Rivalry at Silver Spires

by Ann Bryant

  About This Book

  Secrets, hopes and dreams… School friends are for ever!

  I was so proud when I won a scholarship to come to Silver Spires. I have to work really hard, but I love representing the school in competitions – and it’s great having my five brilliant friends to cheer me on!

  Recently, though, someone’s started sending nasty chat-room messages saying I’m a show-off. It’s really upset me and totally put me off competing. My friends think it’s a jealous rival – I just wish I could find out who’s talking about me behind my back.

  With grateful thanks to Kate Steel, Neil Rawlinson, Claire Thompson and Chloe Swan, for their invaluable help

  Contents

  About This Book

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  School Friends Fun!

  Sneak Preview of Princess at Silver Spires

  About the Author

  Want to know more about the Silver Spires girls?

  Collect the whole School Friends series

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  I love this moment of walking through to the school pool from the changing room. My whole body comes alive, even more than it does on the athletics field. Maybe it’s something about the smell, or the steamy atmosphere, or the beautiful pale green water that reminds me of the sea back home in Thailand. Whatever it is, I love it. I always find my footsteps speeding up, because I’m so desperate to get into the water and swim and swim. But this time Jess’s hand on my arm stopped me in my tracks.

  “Grace, look!” she said in her dreamy voice. Her eyes were on the far window, which goes right from the floor to the ceiling. “Look at that sun shining in. Isn’t it beautiful? The water looks like liquid gold up at the deep end, doesn’t it?”

  I smiled at my best friend. “I bet you’ll do a painting of that later, won’t you?”

  But she didn’t answer because she was lost in a little Jess-daydream. By now there were quite a few people in the pool. I hadn’t seen anyone diving in yet, though, so I decided not to do that either. It might have seemed like I was showing off and that was the last thing I wanted anyone to think.

  Mrs. Mellor, our lovely PE teacher, was hurrying people out of the changing room while the lifeguard sat on high and watched over us all. I went down the steps and felt the cold water rising up around me, and although it made me shiver, it was a shiver I loved. It took me straight back to swimming in the sea in Thailand over the Christmas holidays. This is the beginning of the spring term at Silver Spires, which is the most perfect boarding school in the world, and here I am about to start our very first swimming lesson, because last term we didn’t have any actual timetabled swimming. I should be totally happy, but there’s just a small chunk of happiness missing because I can’t help feeling a bit homesick. My mum and dad and my big sister seem so far away when I’m in England. I know I’ve got my lovely group of friends, including my very best friend, Jess, and I also know I’ll soon be back in boarding-school mode, but it’s only the second term of boarding for all us Year Sevens so we’re still getting used to it.

  “Oh no! This is torture!” came good old Georgie’s voice. I glanced over to see her hunched up at the top of the steps.

  “The quicker you get in, the quicker the torture – as you call it – will be over!” said Mrs. Mellor firmly. She clapped her hands. “Chop-chop, everyone! Five minutes’ free swimming to get used to the water and then we’ll start the lesson.” She went over to help someone tighten their goggles a bit, then turned back round. “Georgie Henderson, your challenge this term is never to be the last one in the pool.”

  Georgie didn’t answer, just hunched her shoulders even more and folded her arms, while her best friend Mia jigged up and down in the pool in front of her. “You’ll get used to it really quickly, honestly!” I heard her say, as I set off to the deep end, doing front crawl.

  I was concentrating hard on making my body as narrow and straight as possible, bringing my arms right over my head and cutting through the water with the side of my hand, while keeping my legs and feet strong. My parents wanted me to have swimming coaching during the holidays but in the end I only had three sessions because our lovely Christmas celebrations went on for so long this year, with lots of visitors and outings. It was hard leaving those hot sunny days of fun behind and coming back to the cold English weather.

  When I got to the deep end I stopped and looked around. If I half closed my eyes the surface of the pool looked like pale green silk with loads of brightly coloured balls floating all over it. We have to wear hats for swimming and each boarding house here at Silver Spires has got its own colour. My five close friends and I are in one of the Year Seven dormitories in Hazeldean House and we’ve all got purple hats. The girls from Willowhaven wear green hats, Beech House wear blue, Forest Ash, red, Elmhurst, white and Oakley, yellow. I love it that girls from all the different houses are mixed together completely randomly for things like sport and music and art. Then for maths, science and English lessons we’re in top, second and third sets.

  Mrs. Mellor blew her whistle to announce that we’d only got another two minutes of free swimming and I suddenly realized I was starting to shiver because I’d been still for a while and wasn’t fully warmed up. I set off back to the shallow end doing the fastest crawl I could manage and then turned round and headed straight back to the deep end, trying to do the proper breathing on every third stroke, but not managing it very well because breathing for the crawl stroke is my biggest weakness. I’d almost completed the second length when, through the blur of the water, I noticed a blue hat coming up on my left. Someone from Beech House was swimming really fast. We touched the side at exactly the same time and when she turned to face me, I realized it was a girl called Felissia Streeter. I smiled at her, but all I got back was a cold stare and I felt horrible shivers pushing through the lovely warmth I’d gathered during my hard swim. I didn’t know what that look was about and I don’t like it when I don’t understand things.

  Mrs. Mellor’s whistle made me jump and I was glad that I had to concentrate on listening to instructions about lining up at the deep end because it took my mind off Felissia’s horrible look. The rest of the lesson was great fun because Mrs. Mellor always makes everyone feel so confident, and we had a go at all the different strokes, even butterfly, which I’m hopeless at. I loved all the other strokes and didn’t want the swimming lesson to end.

  “That was good fun,” said Jess, in the changing room afterwards.

  “I was rubbish,” said Georgie.

  “So was I,” added Naomi. “I just didn’t seem to get warmed up properly.”

  “I thought you were really good,” said Katy, who’s Naomi’s best friend. She grinned at me as she rubbed her hair with a towel. “But we knew you’d easily be the best of us lot, Grace.”

  Jess shuffled closer to me on the bench. “We’re so lucky having you in our house,” she said.

  “And we’ve got Katy too,” I quickly pointed out, because Katy’s a strong swimmer.

  “Are you two joining the swimming squad?” Mia asked.

  We weren’t sure whether just anyone could join the squad, because the squad isn’t a fun thing like a club. It’s much more serious. So Katy went to ask Mrs. Mellor. She came back with the answer that if you want to be in the swimming gala you have to join the squad, but anyone’s allowed to sign up for it and see how they get on. “But you’ve definitely got to join, Gr
ace!” she added. “You’re the best!”

  “With a bit of luck you can enter all the races, Grace, and the rest of us can just cheer you on. Then Hazeldean will be the winning house! Yay!” Georgie was pulling her sweatshirt over her head so we could only just make out what she was saying, but the others all laughed, apart from Jess. She probably guessed I’d be feeling a bit anxious about all this praise because I’d already told her I didn’t feel as confident about swimming as I did about athletics.

  “There are some really good swimmers in the other houses,” I said quietly, and I couldn’t help glancing round for Felissia. I spotted her in front of the mirror scooping her hair up into a ponytail.

  “Felissia Streeter’s good, isn’t she?” said Mia, who must have followed my eyes.

  I nodded and suddenly felt tempted to tell the others about Felissia’s look, but I didn’t because it would have sounded like such a silly little thing. And as soon as I’d had that thought, I realized that actually, that’s exactly what it was – a silly little thing – and I told myself to stop being stupid and forget about it.

  But just before bedtime it popped back into my head again. We were up in our dormitory admiring each other’s pinboards. Jess’s was covered with photos she’d taken during the holidays, but they weren’t the usual kind of photos of people or scenes; they were all of different sorts of trees, like close-ups of gnarled old bark, or thin bare trees silhouetted against the white sky. She’s got such a big imagination, Jess has, and I really love the way she looks at the world. We’re so different from each other and we both think that’s the very thing that makes us best friends.

  Katy’s pinboard was artistic too, but in a different way. Hers was covered with fashion pictures, because that’s Katy’s biggest passion. Naomi’s had photos of elephant and deer roaming across stretches of scrubland with barely anything growing. That’s because she comes from Ghana in Africa. In fact, it’s easy to forget that Naomi is actually a real live African princess. She’s so modest and never boasts about it at all. Her family lives in London now but she still thinks of herself as Ghanaian and I knew she’d been back to Ghana over the holidays because she mentioned a charity that she’s working for called Just Water, which helps the people of Ghana to have access to clean water. Naomi and I had also talked together about how far from home we both felt, and how cold England seemed compared to our own countries. We’re not the only ones who come from far away though. There are girls from all five continents at Silver Spires.

  Georgie was admiring the way Mia had made photos of her pets and her family into a collage.

  “When I tried to do that with my pics, I chopped off half the heads!” she said, frowning. “And what’s the point of having the best actors in the world right over your bed if they’re headless?”

  “Do you want me to rearrange them a bit for you?” asked Mia.

  But Georgie was standing in front of my bed by then, hands on hips, pretending to be disapproving. “Don’t say we’ve got to look at a load of athletes again, Grace! Is that all you think about – sport?”

  “You’re only jealous, like the rest of us, Georgie!” said Jess.

  Georgie’s eyes shifted from my pinboard to me. “Yes, I am jealous! Why can’t I look like Grace? I’d love to be slim and fit. I wish I could run like a deer and jump like a…like a…kangaroo.”

  I laughed. “I hope I don’t look like a kangaroo when I’m jumping!”

  Georgie ignored me. “And I’m very jealous of your brilliant swimming too!”

  Naomi put her arm round me. “Yes, we’ve definitely got the best swimmer in Year Seven in our house!”

  Katie rubbed her hands and grinned like a cheeky little girl. “I bet the other houses are green with envy!”

  “Don’t say that,” I quickly told them, feeling myself getting anxious again. “I’m not all that good at swimming, you know. There are lots in Year Seven who are better than me. I’ll have to train like mad.”

  “Rubbish!” said Katy. “You’re just as brilliant at swimming as you are at every other sport!”

  All this praise was exactly what I’d been dreading. That’s why I’d felt tense every time I’d thought about the swimming gala during the holidays. It was due to take place at the end of the first half of term, and with all the training I wanted to do, that didn’t seem far enough away. It’s a horrible pressure when people expect you to do well at something, and it’s not only my friends, but my parents and the teachers here too. You see, I came to Silver Spires on a sports scholarship, which means that my fees for the school have been paid because the school thinks I’m going to do really well at sport, so that when we have inter-school competitions I’ll win and that will make other schools admire Silver Spires. I don’t feel so much pressure when it comes to athletics and netball and things, because I’m confident about them. But swimming’s different. I’m not so good at swimming.

  I had to make the others realize. “No, honestly, I’m not just saying it. At home my sports coach says that swimming is my weakest thing, so I’ve made a resolution to train hard. Only, it might not make much difference, you know.”

  “You can only do your best, can’t you?” said Naomi, who’s the wise one of the group. “And remember you’ll have swimming squad as well.”

  I looked round hopefully. “I’m not going to be the only one doing swimming squad, am I?”

  “Well, don’t look at me!” Naomi laughed. “I’m allergic to cold water.”

  “Me too,” said Mia, wrinkling her nose.

  “The trouble is, it clashes with fashion club,” said Katy, “because it’s on Wednesdays. Oh, by the way, Mrs. Mellor said there isn’t a swimming squad session this coming Wednesday though, because she’s away.”

  Then Jess surprised me. “I might come,” she said, her eyes looking dreamy as they so often did. “I quite enjoyed floating on my back and staring at the ceiling in the lesson today. It’s got an incredible pattern on it, you know, like an optical illusion.”

  I had to smile. “You’re such an artist, Jess! Fancy noticing the swimming-pool ceiling!”

  “Right, that’s enough swimming talk for one day!” Georgie suddenly announced. “I’m off to the computer room.”

  Everyone decided to check their e-mails then, so we all trooped down two flights of stairs to the computer room.

  “Good, we’re the only ones here!” said Katy. “One computer each.”

  “We’ve only got a few minutes before we have to get ready for bed,” said Mia, who gets even more anxious than me about rules and regulations. I don’t know about Mia, but for me I think it’s because my parents brought me up quite strictly and always expect me to respect my elders.

  “Yay! Loads of people online!” said Georgie, who’s really into the Silver Spires chat room at the moment.

  The rest of us were quickly checking our e-mails. I had a long one from my mum, and although it was lovely to hear from her it made me feel a bit homesick too. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that Mia had finished on her computer and was leaning on Georgie, watching her screen.

  I’d almost finished reading Mum’s e-mail when I suddenly heard a gasp from Mia.

  “What?” I heard Katy ask.

  There was no reply and I glanced round to see that Mia’s eyes were wide and worried.

  “What are you looking at?” Naomi wanted to know, and a few seconds later we were all bunched round trying to read the message on Georgie’s screen.

  Someone with the username Torpedo Gal had written, Shame about the big show-off who just has to be best at everything she ever does, including swimming.

  “That’s not very nice. Who’s written that?” asked Mia.

  Georgie didn’t answer at first, just started typing back. What big show-off?

  We all watched the screen as the message came back. You should know. You’d better warn her that we don’t like show-offs and it’s about time she gave someone else a chance to win.

  “So who is To
rpedo Gal?” asked Naomi.

  “I haven’t a clue,” said Georgie, in a surprisingly quiet voice. “I’ve got so many people on my contact list I don’t know who I’m talking to half the time.” Her voice faltered. “But whoever it is knows who I am.”

  A horrible prickly feeling was creeping up my spine.

  “But who’s she talking about?” asked Katy.

  There was a small silence, and then everyone must have clicked that it could only be me. Georgie turned round and gave me a kind of apologetic smile, at the same time as Jess’s arm went round my shoulder, and the prickly feeling spread right up to the backs of my eyes.

  Chapter Two

  No matter how much my friends kept telling me to forget about the stupid chat room, I simply couldn’t forget it. I kept on remembering the look that Felissia had given me in the pool and I’d got it into my head that she was the person who’d sent those nasty messages, and that it was obviously me she was talking about. I was so upset that if it hadn’t been for Jess and the others persuading me, I probably would never have signed up for swimming squad, and then I wouldn’t have been able to take part in the gala. To make matters worse it turned out that swimming squad clashed with fashion and art club, so Jess wouldn’t be able to come with me after all. Felissia’s name wasn’t on the list yet, thank goodness, but there was still plenty of time.

  For days since my horrible shock in the computer room, the six of us had kept coming back to the same conversation about those chat-room messages time and time again. Well, to tell the truth, I was usually the one who kept coming back to it. I just wished there was a way of finding out who had written the messages and whether or not she definitely had been talking about me. I’d been planning on doing some swimming training at the weekend, but in the end I hadn’t gone to the pool at all because I couldn’t bear to think that there might be someone there watching me and thinking I’m a show-off, without me knowing about it.