Part 25 (1/2)

'It's Quaz!'

'it'saUvei'

'You're back, sir!'

'Does that mean we still don't get a proper teacher this term?'

I looked at my fob watch. Snapped it shut. On the lid, the School motto: Audere, agere, auferre.

To dare, to strive, to conquer.

Of course I have no way of knowing for sure if it was Miss Dare who sent it to me, but I am sure it was. I wonder where she is -- who she is -- now. In any case, something tells me that we may not have heard the last of her. The thought does not trouble me as once it might. We have met challenges before, and overcome them. Wars; deaths; scandals. Boys and staff may come and go; but St Oswald's stands for ever. Our little slice of eternity.

Is that why she did it? I can almost believe it was. She has cut a place for herself in the heart of St Oswald's; in three months she has become a legend. What now? Will she return to invisibility - a small life, a simple job, perhaps even a family? Is that what monsters do when the heroes grow old?

For a second I let the noise increase. The din was tremendous; as if not thirty but three hundred boys were running riot in the little room. The Bell Tower shook; Meek looked concerned; even the pigeons on the balcony flew off in a clap of feathers. It was a moment that will stay with me for a long time. The winter sunlight slanting through the windows; the tumbled chairs, the scarred desks, the schoolbags strewn across the faded floorboards; the smell of chalk and dust, wood and leather, mice and men. And the boys, of course. Floppy-haired boys, wild-eyed and grinning, s.h.i.+ny foreheads gleaming in the sun; exuberant leapers; inky-fingered reprobates; foot-stampers and cap-flingers and belly-roarers with s.h.i.+rts untucked and subversive socks at the ready.

There are times when a percussive whisper does the trick.

At other times, however, on the rare occasion that a statement really needs to be made, one may sometimes resort to a shout.

I opened my mouth, and nothing came out.