Mystery at Silver Spires Read Free Page B

looking for Mr. Monk. My footsteps had taken me towards the shrubberies at the side of the lane that runs from the big Silver Spires gates right up to the beautiful, grand main building that stands in the centre of the school grounds. Its spires remind me of sparklers throwing glitter into the sky whenever the sun shines. I jumped as a squirrel appeared from nowhere and went skittering up a tree right at the back of one of the shrubberies. There are lots of squirrels around the Silver Spires grounds. I used to be fascinated by their speed and nimbleness but I’m used to them now and, anyway, we’re usually all so busy going about our own lives that we don’t notice much wildlife activity.
    I turned and walked back up the lane, then headed off towards the athletics field, passing the hazelnut tree outside Hazeldean. There are so many trees in the Silver Spires grounds – the weeping willow near Willowhaven, the line of beech trees curving round Beech House, and the tallest tree of all, the oak that towers over Oakley House. Elmhurst used to have an elm tree, but I’ve heard it got struck down by Dutch elm disease, and now they’ve got some lovely, shimmery silver birches instead. As for Forest Ash, we look out over a whole beautiful forest of ash trees just beyond the Silver Spires boundary.
    I’m hopeless! I’d got completely distracted again from my search for Mr. Monk. But if he was here, he was bound to be working outside on such a lovely day, so perhaps I would find him at the athletics field. Or perhaps he’d be nearby at Pets’ Place, where a few of the Year Sevens and Eights keep guinea pigs and rabbits that they’ve brought to school with them. Although the girls are responsible for their own pets, Mr. Monk sort of supervises the whole area.
    None of the girls in my dorm have got any pets at Silver Spires, though I must admit, when I was homesick last September I did think it would have been comforting to have a furry friend to look after. My little half-brother, Adam, has two guinea pigs that live in the shed at home, and I often clean them out to help Anna, but I don’t really feel as though they’re mine. We joke that we share a cat called Fellini with the people who live next door to us, because he’s always coming round to our house and Anna can’t resist giving him titbits. He doesn’t seem very grateful for them though, because once he’s eaten he just wanders off and won’t let anyone except Adam touch him. Adam scoops him up and leaves his back legs trailing, which doesn’t seem to bother Fellini, strangely. I don’t have anything like the same feelings for Fellini that I had for Lana. He’s so different from her that he might as well be another species altogether.
    I was deep in thought as I walked past the Pets’ Place shed, which is about ten times bigger than the one we have at home. “Hi!” someone said, and I jumped round to see a Year Eight girl called Katy. She was in the middle of the big grassy area, where there are runs for the pets to roam around and graze, holding her rabbit. “Sorry, can you do me a favour…?”
    â€œYes, of course,” I said.
    She was standing beside a hutch that had a small run attached to it. “The catch seems to be stuck. It’s kind of jammed and I can’t undo it without putting Buddy down and if I put him down he’ll scamper off…”
    I quickly bent down and fiddled with the catch until I got it to move. Then I opened the door for Katy to put her rabbit inside.
    â€œThanks…it’s Bryony, isn’t it?”
    I nodded. “It must be nice having a pet here.”
    She smiled. “Yeah… It really helped me with the homesickness, when I first came here, having something familiar with me that I could look after. Even before I joined it made the school seem less scary – you know, coming away to board and all