This story is the last one for the year. It does treat the main character in a more sensitive way, but she does develop a libido. By my
reckoning, since the beginning of 2020 and my first posting to BC, this is my one hundredth title.

Chapter 1

My very earliest memories were at home with my parents. Timothy, and Brenda Valerie. That was a time when I had my own small bedroom. My name is Thomas Francis Valerie, and my life, since those wonderful days, has been up and down like a yo-yo. My story would have to begin when my bedroom was a walk-in closet. I suppose that I could say that I was ‘In the Closet’ for part of my life.

When I was seven, a policewoman came to my school with a social worker, to tell me that both my parents were dead. They had created a chain of clothing and shoe shops, for both men and women, and had been at the main store when masked men rushed in. From what the policewoman told me, there had been some money stolen, but both my parents had been singled out and shot, making it seem that the murders were the main reason for the attack. It was classed as a robbery with violence and the case remained open for years.

As I start this story, ‘Valerie’s Boutique’ chain is run under administrators, pre-chosen by my father in case they died before I came of age. When I was taken out of school that day, the social worker took me to a refuge where I was housed for a few weeks while my future was decided. That decision saw me living with a family of strangers.

Horace and Betty Johnson had a small house in a new estate. They slept in one of the smaller bedrooms, while their daughter, Henrietta, slept in a smaller room. The master bedroom was where I slept on a bunk in the large closet, along with all the clothes I needed to use, much of my wardrobe still in the old family home at that time.

The main bed was occupied by the boarder, one Bancroft Carruthers. He was in his early thirties and quite a reasonable person. I had the idea that he was there to look out for me, as he often helped me with my homework, as well as taking me shopping should I need anything.

The Johnsons were absolutely no help at all. I even thought that they begrudged me the minimal food that Betty served. I expect that they were paid to put me up under some scheme or other. The only thing that they did offer was privacy, as long as I was out of their sight.

Henrietta, on the other hand, was always out to blame me for her own actions, grinning whenever I was told off. There was no violence, Bancroft made sure of that, sometimes with a stern look. Up to the time I reached my eleventh birthday, my world revolved around school and that strange hellhole. Horace was a bully, and Betty lived in the sixties. She loved plastic, with faux vinyl furniture with plastic antimacassars to stop greasy hair stains.

At school, I did well in both my lessons and my athletics. I was in the top ten in my final year, and in the top three in long distance and cross country running. I wasn’t tall and powerfully built but had enough muscles to get my smaller body to go faster than expected.

I fully expected to remain living with the Johnsons while going to the secondary school nearby. What did happen, however, was something that shifted my life in a way that I never saw coming.

It started with a letter for me. Bancroft had intercepted it before Henrietta had torn it up. I had been forced to tape previous messages together, but this was more important than anything I had received before.

It was from the Board of Longburrow College, telling me that a place had been arranged for me by my parents. The College was near Warwick. My complete tuition was fully paid, and I would be living there as a permanent boarder.

There was instruction on what I needed to take, and the bus I needed to catch. Bancroft helped my get all my things together and walked with me to the bus station. While we were waiting for the bus to arrive, I asked him what he was going to do now.

“You were always observant, Tom. What I do now is leave that house so that the Johnsons can continue with their miserable lives. I get four years’ worth of accrued holidays and then you might see me in Warwick. I know that you guessed that I was there to keep you safe. We don’t know why your parents were targeted, but it did put you into danger. There may be a relative who will get the business if you die. If there is, we don’t know who it could be, and it would take your death for them to show themselves. The company administrators thought that paying me was better than losing you.”

That remained with me as the bus took me towards Warwick. I wondered who may want me dead, and why. At the bus station there was a man with Longburrow on a sign. I went over to him and joined a half a dozen other children. While we were waiting for others to arrive, we introduced ourselves to each other. I found myself standing next to another boy. He had tears in his eyes and was trying hard not to blub.

I told him my name and he told me he was Charles Frances. The idea that we both had a woman’s surname was enough to break his sad mood. There was a couple of girls nearby who asked us what we were giggling about. He was hiccupping so badly that it was up to me to tell them about our surnames. They laughed and told us that they were Margaret James and Penelope Bruce. That broke the ice and we talked about how we ended up here. The three of them all had well-off parents who had attended the school.

When we got on the school bus, we sat together across the center aisle. I asked the others about the school as I had never heard of it before. That’s when I had to explain that my parents had died before telling me that I would be coming here. The others knew a bit about it, telling me that there were about four hundred in the school, with about eighty in each of the five years. It was reputed to be a place that never had a failure in the final exams.

I found out that the was in an old Officers Training School and that the school logo was a rabbit, with four houses. Mopsy was predominantly girls from the lower social strata, Flopsy was boys from a similar background. The two houses to be in were Doe and Buck, for girls and boys from the upper strata. It usually depended on what payment your parents had made for your place. Charles said that the houses weren’t strictly segregated and that there could be girls in the boys’ house and vice versa. That depended on what your future was likely to be in your family. I expect that it would lead to a targeted curriculum.

In that, my suspicions were correct. When we arrived, we were told to wait in line. Then we were marched to a hall, where there were two tables, one for boys and one for girls. Our line divided and we stood, in turn, in front of the table, our bags on the floor. When I was checked in, I was given an envelope with my class schedule and the school rules to read while we waited for term to begin. They had obviously staggered the first-year intake over several days.

The woman at the table told me to go to the woman on the right, at the end of the hall. When I got there, Margaret and Penelope were already standing with the woman, who introduced herself to me as I arrived.

“Hello, young man, welcome to Doe House, the best one in the school. My name is Gertrude Smithers and I’m your House Mistress. Any problems, come to me. Any trouble from you and I’m the one to hand out your punishment. Now join the girls.”

I went and stood with the other two, who welcomed me to the group. Ten minutes later, we were joined by Charles, looking a bit sheepish when he found out what house he was in. Penelope asked him what his parents did for a living, so he told us that they had a chain of beauty salons named after his mother, Beatrice. She then turned her attention to me, so I admitted that mine had established a chain of clothing shops. She laughed.

“Now we know why you’re both in Doe. You both are expected to be made ready to take over the businesses. I expect that when you look at your classes, there will be a lot that relate to female study, so that you can converse with your customers when you graduate. My folks told me that this school made sure that you would be perfect for your future, whether you liked it or not!”

“What do your parents do, Penelope?” I asked.

“Would you believe that they have a handicraft shop or two, where they sell fabrics, sewing machines and all the accessories. Margaret is destined to join hers in a wholesale fabric business. If we remain friends, we could find ourselves working with each other in the future.”

“Friends?”

“Of course. We all hit it off the moment we met. We can go into town as a foursome, and everyone will think we’re two couples and we’ll be well looked after. Shopkeepers love couples, they always spend more than they intended.”

The group was completed, and Miss Smithers led us through the school to a room where she told us to leave our schedule envelope on a desk. We were then taken to the living quarters and the girls were shown a dormitory with twenty beds. Me and three boys were taken up another set of stairs and shown a six-bed dorm with each bed having a side cupboard and a small wardrobe.

“This is your room, lads. I don’t need to tell you that being seen on the floor below after dark could lead to expulsion. There are some evenings when boys and girls get together, but mostly they stay down there, and you stay up here. Theres a large bathroom next door. Beyond that is the activity room, fully linked to the internet through a central computer in the office. That has a browsing filter, so no looking for porn. Beyond that is another bathroom and then the other boys dorm. There’s never more than a dozen of you in Doe at any one time. Most of the boys who come to this school have parents that have masculine businesses, like engineering, house building, and the like. You, my fine young lads, have the best world, with classes full of girls.”

We chose our beds and left our bags to be unpacked later. She led us back to the girls’ dorm where we collected them to go to the room where we had left our information. We were told to sit at the desks and Miss Smithers gave us the introductory lesson. It was mainly do’s and don’ts. In our pack was a map of the school and she had a large copy on an easel, pointing out all of the features that we should know.

The layout was quite simple. On one wing was the four classrooms each for first and second years, twenty to a room, along with shared classrooms for non-specific subjects, such as art and music. The centre of the building was the reception, the main hall that doubled as a theatre, and the gymnasium. Alongside that was the craft rooms and a teacher’s area, with day room and Headmasters’ rooms, as well as the library, dining room and kitchens. The floor above that was the girls dormitories, with the boys above that, and the teachers on the top floor. The other wing was the dozen classrooms for the upper school, along with science laboratories and a large computer training room.

We were told that every student had to attend gym and sporting activities. The grounds contained a swimming pool, a nine-hole golf course, tennis courts, an athletics area and, best for me, a cross-country running track which utilised the public park next to the school grounds. Then we were told to look at our class schedule.

I found that along with the usual maths, English, history, general science, art, music, and an elective language, I was going to be studying sewing, needlework, and dressmaking, with an elective of hairdressing or cosmetics. On top of that was the regular gym or athletic sessions and one other that made me look up. Miss Smithers waited until we were all looking at her.

“I can see that you have all seen the Magic Class. Don’t worry, we’re not going to teach you tricks or cast spells. This class is designed to let you communicate and cast a little magic around you. During the year, you will be taught how to talk to, and more importantly, listen to, others from babies to centenarians. We will organise visits to hospitals, old people’s homes, other schools, even bingo nights, so you can see how people live. This will allow you to have an edge over your contemporaries when you graduate and graduate you will!”

She then looked around at us and asked us in any of us ran. Penelope and I put our hands up.

“Right, you two. The running course that goes into the park has two solid gates that are opened on official running days only. This place came with a fantastic military fence around the boundary. Nobody gets in and no student can sneak out. For training out of the set times, you’ll have to use the running track. There’s one other thing that you haven’t asked about. We are bound, by law, to provide lessons on religious instruction. That will be the last class on every Wednesday, in the music room. Barry Fellows, one of the science teachers, is qualified to run it. If you want to register as another religion, or atheist, you will have to remain in whatever classroom you are in and do your homework.”

One of the other boys asked what we could do until the term started and she told us to explore the school, use the athletic facilities, play video games in the activity rooms, or just sleep it off. Term started the following Monday and there would be two more days of new students arriving before the weekend.

The four of us spent our first day walking the whole school to make sure we didn’t get lost. Most of our usual classes were in the one classroom where we would spend a lot of our first year. Penelope and I met early the next morning and ran the track. She was good, and I was sweating when we called a halt. We went to the separate change rooms. Showered and redressed, we went to the dining room for breakfast.

After breakfast, Charles and I went up to our dorm level and made use of the computers. He just played games, but I had something else in mind. At the Johnsons, I had no computer. I only learned my way around one at the primary school, in my last year. I knew enough to try to search for a specific person. In the primary there had been a few who had told me what to do, so I started my search with a sense of expectation.

I looked for Bancroft and it took five minutes to see a picture of him. I found out that he was a specialist protection officer, with his own business. When I looked at his client list, I realised that I was among a group of pop stars and sports people. It made me wonder how much the company had paid for his services, and I wondered why he hadn’t used one of his staff on a mere kid.

For the first time in my life, I looked for ‘Valerie’s Boutique’ and was shocked. My future was a company that ran twenty-five shops, all in big cities, with another six shops in France, Spain, and Italy. I also looked up the ‘Beatrice Beauty Salons’ and found that Charles would be joining his parents with fifteen salons, all around the London suburbs.

I also looked up the school and found that I was the latest in a good line of graduates that had made their mark. Most ex-students were in business, but a few had cut loose. There were a few band members and a few known artists. One had gone into drama and was an award-winning actor. I saw that Bancroft had been a student, leaving to join the Metropolitan Police.

On Saturday, I was called on the speakers to go to reception. When I got there, Bancroft was waiting for me, deep in conversation with Miss Smithers. He led me to the teachers day room and sat me down.

“Tom, I’ve got some alarming news. From what I’ve been told, the Johnsons had a visit from the social worker yesterday. They were given the final payment for looking after you, and I say that with sarcasm. They phoned in an order for a Chinese take-away. The delivery boy was found two streets away, unconscious. A neighbour has said that she saw the delivery made. The food was laced with a sleeping draught that took some time to work, and they all went to bed before they died. Around eleven, that night, a Molotov cocktail was thrown through the front window. All that plastic that Betty loved fed the fire and the place was well alight when the fire engines arrived. Unfortunately, for us, it was widely reported that there was only three victims, so you’re still in danger. It was an attempt on your life, I’m sure of it, because they couldn’t have known that you had come here.”

I sat for a few minutes while I took it all in.

“From what I’ve seen of this place, it would be very hard for anyone to get in and harm me. I’m only vulnerable if I’m outside. Why are you taking so much of your valuable time looking out for me?”

“Your parents were here when I was. I was in first year and your mother was in fourth year. Your father was in his final year. They found me, one day, in distress, and helped me through a tough time. I was on the beat in the area where their first shop opened, and I would drop in for a chat and a cuppa. One day, I held you as a baby, and you vomited on my uniform. As far as I’m concerned, Tom, you’re family.”

“Do I call you Uncle Bancroft?”

“No need, Tom. I’ll keep looking for whoever is going to great lengths to do you harm. We’ve done a thorough search of your parent’s family tree. Every person who you’re related to have good income in non-clothing work and have no need to get you out of the way. They’ve all been checked out for the time of your parents deaths and the arson last night.”

“So, I just carry on but watch my back.”

“That’s about it. You’re a brave and resilient lad, so you should just use this place of learning in the way it should be used. What you learn here will be with you until you die.”

He left me with the research into my family tree to look at, seeing that I knew nothing beyond my parents. I didn’t remember ever meeting any grandparents or other relatives. I took the papers into the library, sat in a quiet corner, and looked through them. The first thing I noticed was that both my parents had been born in Spain. My grandfather’s surname was Valeria and listed on the marriage certificate as a tailor. My father was the youngest of two boys and three girls. My mother’s maiden name was Sanchez. Both their families had moved to England to better themselves in the eighties and had stayed close.

The papers contained my parents’ marriage in England. My father was listed as Tiago Valeria, while my mother was Belinda Sanchez. They must have both changed their names by deed poll before I was born, I wondered why. Looking at my fathers’ siblings, I saw that only one of the girls was still alive, and fairly old.

My mothers’ side was odd. She was the youngest in the family and her older brother had a question mark against his date of death. He had been called Bastien. I went and spoke to the librarian, who was busy making sure things were in place for the start of term tomorrow. I asked her if the computers here could look up family records and newspaper articles.

She powered up a computer and put in a password, telling me that I should use this access wisely. I went into the family search site and looked up Bastien Sanchez with a guess of the year of his birth. I found his birth record but there was no death record. I then looked up the newspaper in Pontevedra, the town where they were born. In their archives, I searched for Bastien Sanchez and found an item from just before the families emigrated. It was, of course, in Spanish, but I realised that I had a smattering of that language from my earliest days. I remembered that my parents spoke Spanish at home, and my mother had taught me a basic knowledge. It all came flooding back as I looked at the screen and tears fell from my eyes as memories that I had kept under control came into my mind.

I sent the article to the printer. I had an idea of what it said but there were words that I’d need a dictionary to translate. The story was about a local teenager who had gone fishing with friends but didn’t return home. Bastien had been ‘a person of interest’ by both the Spanish and Portuguese police. I wondered if this was the person trying to kill me, he would have a good argument to take to the administrators. When I picked the print-out up, I told the librarian that I had finished with the computer. She saw the tears and asked me if I was all right.

When I told her that it was seeing a Spanish story that triggered memories of my younger days with my murdered mother, she sat me down and gave me a soft drink and a biscuit. I was sitting there when Miss Smithers came in and asked me to relate my story. She took a copy of the article.

“Tom, you clever boy. This might be what Bancroft was missing. He has contacts to get to the bottom of this and I’ll email this to him to look further. I expect that when you get asked what language elective you want to take, it will be Spanish.”

After that, I went and changed into my running outfit and pounded around the track until I could go no further. I was sitting on a bench when Penelope sat next to me.

“I looked out and saw you a while ago. There has to be a reason that you’ve almost killed yourself before you stopped.”

I told her the full story and she listened with growing amazement. When I told her what I had found, she hugged my sweaty body.

“Don’t worry, Tom. Maggie and I will look out for you. I would hate to lose a friend that I have so much to learn from. My life is tissue thin compared to yours, but I’ll be behind you, all the way.”

Marianne Gregory © 2024