Midwinter Nightingale by Joan Aiken Page B

heard a key turn in the lock.
    “Oh, consarn it!” said Dido angrily. She felt really hard done by.
    She had come back to England after a well-earned holiday visit to old friends in Nantucket, anticipating, or at least hoping for, an affectionate greeting from her friends Simon and Sophie Battersea and some sort of 'welcome from her sisters Penny and Is. She certainly had not expected to be kidnapped, deprived of food for twelve hours and flung into a cold damp prison.
    “Pigs!” she muttered. Then, because Dido would never let herself be overborne, even by the most dismally unpromising circumstances, she struggled to her feet and looked about her.
    There was nothing much to look at.
    It was just not dark indoors. Out the window she could see a huge courtyard, paved with gravel, enclosed by the four wings of the house, which must be as big as a palace. Surprisingly, the yard contained two football pitches, with goals. No one was playing football. Two or three windows had lights in them. Most were dark.
    Is this place a prison? Dido wondered. It sure isn't anybody's happy home.
    Turning to inspect the small room into which she had been thrown, Dido received a shock. There was very little furniture—a table, a chair, and a box. Under the table something moved. A dog? A cat? A person?
    Dido was reluctant to feel under the table with her bound hands; she did not want them bitten as well as bound. Instead she shoved the table, which was quite small, with her hip, to expose whatever was lurking underneath.
    A pitiful voice said, “Oh …don't hurt me!
Please!”
    Astonished, Dido said, “Who the pize are you? Are you human?”
    There was a long silence while the voice reflected. Then it said, “Once I was.”
    “What do you mean?” Dido demanded. “What is this place?”
    “It's a school. Fogrum Hall. Or,” the voice said doubtfully, “it
was
a school. I dunno quite what it is now.”
    “Who runs it?”
    The voice seemed doubtful about this too. After another long pause—“It was Dr. Pentecost. But he left after Lot burned his book.”
    “Lot? Who's that?” The name Lot seemed faintly familiar.
    “Lot Rudh. His mum was Queen Adelaide.”
    “Oh, that feller, I know. But his dad wasn't the king— was he?”
    “No. Hush, though! You better not speak about him too loud.”
    “Why?”
    “He owns this place now.”
    “Lot Rudh does? But he's only a boy. He can't own a school.”
    “He does. His dad came out of prison and bought it for him.”
    “His dad?”
    “Baron Magnus Rudh. Don't speak so
loud!”
the voice breathed.
    “Oh, croopus,” said Dido. Again she remembered the archbishop saying, “… another most evil person, unfriend to our king …”
    “How could a person come out of prison and buy a school?”
    “He owned a gold mine in Midsylvania. Hush!”
    “Blimey.”
    If the baron owned a gold mine, thought Dido, why was he put in prison? Better not ask about that, perhaps. Instead she said, “What's your name?”
    “They call me the Woodlouse.”
    “Why? Who call you that?”
    “Lot started it. Because I curl up in a ball when he hits me.”
    “He hits you? Why?”
    “See, I'm his servant. In the school, big boys had smaller boys for their servants. Lot has me. And when he doesn't like the way I make his toast or polish his boots, he hits me. Very hard sometimes. Once he slammed the door on my fingers. On purpose. Once he burned my face with a red-hot toasting fork. You can see the marks.”
    “Why didn't you tell the boss? Doc Pentecost?”
    “Then I'd only get it worse from Lot. Much worse.”
    “Why don't you get your dad and mum to take you away?”
    “How can I? My dad is the governor of New Galloway. That's south of New Cumbria. A letter takes three months to get there.”
    “I'd run off,” Dido said.
    “You can't. The moat is full of tiger pike. And alligators. They'd gnaw you to bones before you could swim to the other side. They pull up the bridge at night. Besides, where'd