”

“What on earth are you talking about?” Miss Bradley blew out a plume of smoke and looked at Flora more closely. “I’m from St. Winifred’s, you poor addled child, and that’s where we’ll be in about half an hour—if my car behaves herself.”

Watkins said, “I topped up the radiator, Miss B.”

“Watkins, you’re a trump. Will you bring the boxes up to the school when you come off duty?”

“Right you are, Miss.” He touched the peak of his cap.

An idea struck Flora like lightning—she was amazed she hadn’t thought of it sooner. “Of course!” she cried. “I know this sounds crazy—but it all fits! If this really isn’t a dream, I’ve traveled back in time! I’m in the past!”

Miss Bradley chuckled. “My dear child! You’re absolutely drunk with sleep! You need a good blast of fresh air.”

“What year is this?”

“Don’t be nonsensical.”

“Please! What year is this? Where am I?”

“Don’t worry, you haven’t slipped into a novel by H. G.
Wells,” Miss Bradley said cheerfully. “You’re still in good old 1935.”

The hockey stick slipped out of Flora’s grasp and clattered to the ground.

“Oh—bum,” she whispered.

3
Old Peepy

F
lora picked up her hockey stick and followed Miss Bradley (who had fortunately not heard the rude word), because there was nothing else she could do. If she really had somehow landed in 1935, it would be no use trying to call her parents—with a shiver, she realized they had not been born yet.

They left the station by a wooden gate. A single lamp on the wall shed feeble light on a very small car parked out in the lane. It had a dent in the bonnet and looked about as sturdy as a biscuit tin. Flora climbed in beside Miss Bradley. There were no seat belts. The seats were very low, and her bum was only about six inches above the road. It couldn’t be safe.

She wondered what would happen if she died in a car crash in the past—would she get born again at the right time? If so, would she then travel back in time again, and die again? And then get born again? She mustn’t think about this, she decided, or her thoughts would drive her crazy.

They hurtled along black lanes and around terrifying blind corners. In the beam of the headlights, Flora glimpsed high hedgerows, low branches and single lighted windows suspended in the darkness. Miss Bradley did not seem to have heard of speed limits.

After a hairy half hour of her breakneck driving, they suddenly swerved through a huge pair of iron gates and along a short avenue of trees. The car stopped with a jolt outside an enormous square white house.

“And here we are, sound in wind and limb.” Miss Bradley jumped out of the car. “Out you get, Flora—welcome to St. Winifred’s.”

Flora struggled out of the car. The great house had rows of long, lighted windows. Behind the windows, she could hear the unmistakable sounds of a school—laughter, voices calling, feet thumping on stairs, crockery clinking, two pianos and a violin all playing different tunes.

For the first time since the beginning of this nightmare, Flora relaxed enough to look around with real interest. Without knowing why, she had a sense of being welcomed. When she walked through the big double doors at the top of the steps, the house greeted her with a kindly smell of warm dust, floor polish and custard.

Miss Bradley led her into a large entrance hall with a floor
of black-and-white marble. There was a magnificent staircase of carved wood, and two neat notice boards. A small coal fire burned in a huge marble fireplace. Above the fireplace was a grim portrait of a white-haired lady in a black gown.

“Our founder,” Miss Bradley said. “Dame Mildred Beak—a great pioneer of women’s education.” She pressed what looked like a doorbell at the side of the fireplace.

A door opened under the stairs. A young woman came out, in a black dress and white apron, with a white cap on her head. Flora had seen enough television dramas to know that this must be a maid—a real maid, in a real, traditional maid’s uniform. She was very young, and Flora thought she was pretty. She had snapping dark eyes, and a rosy, laughing face.

“Ethel,” said Miss Bradley, “this is our new girl, Miss Flora Fox. Will you take her things up to her bedroom?”

“Yes, Miss,” Ethel said. Behind Miss Bradley’s back, she gave Flora the ghost of a wink.

“Come along, Flora—we don’t want to keep the head waiting.” Miss Bradley patted her shoulder. “Ethel, do take her hockey stick—and Flora, remove your hat and coat, dear. Chin up!”