Llewellyn - Abbot Daggers Academy and the Quest for the Holy Grail

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First published 2008
1

Text copyright Sam Llewellyn, 2008
All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition
that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise
circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than
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978-0-14-191186-1

For the great John Wells,
who taught me French

Welcome to the Badlands.

The Badlands is a nasty place, full of nasty animals. There are woewolves, whose bite is certain blood poisoning. There are blunderbuffaloes, tenton carnivorous giants that will sit on you as soon as look at you and eat you when they get up. There is all kinds of bad stuff.

Across the Badlands there slants a valley: a deep, wild valley with a black river writhing along its green bottom, reflecting just at the moment bloody lights from a storm-wrecked sunset.

In a loop of the river stand buildings: a tower, a cloister and a sprawl of others, set among muddy fields spiked with goalposts. Lights burn in pointed windows, and a cold wind wails in the gargoyles on the tower. It looks like a school. A school is what it is: a boarding school, in fact.

Its ancient buildings are rambling and crumbling. Its modern buildings are stark and vile. For hundreds of years, they have been crammed with children who did not fit in anywhere else. There were ordinary non-fitter-ins, called Skoolies. And there were rather more brilliant ones, called Skolars. They were all somewhat special, in their ways.

For example:

Swami Barmi was a Skoolie, and nobody made any remarks about him floating around in mid-air during lessons. El Vulpo, later the terrible Dictator of Nananagua, was a Skoolie too, Captain of Footbrawl, and nobody found him all that tough. And Professor Igor Startoff, when he was a Skolar, converted the Skool central heating to atomic power without anyone thinking he was anything special.

Basically, Abbot Daggers is a Skool for children so weird or so bad or so just plain brilliant that they need to be taken far from civilization and fenced in by a river in front (there is one of them) and a cliff behind (there is one of them too). Abbot Daggers Academy for the Errant Children of the Absent, its staff call it. Its pupils call it Bad Skool, or just Skool.

So here we are. At the beginning of a story, at the beginning of the autumn term

Hang on.

Up in the Badlands the animals suddenly stop eating each other and cock their loathsome heads as if listening. They are indeed listening, but to thoughts, not words. Woewolves howl and clash their greenish fangs. Blunderbuffaloes twitch their bucket-sized nostrils as if scenting blood. They listen closely to what seems to be a summons. Then they lick their awful teeth and lope towards the Edge, where the road leaves the Badlands and plunges into the valley, heading straight as an arrow for the drawbridge that is the only access to the Skool.

Interesting, the animals seem to be thinking.

Trouble. Lots of it.

Yum yum.

What very interesting children these do sound! said Solomon Temple, vague, lovable Headmaster of Abbot Daggers Academy.

I hate interesting children, sss, said Dr Cosm, severe, grim Head of Behaviour and Physics. Give me the report cards. Let us see them in cold print.

Say please, said the Headmaster, shocked.

Cosm fixed him with a cold and jellied eye. No, he said, and reached out a wet white hand, and pulled the cards towards him.

ROSETTI SVENSON

Age: 12

IQ: 170

Star sign: Pisces

Background: Parents international art thieves. Father has worked as a painter and lion tamer. Mother was principal dancer with the Mariinsky Ballet, then proprietor, Mrs Svensons Performing Hyenas, and the Svenson Gallery, Swish Street, Mayfair. Present whereabouts of parents unknown. No brothers or sisters. Educated in the capitals of Europe and at nineteen schools.

Talents: Drawing, English, running, Communication with People and Animals.

Crimes: Lack of respect for Authority. Use of animal languages to overthrow order and discipline. An enthusiastic prankster, inventor of the Electric Apple-Pie Bed and the Whitewash Milkshake.

Regime: Award Skolarship. Watch closely.

OWEN FRENCH

Age: 12

IQ: 230 (machine broke)

Star sign: Virgo

Background: Parents run the Post Office, Lesser Twittering, Hampshire. Seeking the best for their child they handed him over to the police on his eighth birthday.

The police handed him back two days later, claiming that he had beaten them all at chess and poker and they could not stand him one minute longer. No known emotions. Twenty-three schools.

Talents: Mathematics, card games, Chess Grand Master, mechanical genius.

Crimes: Lack of respect for Authority in cases where he thinks Authority is not being logical. Blind obedience to Authority (the command Blow up some balloons resulted in an explosion that totally wrecked St Wids Primary, Stromforth).

Regime: Award Skolarship. Watch closely.

ONYX KEENE

Age: 11 15/16 ths

IQ: Machine was mended but broke again

Star sign: Twinkly

Background: Parents university lecturers engaged in research into Ancient Pomeranian civilizations, early languages and the Theory of Everything. They are wrapped up in their work. This caused Onyx to learn twenty-eight extra languages in the hope that her parents would agree to talk to her in one of them.