Captain of Games

By Nigel Kajevu

Each year, the captain’s games test the mettle of the would-be leaders of an all-girls school in the verdant Eastern Highlands. This year a heavy cerulean mist enshrouds the rugged, lofty peaks where the games are held. Only cruel fate could have brought Isobel here. As thick fog swirls down the mountain side, contestants begin to disappear. Will Isobel embrace her newfound gift in time to save the cold, frightened girls or are all the unworldly apparitions emerging from the shadows only figments of her unconsented intoxication?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Aug 18, 2023
• ISBN: 9781398494503

Nigel Kajevu

Born and raised in the Midlands of Zimbabwe, Nigel Kajevu is a professionally trained aircraft technician with a passion for conveying life’s truths through stories. Over the last decade, he has written short stories and novels, crafting characters that seem true to life in fantastic worlds. His interests include shooting, travelling and weight training.

Book preview

1.

Five Thousand Feet from Catamount’s Peak

At the foot of a vast mountain, in a sprawling valley, sat St Mathelda Girls School. A pair of nebulous figures floundered through the Fourth Form dormitory like nightly troodons skulking away with a kill in the tenacious dark before dawn. Florence Mago was in long sleeve, cotton pyjamas with a balaclava pulled down past her ears. Fluffy bedside slippers were on her feet, which she shuffled across the wooden floor. Behind her, trudged Isobel Kango, clad in an oversized T-shirt and her school tracksuit bottoms. She was in her bare feet. The two girls felt their way in the dark, dodging hefty footlockers that lined the passage to a moonlit hallway. They could have switched on the lights, but Rochelle Kose, the House Wren or hostel prefect, was a shallow sleeper. Her bed was at the far end of the dormitory and directly beneath two fluorescent tubes.

If Isobel or Florence unceremoniously woke Rochelle up to the flutter and flash of incandescents at four o’clock in the morning, they would get more than today’s quota of manual labour. The sight of Rochelle ruffling up her hair and screaming and throwing things at girls had unanimously been decided a fate worse than either weeding in the garden or boiler duty. So this morning, the lights would be kept off and boiler duty would proceed as normal. The previous night, Isobel had studiously earned this morning’s punishment for herself and her friend Florence.

The old pinewood boards creaked beneath the girls’ feet as they moved.

‘Hey, I forgot to wear any shoes,’ Isobel whispered.

‘So go without shoes,’ Florence said without stopping.

‘Hold up, I’ll get my trainers.’

Florence stopped and turned. ‘We’re fifteen minutes late for boiler duty,’ she said in a hushed voice. ‘You want to explain to the wrens in Selous House why there’s no hot water this morning?’

‘Give me a second, OK?’

Isobel turned on the wooden floor and would have walked back to her bed but as she turned, the big toe of her left leg brushed over a cracked hole in the floor. A sliver of wood two inches long, pierced the soft skin between her big and second toes and lodged there.

Isobel dropped to one knee with a thud as the pain coursed through her entire foot. Florence threw her arms down to her sides in exasperation:

‘What is it now?’ she said impatiently.

Rochelle stirred, mumbled in her sleep, but did not wake up. None of the other girls in the dormitory woke either.

‘Splinter in my toe!’ Isobel said through clenched teeth.

In the dark, Florence put a hand out towards her huddled friend and began to lean forward to touch her shoulder. Isobel who had her back to Florence, did not see the gesture. Florence had a second thought and straightened up.

‘Serves you right,’ Florence said. ‘You know where to find me.’

Isobel turned to see the other girl walk away. Whimpering in pain, she stretched her left hand towards the hurt toe, but withdrew it suddenly.

A new, unrelated sensation tingled through the fingertips of her outstretched hand. It was like when you run your hand through a hot foam bath to make bubbles, only more intense. As if the bath was heated by a naked electric wire that warmed up the water but also gave you a dazzling electric shock at the same time.

‘What the hell?’ Isobel said and brought her hand to her face. She could barely see her fingers but they seemed to throb somewhat, with a faint tangerine glow. This was not the first time.

Ten minutes later, Isobel limped out of the rear end of the two-storey hostel. She had slippers on her feet as she stepped outside to the crisp Nyanga air. It chilled the skin on her bare feet and pimpled into gooseflesh her shins like half a colony of black ants climbing up her leg.

The sun had not yet scaled the horizon of tall mountains that enveloped the school. But dawn had broken in a haze of azure and gold as the night rescinded its sanction over the sky. The scent of morning dew and fresh cut grass came to her as Isobel took a breath. In the distance, she could hear a lawnmower buzzing along, and she figured Hugh Chibage, the groundsman in charge must be about his duties at the front of the hostel. Further away, from one of the lofty peaks, came a piercing, unearthly howl of scaling pitch that Isobel dismissed as the imaginative shenanigans of the late December wind.

The boiler room was tucked away in a recess behind the First Form dormitory. Adjacent was an open plan laundry area, with cement sinks and bronze taps. A dozen washing lines crowded the patch of lawn there in zig-zags to have the most number of lines of wire in the small space. A cobbled path, lined with slender Jacarandas, lead away from the hostel. On the right, a recreational room with facilities for table tennis and darts, with couches around a 1950s monochrome television set. To the left, a prep room with rows of benches and wide tables for homework and studying. Further along this path one would reach the second hostel at the school, Rhodes House. Betwixt both hostels and rising a hundred feet like a giant watching angel stood Hackeborne Tower. Beyond the tower, the paved path eventually lead up to a grand dining hall with a wide set of stone stairs.

Strangely, Isobel found herself musing that perhaps it would be a good idea to miss breakfast today.

Then she thought, If Rochelle finds only cold water coming out the shower head, the whole Fourth Form dorm will probably end up missing breakfast.

Isobel turned away from the path and hobbled towards the boiler room. It was a small, ramshackle shed of brown brick and asbestos roofing. Some roofing tiles were broken, some missing. A tendril of red mud ran from its origin at a termite mound beside the boiler room to line the perimeter of the door. The door itself was peeling layers of plywood, mouldy grey and green from the moisture of the thousand-gallon boiler inside. The door creaked on rust ridden hinges as Isobel let herself in.

There was a sole oil lamp at a window of rickety wooden shutters. Dirty glass encased the burning wick within the lamp.

Florence was bent over a hearth beneath the boiler, shovelling coal.

‘Took you long enough,’ Florence said without looking at her.

Isobel said nothing but went over to the other end of the cramped room and dragged a fifty-pound bag of coal across the concrete floor. Wooden shavings and fine sawdust scattered across the floor made it easier to drag the sackcloth bag.

‘There should be a law against this,’ Isobel said and set the fifty pounder at Florence’s feet.

‘Do your task quietly,’ Florence said.

Isobel rummaged through a pile of wood blocks at the base of the boiler. Florence stopped shovelling and stood upright. Hands on her hips, she leaned back and heard bones in her lower spine click as she stretched.

‘What are you doing?’ Florence said.

‘Here,’ Isobel said producing a crumpled ten pack of Madison cigarettes, ‘would you like a pull?’

‘I thought you quit.’ Florence wanted to smile, but was still upset with her friend.

‘I did…two days ago. Want one or not?’ Isobel said.

‘Why the hell not? We’re gonna be smelling of smoke anyways.’ Florence opened the pack and took out a cigarette. The initials H. C were marked with a felt tipped pen on the side of the box: Isobel had stolen them from the groundsman.

‘Hugh Chibage is going to go ballistic when he finds out,’ Florence added.

‘Ummm, will you light one for me?’ Isobel said sheepishly.

‘You’re unbelievable, you know that?’ Florence said, now with a thin smile.

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Isobel looked into her eyes and smiled back.

‘You’re a chain smoker with a phobia of matches.’

‘I’m not a chain smoker,’ Isobel said twisting her face, ‘and I’m not afraid of matches. Just fire.’

She shivered, picking up the matchbox from the wood shavings on the floor and handed it to the other girl.

‘I guess I’m going to have to light the boiler too?’ Florence said.

‘Would you, Floss?’

‘You’re such a freak. Okay, look away.’

Isobel turned to the wooden shutters. Florence struck a match and lit two cigarettes at the same time. As the match flared behind her, Isobel cringed. Fear enveloped her like a blanket. Thankfully, Florence squashed the match under one of her fluffy slippers and then tapped Isobel on the shoulder to hand her a cigarette.

Puffing away grey plumes, Florence pointed her cigarette to a hook from which a bunch of keys hung.

‘What’s that?’ she asked.

‘Keys to the Tiger,’ Isobel said. ‘It’s where Hugh keeps them.’

‘A tad irresponsible, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Well, considering Hugh has to wear so many hats at this school, I’d say he does a smashing job.’

‘I guess,’ Florence flicked ashes from the end of her cigarette to the floor. ‘Besides, it’s not like anyone would steal that old hunk o’ junk.’

‘You’d be surprised.’ Isobel smiled in a cloud of smoke.

‘What’s that smile saying?’

‘My dad taught me to drive on the farm when I was ten.’

‘What, a tractor?’

‘Try a fifteen tonne Leyland Beaver Flatbed.’

‘At ten! You’re kidding, right?’

‘Maybe yes, maybe no. In time, you’ll know!’ Isobel snuffed out her cigarette on the brick wall. ‘Let’s get outta here.’

Florence snickered, put out her own fag and followed her friend back to the staircase to the dormitories.

After the wake-up call had come from the spire of Hackeborne Tower, the rest of the girls of Saint Mathelda’s got up to begin a new day. For by tradition each day, a First Former climbed the winding stairs to the pinnacle, took up and rang the seven-pound bronze bell and blurted out the morning call. The tower would remain unoccupied until dusk, when the school captain stood in the archway, spread forth her hands and commanded the evening benediction.

At roll call, Rochelle picked up the ashy odour of tobacco as Isobel and Florence marched past her. Since the wren had enjoyed a good twenty minutes plus of piping hot water in the shower, she thought nothing more of the smell than a punishment well served in the boiler room. Serves them right for giggling after lights-out.

In the dining hall, Hagar Arnoult waddled through the aisles as quickly as his fusiform frame permitted. The girls seated at each table tucked their chairs in a little more just to give Hagar’s wide hips a chance at passing through. He held a dog-eared flat file under one arm, while his free hand mopped streams of sweat from his middle-aged face with a blue and white polka-dot handkerchief.

Finally Hagar reached the front of the hall and climbed the three steps to the stage where a dozen other members of staff were seated, facing the children. He blundered forward to the headmaster’s table, dragged the chair back and dropped his hundred and fifty-kilogram self on its threadbare cushion.

As Hagar sat down, all the girls in the high-ceilinged hall stood up. The staff seated on either side of him stood up as well. The steaming food set before them would have to wait until after the morning prayer.

They all said it together, including Hagar, who would mumble it along, seated, observing everyone. Miss Agnes Crosse, the senior mistress, who wore a starched blouse and whose T-square jaw mirrored her perfect poise, would lead the prayer. Anyone caught not reciting the prayer would face her wrath.

Quidquid nobis apositum est, aut quidquid aponetur, Benedicat Deus haec Sua dona in usum nostrum, necnon nosmet ipsos in servitium Suum, per Iesum Christum, Dominum nostrum.

There were probably sixty tables in the dining hall, with no more than eight girls at each of them. The senior students’ tables were nearest the staff stage and the juniors were nearest the tall double doors on the other end. Nevertheless, the juniors or kids as they were disdainfully known, would wait for their seniors to enter, exit and even begin eating in the hall. Isobel Kango was the last to stand up. She was in the Fourth Form, so her table was closer to the wary eyes of Agnes Crosse.

Isobel would not win a beauty contest, but she was not ugly. She was a light tan of honey with big, hazel brown eyes. Her apricot frost hair had a kinky straight texture which she wore it in a short bob; attractive in a grungy way, testament to her being of mixed race and on second glance outside of the school deportment regulations. Her father was a white farmer who had tried to take on a black woman as a second wife, akin to high treason in post-colonial Zimbabwe, known previously to the world as Rhodesia. The statutes of racial segregation had been abolished, but in some arenas, the stench lingered on.

Isobel’s mother was a black house maid, who had caught the eye of the lord of the house. Kingsley Stephens had been intrigued by Elsa, who in his opinion was too intelligent to spend the rest of her life as a maid. Together they had produced this slender young lady, who was not saying the Latin prayer although her mouth was moving.

Isobel was chewing gum and as she looked up, her eyes met with Hagar’s. The aftertaste of tobacco in her mouth reminded her of fire and thoughts of fire took her to a dark place within her soul. Perhaps she had been burnt as a little child or maybe once choked on smoke. She had no living memory of any such ordeal. But a stick of Wrigley’s Spearmints was a bare necessity after a pull. Any other girl would have looked away from the headmaster. Instead she slanted her head and ogled the man like a predator takes in a final image of its kill before satiating its thirst with blood. Hagar’s fury squeezed his pudgy face into a cute, red prune of pliant folds of skin as Isobel blew a defiant, pink ball of gum. Perhaps she didn’t fear him because she hated him. Not enough to kill him of course. But before the end of today, things would appear differently.

In the next hour, the headmaster would come as close to death as a rat that has fallen into a cat’s basket. Fearful for its miserable life, yet helpless at the mercy of an adept killer. For now, the headmaster made a mental note to exact a fitting punishment on the rascal with the scruffy hair. That was what she was, for sure. A skinny, scruffy rascal. At least, his mother would have said so.

She had been a hard woman and his sixth-grade teacher.

‘Nothing but a ladder of As from you, young Haggie!’ she would say. ‘No child of mine will sit in my class and get any less.’ But then, she only had the one child; whose tea flask and lunch tins she packed herself every morning with enough victuals to suffice for five healthy Sixth Graders over the course of two days. ‘Or it’ll be the fat end of a rhino-hide cane across your bottom.’

The girls at each table sat and continued with their breakfast. There was a fine balance to maintain. One had to eat quickly in the 20 minutes between the first grace prayer and the second, after which the kitchen staff swept bowl and utensil away in a flurry.

To slurp down a bowl of steaming steel-cut oats, chomp a couple strips of fried bacon and cold meats, sprinkle cheese on toast and glare at a horribly discoloured, sunny-side-up egg, which nobody would eat but would still feature in their plates the following morning. To do all that and still keep a courtly demeanour was a task and a half.

A single slice of whole-wheat toast and a crisp curl of bacon was all Hagar had. He drank down the last of his chicory and mopped the dimpled corner of his mouth with his blue and white polka-dot handkerchief. Only a morsel for breakfast it would seem. But for those in the know, he would secretly have a cart wheeled out the rear door of the dining hall to his gated residence a short stroll away.

As the girls hurried to their dormitories to pack their bags for another school day, Hagar would be packing his mouth with breakfast for another school day. Six crunchy pieces of toast, buttered both sides; wedges of cheddar—tangy and bitter on the tongue. Chipolatas, a little too little to eat one at a time, bacon and pressed tongue—difficult to tell which tasted better, so just slap them both together!

Shavings of turkey breast in mayonnaise, a quarter roll of baloney and a nearly runny egg. Of all the morning goodies, Hagar detested the eggs. They were somehow never cooked quite right. Always in too much oil and yet not cooked through.

Since the sudden passing on of the kitchen’s head chef, Miss Crosse had taken it upon herself to fill his shoes. His speciality had been the breakfast eggs and now the best part of the meal had become everybody’s worst, only nobody had the gall to confront Crosse with her slippery, play dough-grey eggs. Not even Hagar Arnoult.

Hagar stood on his stocky legs and clinked the corner of his cup with a teaspoon.

‘As the year winds down to a close, it is necessary to reflect on the highs and lows of our three school terms. 1965 is a mere three weeks away and yet some of this year’s most crucial tasks remain untouched. So little done, so much to do.’

Miss Crosse clapped first and was joined by the staff and then by the girls.

Hagar held up a proud, chubby hand before he continued. He read from a sheet of yellow paper he had pulled from his dog-eared file.

Some, if not most of this ado could have been taken care of later on at a morning assembly in the more comfortable school hall. But all the students were boarders, so they could be told here just as well as they could in an assembly. Also, Thursday was not an assembly day by tradition and Hagar deplored breaking tradition.

There was a business to attend to and this would be the best chance to deal with it. There was a long weekend ahead. A long and perilous one. This too was tradition. The girls contemplated it with apprehension and raw excitement, oblivious to the fact that by Sunday, one of them would be dead and another would be missing.

‘Today,’ Hagar announced, ‘we have the first of the annual Captain’s Games to be held on Catamount’s Peak. There will be no lessons after lunch break. You will all change into your sporting attire and assemble rank and file according to your classes at the grand stand at Sullegin Field at two o’clock sharp.’

There was a low murmur especially from the Fifth Form girls, who tittered animatedly among themselves.

Hagar cleared his throat to refocus attention on himself and said, ‘Seven volunteers from our sister school, Bishop’s College will be bussed…’

This time a buzz erupted from every table as students traded quick words, giggles and high-pitched sounds that only girls a certain age can make.

‘Bishop’s College boys,’ Hagar pressed on silencing his audience as Crosse frowned a caution across the hall, ‘will be bussed into the school premises after two thirty.’

‘We have you to thank for that,’ Anna said glumly to Gertrude Minnedy.

‘A handful of bucks are worth nothing up there,’ Varaidzo said shaking her head despairingly.

‘Vari,’ Gertrude said, leaning in. ‘I’m not going to leave any of you up there. Okay?’

‘We know, Captain,’ Anna said. ‘You brought us all back the last time.’

‘All girls wishing to be picked for the games who have not yet done so, leave your names with Miss Crosse immediately after this.’ Hagar continued, ‘Please note, only Fifth Form girls are eligible.’

The last bit was unnecessary as everyone was well aware of this, but Hagar put it out there anyway. Then he added something that he could have avoided completely but he ventured there too because he was the most important figure at the school and he felt like it:

‘That should eliminate the riff raff that the ragged mountain cat dragged into Saint Mathelda Girls’ School and rid us of any diminished decorum in these proceedings and in the presence of distinguished guests from our sister school.’

A chorus of gasps spread across the hall. Hagar ignored this and went on, ‘I presume you will instead find that handing out arm bands to the competitors will be more suitable for you, Miss Kango.’

Miss Crosse tucked her chin into her neck to stifle a laugh but couldn’t and gave it off in a small jet of air that escaped her pursed mouth.

Isobel had been silent the whole morning. But now a scream was boiling within her. She had not attained enough grades to proceed to the Fifth Form the previous year and so was forced to repeat the Fourth Form with girls who had been a year behind her in school. It did not look like she would make it across this year either, based on her performance in the mid-year examinations.

The fact that all the girls were looking at her made her feel small. That was to include the kids, some of whom now giggled and pointed, as she received, in their wide-eyed presence, not reprimand but ridicule from the highest authority in the school. If she let the tears, that threatened to embarrass her even more, fall from her eyes, she would certainly be the laughing stock of the games. By the time the Bishop’s College boys came off the bus in their navy-blue tracksuits, straight white cotton hats and gaudy sunglasses, she would be no different than the Saint Mathelda Girls’ School mascot, the butt of every joke, paraded for the whole world to relish.

Isobel felt a tingle in the fingertips of her left hand. She had felt it in the dormitory that morning when a splinter had jabbed her big toe, and had also felt it on other occasions before today. But never this strong.

She became suddenly aware that if she did not act with enough speed something else, something stronger than a young girl’s rage, would do the acting for her.

She trembled as she got to her feet but kept her head down. The three girls at her table, Fourth Formers as well, tried to get her to sit down.

Florence who sat next to her, clasped her left hand and muttered, ‘Ice! Sit your butt down!’

‘You just got off boiler duty!’ Gudrun, the girl with neat plaits of blonde hair said quietly. Her eyes were as blue as a cloudless sky, Isobel could see the concern in them across the table.

Tipeiwo, whose eyes seemed perpetually half-mast and who had rightly earned herself the nickname Tipsy, opened her eyes to their full stretch; with her diminutive frame now taking on the likeness of a frightened bushbaby. She had had a late night, as usual, reading a novel whose target audience was ten years beyond her.

‘No, no, no!’ Tipsy said under her breath. ‘Why are you standing up?’

The hall fell silent and even Crosse stopped chuckling. The smile on Hagar’s face remained as he observed the insolent little rascal, finally put in her place after a year of impudence. Mr Parker the music teacher frowned his displeasure at the headmaster’s words. So did Miss Flayland, Sixth Form History and Mr Caster English and Classics Form 1’s, 2’s and 3’s. But they dared not say anything. At the head prefect’s table, Anna nudged Gertrude.

‘What’s going on there?’ Anna said.

‘We should do something,’ Varaidzo said.

‘No,’ Gertrude said, getting an inkling of what could be about to happen. ‘Let it play out.’

Isobel looked at her friends at the table. They meant well. It had been a long year, but these three girls had seen her through it. Florence, known to them as Flossy, always made sure they found a way to have a good time. Even if it meant bending the school rules a little…or breaking them outright. Her deep-set eyes could see loopholes in school regulations and were always on the lookout for another unbridled adventure.

That’s where Tipsy came in handy. She had a seemingly endless supply of contraband including cigarettes, liquor and more recently, psychoactive drugs. Gudrun deplored their mischievous acts, but cared deeply for them all.

When they sailed a little too far into the deep, Gudrun showed them the shore. To them she was, Goodie, their lighthouse, their moral yardstick.

The concern on Flossy, Tipsy and Goodie’s faces was sincere. Their eyes cajoled Isobel to relent whatever insanity she had set her mind on. But she had to quench something that was seething within her, before it tore free of her inner restraints and let loose in front of all those eyes. Whatever it was that fought to escape, her tether had to stay within. It should not fly just yet. Like a child running with a kite on a chord. There is just that moment when the kite will catch the wind and fly. That moment was not now. She didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. So she had to release something else; she knew she had to. Something superficial. Then what was within, would stay within. For now…

So she dipped her hand in the porcelain bowl that held four untouched, oily eggs, one for each girl at the table.

‘Ice,’ Florence had not let go of Isobel’s other hand, ‘what the hell are you doing?’

Isobel heaved a deep breath. Everyone thought she would burst out in sick fits of tears. Instead, she wrenched her left hand free of Flossy, pointed an outstretched arm at Hagar and shrieked, ‘EGG HIIIM!’

Nobody in the hall spoke or moved. What had the slim girl with the spiky hair meant? Before any more suppositions could form in any mind, Isobel sent a greasy egg coursing through the air at their headmaster. Everything happened out of the proper order of events at a breakfast briefing, Hagar thought for a moment he must be dreaming. The oily sod smacked him with a satisfying squelch right on the forehead and slid in two pieces down his face, leaving a sticky, yolky trail that dripped into his half open mouth.

The silence was broken by a commotion torn between reprimands, cheers and guffaws. Isobel reached into the bowl to scoop more ammunition, but found there were no eggs left.

‘EGG HIM!’ Flossy said, launching one egg with her left another with her right hand. They both hit Hagar in the belly, an easy, bulging target.

‘Egg him!’ Tipsy said and tossed her own, landing her throw on the breast pocket of the headmaster’s suit jacket.

Snapping out of his stupor, Hagar began to duck under the table as Miss Crosse roared with anger, ‘How dare you Fourth Formers! I have the right mind to—’

FWAP! An egg soared into her gaping mouth, volleyed by a tall girl at the head students’ table. It was Gertrude Minnedy, the head girl. If she had missed a shot from her table, no other girl in the hall would have got it from the same vantage point. She had been the top goal scorer in netball the entire season.

‘Egg them all!’ Gertrude cried.

Another moment of silence ensued, as the students, shocked to see the head girl partake of mischief, were held in confusion. But it was only a short moment. Whole eggs. Pieces of eggs and eggs in twos and threes flew in the air at Hagar and his staff, streaking trails of yolk and oil as they spun from all corners of the hall.

Gertrude threw her arms up in celebration and picked another slippery egg.

‘Help me, Vari!’ she said giggling over her shoulder to Varaidzo Mudimu, the bespectacled deputy head girl.

‘No thanks,’ Varaidzo said above the furore, ‘I still need Brass to write my recom!’

‘Me too!’ Anna Klies, the senior prefect said sheepishly.

None of the five wrens at her table touched the eggs. Nor did the other twelve wrens in the hall. They only sat and watched, unwilling to contribute or intervene. At another table, Sarah Collins, the wren in charge of Dress and Conduct sat uneasily in her chair, ducking the odd missile that careened a little too close to her jet-black head of hair.

‘One more week,’ she said to her mates at the table, ‘and we’ll be out of this dump forever.’

‘I just hope Brass will write our recommendation letters after this,’ Bethany Freslie said craning her neck to Sarah and dodging an egg that was not intended for her.

‘Why not?’ Sarah said folding her arms. ‘We didn’t do anything. Although your captain over there—’

An egg smacked the back of Sarah’s chair with a squishy thump. Sarah whipped round and glared at the table behind her. The girls there all looked away. Sarah twisted awkwardly trying to scan the long plaits of her dark hair for egg fragments.

‘Relax,’ Bethany told her. ‘It’s on the chair back, missed you by a mile.’

At one of the fifth form tables, Faith Dhuku sat perfectly upright, with one hand placed over the other on her lap.

‘We should do something!’ she said.

Not a strand of her straightened hair hung out of the regulation red barrette, which sat a clean 12 centimetres up from the back of her collar. She had measured. Twice. Her uniform grey scooter skirt and white blouse were neatly pressed and her blemishless, dark skin seemed to have come about by falling in line with her fastidious nature.

‘I’m not touching those eggs, Faith,’ Cherai Vambi said pointing disgustedly at the bowl.

‘I mean to stop people from throwing eggs!’ Faith said rolling her shoulders.

‘Get over yourself, Faith Dhuku!’ Moodie said. ‘You’re such a priss.’

‘You’re on your own there sister,’ Frieda Marshall said in her deep voice. ‘I’m saving my energy for the Captain’s Games.’

Frieda was tall and broad built, with copper-red hair and countless fine freckles on both cheeks.

Hagar slowly put his head up, chubby fingers cautious on the table. Before he could duck, Gertrude pelted one of his round cheeks with a perfectly timed pitch.

‘Two for two!’ she cheered.

Miss Crosse swiped white and yellow goo off her face with a serviette. A few more eggs went sailing her way, but instead of retreating like Hagar, she advanced. Her many pleated skirt flared as she jumped right off the stage, her clogs hitting the wooden floor with a solid bang. The chaos prevailed until she moved with resolute force, thudding to the head students’ table. She stretched out her arm and clouted the tall head girl across the face. Gertrude’s lanky frame staggered back her brown hair flying wildly as she collapsed, toppling over a chair and nearly taking Varaidzo down with her.

A din yet hung in the air while Crosse reached Isobel who was about to pick a couple of eggs from an adjacent table. The eight girls there were jostling for the egg bowl so Isobel stood on a chair to lean over them. A dull pain shot into the small of her back when she was shunted forward by a foot in a heavy size 7 clog. She went crashing onto the table with enough momentum to tumble over the edge and land with a thump on her back on the floor. Crockery and cutlery rained down after her.

The hall fell completely silent, but for Crosse’s heavy footfalls on the wooden floor, going after Isobel. Crosse smacked Tipsy, Flossy and the innocent Goodie one sturdy clap each, before bending down and clasping Isobel’s ear between two fingers and twisting. She pulled the girl painfully up to her feet. Isobel winced and felt the woman’s hot breath on her aching earlobe as she spoke inches away from her.

‘I will see your wretched face,’ Miss Crosse said through gritted teeth, ‘in the headmaster’s office, fifteen minutes before the beginning of the First Period. Do I make myself clear?’

Isobel did not respond. She couldn’t respond. Her fingers began to spasm as if recoiling from many invisible needle points pressing into her fingertips. To her relief, the twitching stopped before anything unthinkable happened when Crosse released her and she fell back to the floor clutching her ear.

Miss Crosse stood ramrod straight, her green eyes blazing, cheeks flushed red and thin mouth pursed with rage. With incredible volume, she bellowed, ‘THERE WILL BE ORDER IN MY SCHOOL!’

Nobody dared to move let alone speak. But Glower Tonde, a short and chubby First Form girl, bit the nails of one hand and dropped the rubbery egg in her other hand behind her back.

Tears rolled down another First Former’s face: Heather Seddy, who was sure not to accompany them with sobbing sounds. Heather had not participated in the jamboree. She had only watched…and laughed with a hand over her mouth. Her mother, a midwifery nurse, had never shouted at her. She had never needed to. Neither had her father, an Episcopal priest. Now here stood a woman Heather admired, hurling insults and assaulting children. A small part of Heather thought all the girls in the hall would be beaten as such that very day. Another wondered if the girls who had been attacked had broken any bones. Or worse…could any of them be dead?

Crosse thrust a finger forward to point successively at Goodie, Tipsy and Flossy. ‘In my office,’ she said. ‘And woe betide you if I get there first.’

She turned and pointed at Gertrude who still lay dazed and confused on the floor.

‘That goes for you too,’ Crosse said, a swollen vein throbbing on her forehead. ‘And all the prefects of Saint Mathelda Girls’ School.’

Crosse walked to the kitchen’s serving point, from whence waiters and chefs, who had gathered to watch the commotion saw her approach. They dispersed like rats at the flick of a light switch and attempted to look busy in the kitchen: cleaning the gas stoves, rearranging the cutlery drawers or checking the cold room thermostat one more time. Eduardo Ndiro, the new head chef was caught unawares. Crosse pushed through the two swinging kitchen doors with one hand, like a gunslinger sent to pick up a bounty at a saloon in the Wild West. Mr Ndiro, a dark man with a bald patch and sparse remnants of silver-grey hair, had just walked into the dining hall from a back entrance. He was wheeling an empty food cart after a quick delivery at Hagar Arnoult’s residence.

‘Mr Ndiro,’ Miss Crosse said, ‘have this mess cleaned up by 11 a.m. and be ready to serve an early lunch.’

Ndiro followed Crosse’s pointed finger and looked over the serving counter into the hall. Some girls looked as if they had