The House

Chapter Thirty Two

We lined up single file according to tutor groups. What a great first day, an over excited introduction to my tutor and then a fire bell. There were excited chatter coming from everyone as they questioned whether this was a real fire or not.

"This is your line, I'll just be over there, okay? Don't worry this happens a lot." Molly told me as she pointed our two lines out.

I stood in my place and waited silently, a million thoughts running through my mind. What did she mean by this happens a lot? Hopefully they just had fire drills often for safety not actual fires. The nearby teachers were trying to hush everyone but it didn't work, how do they expect over two thousand students to be quiet when their school might be on fire?

"QUIET EVERYONE" The headmaster boomed causing everyone's conversations to pause immediately.  "Setting off the fire bell is no joke. It's dangerous and I'm sure you can find much better ways of getting out of lessons that you dislike." His rant continued on and on explaining the consequences of setting a fire bell off for no reason.

"But Sir, the science lab is on fire!" One of the students interrupted. The headmaster stopped what he was saying and spun around to see the classroom behind him. Thick flames were swallowing the room up. You could see a horrible grey smoke raising up from the room. Panicked talking began again.

"QUIET!" The headmaster yelled again. "Miss Smith, could you please call the fire brigade. As for the rest of you, no one is to move. You can talk QUIETLY among yourselves." He told us as he dashed off to sort out what would happen. He seemed quite calm considering the situation. You never know, maybe Molly did mean there were fires here often.

"Hey there." Someone said to me.

I spun around. "Oh, uhm, hey." It was Molly.

"See what I mean, no one's that shocked that it happened again. Even the headmasters acting like it's normal. Haah, rubbish school they have here but they're not gonna close it down, its the only decent one for miles." She told me laughing. "The rest of the day will probably be cancelled then. Hey, want a tour around the school?"

"Um, sure?" I replied and she grabbed my arm pulling me through the crowds of students, "Shouldn't we wait until the fire's out."

"Nah, where's the fun in that? Walking around with a few hundred other students gettings pushed? We'll go now, no one will notice everyone's too busy with the fire. C'mon." She dragged me out of the school gates that they left open. We walked down this hidden path sort of thing. It was hidden by trees and bushes but even so we moved fast and ducked. "This leads round to the gym we can get to the rest of the school from here, pass me your timetable." She whispered signalling where to go. She examined my timetable for a second then handed it back to me. We reached the door to what I expected to be the gym. She walked over to it and kicked it. It swung open and smacked the wall behind making a loud crash.

"Crap, I didn't expect that." She muttered. "You have Art right? It's through here, you'll love the stuff they do." She directed me to another building.

I stood in the nearest classroom admiring all the work that people had clearly spent hours on. They looked amazing.

"Molly? Can you smell smoke?" I asked her pinching my nose.

She stopped for a second, "Yeah but smoke gets everywhere we'll be fine, lets carry on with your tour."

We started to make our way out of the building after having a quick look at all the other classrooms. I walked slightly behind taking in all the new surroundings.

"Cara, we might have a small problem. That smoke you could smell was from this fire." She said quickly pointing at the roaring flames flickering at the door frame.

"Is there another way out?" I asked without being able to take my eyes off the fire. Out the corner of her eye I saw her shake her head frowning.