by Jean Ure
I pointed out that I was only going to be away during the week. Mum had insisted on that. “I want you home at weekends!”
The school I’d found was called St Withburga, which Nat immediately started calling St Cheeseburga, like it was screamingly funny. I forgave her, though. I was just so excited! I couldn’t wait to get there. The school hadn’t been going all that long, so they still had places, plus they were only a short journey away, which made Mum happy. She and Dad took me down there to check it out, and even Dad had to admit that it seemed OK. High praise, coming from Dad!
“It’s nice and small,” said Mum. “I like that.”
She added that it struck her as very funny, though, that I’d been complaining for years about having to share a bedroom with Nat and now here I was, choosing to share a dormitory with a bunch of total strangers!
I said that that was different. It was what you expected at boarding school.
Nat, who had come with us (simply to be nosy), told me for the hundredth time that I was mad.
“They’ll be all snooty and look down on you.”
“Why would they do that?” said Mum.
“Cos it’s what they’re like,” said Nat. “Posh people!”
“She could be right,” said Dad. He looked at me anxiously. “Are you sure about this, kiddo? You honestly want to come here?”
“I do,” I said. “I’m really looking forward to it!”
So there it was, all settled. Me and Mum went into Norwich to buy my uniform and various other bits and pieces that I was going to need, and that was it. I was ready! Just three weeks to go.
And that was when I caught the chicken pox.
It was the middle of September when I finally started at St With’s (as I soon learnt to call it). I was a whole week late! I couldn’t help thinking if there was anyone else that was new, they’d have made friends by now, which meant I’d be the odd one out. I told Nat that if she hadn’t gone and breathed on me I might never have caught her rotten chicken pox. It was just an observation. She didn’t have to get all uppity about it.
“Wasn’t my fault,” she said. “I didn’t know it was the chicken pox!”
I said, “Well, considering you were covered in spots.” Which she’d scratched. At least I hadn’t done that.
“I meant at the beginning,” she said. “At the beginning I didn’t know. And anyway, you’re not the only one starting a new school. It’s just as bad for me.”
“It was your chicken pox,” I said. “And it’s nowhere near as bad for you!” Nat was starting at secondary school. She’d still be with lots of her friends. “It’s loads worse if it’s boarding school.”
“Well, you chose it,” said Nat.
That was the point at which Mum came into the room. “Are you two at it again?” she said. “What’s going on? You never used to fight like this. It’s enough to make me wish we’d never won the wretched lottery!”
I couldn’t believe Mum really meant that. She loved her new house with its big garden.
“I do hope,” she said, “that you’re not regretting this, Zoe?”
“I’m not!” I said.
I was just having a sudden attack of what Gran calls the collywobbles. Not even that, really. Just the odd flutter, like butterflies in my tummy.
Mum and Dad drove me down to St With’s on a Sunday afternoon. Nat had to come with us on account of Mum thinking she was too young to be left on her own. We squabbled again in the car. Nat had found a new joke: instead of going to St Cheeseburga, I was now going to St Beefburga. She cackled uproariously as she said it. Several times. In the end I told her to shut up. She said, “You’re not supposed to speak to me like that.” I said I could speak to her how I liked, it was a free country. So then she said, “This is what happens when people go to posh schools – they get all big-headed.”
“Talking about big heads,” I said, “you’d just better be careful you don’t fall off your pony, when you get one, and knock all your brains out! Not,” I added, “that you have much in the way of brains to begin with. It’s mostly just sawdust.”
She then yelled, “Beefburga!” in a mindless kind of way, but before I could think of a suitable retort Dad told us both to be quiet, he was sick of the sound of our voices, while Mum said that if this was what having a bit of money did to us she’d almost be tempted to give our share to charity. She said Nat didn’t deserve a pony and I didn’t deserve to go to boarding school. Just for a moment I felt like saying, All right, then, I won’t!
The butterflies were flapping like crazy, all swooping and swarming. To be honest, if Dad had said, “Let’s just forget about it and go home,” I’d have been secretly relieved.
Miss Latimer, the Head of Boarding, was there to meet us when we arrived, sweeping up the drive in Dad’s new car. The first new car we’d ever had!
Miss Latimer said, “Zoe! I’m so glad you could make it at last.” She said it like she really meant it, like she’d almost been counting the days till I could come. I immediately felt a whole lot better. The butterflies had settled down and I couldn’t wait to get up to the dorm and start arranging my things.
Dad wanted to carry my bags up there, but Miss Latimer said it was all right, Mr Bracey would do that. I thought Mr Bracey must be a teacher, and I guess so did Dad cos he said, “No, no, that’s not necessary! I can do it.” But then Mr Bracey appeared and simply picked up the bags and went off with them, leaving Dad standing there. It was ages before I discovered that Mr Bracey was the man who did things around the school. He was like Dad! Dad was The Handyman, Mr Bracey was the school handyman.
Mum was eager to come and help me unpack, but I told her I could do it myself.
“Are you sure?” said Mum, sounding a bit worried. It was like suddenly she didn’t want to go off and leave me there.
I said, “Honestly, Mum! I can manage.”
I so didn’t want Nat trailing upstairs with us, making her stupid Beefburga jokes and ruining everything before I’d even started!
“We’ll take good care of her,” said Miss Latimer. “Don’t worry.”
I waved goodbye quite cheerfully to Mum and Dad and followed Miss Latimer into Homestead House. Homestead was where us seniors lived. The juniors were in the Elms. All the dormitories were named after flowers. Year Eights were Buttercup and Daisy, which was another reason I hadn’t wanted Nat coming upstairs with us. She’d already gone off into peals of insane cackles about it. She kept spluttering, “Buttercups! Daisies!” When Mum asked her what she found so funny she just cackled even harder.
“Personally I think it’s nice they have pretty names,” said Mum.
So did I! I didn’t care what Nat thought.
I was in Daisy, which meant I had a cute little lazy-daisy badge to pin on my sweater. There were six of us in there, three up one end of the dorm and three at the other, with a folding door in between. The Buttercups were further down the hall. There were also, Miss Latimer told me, six day girls, but of course they weren’t in school on a Sunday. She said the other Daisies had gone off on a school trip, except for someone called Fawn, who had gone home for the weekend.
I was a bit alarmed at the thought of the unknown Fawn. What kind of a name was Fawn? It sounded like a posh person’s name! Maybe my annoying little sister was right, and all the other girls would be smart and snobby and look down on me. I found that the collywobbles had suddenly come back.
“In case you’re worrying about being the only new girl,” said Miss Latimer, leading the way along the passage, “you’re not alone. Rachel’s also new. She arrived just a few minutes ago.”
Miss Latimer tapped at the door, and paused a second before opening it. I was well impressed! I am more used to people just barging in. Well, when I say “people”, of course, I mean Nat. She’d never learnt to ask if she could come into my bit of bedroom.
“Here you are,” said Miss Latimer.
A girl was standing at the window, leaning out at a perilous angle. She sp
rang round, her face lighting up. She seemed really pleased to see me.
“Rachel, this is Zoe Bird that I was telling you about. Zoe, this is Rachel Lindgren. The others are off on a school trip. They should be back in about half an hour, so they’ll bring you down to tea. In the meantime, you know where to find me if you want me?”
Rachel beamed and said, “Yes!”
“Good. In that case, I’ll leave you to get on with things.”
I waited till Miss Latimer had gone, then said, “I don’t know where to find her.”
“In her room,” said Rachel. “At the end of the corridor.” She bounced on to her bed and sat there, swinging her legs. “I’ve had the chicken pox,” she said.
“Really?” I said. “Snap!”
Rachel giggled. She said, “Snap?”
“I’ve had it too! My sister gave it to me.”
Rachel giggled again. “On purpose?”
Darkly I said, “I wouldn’t be surprised. But I didn’t scratch! Did you?”
“No, cos my auntie told me it would leave marks. Why did you say ‘snap’?”
“Well – you know! Like the card game? When you say ‘snap’ if you both put down the same card?”
I thought everyone must have played Snap at one time or another. But Rachel obviously hadn’t. She was looking at me, with her brow furrowed.
“Are you Swedish?” I said.
If she was Swedish, then maybe that would account for it. Maybe in Sweden they didn’t play Snap. The reason I thought she might be was partly cos she looked a bit Swedish, like very pale with hair that was almost white, and partly cos of her name: Lindgren. I was quite proud of knowing that Lindgren was a Swedish name. I reckon not everyone would have done. I only knew cos a lady that used to live in our road had been called that and she came from Sweden. But the minute I asked the question I was covered in embarrassment and thought maybe I shouldn’t have. Sometimes it is considered rude to ask people where they come from. I once asked a girl at my old school where she came from, thinking she would say, like, the West Indies or somewhere, and she said she came from Essex. She was quite cross about it, though I was only trying to be friendly.
Fortunately Rachel didn’t seem to mind. She said that she wasn’t Swedish but her granddad had been.
“He was called Lindgren. That’s why I am.” And then she gave this shriek of laughter and cried, “Yoordgubba!” Well, that was what it sounded like. I only discovered later that it was spelt “Jordgubbe”. Rachel said it was Swedish for strawberry.
“And toalettpapper is toilet paper!”
I didn’t quite know what to say to that. “So do you speak Swedish?” I said.
She giggled again. She seemed to do a lot of giggling.
“Hey,” she said. “That’s ‘hello’. Hey!” She held out her hand. She obviously wanted me to take it even though I’d already started to unpack and had my arms full of clothes. “Say it!”
Obediently I said, “Hey.”
“There,” said Rachel. “Now you know as much as I do! Except for tack. That means ‘thank you’.”
She picked up a pair of my socks that had rolled on to the floor.
Solemnly I said, “Tack.” Little had I thought I would be in the dorm having a Swedish lesson the minute I arrived. Maybe chicken pox would prove to be a blessing in disguise? I’d made a friend already!
“Shall we stick together?” said Rachel. She sat, cross-legged, on her bed.
“Yes, let’s,” I said. “I’ve never been to boarding school before, have you?”
Rachel said, “No, but I know what to expect … I’ve read the books!”
“What, the leaflets?” I said. “The stuff they send you?”
“No!” She gave a great swoop of laughter. “The boarding-school books.”
“Oh! You mean, like …”
“The Naughtiest Girl in the School, Claudine at St Clare’s—”
This time, I was the one that giggled. “Snap again!” I said. “Me too! Only I don’t think it’s quite the same these days.”
“That’s what my auntie says. She says they’re like really old-fashioned? But it’s still going to be fun! I’m really looking forward to it. Midnight feasts and climbing out of the dorm at night … That’s why I was looking out of the window! To see if there’s an apple tree.”
In spite of myself, I said, “Is there?”
“No, worse luck, but you can always make a ladder by tying pairs of tights together.”
“Tight ropes!” I said. Quite clever, I thought. I waited for Rachel to giggle, but she just nodded, very earnestly.
“It’s what they did in one book. Or of course you can climb down a drainpipe if you’re brave enough.”
“Or a fire escape,” I said. “Or even a real rope, if you happen to have one.”
I was being funny – sort of – but Rachel appeared to be taking it quite seriously. She agreed that a real rope would be best.
“Like a clothes line, or something.”
I gazed at her, doubtfully. Did she really think we were going to have midnight feasts and go swarming out of the window on the ends of clothes lines?
I started to set out my photographs on top of my bedside table. I had one of Mum and Dad; one of Mum, Dad and Nat; and one of Nat with Lottie.
“Oh, cute!” squealed Rachel.
“I hope you mean Lottie and not Nat,” I said.
“Which one’s Lottie?”
“She’s the dog. Nat’s my sister.”
“The one that gave you chicken pox?”
I said, “Yes. She breathed on me.”
“Yeeurgh!” Rachel gave an exaggerated shudder. “That’s gross!”
“She is gross.” I glanced across at Rachel’s cabinet. “Don’t you have any photos?” I said.
Rachel put a finger to her mouth, like I’d caught her out in some sort of crime. “I didn’t think.”
“You ought to have some of your family. Your mum and dad.”
“I haven’t got a mum,” said Rachel. “She died.”
Omigod! It was one of those moments. I didn’t know where to put myself.
“It’s all right,” said Rachel. “I never actually knew her.”
She pushed her hair behind her ears. It was bright silver, very fine and wispy. Mine is like a doormat. One of those fierce brown bristly ones.
“It was in childbirth, you see.”
I am not very often at a loss for words, but I honestly couldn’t think what to say. I just gulped and went, “Oh.” I wondered, if she didn’t have a mum, who Rachel lived with. Whether it was her dad, or her auntie that she’d mentioned. I didn’t like to ask, though, in case it seemed like prying. You can’t be too nosy when you’ve only just met someone.
From somewhere in the building we heard the sound of doors opening and closing, followed by girls’ voices and footsteps along the corridor.
“That’ll be the others come back,” I said.
We shot these glances at each other. Not exactly nervous, but maybe just a tiny bit apprehensive. We were the new girls! What were they going to make of us?
“We will be best friends,” said Rachel, “won’t we?”
I wasn’t sure you could become best friends just like that, but I said yes all the same. Rachel gave me this big happy smile, showing all her teeth, and I smiled back. She was a bit odd, but I did like her.
The door suddenly flew open – no knocking, this time – and four girls came bursting in. They stopped at the sight of me and Rachel. One girl said, “Oops! Sorry. Didn’t know you’d arrived. You must be Zoe and Rachel?”
Rachel giggled. I was beginning to think it must be some kind of nervous affliction, the way she kept doing it. The girl introduced herself as Fawn Grainger. She was obviously posh, like the way she spoke and everything, but she didn’t seem stuck-up. She seemed quite friendly. She introduced the others as Dodie Wang, Tabitha Rose and Chantelle Adebayo. They seemed quite friendly too. Such a relief! I might have guessed Nat
didn’t know what she was talking about.
Fawn said, “Tab’s sleeping up your end. We banished her, cos she snores. I know it’s not fair, but we had to put up with her all last term.”
Rachel giggled. Again. She said, “That’s all right, my gran snores. She snores so much she makes the walls shake.”
“This one buzzes,” said Fawn. “It’s like sleeping next to a giant bee.”
After I’d finished unpacking, and everyone had looked at my photos and cooed over Lottie, we went down to tea, which was served in the refectory, in the main building next door. Us Daisies sat at our own table.
“Those are the Buttercups,” said Fawn. “Over there. I’ll introduce you afterwards.”
Fawn was the class representative on the school council. She was obviously a natural leader, though she didn’t strike me as being particularly bossy. She was just one of those people that everybody is happy to follow. Partly, I thought, it was the way she looked. She was more than just ordinarily pretty. She had a very delicate, heart-shaped face (I have always wished I could have a heart-shaped face; mine is more kind of square) and these great violet eyes with long sweeping lashes. Absolutely stunning!
The other three, I was glad to note, were more like normal ordinary human beings. Tabitha was quite plump and pillowy. I thought she looked like a comfortable sort of person. I reckoned she must be good-natured, cos she hadn’t seemed to mind when Fawn had said about her snoring. Dodie was a tiny little spidery thing with a sweet little blob of a nose – something else I’d always wished for! Chantelle could almost have been a model, being very tall and slim, except her face was a bit too round. Models always look as if they’re half starved.
For tea there were big plates of bread and butter – masses of it! – and various pots of jam. Rachel picked up one of the pots and waved it at me.
“Look,” she said. “Jordgubbe!”
“Oh,” I cried, “jordgubbe jam!”
We both giggled at that.
“‘Yord’ what?” said Tabitha.
“Gubbe,” I said. “It’s Swedish for strawberry.”