Read Online The Boy in the Smoke by Maureen Johnson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Maureen Johnson
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description.”
Stephen rubbed at his forehead. The day had been far too long.
“You would be in charge of the immediate workings of the group,” Thorpe said. “You’d have to be, as I can’t do what you do. But I would be your supervisor within MI5. I’d help you get access to recourses.”
Stephen went to the balustrade and took a few deep breaths of Thames breeze, with its peculiar odour of salty ocean and rubbish. If this was a trick, who was playing it? To what end?
What if it was all true?
There had to be a way to know. And then it hit him.
“I want proof,” Stephen said.
“What kind of proof?”
“I need to access records from Eton,” Stephen said. “All files on students coming in … ”
Best to give a range, not allow for any clues as to what he had seen. He had no idea what year Peter had entered the school, but twentieth century seemed a good enough window to start with. He certainly wasn’t from a recent time.
“Everyone entering between 1900 and 1970. Complete files.”
“And this would assure you that what you saw was real?”
“I want to see those files,” Stephen said.
“It would be quite a lot of files.”
“I don’t care.”
Thorpe nodded.
“I’ll see what I can do. Until then … the car will return you to the hospital. I will be in touch.”
Stephen woke up the next morning to the sound of knocking, the sun pouring on to his bed from the curtains he’d forgotten to close the night before. A nurse carefully opened his door.
“Mr. Dene? Stephen? Are you awake?”
She put a new schedule in the frame by the door. The same round as before, with the usual variations. Today he had a choice between kite flying and learning about the spices that go into various curries of the world. He rubbed his eyes, wondered what the hell he had been doing the night before. He was in a hospital, and hours before he had been taking out a child ghost and meeting with MI5.
He decided to go with the kite flying, and left his room in a daze. He ate a not-at-all-bad full English in a daze, looking around at his fellow patients. As he was leaving to go to the first therapy session of the day, a nurse approached.
“Something for you,” she said. “I was told to give it to you and tell you that you should probably go back to your room to open it. Your first session has been moved by an hour.”
She looked puzzled, even slightly disturbed, as if this was not something that usually happened and therefore could not possibly be good. She handed him a large padded envelope that contained a flat, rectangular object. A tablet computer, from the feel of it.
He returned to his room and shut the door. The envelope did, indeed, contain a tablet computer. It had no password to unlock. There was only one icon on the home screen, and it was of a folder labelled REQUESTED FILES. When Stephen clicked this, he found a long string of sub-folders, each one labelled with a year, 1900–1970, just as he had asked.
“You did that fast,” Stephen said to himself.
Someone had spent a lot of time doing this. It appeared that every single page had been hand-scanned, then organized. The names were alphabetized by last name, and he had no idea what Peter’s last name was, but searched the name.
A lot of Peters entered Eton in the twentieth century.
But he had another name—Simmons. Once he entered that, it limited the results to sixteen yearly files. He scanned these, reading the file for every Peter he found. The files contained home information, information on parents, divs taken and marks scored. It was all very familiar.
It took an hour, but he finally found something on his fifteenth Peter.
Maxwell Lemington Addison, Peter Edward
(
Hon
.). Entered Eton 1946, but his file ended in 1949.
Three years, Peter had said. Three years of looking at Simmons. And there was a Simmons in the 1946 class. Stephen flicked through the pages of divs and grades and notes on Peter, finally coming to Lent term,
Stephen rubbed at his forehead. The day had been far too long.
“You would be in charge of the immediate workings of the group,” Thorpe said. “You’d have to be, as I can’t do what you do. But I would be your supervisor within MI5. I’d help you get access to recourses.”
Stephen went to the balustrade and took a few deep breaths of Thames breeze, with its peculiar odour of salty ocean and rubbish. If this was a trick, who was playing it? To what end?
What if it was all true?
There had to be a way to know. And then it hit him.
“I want proof,” Stephen said.
“What kind of proof?”
“I need to access records from Eton,” Stephen said. “All files on students coming in … ”
Best to give a range, not allow for any clues as to what he had seen. He had no idea what year Peter had entered the school, but twentieth century seemed a good enough window to start with. He certainly wasn’t from a recent time.
“Everyone entering between 1900 and 1970. Complete files.”
“And this would assure you that what you saw was real?”
“I want to see those files,” Stephen said.
“It would be quite a lot of files.”
“I don’t care.”
Thorpe nodded.
“I’ll see what I can do. Until then … the car will return you to the hospital. I will be in touch.”
Stephen woke up the next morning to the sound of knocking, the sun pouring on to his bed from the curtains he’d forgotten to close the night before. A nurse carefully opened his door.
“Mr. Dene? Stephen? Are you awake?”
She put a new schedule in the frame by the door. The same round as before, with the usual variations. Today he had a choice between kite flying and learning about the spices that go into various curries of the world. He rubbed his eyes, wondered what the hell he had been doing the night before. He was in a hospital, and hours before he had been taking out a child ghost and meeting with MI5.
He decided to go with the kite flying, and left his room in a daze. He ate a not-at-all-bad full English in a daze, looking around at his fellow patients. As he was leaving to go to the first therapy session of the day, a nurse approached.
“Something for you,” she said. “I was told to give it to you and tell you that you should probably go back to your room to open it. Your first session has been moved by an hour.”
She looked puzzled, even slightly disturbed, as if this was not something that usually happened and therefore could not possibly be good. She handed him a large padded envelope that contained a flat, rectangular object. A tablet computer, from the feel of it.
He returned to his room and shut the door. The envelope did, indeed, contain a tablet computer. It had no password to unlock. There was only one icon on the home screen, and it was of a folder labelled REQUESTED FILES. When Stephen clicked this, he found a long string of sub-folders, each one labelled with a year, 1900–1970, just as he had asked.
“You did that fast,” Stephen said to himself.
Someone had spent a lot of time doing this. It appeared that every single page had been hand-scanned, then organized. The names were alphabetized by last name, and he had no idea what Peter’s last name was, but searched the name.
A lot of Peters entered Eton in the twentieth century.
But he had another name—Simmons. Once he entered that, it limited the results to sixteen yearly files. He scanned these, reading the file for every Peter he found. The files contained home information, information on parents, divs taken and marks scored. It was all very familiar.
It took an hour, but he finally found something on his fifteenth Peter.
Maxwell Lemington Addison, Peter Edward
(
Hon
.). Entered Eton 1946, but his file ended in 1949.
Three years, Peter had said. Three years of looking at Simmons. And there was a Simmons in the 1946 class. Stephen flicked through the pages of divs and grades and notes on Peter, finally coming to Lent term,
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