Undercover - In China - Book 7

Part 8 - Silverwood School

Silverwood School, set between a small park and a football field, looked like a mediaeval castle complete with turrets, battlements and embrasure like windows. It had once been a public school but the student population had declined and the Ottawa District School Board had sold it to Dr Zhang (also known as Dr Ah-um because he almost invariably introduced a sentence with the expression).  And, he had been persuaded to use the ground floor as a private school which he also financed.

 I pulled open one of the heavy oak front doors, each designed to admit students three metres tall. The architects had continued the medieval cathedral theme inside, with elegant arched vault ceilings and marble stairs. 

I had moved to Ottawa four months before, so I didn't know many students at Silverwood School;  I had two new friends, Licia Hu and Miguel Griego, and one enemy, Clifford Boswell, also known as Boz. I had difficulty making friends, my teachers said I suffered from social anxiety which worried my mother a lot.   I didn't have any difficulty attracting enemies though. Maybe because I was blond and smaller than average. Or maybe I had dweeb tattooed on my forehead in invisible ink only bullies could read.

 Dad didn't seem to care, he said it was shyness and I would grow out of it. He was seldom home anyway. I felt sad now that he was not able to come home or even call me on Skype or Zoom.

 I waited for Miguel and Licia at the school's front entrance. I was anxious to tell them about Murga's latest kidnapping attempt but the next student to arrive was my enemy, Boz. He was a tall skinny youth with black hair cut a little longer than was fashionable. He avoided eye contact as he walked passed me but his sidekick, Ozzie, had snuck up behind me. He tapped me on the shoulder and, as I looked around he walked away with a smirk. 

 Miguel arrived a few minutes later and we elbowed our way through the clamouring mob of students filling the corridor. We were stuffing our back packs into our lockers when Miguel sniffed.

'I can smell smoke . . . Ziff! You're on fire.' He rapidly unscrewed the cap from his water bottle, poured most of the contents into the hood of my parka and picked out a wet cigarette stub. Ozzie must have dropped into my hood as he passed.

'That's odd,' Miguel said. 'I thought his behaviour would improve after the Bunglers and Murga scared the jelly out of him. I guess he doesn't believe you have powerful criminal friends.'

A trio of girls started singing the Itsy Bitzy Spider song other students picked up the tune and by the third line everyone had joined in at the top of their voices, making conversation impossible.

 'The Itsy Bitzy Spider climbed up the waterspout.

Down came the rain and washed the spider out.

Out came the rain and dried up all the rain.

And the Itsy Bitzy Spider climbed up the spout again.'

During the hubbub Licia Hu showed up and, as soon as the noise abated, I whispered conspiratorially, 'Hey, Licia, I gotta tell you something.' 

 Licia Hu might have been Caucasian except for her large, almost black, eyes and thick black hair. She was as different in appearance from me as I was from Miguel Griego. I had pink freckled skin, pale blue eyes and blond hair in contrast to Miguel's black curly hair and dark skin which came from his very mixed up, Venezuelan ancestors.

But then the buzzer sounded for the first class and it was lunch recess before I was able to tell them about my involuntary trip to Hong Kong. Licia suggested Murga might have used Dr Zhang time phase equipment (known as the electric bookcase) for the journey. I didn't know, so Miguel proposed asking Dr Zhang.

'Didn't Dr Ah-um go to the States,' Miguel pointed out. 'Why don't we go talk to Denny?'

We walked to Dr Zhang's office but he wasn't there so we checked the laboratory where we found Denny Vernier, Dr Zhang's partner in WongTime Photonics and his chief engineer. He was also our technology teacher and we had shared adventures with him on the Titanic and also on a Royal Navy warship during the era of fighting sail. 

 Denny was a thin, elderly man, scarcely taller than I was but with a large moustache and an eclectic fashion sense. He wore baggy blue jeans held up with red suspenders and a black leather cap which, according to rumour, he never took off, even in the shower. Denny had emigrated from Britain (several eons ago, he told us). But, he hadn't lost his English accent and he still used a lot of old English slang like, 'Blooming' and, 'Absolutely,' so naturally he was known as Blooming Vernier or, usually, just Denny. We found him watching a test rig that was hissing and thumping rhythmically as it fired arrows at a target.