Ribblestrop by Andy Mulligan Page B

trained: some kind of martial artist, she imagined. Next time she would find an appropriate weapon.
    Comforting herself with this thought, Millie stood up. It was dinnertime after all, and time to find again the bomb site that the strange cook had called a dining hall. She descended the main staircase and set off along one of the school’s many long, poorly lit corridors.
    Everybody makes mistakes, particularly in new surroundings. Millie had never mastered her left and her right and she should have taken the first turning. That would have brought her to the steps down to the hall. A right turn would have brought her into the yard, and there she would have been in time for the headmaster’s speech. Alas, Millie went straight on and turned left at the end of the passage. There was no right turn to be seen, so she continued, past a suit of armor without a head. Someone had lit a candle at the far end, which seemed promising—so she pressed on, knowing that soon she’d spot something familiar. At the end of the passage, she came to a landing of some kind, with anotherstaircase down. This would lead to the kitchens, she thought: the place she’d first met Captain Routon when they repaired Sam.
    Down she went.
    â€œHello?” she cried. She was a confident girl.
    Left turn into what she thought would be the kitchen’s preparation area. Something rang a bell: she could see a chair that looked familiar. Right turn, toward a glow of light—a couple of right-angle turns that didn’t seem likely, but now she’d come so far she’d soon bump into someone. Left, then right through an unlocked grille she’d definitely never seen before. A staircase down: not the way, but she heard some footsteps, so that suggested a human presence. She hurried down them and found herself in a narrow passage. No carpet anymore, no boards even: the floor was stone flags. She knew she must be well under the mansion, in deep cellars. They would—they should—link up with the kitchen . . .
    â€œHello?” she called, again. “Can someone answer, please?”
    A very dead sound; a rather damp sound. In the distance, she could hear singing. It was low and mournful, like the chanting of monks. Even as she listened it stopped.
    In her mind she was thinking, This school is a madhouse. Only in a place like this could you get so stupidly lost in a few minutes  . . .
    â€œIs anyone there?” she yelled.
    Then she listened to the silence. Somewhere far off she heard a key turning in a lock, then—possibly—the shooting of a bolt. They weren’t comforting sounds.
    Millie turned around nervously and tried to find her way back. But after a few minutes the ground sloped away downward and she knew it was hopeless. She lit Mr. Sanchez’s silver cigarette lighter and inspected the sandy floor.
    There were bootprints pacing away downhill. She followed them. An iron gate stood on the left, all bars and chain; through the gate she could see empty wine racks. Opposite was an archway, with a broken door that stood open. Either side, soaring up high into the gloom, were marble shelves. It was a cold andclammy place, and Millie inspected it with her lighter. True, it felt like a tomb—but it wasn’t one. There were no headstones or bodies and the smell was only a little bit musty. She worked hard at logic, forcing herself to be calm: this was simply a larder, surely, where cold cheese and meat would be stored. Wine store, cheese store. Everything has its place, and she was simply in the kitchen cellars of a huge house where years ago they’d had dinners for a hundred guests. They would have had food and booze to last half a year . . . and they would also have staircases to get you back to the kitchens quickly, so Millie walked on, confident that in a short time she’d find those stairs.
    It was the white rabbit that alerted her to the possibility that things