The Secret of Crickley Hall

as the big girl and her friend climbed aboard. She followed them in, another breathless, older girl arriving and climbing in behind her.

The minibus was not full: the three boys took up the back seats, an empty double-seat in front of them where the last girl to arrive sat; Seraphina and her friend occupied the next seats right behind Tessa. Loren took the seat next to her. Nobody, apparently, wanted the seat closest to the driver. Loren and Tessa balanced their school bags on their knees, Loren glad that the school day was over; it would almost be a relief to get back to Crickley Hall.

Frank Mulley pushed the passenger door shut with a loud sliding thud, then walked round to the driver's side and got in. Wrists resting over the top of the steering wheel, he craned his head round and silently counted off his passengers, lips mouthing each number. When his eyes met with Loren's, he gave her a smirky wink and, although she shuddered inside, she returned a polite smile. He engaged gear and the people-carrier pulled away from the kerb and soon turned into the town's main thoroughfare.

'What yer sittin' next to her for?' Seraphina dug stiff fingers into Tessa's shoulder. 'She yer new best friend? Like grockles, do yer?'

Tessa shrugged her shoulder away from the other girl's touch as Loren glanced round.

'What yer lookin' at, skanky?' This time the fingers jabbed at Loren's shoulder. 'Think yer better than us, do yer?'

Tessa leaned into Loren and whispered, 'Take no notice. She's even worse when her brother's with her. Quentin's on suspension for two weeks for fighting. It's usually Seraphina who gets him into trouble.'

They both giggled together, more out of nervousness than pleasure.

Seraphina wasn't pleased about that. 'You laughin' at me?' She dug into Tessa again, harder this time, using her knuckles.

Tessa shrugged her shoulder away once more, but the girl behind persisted, this time punching Loren's shoulder.

'Please don't do that,' Loren said, half afraid, half annoyed.

'Please don't do that,' Seraphina mimicked in a whining voice. 'Why?' Woy? 'What yer gonna do about it?' Her head did the Bombay shuffle, her neck flexing first to the right, then to the left and then to the right again, head held upright throughout.

Loren turned her back on her and stared ahead. They were passing through the outskirts of the town now, leaving shops and offices behind, many of the dwellings on either side of the road made of flint or quarry stone. Loren feigned interest in the landscape, which was beginning to open up, fields of heather and bracken glimpsed between breaks in the high hedges, with low sullen hills and clouded skies brooding above it all. Raindrops spattered the windows, but there was not much force to them. Throughout the day the rain had seemed to tease, falling in thick flurries one minute, drizzling lightly the next. The gloom that came with the inclement weather somehow nurtured the despondency she felt. It had been a rotten day, even more rotten that she had expected it to be, and it was Seraphina Blaney who had made it worse.

Loren clutched her bag and tried to ignore her tormentor. Those in the bus were aware of what was going on—the taunting of this newcomer, an outsider, a grockle—and some, namely the boys on the back seat and the girl sitting alongside the bully, laughed along with Seraphina's snide remarks; others, though—Tessa and the girl who had entered the minibus behind Loren—looked out of the windows and tried to ignore what was happening. As for Loren, she wanted to cry.

She felt more nudging on her back, each nudge harder than the one before, but she refused to retaliate. She calmed herself with the thought that it was only a short journey, no more than fifteen minutes or so, and soon it would be over and she'd be back with her family… in Crickley Hall. The thought of the cold, shadowy house failed to elevate her mood: it depressed her even more. But she felt the mood turning to anger. The bully's jibes were now including a fresh victim, Loren's 'spazzie' little sister. Loren began to burn.

But it was her new friend, Tessa, who snapped.

'Just stop it, Seraphina Blaney. Leave Loren alone. She's done nothing to you.'

The boys on the back seat laughed aloud and for a moment the tormentor was stunned into silence. Then she rose from her seat, stretched herself over Tessa's shoulder, grabbed Tessa's school bag and emptied the contents into the bus's narrow side aisle. The books spilled out onto the floor and under the seats, pages flapping and pens and pencils clattering, then rolling. Tessa was aghast—and frightened.

And now it was Loren who snapped.

There was no need to remind herself of her father's advice regarding bullies—what took place seemed to happen naturally (and if she'd taken time to think, then probably it wouldn't have happened at all).

Seraphina was still standing between seats, a broad gloating grin on her face, her friend beside her snickering into her hand, the boys behind uncertain and quiet. Her head had just began to turn towards Loren, her small, deep-set eyes glittering with malice, when Loren's balled fist, thumb on the outside, bent level with the knuckles, smashed into the pudgy part of Seraphina's nose.

Loren was disappointed, because she'd been aiming at the bridge of the big girl's nose, right between the eyes as advised; nevertheless, the blow had more effect than she ever would have dreamed. Blood immediately spurted out of Seraphina's nostrils, two bright red jets that splattered her mouth and jaw. Tears sprung into her eyes as she rocked back, the contact between the seat and the back of her knees forcing her legs to buckle so that she had no other choice but to sit. In shock, she stayed down, her fleshy hand cupping the blood that poured from her nose.

The friend next to her stared in horrified awe. One of the boys on the back seat breathlessly said, 'Wow.' Apart from that, there was no other sound inside the minibus. Until the boys started to applaud.

26: CONVERSATIONS

'You did what?' Gabe stared at Loren in disbelief and there was a hint of amusement in his open-mouthed gape.

He had returned home from work and barely had time to discard his coat before Loren came into the hall from the kitchen, followed by Eve, who had told her what she had to do: own up to Dad.

'I didn't mean to.' Loren shook her head as though her actions earlier on the school bus were a mystery even to herself. 'It just happened.'

'You whacked her?' He was incredulous; he had never known his elder daughter to use violence before.

'She knocked Tessa's school bag to the floor.'

'And Tessa is…?'

'She's my new friend at school. She lives in the village and we sat next to each other on the bus coming home. Seraphina deliberately tipped Tessa's bag out so that everything fell on the floor.'

Gabe looked over Loren's shoulder at Eve, who stood grim-faced, arms folded, behind her. He thought he might find a suggestion of a smile, but Eve had no intention of encouraging him or Loren.

'I couldn't help it, Dad,' Loren went on. 'I just did what you taught me without thinking.'

Eve gave a disapproving shake of her head, her eyes glaring at Gabe, as if it was entirely his fault that Loren had punched Seraphina Blaney on the nose.

'Hey, wait a minute,' he said indignantly, his blue eyes wide as he returned Eve's accusatory glare. 'You can't pin this on me. Sounds to me if anyone's to blame it's this other kid, Seraphina.' He remembered where he had first heard the unsuitable name. 'Isn't she the big girl who was in the store the other day with her brother?'

Loren looked ashamedly down at the stone floor. She slowly nodded her head. 'Tessa said Quentin's been suspended for two weeks for fighting in school. Dad, Seraphina was picking on me all day.'

'Then you did good.'

'Gabe!' Eve was in despair.

'The other kid had it coming. Loren did right to defend herself and her friend.'

'Violence is never an answer,' Eve huffed.

'No, you're right,' Gabe agreed sheepishly, at the same time giving Loren a surreptitious wink.

Eve wasn't fooled. 'I saw that. I mean it. Punching someone—especially another girl—doesn't solve anything. Loren will only have to deal with the situation again tomorrow.'

'I'm guessing not,' asserted Gabe. 'Seraphina will have had enough.'