Half Moon Investigations - Eoin Colfer [10]
‘I’m going to show you something, Fletcher. This is my personal ledger. In this book I keep a record of every single child that ever passed through St Jerome’s.’
The book looked about a hundred years old. I half expected dragons to fly out when she opened it. Each page was divided into rows, one per child. After each child’s name was a series of boxes, with a picture drawn in every one.
‘This is my own method of recording. It’s easy to review at a glance. I’m afraid you’ll be getting a general rowdiness picture today.’ She hauled several yellowed pages across, until she arrived at the current students.
‘Here we go. A fine crop of future world leaders.’
I suspected Mrs Quinn was being sarcastic, but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe she had more faith in us than we had in ourselves.
‘Look here. Lovely little May Devereux in fourth class. Never caused a day’s trouble in her life.’
May was April’s first cousin. Their fathers were brothers and joined at the hip, and so were their daughters, whether they liked it or not. They were even connected by their months of the year names, which their parents thought were impossibly cute. The school-yard grapevine had it that April was embarrassed that May wasn’t quite as pink as she should be.
‘Look at May’s pictures. An abacus, because she’s such a good little maths scholar. A pair of dancing shoes, because she danced in last year’s talent show. And an angel, because that’s what she is. Not many people have pictures like May Devereux.’
I was starting to get the picture. Pardon the pun.
‘Oh, I see,’ I said, pointing to another row of pictures. ‘There’s Dermot Carmody. There’s a picture of him sitting by the fire because he got a summer job in Riley’s Bakery.’
Mrs Quinn sighed, disappointed. ‘No, Fletcher, wake up, boy. Those are the flames of Hell. Dermot dropped out of school, so that’s where he’s headed. See the little horns?’
‘Aah,’ I said, holding on to the chair in case my legs decided to get up and run away.
Mrs Quinn pointed to another row of tiny pictures. ‘Here’s Red Sharkey. You see what his first picture is?’
I leaned in to see. In the box was a crude drawing of an agitated stick man. ‘General rowdiness,’ I guessed.
‘Well done, Fletcher. Top of the class. General rowdiness. That’s how it always starts. A harmless bit of play-acting. But before you know it, you’re on to the serious stuff, just like Red. Fighting, truancy, suspension.’
There was a picture for each crime. Suspension was wittily displayed by a lynched stick man.
‘And now on to Fletcher Moon. What do we have here? Only good things. Look a little bee…’
‘I won the spelling bee in first class.’
Mrs Quinn punched me playfully on the shoulder. I almost fell out of the baby chair.
‘Now you’re getting it, Fletcher. Who says you’re thick? And next we have a little magnifying glass. Because?’
Another easy one. ‘Because I was forced to… Because I volunteered to find your keys last year.’
Mrs Quinn dealt me another jokey blow. I felt my arm go numb. The principal selected a chubby stump of crayon from the pack and drew a general rowdiness stick man in my third box.
‘Now, Fletcher,’ she said sadly, ‘you are branded forever. Let’s hope that this is as far as it goes. I wouldn’t like to see you following the same pattern as Red.’
‘No, miss.’
‘We don’t want you ending up with the flames of hell, or in a little nee-naa.’
‘Police car?’
‘Spot on. It’s really quite a scientific system. I can read trends and predict behaviour. Sometimes I punish people in advance, because my little boxes tell me what they’re going to do.’
I felt it was time for a speech. ‘Don’t worry about Fletcher Moon, miss. I’ve learned my lesson. No more stick men for me.’
Mrs Quinn shut the ledger with a thump. ‘I hope not. Now off you go. You didn’t see who was next, did you? I do hope it’s a naughty child so I can really enjoy administering the punishment. I couldn’t bear another fallen angel.’
The feeling was returning to my arm. That feeling was pain.
‘I was the only one, unless someone arrived while I’ve been in here.