Maureen Johnson - The Name of the Star

People got more and more bitter about these rules as we approached the twenty-ninth. In response to the police request that everyone stay either at home or in a group, it was now a city-wide party. Pubs were offering two-for-one drinks. Betting shops had odds on where bodies would be found. Regular programming on BBC One had been replaced by all-night news coverage, and the other stations were running every kind of Ripper or murder mystery show they had. People were throwing lock-in parties in their houses to watch. The Double Event night was bigger than New Year’s and we were not going to be a part of it.

On the morning of the twenty-ninth, there was an uncertain sky on the edge of rain. I trudged over to the refectory, limping a bit because of a brief romance my thigh had with a flying hockey ball during one of the rare moments I wasn’t guarding the goal in my head-to-toe padding. I guess I wasn’t overly concerned about the Ripper. In my mind, Jack the Ripper was a ridiculous creature that always lived in London. On that day, though, I saw the first signs of people really flaking out. I heard someone say that she didn’t even want to go outside. Two people left school entirely for a few days. I saw one of them pulling her bag along the cobblestones.

“People are being serious,” I said to Jazza.

“There’s a serial killer out there,” she said. “Of course people are serious.”

“Yeah, but what are the chances?”

“I’ll bet all the victims thought that.”

“But still, what are the chances?”

“Well, I imagine they are several million to one.”

“Not that high,” Jerome said, coming up behind us. “You’re only dealing with a small part of London. And while there might be a million or more people in that area, the Ripper is probably focusing on women, because all of the original victims were women. So halve that—”

“You really need another hobby,” Jazza said, opening the door to the refectory.

“I have plenty of hobbies. Anyway, the Ripper never showed any interest in kids or teenagers, so I don’t think we have anything to worry about. Does that make you feel better?”

“Not particularly,” Jazza said.

“Well, I tried.”

Jerome stepped aside to let me go in first. We got in line and loaded our plates. We had barely started eating when Mount Everest rumbled in with Claudia and Derek, the housemaster of Aldshot, in tow.

“They don’t look happy,” Jerome said.

He was right. There was a frazzled gloom around all three of them. They walked up to the dais in formation, Everest moving to the front, and Claudia and Derek flanking him with their arms folded across their chests, like bodyguards.

“Everyone!” he said. “Silence. I have an announcement to make.”

It took a moment for word to spread to all parts of the refectory that it was time to shut up.

“This evening,” he began, “as you all know, there is going to be a great deal of police activity in London because of the Ripper situation. Therefore, we are altering the schedule for today. All school activities after four P.M. are canceled so that teachers may return home.”

A cheer broke out.

“Settle down!” he said. “Dinner will be moved up to five P.M. so that kitchen staff can also return home before dark. All students will return to their houses after dinner and will remain there for the night. All other buildings will be off-limits and locked, including the library.”

A low groan went around the room.

“I want to convey the seriousness of this,” Everest added. “ Anyone who attempts to leave school grounds faces the possibility of expulsion. Is that understood?”

He waited until he got a grumbled yes.

“I will meet with all prefects now, in my office.”

Jerome took a second to shove some extra food into his mouth before rising. At the end of our table, I saw Charlotte bounce up.

“This means I won’t have that extra hockey practice this afternoon,” I said to Jazza. “No hockey. No hockey .”

I banged my spoon on the table for emphasis, but she didn’t get excited.

“I wish I’d gone home,” Jazza said, poking at her food.

“It’s going to be great,” I said, shaking her arm. “No hockey! And I totally think my new shipment of Cheez Whiz might get here today.”

True enough. I’d told all my friends I was out, and I fully expected to find a pigeonhole full of whizzy goodness this afternoon. But not even the promise of Cheez Whiz could remove the frown from Jazza’s face.

“It’s creepy,” she said, rubbing her arms. “All of this has just made things . . . I don’t know. Everyone’s afraid. One man has made the entirety of London afraid.”

There was nothing I could do. Jazza just didn’t see the positive side of this. So I continued eating my sausages and let her have her moment. I was already thinking about the joy I’d feel in not walking to the hockey field and not standing in the goal and not getting hit with hockey balls. As a swimmer, it was a bliss she could never know.

11

T HE POLICE ENCOURAGE LONDONERS TO USE EXTRA caution this evening. The public are advised to walk in pairs or groups. Avoid areas of low lighting. Most important, don’t panic—carry on your lives as normal. As they said in the Second World War, ‘Keep calm and carry on’. . . ”

So we were inside again, and like everyone else in London—and around the world, probably—we were all gathered around the television. The common room was packed to capacity. Most people had work they were doing, or they had their computers on their laps. We had hours to wait for news to report anything of interest, so newscasters were filling the time with statements like that. Keep calm and carry on. Also, stay in and hide because the Ripper is coming.

Luckily, we all had his schedule. Like an evil Santa, there was no doubt when he did his work. On the night of the Double Event, the first attack occurred in a dark alley somewhere around twelve forty-five A.M. on the morning of the thirtieth. The victim was named Elizabeth “Long Liz” Stride. Her throat was cut, but she wasn’t, like the other victims, disemboweled. For some reason, the Ripper left the scene and hurried about a mile away, to a place called Mitre Square. There he murdered and completely mutilated a woman named Catherine Eddowes in five or ten minutes flat. They knew that because a policeman walked through Mitre Square at one thirty, and nothing was going on. When he walked through again fifteen minutes later, there were the gruesome remains.

As for the route: Liz Stride was murdered on Berner Street, now called Henriques Street. From there, he hurried west to Mitre Square. Mitre Square was a mere ten-minute walk from Wexford.

Up until now, the Ripper hadn’t really freaked me out much. But with every passing hour, it started to have more of an effect on me. Two people were going to get murdered tonight, right around where I was sitting. And the whole world was going to sit and watch, just like we were.

The first news broke at 12:57. We all knew it was coming, but it was still a shock when the news anchor touched his ear and listened for a moment.

“Just coming in . . . The body of a woman has been found on Davenant Street, just off Whitechapel Road. Details are still coming in, but the first report indicates it was found in a car park or possibly outside of a petrol station. We can’t confirm either story. The police are now spreading out and covering everything within a mile radius. Two thousand police officers and special constables have been deployed into the streets of East London. Let’s go to the interactive map . . .”

They had instantly created a live map with the murder scene and a circle radiating out from it in red. Our school was smack in the middle of this red section. The entire common room fell silent. Everyone looked up from what they were doing.