Demigods at Rookwood

Chapter 22

Scarlet

Annabeth returned to room 13 that night to retrieve the Whispers book. I made her promise, again, that they wouldn't speak about it to anyone.

"I promise," Said Annabeth, staring me straight in the eye. She held her hand out.

I hesitated.

Annabeth blinked and fixed me with a give-me-the-book-you-idiot glare. Ivy was also giving me a just-give-her-the-book stare.

I sighed and handed it over to them. Annabeth rolled her eyes. 'Finally' I could almost hear her say. "Thank you'.

She turned to leave when Ivy tapped her on the shoulder. "Hm?"

"Could you go check on Rose?" She asked. "And take her to the lavatories." -ick.

Annabeth nodded, seemingly not fazed by the consequences that might fall upon her if she were caught sneaking around the school at night, abd quietly left the room.

The following evening, Ariadne and Annabeth came frantically knocking on our door. Ariadne threw the book down onto Ivy's bed triumphantly, while Annabeth closed the door behind them.

"Done," said Ariadne. "I never want to look at that blasted thing again!" She flopped onto the carpet.

"You worked out all of it?" I asked, just a bit impressed.

'The whole thing." Annabeth nodded. She looked at Ariadne on the floor. "Are you alright there?"

"No. We were up half the night with Rose, and the other half staring at numbers. To begin with, we thought a was one and B was two and so on, but that just gave us words like 'DZOOH'. But then we began to wonder if the second word might be 'WHISPERS', like the title on the book, which meant that '4' means W, which is the fourth letter from the end of the alphabet."

"You mean-" started Ivy.

"Yes, it's just the alphabet running backwards instead of forwards. Every second line is in some sort of other code, which Annabeth figured out were Ancient Greek symbols. It took us half the night to work all of this out and it's so simple! Here, please just take it off me."

I had no idea how the part about the Ancient Greek symbols was 'simple', though given the amount of reading they both did, it really shouldn't have come as a surprise.

Ivy picked up the book and turned to the first page.

"Did you read it?" I asked Ariadne and Annabeth.

"Not exactly," said Annabeth, as Ariadne stared hopelessly at the ceiling. "We got the gist of it, though."

Ariadne added. "And we don't want to read it again, thank you very much."

I sat next to Ivy on her bed, and we began to read through the book.

"I can't believe it." Said Ivy, once we'd finished reading the book.

The book was a list of things the Whispers knew or suspected of Mr Bartholomew, before naming him at the beginning, and then referring to him as 'he' from then on.

He favours daughters of his rich friends.
He fired a teacher for giving one of them bad marks.
He locked a teacher in a cupboard all night for refusing to punish a pupil.
He makes pupils run around the school until they collapse.
He stood by while a girl had an asthma attack when she was exhausted from running.
He makes rule-breakers swim laps of the lake in the dark.
He gave one girl such a beating that he broke her arm.

I felt a rising anger as I read each page. The last line wasn't any better. It was written by someone different this time, and they gave up on the code halfway through.

26-02-14
A-Y-M? That can't be right ....

The whispers have been silenced. We have witnessed a catastrophe. This man is even more dangerous than we thought. We must lie low for a while. I am too afraid to speak any further.

My brow furrowed. I glanced up at Ivy, to see her staring at me. "What on earth? What could ... what could be worse than that?" I waved my hand over the book.

"If this is true ... Mr Bartholomew makes Miss Fox look tame." I glared at her. "Well, I know what she did to you and Volet was truly, truly awful but this is .... this is the whole school we're talking about."

I shook my head. "No, it's not that. It's that he's getting away with it. He's still here! What if he starts doing it again?"

"What of he already has?" Asked Ariadne. Her voice wavering.

A sudden burst of energy and emotion shot through me. "We have to stop him. What if he actually does think I'm the thief? There's no telling what he'd do! He's sick and twisted!"

Annabeth nodded. "There might be more."

"More what?" I snapped.

"What do you think? More evidence,"

"It said on the wall, didn't it?" Added Ariadne. "Collect evidence of the truth. That means they might have proof of what he's done."

"We searched the whole room, though." Said Ivy. "And there was nowhere else to hide anything. The book was all there was."

I couldn't stand sitting on the bed any longer. I started stomping around the room, yelling inside my head. "We'll hunt for more evidence." I said firmly. "But even if we find nothing, we're going to discover what this catastrophe was, and we are going to bring him to justice."

As I dramatically slammed the little book shut, something fluttered to the ground. Ivy picked it up. It was a scrap of a newspaper, the corner of a page – just the word 'GIRL in big letters and a date. I frowned at it. "Do you think that's another clue?"

"Look, Ariadne said, leaning over my shoulder, and excitedly jabbing her finger at the scrap. "26-02-1914. That's what was written in the book. I thought it was more code, but it's a date!"

"A meaningless date." I added. "We weren't even alive then. How are we supposed to find out what any of this means?"

Ariadne smiled. "Where there's a way, there's a way!"

"I don't think that's how the phrase goes, Ariadne." Said my sister.