At five a.m. the following morning, a good hour earlier than usual, Nathaniel Flowerdew was on his rowing machine. He could have started at four or even three a.m., as he had barely slept. The skies were lightening and the doors and windows of the lab were open because the air was already warm. While he rowed his usual ten kilometers, he gazed out over the field that rose up to the farmer’s land beyond the trees. In the ten months he had lived there, he had only climbed it once, on his first day. A dozen sheep grazed on the grass that led up to the top of the hill, where the sun would soon emerge. Not that he would be there to see it.
He finished his rowing routine in fifty minutes, his manic energy from the previous night returning with every pull and glide. As he pounded his way through another five kilometers, he went over in his mind what to say to the boy. He found himself smiling. This would be a good day.
He was the first teacher to arrive at school—something that had never happened before. He went straight to the chemistry lab and realized from his schedule that he was supposed to be giving an exam in the old school hall at 9 a.m. He left a note for John Watkins in the staff room saying that he wanted to see Itchingham Lofte at noon—could he come to the hall at the conclusion of that morning’s exams?
Flowerdew spent the next three hours pacing up and down the hall in between the rows of students. They were his students—he had been teaching them for many months—but he barely noticed them now. He was imagining his return to Greencorps. The forgiven prodigal son. And with the geological discovery of the century. This was his way out of the wretched school; this was his moment, and no one was going to take it away from him. He had wondered if he would ever get the chance to resume his career—his real career, not this apology of a job—and it had arrived gift wrapped.
He knew the science was bewildering. He knew there would be sceptics. But when they saw the evidence …
While taking attendance, Mr. Watkins called Itch to the front. “I have a note from our head of science. Here.” He passed it over and Itch read it.
“It’ll obviously be about the rock,” said Itch. “What do think he’ll want, sir?”
“He’s probably arranged to get your health checked out, I imagine.”
“No,” said Itch. “He said I’d be fine.”
“Really? Just like that?” Watkins thought for a moment. “Well, I haven’t seen him today, but my next guess would be he’ll tell you what you should do with the rock. If it’s as radioactive as the Geiger counter suggested, then you’ll need to find a home for it while it’s being analyzed. West Ridge would be my first call.”
“I’d like your opinion too, sir, really, if you wouldn’t mind. You’re the geologist, not him.” Itch hadn’t intended it to sound quite so blunt.
Watkins straightened. “Hmm. That’s what I’ve been thinking, to be honest with you. Dr. Flowerdew said he had a lead container, so it made sense for him to take it as a precaution. Now that it is safely in its new home, there’s no reason I can think of why the stone cannot be returned or placed somewhere so we can all study it. Come and find me when you’ve seen him.”
“Time is up, pens down, stop writing.”
The usual sighs and murmurs that greet the end of an exam broke out in the old hall. Flowerdew and Mr. Hopkins, the physics teacher, collected the papers and the students left in threes and fours, comparing notes on how they thought they had done. Through the glass doors Flowerdew noticed Itch waiting outside and waved him in. All the students were gone, and Mr. Hopkins had handed a pile of papers to Flowerdew.
“Thanks, er, Chris. I’ll take it from here.”
Flowerdew waited until the physics teacher left the hall and then smiled at Itch. This had the opposite effect of what he had intended—he had never smiled at the boy before. It was a smile without warmth, and Itch was on his guard immediately.
“Well, I took your stone home and put it straight into a lead-lined box. Lead, as you probably know, is so dense it is very effective in stopping most kinds of radiation. It’s safe. Remind me where you got it again?”
“As I said yesterday, sir—there’s this dealer I see every now and again—he sells all kinds of stuff. He offered this new sample to me, though he said he couldn’t identify it. I bought it from him for ten pounds.”
This made Flowerdew laugh. “Ten pounds. My, my. What is his name?”
“He’s called Cake, sir.”
“Cake? What kind of a name is that? Where does he live, this ‘Cake’?”
“I honestly have no idea.”
“Will you see him again soon? You see, if he has other rocks like this, he could be in danger. Scratch that—he is in danger. You saw how radioactive that one stone is.”
“But I’m not in danger?”
Flowerdew looked up. “No. He’ll have been exposed for longer. Relax, Lofte.”
While Itch was not about to “relax,” he realized his teacher had a good point about Cake’s safety, even if he had no intention of telling him about the meeting with the dealer the following day.
“I’ll try and find him, sir. But he seems to be always on the move. I’ll look out for him.”
“I’d love to meet him if you think that might be possible?” That phony smile again.
“I’ll tell him, sir. What happens to my stone now? Mr. Watkins was talking about the West Ridge School of Mining. He said they could study it there.”
Flowerdew’s smile tightened. “I’m not sure that’s the wisest step, going forward. Their reputation was made in the eighties, and their analytical papers are not what they were. You need the sharpest minds on this, not some hillbilly local outfit. With respect to Mr. Watkins.”
“Well, I’d like Mr. Watkins to take care of it, sir, if that’s OK. Now that it’s safe in your box.”
Flowerdew stared at Itch. “Right. Well, I’m afraid that won’t be possible.” He straightened the exam papers in front of him.
“Why not, sir? He’s the geologist!”
“I am aware of that, Lofte. But I have taken the precaution of sending it away for analysis. To labs in Switzerland, where I used to work. You’ll get proper results there.”
Itch felt the color rise in his cheeks and his throat tighten. “You’ve done what? You’ve sent it to Switzerland? But it’s mine, sir. It’s my rock. You had no right!”
“I was considering the safety of the school and its pupils, Lofte, that is all. These labs in Geneva will provide an unbeatable service and world-class analysis. You really will be impressed. I’m sure that after the greenhouse affair, Dr. Dart will agree the safety of the pupils should always be paramount. You see that, don’t you, Lofte? You see that, I’m sure.”
Itch couldn’t wait to get out of the hall. It had never occurred to him that Flowerdew would have gotten rid of it already. He knew Flowerdew was a bad teacher and that the staff and students all disliked him. He knew too that he was mean—in an experiment about body mass he had reduced one of the larger girls to tears. But Itch had never thought him capable of theft.
He pushed through the doors and stopped, leaning his head against the wall and breathing deeply. “He’s a thief. He’s actually a thief!” He headed outside, muttering, “The scumbag’s a thief!” over and over again. He went around the hall and came to a large rectangle of concrete—the only remaining sign of the greenhouse. Around the edges lay a few leaves—all that was left of the plants—and tracks left by the bulldozers that had taken the building apart. A few students had come to look, among them Lucy Cavendish, the tenth-grade girl who had brought Itch and Jack water when everyone was puking. She smiled at him.
“Shame,” she said, gesturing to the space where the greenhouse used to be. “What a waste.”
And all my own work, Itch thought grimly. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said as he walked around it, leaving her staring after him. He had to tell Watkins what had just happened with Flowerdew.
On his way to the staff room, he went to his classroom and found Jack sitting on her desk chatting with Sam Jennings and her friend Jay Boot. Itch thought that Jay seemed to spend all her time either eating potato chips or picking her nose. Today she was managing both, bag balanced on lap, one hand for each task.
Classy, he thought.
Jack glanced up, caught the worried look on Itch’s face and excused herself. She slid off the desk and came over. “What’s up, Itch?”
He beckoned her out of the classroom and they walked down the hallway toward the staff room.
“Flowerdew says he’s sent the uranium or whatever it is to Switzerland. He took it home to put it in a lead container for safety, but then decided it should be examined by these fancy, high-tech labs he knows. I’m going to tell Watkins what’s happened.”
Jack looked as though she was missing something. “Is that so bad? I mean, I know he’s a jerk and everything, but if the labs are as good as he says they are, then maybe …”
Itch was astonished. “The point is, it wasn’t his rock to send anywhere. He should’ve put it in his lead box and then told me. And Watkins is still the geologist and not Flowerdew, in case you’d forgotten.”
They had reached the staff room and Itch knocked loudly, saving Jack from having to reply.
“I need to see Mr. Watkins, please—it’s urgent,” he told the teacher who answered his knock. The teacher disappeared into the staff room, and Itch continued where he had left off. “Why would he send it away so quickly? What’s the big hurry?” He turned to Jack, but she shrugged.
“No idea, but whatever he’s done, it will be for the good of himself, I’m sure.”
The staff room door opened again and Mr. Watkins emerged. “Thought it would be you. What happened with Dr. Flowerdew?” He brought his tea with him as they walked down the hall toward the entrance, past the principal’s office. Itch recounted his morning’s conversation and Watkins listened with raised eyebrows. They pushed through the main door and stood in the sun. When Itch had finished, he, Jack, and Mr. Watkins stood in silence for a moment. Watkins turned to them both, having apparently come to a decision. “Leave this to me,” he said, and set off back to the staff room.
The heads of geography and science met after school. Watkins had gone looking for Flowerdew earlier but couldn’t find him. After the final bell, as the last students made their way out of school, he headed to Flowerdew’s lab. He only just caught him.
“Need a quick word if you don’t mind, Nathaniel.”
“In a tearing hurry actually. Can’t it wait?” Flowerdew had his briefcase in his hand and his jacket over his shoulder.
“Not really, no. Itchingham Lofte tells me the rock is on its way to Switzerland. An outcome he is very unhappy about—as am I. As his homeroom teacher and his geography teacher, I’m the one he brought it to. You had an appropriate box for its safekeeping, but your jurisdiction finished there. You should have at least discussed this with me.”
Flowerdew put down his briefcase and laid his jacket on the desk. For a moment Watkins thought he was about to be hit. It was clear that Flowerdew was tempted. He stared at Watkins.
“That’s really what this is about, isn’t it?” said Flowerdew. “Your territory, your empire. It’s not about the boy or his rock at all. I’ve done what’s best for the school, Watkins, you know that. Do you think the principal needs another ‘school in peril’ story out there? No, of course not. The farther that piece of radioactivity is from the academy, the happier she’ll be. Get over it, Watkins.”
Mr. Watkins’s eyes had been getting wider and his mouth more tightly closed as Flowerdew spoke. As usual, he had a pen in his hand, and now he pointed it at Flowerdew’s chest.
“You’re new here. We all know that. And that’s OK because we all start somewhere. It’s just a shame—for you and for us—that you had to start as head of science. Your inexperience has been obvious from the outset, and never more so than over this business. The plain fact is, this is theft. The stone is Itchingham’s. If his family wanted to press charges, they might be successful. And Dr. Dart certainly doesn’t need that, either.”
The men stood facing each other. A few students and members of staff wandered past the lab, looking in the windows.
“Well, it’s all out now then, isn’t it?” said Flowerdew. “You’ve never liked me—you’ve always made that very clear—but I thought I could trust your professional judgment. I see now that I was wrong.” He started to put on his jacket. “I am a very well respected chemist, you know. I have dealt with minerals all my life. I have spoken around the world on the subject, and if I say this stone needs to go to the labs in Switzerland, it does. OK?”
Watkins took a deep breath. “Wrong tense, Nathaniel, wrong tense. You were a respected chemist. Before you got fired. That is what happened, isn’t it? You don’t leave a high-flying international job for Cornwall Academy voluntarily. It’s quite obvious you don’t like being here—the teachers all know it, the students know it. Our assumption in the staff room is that you had something to do with that terrible oil spill. Would that be right? The one off Nigeria that led to the deaths of seventeen oil workers?” Mr. Watkins’s voice had been rising steadily, and Flowerdew’s face drained of color as he went on, “Did you think we didn’t know? Did you think we didn’t connect the name of our sponsor and the name of your old company? You really do think we’re stupid.”
“YES!” exploded Flowerdew. “I DO! This crummy little school is going nowhere! Most of the teaching is second-rate and sometimes third-rate. You wouldn’t believe the level of incompetence I see around me every day. And what passes for informed comment in the staff room is frankly laughable. If you expect me to accept …”
The door to the lab opened and Dr. Felicity Dart appeared. She came in and shut the door behind her.
Watkins spoke first. “Ah, Dr. Dart. Do come in. Dr. Flowerdew here was just giving me his opinion of the academy. Do go on, Nathaniel—you’d gotten to the part about third-rate teaching and general incompetence, I think.”
Flowerdew had regained some of the color in his cheeks but that was because he was clearly in a rage.
Before he could say anything, Dr. Dart held up her hand. “No. No. Not here. I will not have two of my most senior staff fighting in a classroom. In my office. Now.” She turned and stalked out, leaving Watkins and Flowerdew to follow like two naughty schoolboys.
“I was acting in the interests of the school, Dr. Dart. The radioactivity coming off that rock was scary.”
The principal had indicated her small sofa, where the two men were now sitting side by side, uncomfortably close to each other. Flowerdew, now more in control of himself, was leaning forward to argue his case, forcing Watkins to sit back. “It needed to be off the school premises as soon as possible.”
Dart nodded. “That is very true, and we are grateful you had a lead box at hand. Not many schools would have been so lucky. But I would have preferred it if you had taken Mr. Watkins and Itchingham into your confidence. It might be that these Swiss labs are better equipped than West Ridge, but there’s no getting around the fact that it wasn’t your rock to send away for analysis in the first place.” Watkins looked impassive while Flowerdew’s temper began rising again. “How long will they need to conduct the tests?” asked the principal.
“I don’t know; it depends on what they find.”
“You need to get it back, Nathaniel, as soon as they have completed the tests. And to keep any complaints—and possible lawsuits—at bay. I know you were taking something dangerous off the school premises, but sending it abroad was uncalled for since, again, it wasn’t your property—you need to apologize to young Lofte.”
There was silence in the principal’s office. Then Flowerdew said, “Very well,” and walked out.
Later that evening, as instructed, Flowerdew picked up the phone and dialed. It rang just once, and Christophe Revere answered.
“The tests are complete,” Flowerdew told him. “The results are the same. I’ve sent you the data.”
“And the boy? Did you question him?”
“Yes. He got it from a mineral dealer named Cake. The kid says he doesn’t know where this dealer lives but I’m on it, Christophe—I’ve asked to meet him.”
“We’ll pick up the stone tomorrow. We’ll send a courier—the usual one.”
Flowerdew smiled. “I remember. It’ll be ready. Good night, Christophe.”