Sophie Cleverly - The Last Secret

Mrs Knight took to the stage. “All right, girls, settle down!”

The chatter faded to a quiet mumble before it melted away completely.

“Welcome back for the spring term, everyone.” She cleared her throat. “I know we have had … difficulties in the past. But I am confident that we can push forward and make Rookwood School the best it can be!”

“Isn’t this what she said last term?” Scarlet whispered, but I shushed her.

“If we all work together,” Mrs Knight continued, “We can—”

She was interrupted by the doors at the back of the hall opening.

We all turned round. A man had walked in. He was fairly young, possibly in his twenties, though I couldn’t guess his precise age. He had dark hair, short on the sides and slicked back on the top. He had matching dark eyes and a close-cropped beard, and he was wearing a suit that looked tailored and expensive. He proceeded to lean against the back wall with an interested expression on his face.

“We can …” Mrs Knight tried again, but then faltered, seeming unable to ignore the distraction any longer. “Excuse me, sir!” she called towards the back of the hall. “We’re in the middle of assembly. Would you mind waiting outside?”

The young man looked around as if there might be someone else she was addressing. “Oh, don’t mind me, madam,” he said. “I’m just observing.”

There was utter silence as everyone stared at him. Few men ever set foot in Rookwood School, let alone young and well-groomed ones. And that wasn’t all – there was something strangely familiar about him.

“I …” Mrs Knight was speechless for a moment. “Look, I really must insist …”

The man sighed, stepped forward and then began striding towards the front. Hundreds of eyes followed him.

“Well, if you really must ,” he said, with an unusual air of confidence. He hopped up on to the stage and stood looking out at all of us. “My name is Henry Bartholomew, son of Edgar Bartholomew, and I’m the new owner of your school.”

hat? The whole school seemed to gasp at the same time.

I couldn’t believe it. Of all the sentences to have come out of a stranger’s mouth on the assembly-hall stage … Well, I hadn’t been expecting that. He was the son of our evil former headmaster? And he owned the school ? Why?

“We will have to talk about this elsewhere, Master Bartholomew,” Mrs Knight said firmly.

He smiled back at her as if this was the most normal thing in the world. “Of course,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets. “That’s what I was hoping. I’ve got a lot of plans I want to explain to you. Oh, and do call me Barty, everyone does.”

He gave a winning smile as he stepped down off the stage and to the side of the room, though I don’t think anyone’s gaze left him. He leant against the wall again, putting his foot up on it like he owned the place – which, according to him, he did.

Mrs Knight looked around helplessly. Her eyes rested on Miss Bowler, our loud-mouthed games teacher, who was at the side of the room. “Ah!” she said, seeming relieved that she’d found a lifeline. “Miss Bowler, while I’m dealing with this, can you come up and give the announcements for the new term?”

Miss Bowler, who always liked the chance to shout at people, bounded up on to the stage and took Mrs Knight’s notes from her. “Right, then!” she boomed as the headmistress scurried off towards Henry Bartholomew. Her voice echoed from the walls. “Listen up! Hockey club will be starting next Thursday afternoon and …”

For possibly the first time ever, I don’t think anyone was listening to Miss Bowler (and she was pretty difficult to ignore). We were all trying to lip-read Mrs Knight’s quiet conversation with the young man in the corner. After a few minutes she led him back out of the hall, and once again all our heads turned round to follow them.

“Eyes front!” Miss Bowler yelled, and everyone snapped to attention again.

“What is going on?” I whispered to Ivy, once Miss Bowler was back in full flow. “And where did he come from?”

My twin just shrugged, but she looked worried. Whatever was going on … it didn’t seem good.

All anyone was talking about as we left the hall was the sudden appearance of Henry Bartholomew, or Barty (shudder) and what it all meant.

“I can’t believe Mr Bartholomew’s son is here,” I said. “What is he up to? Do you think he’s as bad as his father?”

“I don’t have any idea what you’re on about,” said Ebony, who was walking beside us.

Oops. This was probably going to take some explaining.

“The old headmaster,” I began. “He was awful. Super strict. One of his punishments went too far and killed someone. We had to get him to admit it, so that the police would arrest him.”

Ebony recoiled. “Oh!” she said, looking horrified.

Then I remembered something. “Ivy! We nearly forgot! We have to show Ariadne …” I trailed off, seeing Ebony’s face.

After all that she’d done, had she earned enough trust to be part of our group? “Show me what?” Ariadne asked.

I looked at Ivy, but she was staring down at her timetable and not being at all helpful. I sighed. Maybe Ebony was involved already.

“We found some papers that belonged to our mother,” I explained reluctantly. “But they were in code.”

Ariadne gasped. “The Whispers’ code?”

“We think so,” said Ivy, who was paying attention again now. “Well, we hope so. Otherwise it’s going to take even longer to figure out what it says.”

“Oh gosh,” our friend exclaimed. “I’ll look at it after class. How exciting!”

But as we got nearer to the Latin classroom, there was a commotion coming from within that got louder and louder. We found our Latin teacher, Miss Simons, trying to calm everyone down.

“Please!” she was begging them. “Please sit down! We must have silence!”

But no one was listening.

“What happened to Mr Bartholomew?”

“And how come his son owns the school?”

“What do you think he’s going to do? Perhaps he’ll fix the heating!”

I saw that even Rose, who was usually silent, was whispering excitedly to her newly returned best friend (and my former worst enemy) Violet. I waved at them, but they were too engrossed in their conversation to notice.

Miss Simons looked over at us in exasperation. “Girls, please …”

I slammed my fist down on the desk. “Everyone shut up!”

That got their attention. They all went quiet.

The Latin teacher didn’t look as pleased as I’d hoped. “Scarlet,” she said with a sigh, “I appreciate the effort, but that was a bit much.”

“Sorry, Miss,” I said. “It worked, though.”

We found our seats, while Miss Simons started writing on the board. “Thank you, girls,” she said. “I’m sure we’ll find out about this Henry Bartholomew fellow in due course. Now, if we could please all focus on our Latin …”

The last lesson of the day for us was ballet. We ran to our room to change. I laid my hand on the music box. “Soon your secrets will be revealed,” I whispered to it. Ivy rolled her eyes at me.

Our ballet lessons were held down in the school’s chilly basement, with our two teachers, Miss Finch and Madame Zelda. We were the first to arrive, thanks to our speedy changing, and we stopped at the bottom of the stairs when we saw that Mrs Knight was down there talking to them.