'This is the twelfth -'the headmaster glances up from his notes - no , let me correct that - the 13th time you have been in trouble this term , Agatha .'
We are sitting in his office , the air sticky, and that's not just because of the heatwave outside.
I look down at the floor. It's true ,and I don't know what to say.
Dr Hargrave (Ronald Hargrave OBE ,BPhil,Med) likes to fill silences . He is very good at that , and it's best to wait until he's done. He isn't a doctor , as you and I think of them,but he likes to be called one.He has five liver spots in the shape of the constellation Cassiopeia on his forehead ,and a steely glare, which I would say is a 4B on the eye colour chart I have hanging in my bedroom.
He reads from his list :
'one - you were found hiding in the ceiling space above the chemistry labs , because you believed Mr Stamp was stealing sulphuric acid to sell on eBay .'
This really happened - he was - but without evidence I had to drop my investigation. Plus , Dad grounded me .
' Two - you tried to miss lessons by convincing the groundskeeper that you were an apprentice tree surgeon who needed to scale a tree near the boundary wall....and just so you could get out of school...'
I zone out. I' ve always found this easy - like switching channels on TV . If I want to watch something more interesting ,I just imagine it . I call it my ' change channel ' mechanism.
The headmaster's desk is very shiny and if I look down I can see my own reflection in the caramel - coloured wood. I am wearing my red beret - Dr Hargrave hasn't even started lecturing me on this breach of uniform rules yet. My bob - cut hair frames my face , and my eyebrows are knitted together as though concentrating on his lecture. And ,just like that, my reflection shimmers shifts and becomes something else. A small man in a hat and a bow tie looks back up at me . Smoothing out his moustache , he steps out of the desk ,hops neatly to the floor and stands behind the headmaster.
' How long do you think le docteur Hargrave will go on this time ?' he asks in a soft Belgium accent .
I zone back in to hear what my headmaster is saying now ....
'four - you installed a listening device in the wall of the staffroom ...' - and then I glance back to where Hercule Poirot , famous detective , is looking at the clock .
' Your headmaster has already been talking for twenty - two minutes.' Poirot raises an eyebrow , as though daring me to do something about it. ' He might break his record of twenty - seven , no ? '
Actually , I reckon the headmaster is almost done - his stomach just rumbled ,and it's long after lunchtime. My eyes flicker around the room , details lighting up my mind like a pinball machine .