Campion's Choice

Cambridge is big enough to be interesting but small enough to be cosy. Jack loved the Fitzwilliam Museum. He glanced up at its Greek columns as he strode down the street and dodged a crocodile of tourists. He loved the river and, as he came close to Cancellarius College, he knew that the Cam ran along the back of their college grounds.

At the Porter’s lodge he collected his thoughts. You couldn’t see Cancellarius from the road because the college buildings were hidden, partly by a high wall and then by a row of ancient yew trees. A small gatehouse stood proudly in the middle of the red brick wall. Jack stepped up to the oak door and pushed it open.

The Porters’ Lodge was a dark and shadowy place. Jack stood under the gloomy archway and peered ahead. Bathed in sunlight, at the end of two wide square lawns, stood Cancellarius College.

‘Can we help you, sir?’ a voice in the gloom boomed.

Jack turned his head and saw a large round face floating in a small window.

‘I’d like to see Miss Glenster.’

‘Certainly, sir. Would you mind stepping into The Hole?’

‘Sorry?’

‘It’s what we call the Porters’ Lodge, sir. The Hole. Step this way.’

Jack stepped out of the archway into a wood panelled room.

‘Stranger for Miss Glenster!’ the voice bellowed.

The call seemed to echo through several rooms and be repeated again and again, in different voices. The echoes died away and, as Jack waited, he glanced around The Hole taking in all the fixtures and fittings. There were at least six notice boards and the walls were covered in pigeonholes for letters. There were posters, a three feet wide wooden clock, a narrow, mahogany desk and a row of empty coat pegs.

‘How can I help you, young sir?’ a gravelly voice asked. Jack turned to meet Glenster, a woman who looked like something out of ‘Oliver Twist’. She had short curly hair, red cheeks, and a stomach that rolled when she moved. She wore a large purple waistcoat that barely stopped her belly from bursting free.

‘Um … Mrs Stanhope told me to ask for you. I’m Jack Campion.’

‘Ah, Jack! Yes, yes. Pleased to meet you. Your father was an Old Canner! Brendan Geoffrey Ronald Campion, if my memory serves me right. I remember him well. Whippet of a boy. Thin as a rake. Wonderful winger. He roomed in the East Cloister. Good to meet his son, sir. Hopefully one day we’ll have the pleasure of seeing the next generation of Campions grace the ancient halls. Perhaps you would care to wait for Professor Stanhope in the Library? It has a lovely view of the river at this time of year. A lovely place to watch the Japanese tourists sinking. Very relaxing,’ Glenster rumbled.

‘Er … the Library would be fine.’

‘Good. Good. Good. And I would be very happy sir, to supply you with the Black and the Gold.’

Glenster twinkled on small feet over to a large wooden cabinet and delicately pulled out a black silk scarf with shiny yellow tassels.

’This is for Strangers, sir. Canners people wears just the Black .. except for ‘All Strangers Night’.’

‘Er .. okay,’ Jack said, draping the scarf around his neck.

‘I’ll inform the Master and, no doubt, Professor Stanhope will be with us shortly. If sir will follow me, this way, through the Quad.’

Whilst parts of Cancellarius College were built nearly eight hundred years ago, the present structure mainly dates from 1620. The building was sometimes called ‘The Old Duchy’ because it was built in the Dutch style. There were two wings, called the ‘cloisters’ where the students stayed in term times, a golden brick Master’s Lodge, a small Jacobean theatre and a magnificent library designed by Hawksmoor.

Jack followed Glenster into the Quad, along a gravel path between two beautifully manicured lawns. On each side of the Quad there were seventy-two lead lined windows belonging to the ‘cloisters’. These windows were thrown open to catch even the slightest summer breeze.

They crossed a dry moat bridge where two stone wolves seemed to grimace at the sound of feet echoing on the flagstones. Glenster stopped. With barely a touch the wide wooden door of the Library rolled open.

‘Sherry to Professor Prosser! Noises in Thirty-Six!’ Glenster barked.

A man, in a bright red waistcoat, popped out of the shadows, nodded to the woman, touched his right eyebrow and scurried off.

After climbing a giant staircase and walking down a seemingly never-ending wood panelled corridor they finally arrived at a pointed doorway.

‘The Library, sir. Miles from all the other rooms. Good place for a private chat.’

The double doors squeaked open and Jack’s eyes popped at the sight. The room was the length, and size, of a large public swimming pool. It was stuffed from floor to ceiling with books.

‘If sir would care to sit in the bay window I’m sure he would find it amusing to watch fools having fun.’

Glenster made a strange jerking movement, which Jack took to be a little bow. The large lady turned and sailed off to ensure the continued smooth running of Cancellarius College.

Ursula arrived one minute later.

She hovered beside an ancient tapestry, its red gemstones glittering against the fabric.

’You’ll notice rubies all over the college. They’re everywhere. There’s an old saying, ‘Red before the inferno’. They’re supposed to protect us but no one knows how. Would you like to stay in here? Or perhaps take tea in the Fellows’ Garden?’ she asked politely.

’Here is good. It’s cool. I mean, really cool as in, it’s not hot, not cool as in cool.’ By the end of the sentence Jack felt decidedly foolish.

‘Is everything okay?’ Ursula looked worried.

‘I had to talk to you.’

‘Fine.’

‘Er … you see … I’m worried about the coin … because more strange things happened at school … and I’ve been reading this book,’ Jack stammered. Ursula interrupted him by reaching to pull on a long ribbon of patterned silk that hung from the ceiling.

‘I’m ordering tea,’ she said and added, ‘would the book, by any chance, be called ’Take the coins, take the Earth - Aliens all around us’?’

‘Yes.’

They sat quietly together for a moment, the peace broken only occasionally by shouts from students below crashing punts on the river.

‘Well I have a couple of questions …’ Jack began but stopped. These had to be the stupidest questions ever asked.

‘Er … are you an… alien and … er … are aliens everywhere?’

‘Hmmmm. Yes, I am an alien but no, I don’t think we are all over the world. Actually I like to think of myself as more English than alien. Sort of dual nationality.’

Ursula Stanhope beamed as she carefully poured two cups of golden brown tea.

Down below a couple of punts wedged themselves under a bridge. Jack listened to the sound of people yelling and poles clashing.

‘Where are you from?’ he asked.

‘Hmmm…’

When Ursula hesitated he jumped up. He had to move about. The trouble was that he banged into the small table and sent the teapot flying. It landed, in a smashed heap, at the foot of a bookcase.

‘I’m sorry,’ Jack apologised. He began to search for pieces of teapot that were scattered across the oak floorboards.

‘Allow me,’ Ursula said and she crouched over the breakages. Miraculously the pot and spilt liquid were drawn together as if by magnetism until Ursula stood up holding a perfectly undamaged teapot.

‘There.’

Jack shook his head in amazement.

‘Can all you aliens do things like that?’ he said pointing to the teapot.

‘Yes.’

‘Wow. Er … how long have you lot been here?’

‘We’ve been here for over two thousand years.’

’Are there loads of you?

‘No. Many were lost at the time of the Corregia …’

‘The what?’

’The Corregia? The Nomas were nearly wiped out. We barely survived. We have a saying, ‘We put chaos back in the box’. No one really knows what it means. It’s very complicated.’

‘Okay. Let’s keep it simple. Do you have a name? I mean you’re not Martian’s are you?’

‘No. We are the Nomas.’

‘What?’

‘The Nomas. One day I’ll try to explain what it means.’

‘Are the other people, in The Orden, Klaus, Elvis, Rashpal. Aubon are they also er … what do you call them … Nomas?’

‘No. The Nomas were once helped by a small group of people in Greece after the meteorite….’

‘What meteorite?’

‘The coins come from the meteorite.’

Jack felt like screaming. He came to Cancellarius to make things better. Ursula’s answers were just making things worse.

‘What are you doing on Earth? Is Criel one of you?’

‘No. Criel is human.’

Ursula was about to say more but she seemed to change her mind.

‘That’s all I can say for now, Jack. Please, I need time to help you. Be patient. Try not to draw attention to yourself.’

Jack shook his head and spoke angrily.

‘Patient? Not draw attention? What am I supposed to do? Forget all about this? What about Criel? What about these coins? In the book it says that you’re looking for the coins. Well, if you are, you can have mine. I just want one thing in return. I want you to fix the Dadster. I saw what that doctor did to Clamp after Criel stabbed him. You can bring people back from the dead so, helping the Dadster will be easy. Here, take the coin,’ he said and clutched at the thin silver chain around his neck.

‘No!’

Ursula backed away towards the book filled shelves. They may well have been ‘miles’ from other rooms but Jack thought the old woman’s high-pitched cry must have carried through every room in Cancellarius College.

‘No,’ she said again, more quietly this time but her face was white and her eyes were two black holes.

‘Please, Jack. You don’t understand …’

The door to the library opened and Glenster’s appeared.

‘Is everything alright, Professor?’

‘Yes. Yes. It’s fine. I have to take a seminar now. If you could just show Jack the way out I’d be most grateful.’

‘Certainly Professor.’

‘Thank you for coming, Jack. As I say, be patient,’ Ursula said and smiled and glided out of the room before Jack could call her back. Glenster stuck out her stomach and grinned.

‘Lovely woman, the Professor. Follow me, sir.’

Jack began to retrace his steps through the building. Near the end of the journey he was forced to wait in one large room whilst Glenster spoke in whispers with another red waistcoated servant.

‘Just one moment, sir,’ she said before doing her funny little bow and barrelling off to deal with the latest college crisis.

Left to his own devices Jack wandered through a large glass door and found himself on a balcony looking down upon the River Cam.

Surreptitiously he put a hand to the ban liang. It was tempting to toss it into the murky brown waters below.

He rubbed the small coin and thought about the book, ’Take the coins, take the Earth - Aliens all around us.’

So Ursula Stanhope was an alien. He’d had his suspicions, after reading the book, but now that he knew for certain he still found it almost impossible to believe. But she did move like no other old lady he’d ever seen and she could repair a teapot with the wave of a hand. And her friend, Peter Mahan or Anax or whatever he was called, he had to be an alien too. So the fact was, aliens were all around us. And what did the book say they could do? What special powers did they have?

It said they could change shape, walk through walls, cure illnesses and fly.

Jack felt the coin warm under his fingers. Was the ban liang something alien, something from another planet? It would explain being able to crush metal and having bullets bounce off his head. Did it explain what happened with the Dadster’s old phone?

And could he fly? He leant forward on the balustrade. With one leap he might soar above the River Cam. He could glide towards Queens’. He would hurtle like a jet fighter underneath the skeletal Mathematical Bridge.

His phone buzzed in his shirt pocket and he pulled it free, wiping smudges off the dirty screen to check a message. It was from Tia.

‘OMG. Sensation!! Liam and Gidean have been chucked out! Of school!!! There was a fight!!! Where are UUUUU? The teachers are searching for YOU!!!! What did U do? Will U be suspended 2? Have you run away??? We need to talk. Gidean is planning something BIG in the Grand Arcade laters!!! xxxxx PS. This is from Tia.’

Someone coughed and Jack looked up from the balcony. On the floor above, Glenster looked down. She seemed to be dangerously wedged in a very narrow window.

‘We don’t allow phones in College, sir,’ the Head Porter said firmly and then, after a moment’s straining, the woman’s red face disappeared from view.

Jack obediently put away his phone, stepped off the antique balcony and carefully closed the beautifully decorated glass door.

Waiting impatiently for Glenster to come back and show him out of the college Jack became irritated and started tapping his feet on the dark oak floor. The room gave him the creeps. It looked like it hadn’t been touched for hundreds of years. The furniture was ancient, the tapestries were faded, and the old-fashioned porcelain bowls were covered in cobwebs.

An enormous painting covered one wall. Only now, standing back, did Jack realise this was the ‘vision’ he had.

‘The Wolf’s Hunt, sir. Incredible picture isn’t it. Looks like a photograph. We have several, that must be by the same artist, dotted all over the College.’

Glenster’s voice interrupted Jack’s thoughts.

‘Now then, is there anything else I can do to help? Bus timetable, perhaps? Call you a taxi?’

‘A taxi.’

‘Certainly young sir and the Professor insists that you charge it to the Canners account.’

‘Fine,’ Jack said.

He might as well get a free ride to school if he was about to be suspended.