slowly.
‘No.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘Then don’t.’
‘Prove you don’t care.’
He opened the gate in the railing and held it wide, inviting her to pass through. Kestrel looked out along the slick boards.
‘Go on. Walk right to the end. If you really don’t care.’
Kestrel took one step on to the narrow jetty, and stopped. In truth, she was frightened of the Underlake, but she was bursting inside with angry pride, and would have done anything to wipe that smooth smile from the Chief Examiner’s face. So she took another step.
‘That’s enough, Kess,’ said her father. And to the Chief Examiner, ‘You’ve made your point, Maslo. Leave her to me.’
‘We’ve left your children to you for too long, Hanno.’ He spoke evenly as always, but now there was an undertone of sharp displeasure. ‘Children follow the example given by their parents. There’s something broken inside you, my friend. There’s no fight in you any more. No will to succeed.’
Kestrel heard this, and went cold inside with fury. At once, she started to walk briskly down the jetty. She looked straight ahead, fixing her gaze on the place where the far-off light streamed down on to the dark surface of the lake, and put one foot in front of the other, and walked.
‘Kess! Come back!’ called her father.
He started after her, but Maslo Inch seized his arm with one hand, and held him in a grip of iron.
‘Let her go,’ he said. ‘She has to learn.’
With his other hand, he operated a long lever by the jetty gate, and there came a hissing gurgling sound, as the posts supporting the far end of the jetty began to sink into the lake. The jetty sloped downwards, becoming a ramp tilting ever more steeply down into the mud. Kestrel gave a cry of alarm, and turned and tried to run back up the boards, but they were coated with slime, and she couldn’t get a grip. She started to slither backwards.
‘Papa!’ she cried. ‘Help me!’
Hanno lunged towards her, pulling furiously in the Chief Examiner’s hold, but he could not free himself.
‘Let me go! What are you doing to her? Are you insane?’
Maslo Inch’s eyes were locked on to Kestrel, as she tried in vain to stop her downward slide.
‘Slipping, slipping, slipping,’ he cried. ‘Well, Kestrel, do you care now?’
‘Papa! Help me!’
‘Get her out! She’ll drown!’
‘Do you care now? Will you try harder now? Tell me! I want to hear!’
‘Papa!’ Kestrel screamed as she slithered off the end of the sloping jetty, and into the lake. Her feet hit the brown water, and with an awful sucking sound they disappeared into liquid mud.
‘I’m sinking!’
‘Tell me you care!’ called out Maslo Inch, his hand gripping Hanno’s arm so tight his fingers had gone white. ‘I want to hear!’
‘You’re mad!’ said Hanno. ‘You’ve gone mad!’
In desperation, he swung his free arm, and struck the Chief Examiner hard across the face.
Maslo Inch turned on him, and suddenly he lost all his self-control. He shook Hanno like a doll.
‘Don’t you dare touch me!’ he screamed. ‘You worm! You dribble! You maggot! You failure! You fail your exams, you fail your family, you fail your country!’
At the same time, Kestrel realised she wasn’t sinking any more. Somewhere beneath the surface there was hard ground, and she had only sunk to her knees. So she took hold of the sides of the narrow jetty with both hands, and began to claw her way back up. She didn’t call out any more. She just fixed her eyes on the Chief Examiner and willed herself up the slope.
Maslo Inch was too absorbed in screaming at her father to notice.
‘What use are you? You’re a nothing! You do nothing, you make no effort, you expect others to do it all for you, all you do is read your useless books! You’re a parasite! You’re a germ! You infect everyone round you with your sick lazy failure! You disgust me!’
Kestrel reached the top of the jetty, took a deep breath, and with a yell of blood-curdling fury, threw herself on the Chief Examiner’s back.
‘Pocksicker!’
She locked her arms round his neck and her legs round his waist and squeezed with all her might, to make him let go of her father.
‘Sagahog! Pooa-pooa-pooa-banga-pompaprune! Pock-sicking udderbug!’
The Chief Examiner, taken by surprise, released Hanno Hath’s arm and turned about to pull Kestrel off him. But whichever way he swung, she was always behind him, her wiry little arms throttling him, her muddy feet kicking at his ribs.
The tussle was short but intense. During it, much of the mud on Kestrel’s legs was wiped on to the Chief Examiner’s clothing. When at last he got a grip on her and tore her off, she let go, and he threw her farther than he intended. At once she sprang to her feet and ran.
He made no attempt to chase her. He was too shocked at the sight of his muddy clothes.
‘My whites!’ he said. ‘The little witch!’
Kestrel was gone, streaking away as fast as she could, up the tunnel towards the distant door.
Maslo Inch brushed himself down, and pulled back the lever that raised the jetty to its former position. Then he turned to Hanno Hath.
‘Well, old friend,’ he said, icily calm. ‘What do you have to say to that?’
‘You shouldn’t have done that to her.’
‘Is that all?’
Hanno Hath was silent. He would not apologise for his daughter’s behaviour, but nor was it wise to say what he really felt, which was that he was intensely proud of her. So he kept a neutral expression on his face, and looked with inner satisfaction at the mudstains on the Chief Examiner’s once-pure robes.
‘I now see,’ said Maslo Inch quietly, ‘that we have a far more serious problem with the girl than I had realised.’
6
Special Teaching
Kestrel ran out of the tunnel, and straight into the grey-clothed warden. He must have heard her coming, since he had dropped his broom and was waiting for her, arms spread wide. As soon as he had her tight, he picked her up and dangled her in the air, where she kicked as hard as she could, and screamed at the top of her voice. But he was a big man, bigger than he’d looked bent over his broom, and he was strong, and her screams didn’t seem to trouble him in the least.
Maslo Inch came out into the courtyard, followed by her father, just as two more wardens came running, drawn by the noise she was making.
‘Papa!’ she screamed. ‘Papa-a-a!’
‘Put her down,’ said Hanno Hath.
‘Be silent!’ cried the Chief Examiner, with such terrible authority that even Kestrel stopped screaming.
‘Get this man out of here,’ he said more quietly, and the two wardens started to hustle Hanno Hath away. ‘Take the girl to Special Teaching.’
‘No!’ cried Hanno Hath. ‘I beg you, no!’
‘Papa!’ screamed Kestrel, kicking and struggling. ‘Papa-a-a!’
But she was already being carried off in the opposite direction. The Chief Examiner watched them both go with a grim and unmoving look on his face.