Soul Stealer (6 page)

The first period of the following morning’s timetable was biology. The teacher, a young woman called Miss Bates, was clearly
passionate about her subject and eager to enthuse her pupils.

“Biology,” she announced, “is the study of life, of living organisms smaller than a pinhead or bigger than an elephant.” To
illustrate her point, she had set up a
row of microscopes and specimens down one side of her laboratory. One by one the class took turns to study them. Pip was entranced
by some minuscule creatures cavorting in half a centimeter of water in a flat Petri dish. According to a label next to them,
they were
Daphnia pulex,
the common water flea. When Tim asked if they bit like dog or cat fleas, Miss Bates smiled and assured him that they did
not. The next specimen was a prepared glass slide containing a butterfly’s wing, the scales iridescent under the light shining
upon it. Next to that was a cross-section of a plant stem showing the various vessels carrying sap.

As everyone made their way around this display, Tim happened to catch sight of Scrotton. He was not following everyone else
but keeping close to the teacher, asking her specific questions about the specimens. She, Tim noticed, answered them but it
was obvious she was annoyed by Scrotton and, eventually, she asked him to return to his seat. He obeyed but Tim saw him scowl
behind her back.

When the tour of specimens was over, Miss Bates ordered each pupil to return to one of them and draw what they saw on the
first page of their biology notebooks. Tim chose a cow’s tooth that had been vertically sawn in half, showing the root, nerve
canal and layers of enamel and dentin. Pip decided to attempt a water flea, accepted it was too great a task and concentrated
instead on the butterfly wing, drawing as accurately as she could the veins and feathering on the edge.

Towards the end of the lesson, Pip happened to pause and sit upright to ease her muscles. Sitting on a
stool at a laboratory bench, bending forward to concentrate on the microscope and her drawing, had made her back ache. As
she stretched her shoulders, she happened to look up at the rows of preserved specimens on shelves at the side of the room.
In one large sealed jar, a dissected frog was spread-eagled against a sheet of Perspex, held in place by threads at the ends
of its limbs. Its intestines had been removed to show its blood system, the veins and arteries stained different colors. From
each organ stretched a thin white cord terminating in a plastic label identifying it.

“A chamber of horrors,” Tim remarked quietly. “Biology might be the study of life but apart from that potted cactus,” he glanced
in the direction of the laboratory window, “those water fleas, Miss Bates and us, everything else in here’s met a grisly end.”

Yet, no sooner had he spoken than Pip flinched.

“What’s up, sis?” Tim inquired.

Nodding in the direction of the specimen display shelf, she muttered, “That frog…”

“What about it, sis?”

“It’s…” Pip began.

“It’s what?”

“… alive.”

“That’s crazy!” Tim retorted. “A zombie frog.”

Pip was certain the frog was returning to life. Its heart was feebly pulsing, its limbs, pinioned to the transparent sheet,
were flexing as if the creature was struggling to break free. Its head moved from side to side.

“It is!” Pip rejoined sharply.

“No way!” Tim replied, staring up at the specimen
jar. “That one’s definitely hopped its last hop. You’ll be telling me next one of the pickled eyes winked at you.”

“Look at it!” Pip insisted.

To humor his sister, Tim did so. The frog, the flesh of which was blanched by years of immersion in formaldehyde preserving
liquid, was irremovably transfixed to the Perspex.

“There!” Pip muttered urgently. She was sure the frog’s hind leg jerked, kicking out at one of the label cords. “See it?”

“No,” Tim answered. “Not a flicker. I tell you, sis, it’s croaked its last croak.”

What neither of them noticed was Scrotton watching them from behind an exercise book, grinning.

That evening, as Pip sat on her bed watching television, the panel in the wall opened and Sebastian stepped into the room.

“You could learn to knock, too,” she commented caustically.

“Please accept my apology,” Sebastian answered. “It is not my intention to catch you unawares. It is that I am not accustomed
to finding the house occupied, even after the several months of your living here. For many years, the house has been unoccupied
over long periods, and I have grown used to being the only resident.” He sat on Pip’s dressing-table stool, facing her.

“What about the old man who lived here? Your so-called uncle?”

“He was not here for long,” Sebastian replied evasively.

“After your father’s death,” Pip continued, “why didn’t his enemies take over the house? They must have wanted it.”

“Indeed, they did,” Sebastian agreed, “yet they dared not.”

“Why not?”

“Because they were afraid,” Sebastian answered bluntly.

“Afraid of what?” Pip came back.

“Afraid of me,” Sebastian said.

Pip stared at him.

“Of you?”

“Of what I can do,” Sebastian answered.

Tim, hearing them speaking, came in from his room, dumping himself down on the end of Pip’s bed.

“Anyone invited to this party?” He grinned at Pip and winked. “Or am I the spare sandwich at the picnic?”

Pip gave her brother a look she hoped might silence him for the rest of the evening. Or longer. For his part, Tim mimed zipping
his mouth shut.

“I have,” Sebastian stated, “today given much thought to Yoland.”

“So what do you reckon he’s up to?” Tim asked.

“That I cannot surmise,” Sebastian admitted, “and in order to discover more, I feel I need to enter your school, to observe
him for myself.”

“Neat!” Tim exclaimed, remembering his walk during the summer with Sebastian on a lead, disguised as a brown-and-white Jack
Russell terrier. “What will you go as? You can’t go in as a JRT. Not into classrooms, anyway.”

“He could go in as a pet mouse,” Pip suggested. “There’s a girl in my gym group who has a pet rat she keeps in her pocket.
It lives in a box in her locker during PE.”

“How about a cat?” Tim suggested. “I’ve seen one wandering about.”

“I need wider access than is afforded to an animal,” Sebastian said, “for I cannot see Yoland permitting such a creature in
his laboratory. Besides, I need more than to observe him in passing. I must study him, get close to him. To this end,” he
declared, “I need to join your class.”

Tim and Pip exchanged a glance.

“That’s not going to be easy,” Pip declared. “You can’t just walk into the school. You’re going to have to get registered,
be entered on the database.”

“That’s not all,” Tim said. “You’re going to have to have a uniform. And you don’t just need to look like us. You’ll need
to be like us. We’ll have to make you into a modern kid.”

Sebastian looked somewhat hurt and rejoined, “I do not see that I am dissimilar to you.”

Tim laughed. “You must be joking!”

“I jest not!” Sebastian exclaimed.

“I jest not!” Tim repeated and he looked at Pip. “We’ve got a serious makeover to do here and it’s going to take a lot more
than a school jacket and a pair of sneakers.”

Sebastian looked himself up and down and replied, somewhat ironically, “I do not see that modern boys have three arms or five
legs. Since I was born, I do not see that human anatomy has changed very much.”

“No,” Tim agreed, “it hasn’t, but just about everything else has.”

“Very well,” said Sebastian, standing stiffly in the middle of the room as if waiting for a tailor to fit him with a suit,
“teach me to be modern.”

Pip and Tim ran their eyes over Sebastian. “Well,” Pip said eventually, switching off her television, “let’s get on with it.”

“For a start,” Tim began, “you’ve got to chill out.”

“Chill out?” Sebastian looked somewhat puzzled.

“Be relaxed,” Tim explained. “Let it all hang out.”

“Let what hang out?” Sebastian asked. “Hang out of what?”

“It’s an expression,” Pip said.

“Don’t be so uptight all the time,” Tim went on. “Life’s less formal now. For example, language isn’t so exact. Don’t say
‘Good morning,’ say ‘Morning’ or ‘How’re you doing?’ or just ‘Hi.’ Don’t say ‘I do not like that,’ say ‘That’s uncool.’ If
you like something, say ‘That’s really cool.’ “

“A state of low temperature seems to have become a superlative,” Sebastian remarked sardonically.

For half an hour, Pip and Tim attempted to tutor Sebastian in modern slang. For his part, Sebastian found it difficult to
understand why a “mare” meant awful, while a “piece of cake” meant easy. He could not see the connection between, as he put
it, the female of a horse or a pastry and a state of unattractiveness or ease of function. Nor could he comprehend why a simple
meal of bread and sausage should be called a “hot dog.” “Knackered” he did grasp, for there had been knackers in the fifteenth
century, but how the noun for a horse slaughterer had come to mean the verb “to be tired”
was a linguistic leap he could not rationalize. As for what a “blockbuster” was, Sebastian was totally lost.

“Look,” Tim said at length, “don’t try and work out how these words came about. Just accept that they have.”

“Finally,” said Pip, “there’s the word ‘wicked.’ “

“Of that,” Sebastian declared, “I think I am more than acquainted with the meaning.”

“It means super, superlative,” Pip said.

“Like,” Tim explained, “someone has a state of the art, brand new, multi-gear mountain bike…”

“… and you say,” Pip stated, “‘That bike’s wicked.’”

Sebastian stared at them.

“I fail totally to comprehend…” he began.

“Don’t try,” Tim said. “Just accept it.”

“And,” Pip advised, “when we go to school, if you’re having problems just keep your mouth shut, listen and learn. Be polite
to the teachers, but let the rest of us do the talking. You’ll soon catch on.”

“Catch on?” Sebastian repeated.

Tim looked to the ceiling and said, “Yes, get the drift, pick it up, go with the flow. Whatever you do, don’t say ‘I wonder
if we will experience inclement weather today’ when what you mean is it looks like rain. People will wonder what planet you’ve
fallen off.”

“One cannot fall off a planet,” Sebastian answered. “The gravitational forces…”

“Enough!” Tim exclaimed, holding up his hand.

“Getting the lingo right’s one thing,” said Pip, “but… Well, look at the way you stand.”

“I see nothing wrong with my stance,” Sebastian defended himself.

“You look as if you’re on parade,” Tim said. “Nobody stands up straight these days. We all slouch.”

“Yes,” said Sebastian with more than a hint of disparagement, “I’ve noticed.”

“And we don’t dress neatly either. We look reasonable in our school uniforms,” Pip said, “but it’s a uniform, it’s not exactly
what we’d wear if we wanted to. So, you know, sometimes you let your shirt hang out a bit or let your tie loose. You probably
have to tuck them in or tighten them up when the teachers come, but the rest of the time you don’t. You just…”

“Hang it all loose?” suggested Sebastian.

Tim laughed. “Not exactly. Hanging loose is what we do. What your clothes do is just stick out over your belt.”

“Life in this century,” said Sebastian, “is indeed more relaxed than in that of my father’s time, but you must remember that
then I lived in royal circles where people dressed smartly and manners and courtly behavior were important. Yet I would add
that not all of England was like that. The peasantry wore very crude and rough clothing, did not adhere to a life of manners
and were far more like the people of today”

“Are you implying,” Tim said, feigning anger, “that we are all peasants?”

Sebastian looked at Tim, replying indirectly, “You are as you would choose to regard yourself.”

While they had been talking, Pip had been studying Sebastian.

“There’s something else as well,” she decided and, stepping across to Sebastian, stood by his side. “You’ll have to excuse
me, but…” Reaching up, she ran her
fingers through his hair, tousling it. No sooner had her fingers left it, however, than it fell back into its former shape.

Sebastian’s hairstyle was certainly not that of a modern boy. It was too long, and it curled under slightly. It reminded Pip
of pageboys in history books.

“We’ve got to do something about this,” Pip announced. “There’s only one thing to do.”

She fumbled in a drawer of her dressing table and took out a pair of long-bladed scissors. Four minutes later, Sebastian had
a new haircut, short behind his ears but a little bit longer at the back. In places, odd strands stuck out.

“I might be able to sort that out with a bit of gel,” said Pip and she held up a mirror for Sebastian. “There you are — welcome
to the twenty-first century.”

Sebastian studied himself in the mirror.

“What do you think?” asked Tim.

“Well, to be quite truthful,” Sebastian answered, “I am not unduly impressed.”