Ribblestrop Read Free Page A

angry-looking businessman leaned from his seat. “Don’t play with the doors! Sit down!”
    â€œI can’t really. I’m—”
    â€œYou boys are a blessed nuisance. Up and down, up and down!”
    Sam shoved the door back as hard as he could and staggered out of the carriage. A train conductor was heaving his way through, looking haggard. Sam’s “Excuse me” was lost as the big man wrenched open the door. Then there was a clatter of points and Sam was thrown forward, catching his forehead on the luggage shelves. His friend was way down the far end of the next carriage, so Sam hobbled after him, realizing that had this happened a few hours ago, he would have undoubtedly started to cry. Perhaps he was growing up already, he wondered, just as his father had promised. Perhaps he was a man and was responding to burns and blows the way a man would do. Double vision was the price you paid.
    When he caught up with Ruskin, the boy seemed at a loss: he was staring at a passenger, in a trancelike state. At length, he managed two words: “I say . . .”
    Sam saw a blurred version of what Ruskin was looking at. Sitting in a seat was another child, in the identical black-and-gold stripes of their own uniforms. But this child was slumped low, with its feet on the empty seat opposite, and was listening to music through headphones. It was unaware it had an audience; it was gazing at the scrubland of outer London. This was just as well: Ruskin’s scrutiny had gone on now for a full minute. The child’s head nodded to the beat of the music; its mouth was chewing. Ruskin seemed dazed.
    â€œOh my word,” he finally said.
    â€œWhat?” said Sam. “What’s the matter?”
    â€œLook at this.”
    The child in the seat turned at last. A frown spread instantly across its features.
    â€œWhat?” it said. Aggressive. Confident.
    â€œHello,” said Ruskin.
    The child clicked off its music and yanked the earphones out of its ears.
    â€œWhy are you staring at me? What do you want?”
    â€œI’m so sorry,” said Ruskin. Apologies seemed to tumble out of his mouth. “I didn’t mean to stare, it’s just we saw your . . . blazer. We thought—I thought—I’m so sorry, I thought you were Ribblestrop.”
    The child’s frown turned to confusion. “What are you talking about?”
    â€œSame colors, everything. From the other end, you see, you looked like you were on your way to Ribblestrop Towers, my school, but—”
    â€œI am,” said the child. “I think. Don’t say you’re there as well.”
    â€œI’m a second year,” whispered Ruskin.
    â€œI’m new,” said Sam, over Ruskin’s shoulder.
    The child’s eyes flickered back and forth as if it were watching fast tennis.
    â€œLook, I don’t mean to be rude,” said Ruskin. “I don’t mean to be rude at all. But . . . you’re a girl, aren’t you?”
    The child’s face scrunched into a wizened glare. Her hair, brushed hard back from her forehead and ears, was drawn into a short plait. She’d put on a little lipstick. There was just a hint of glittery eye shadow as well, on her eyelids. A jewel gleamed in the left earlobe and there was a ring on one finger. Ruskin was looking at her legs, half hidden by the table but still stretched up onto the opposite seat. They were covered to the knee by shorts, and this was confusing.
    â€œI mean, you are a girl. You’re a girl, and Ribblestrop’s a boys’ school,” he said. “Well, it was,” he added, weakly.
    â€œAre you seriously telling me you go to it?”
    â€œIt’s a boys’ school,” said Ruskin, faintly. The girl had a rather gravelly voice. Her cheeks were ghostly pale and striking because of sharp cheekbones. “But it can’t be. I suppose it isn’t. What I mean is,