9. The Final Dispatch, contd.

So I am back at the beginning of the chase. First whiff of the fox.

It is a cold November morning. This very morning, if I remember correctly. The Regional School Inspector is expected, and I have been making my rounds, looking over uniforms, giving the staff their lines, directing Clarence to retire our more ominous-looking learning aids to the cellar for the day.

Now Miss Exiguous, Mr. Mallow, Mother Other, and I are in one of the small gymnasia where advanced students put in extra practice. In a corner a tall girl is running rapidly and silently through a series of mouth shapes. In another a small boy at stretch stands leaning a little forward, showing excellent form as he uses his weight, slight as it is, to force his mouth farther down a blunt-tipped wooden cone that must already be challenging his tonsils. “Gag for the gain, Ballard,” I bawl, and see a flicker of pain pass across Miss Exiguous’s features; she will be reprimanded. The truth is that I play the hearty, horsey gamesmistress as much to amuse myself as to buck up the children.

And in the center of the room, there she is: Finster, as I live and breathe.

An unfortunate choice of expressions.

I have to restrain myself from plunging at her, for this is only a figment, I am pretty sure, a bit of the past propped up and put through its paces, though in admirable detail. See, for instance, how her hair, as didactically parted as all my girls’—as yours—is inching up into ripples despite the cruel tightness of the braids. A fine fuzz rises like a mist from the back of the neck.

Miss Exiguous is holding Finster before her by the upper arms and shaking her a little, her fingers sinking into the scanty flesh. The girl, forcing her arms away from her body despite the effort this must cost her, stares past Miss Exiguous at me—haughty, pugnacious, defiant. P-p-p-plosives explode. (Secretary, stet.) Miss Exiguous releases one arm, leaving behind her handprint in red, to pluck a handkerchief from her iron bodice and work it distastefully down her bosom, dabbing away the dots.

“What is it?” I demand. “Why this atmosphere of suppressed Schadenfreude, and why am I being subjected to what resembles a scene from a pantomime? Do let poor Finster go, Miss Exiguous.”

“Finster has been showing off,” says Miss Exiguous, reluctantly stepping back, “channeling rogues and foreigners to frighten the little ones. And now she has sent Mother Other’s cat to the land of the dead!”

It takes me a moment to understand what I am being told for this is a pretty advanced class of mischief and I am inclined to believe that someone has been making up stories. But when Mother Other assures me that she saw with her own eyes the dispatch of her cat I am not so much angry as proud that Finster’s skills are so far above grade level. But I put on a stern face.

“Finster, I must commend you for your precocious abilities,” I say, “while condemning the hubris and lack of discipline that tempted you to this wanton display. In dealings with the dead, we must never put aside caution. The dead are not always kind.” She gives me a quick mocking look. Have I said something funny? “You, a beginning student, have not had enough training to discriminate between malign and benevolent visitants, let alone to open a gateway to the land of the dead through which any sort of creature might blunder in or out! That is an experiment very likely to prove fatal, and you—and we,” I add sotto voce, with a glance at Mother Other, for this is no time to lose another student—“are very lucky that it was a cat and not yourself who went through it! You will repair to the dormitory immediately and sit quietly on your bed with your hands in your lap, reflecting on your foolhardiness, until the lunch bell is rung.” I hand her a cork. She inserts it, but again I see something ironical in the roll of her eye as she bobs a shabby curtsey and, shooed along by Miss Exiguous, departs. The saucy thing.

“What about my cat?” exclaims Mother Other.

“It will find its own way back, I expect,” I say, with a gesture that refers the tribe of cat to its own devices.

“But—”

“Winnifred. You cannot expect me to go haring off after a cat at a time like this.” For during the absorbing work of the morning I had not forgotten that all the while, somewhere not too far away, a [crackling] Regional School Inspector was [crackling] tightening his box tie, adjusting his cravat, smoothing his hair, donning his hat, picking up his scarred cane (its grip darkened by hair oil) and rapping it once on the floor, was exiting his small office, gliding down the gloomy stairs, was raising the crooked end of the stick to alert the cab driver already summoned by his amanuensis, was refusing assistance to hoist himself into his seat and attempting to conceal his surprise and dismay at the loss of the shiny brass button that his exertions had caused to shoot into the cab, was feeling for the button with the tip of his cane as the vehicle lurched into motion, was making a quick dart to investigate a rattling sound (his head disappearing from view), was rising red-faced and discomfited with nothing in his hand as the vehicle rattled past the last house on Main Street, was ducking again as the cab creaked and boomed over the old bridge across the Slow River, tan and smoothly swollen with recent rains, was cutting off a curse as the vehicle bounced over the gravel-filled ditch where erosion was carving the bank out from under the end of the bridge and he struck his head against the corner of his briefcase, which was slowly working its way off the edge of the slippery leather seat, was rising with the button clutched triumphantly in his hand and sitting back to watch with a sanguine expression as fields gave way to trees whose bare, black branches were made even gloomier by the gray sky and wisps of mist, was opening his palm to regard his prize with idle pleasure that turned to surprise and dismay as he beheld a button, yes, but the wrong button, cheap and tarnished, was casting it into the depths of the cab with a disgusted look, was disappearing again to root for a long time among pebbles, horsehairs, pine needles, and crumbs, finding and discarding again and again the wrong button, and once, the right button, not recognized as such, before giving up in disgust, as the cab turned off the main road between Cheesehill and Chesterfield onto the narrower road toward the Vocational School; that the cab was crossing the Slow River again and then again as it squiggled toward us down the ravine, then emerging onto fields with scattered brakes, skirting the frog pond, its jingle and creak startling the frogs into silence, except one, which continued yelling its slogan at regular intervals, passing through the gates and up the graveled drive, approaching the school, which came angling up like an ocean liner in the chill mist, was crunching to a stop, whereupon the [crackling] Regional School Inspector, taking hold of the door handle, and, not waiting for the cab driver, was forcing open the reluctant door, stepping down onto the gravel, and starting up the steps toward the front door.