Once the shadow had escaped, but now he was trapped again – an angry, brooding presence whom Charlie could almost feel watching him. But I don’t need to reach the king any more, he told the shadow silently, because I’ve found my father and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Someone else was watching Charlie. Dagbert’s aquamarine eyes were fixed on him. Charlie quickly dropped his gaze and tried to concentrate on his homework.
At eight o’clock everyone closed their books and began to file out of the King’s Room.
Before Dagbert could catch up with them, Charlie whispered to Billy, ‘Want to come home with me at the weekend?’
‘Yes, please,’ said Billy. ‘I’ve got so much to –’
‘Hey! Wait for me!’ Dagbert’s voice came ringing after them. ‘You’re supposed to show me the dorms, Charlie Bone.’
‘I thought Matron would have shown you,’ said Charlie.
‘She did, but I’ve forgotten.’ Dagbert grinned and came up to Charlie in his peculiar lurching and pitching motion.
Billy Raven crept away.
‘That boy gives me the creeps,’ Dagbert remarked as he watched the retreating albino.
‘You probably do the same to him,’ said Charlie.
‘Why?’ Dagbert looked genuinely surprised.
Charlie hurried on without answering. He wondered where Dagbert would be sleeping. Every bed in his own dormitory was occupied. So there was no danger of the new boy moving in. Or was there? Ahead of him, he could see Gabriel Silk standing in the passage. He looked distraught. Charlie called out to him, but he turned away and went through a door further down the passage.
‘What’s going on?’ Charlie walked into his dormitory, Dagbert dogging his steps.
Fidelio was sitting on the bed next to Charlie’s. ‘They’ve moved Gabriel,’ he said. ‘Poor old Gabe. It’s not fair. They’ve put him in with Damian Smerk.’
Charlie gasped. ‘His worst enemy!’
Dagbert made his way over to the bed that had once been Gabriel’s.
‘Now we know the reason for Gabriel’s banishment,’ Fidelio muttered, turning his head in Dagbert’s direction.
Charlie lowered his voice. ‘I’m supposed to be looking after him. I guess that’s why Matron put him in here.’
Other boys began to arrive: three first-formers and five second-formers led by Bragger Braine and his devoted slave Rupe Small. Dagbert ignored them. This was surprising, considering that he had gone out of his way to make friends with most of the endowed. Perhaps he considered these ordinary boys not worth the effort, thought Charlie.
Bragger Braine stopped at the end of Dagbert’s bed and commanded the new boy to introduce himself. Dagbert continued to transfer clothes from his bag into the cabinet beside his bed.
‘I’m talking to you, boy,’ Bragger shouted, his wide pug-like face reddening.
‘Answer!’ squeaked Rupe Small.
‘Answer, answer, answer!’ chimed the others.
Charlie suddenly realised he would have to defend the new boy. ‘Leave him alone,’ he said.
‘Who asked you, Charlie Bone?’ snarled the beefy third-former.
‘I’m responsible for him,’ Charlie said in a reasonable tone. ‘His name is Dagbert Endless.’
‘I suppose he’s one of you peculiar “endowed” people,’ Rupe piped up with a giggle.
Charlie found Rupe even more annoying than Bragger. He had such a whiney, high-pitched voice. He followed Bragger’s every move with his big doggy eyes, and never said a word unless he was quite sure that Bragger would approve.
‘They’re not peculiar,’ Fidelio said evenly.
‘OK. So what do you do, new boy?’ Bragger climbed on to the rail at the foot of Dagbert’s bed. ‘Forgive me for saying so, but Endless isn’t a name.’
All at once Dagbert straightened up. He fixed Bragger with his aquamarine eyes and said, ‘My name is as endless as the ocean, and I drown people.’
Bragger’s feet slipped off the rail and he landed on his back on the floor.
Nobody laughed.
The howling
It was one of the other boys who passed on the news about Dagbert. It certainly wasn’t Bragger. Falling on your back in terror is nothing to brag about.
Word spread fast. Soon even the doziest first-former had heard the rumour: Dagbert Endless drowned people.
But how? That was the question on everyone’s mind. On bath night it was noticeable how shallow the bath water was in every bath. Some of the children decided against bathing altogether and opted for a cold shower in the unheated changing rooms. In February. That’s how worried they were.
‘What’s the matter with you all?’ grumbled the matron. ‘You usually complain that you can’t get enough water. Now, all at once, you don’t want any. You’ve barely got enough to clean your knees.’
People began to avoid Charlie because Dagbert was always at his side. In team games Charlie was always the last to be picked, as though the new boy were permanently attached to him, and if you got Charlie, you were saddled with Dagbert-the-Drowner as well.
There were exceptions, of course. You couldn’t keep Joshua, Dorcas and the twins away from Dagbert. So Charlie had to put up with their company as well. He found it exhausting, listening to them boasting about their peculiar talents. However, he did manage to learn something very interesting.
They were sitting in the King’s Room, waiting for homework to begin. Lysander and Tancred hadn’t arrived, Billy was searching for a reference book, Emma was late and Gabriel was in the sanatorium with a virus.
Charlie had opened his history book and was pretending to make notes on the American War of Independence. The conversation on the other side of the table was being conducted in harsh whispers, with the occasional giggle thrown in by Dorcas. And then, all at once, Charlie caught the phrase: ‘She taught me everything I know about bewitching clothes.’
Dorcas was talking about Charlie’s Great Aunt Venetia. He lowered his head and opened his ears.
‘Anyway, she told me about this man,’ Dorcas went on. ‘She wanted to marry him because, for one thing, he’s rich, and for another his little boy is endowed – at least Venetia thinks he is . . .’ She stopped and Charlie felt her eyes on him. He kept his head down but Dorcas continued in such a soft whisper he could only catch the odd word. Words like ‘Arthur Shellhorn, poison, beads, heart-failure . . . herbs of infatuation . . . wedding . . .’
It was easy enough to guess the rest, and it didn’t take Charlie long to work out what his great-aunt had done. Uncle Paton had warned him that Venetia wasn’t above murder, and he was right. She had poisoned Arthur Shellhorn’s wife with a string of beads that stopped her heart, then soaked Arthur’s coat in a brew of infatuating herbs. And poor, deluded Arthur, desperately in love, had begged Venetia to marry him.
At this point Lysander and Tancred breezed in, the latter looking