Rudy just shrugged, which amused her. Was this typical cowboy behavior? Was Rudy Bridges a typical cowboy? She would never know for sure, but she hoped so. The British had a very romantic idea of what American cowboys were like, and so far, Rudy fit that idea pretty well.
Back in the student lounge, Anya and Nav pondered their dilemma. How could they build a model of Big Ben in time yet stay true to their extraordinary plans?
“We could use boxes?” Nav wondered out loud. “Sugar cubes?” He thought some more. “Papier-mâché!”
“It won’t dry in time,” Anya said, “and we’ll never make the deadline. And then we’ll get expelled, and we won’t be allowed near Covington again!”
At the table behind them, Josh’s voice floated over: “It’s so cool that we’re done.” Slurping noises accompanied this pronouncement.
Anya glanced over her shoulder, saw what was going on, and jumped to her feet. “What are those?” she demanded of Josh and Will.
The boys were leaning back in their chairs eating something off sticks. “Ice lollies,” they said at the same time.
Anya’s smile could have lit up a stadium. She grabbed the near-finished ice lollies and held them up. “I’ve got it!”
“Get your own!” Josh and Will said, again at the same time. They grabbed for their treats, but Anya held them out of reach.
“This is an emergency,” she said. “Nav, fetch the glue gun. We are getting an A plus if it takes us all night!”
Nav took one look at the ice lollies — specifically, the sticks — and realized Anya’s plan. He grinned and ran off to get supplies.
Elaine began the next day by putting up more posters in the main building hallways before classes. She was in charge of several aspects of the school’s upcoming Guy Fawkes celebration, and she wanted all the students to be well aware of that fact and ready to help. The last person she wanted to see was Peaches who, though a loyal friend, could be terribly annoying at times.
Peaches scurried up to her, excited about something. Everything excited Peaches. She was a very excitable girl.
“Personal space, please, Peaches,” Elaine told her. She was so tired of having to remind Peaches of these things.
“Sorry, Elaine,” Peaches said in her cute, high-pitched voice. “It’s just —”
“It’s just I’m extremely busy right now, so . . .” Elaine let her sentence trail away, expecting Peaches to make an exit.
Instead of leaving, Peaches took one deliberate step back and blurted out, “I was told that you’re wanted in Lady C’s office for afternoon tea immediately!”
Elaine almost dropped her posters. How could this have happened? She hadn’t heard a thing about it! “Immediately?” she breathed, stunned.
“Yes!” said Peaches. “It’s such an honor, isn’t it? I’ve dreamed of going someday, too. Ooh-ooh, can I come?” she pleaded. “I promise not to —”
But Elaine was already striding off.
Kit was having a heart-to-heart talk with TK in his stall.
“All right, everything is going to be fine,” she told him, running her fingers through his silky black forelock. “We just have to follow this schedule to a T, because there is no way I am letting them take you away from me.” She skimmed over her printout of Lady Covington’s riding schedule. “Um . . . is she joking? She wants us to be jumping oxers in a week?”
TK communicated his opinion by ripping off part of the schedule and eating it.
“Dude!” Kit scolded him and moved the paper out of his reach. “That’s okay,” she said, referring to the schedule again. “We can do this. You know, it’s possible . . . we could do it . . . in this century . . .”
TK bit off another part of the schedule and ate it.
“Probably.” Kit gave up. It was hopeless. No matter how much she might want to honor the schedule, she couldn’t, and she knew it. She let TK lip the rest of the paper from her hands. “You know what? Go ahead. Eat it. Get rid of it! It’s a goner!” She stroked TK’s nose as he chomped away. “Oh, boy, you’re hungry. I’ll go get you some hay.”
As she left the stall, something caught her eye. At first she thought she was seeing scraps of the schedule that had dropped into TK’s bedding, but that wasn’t it — she could make out handwritten words. She picked up the scraps and examined them. “You ate my invitation?” she cried.
TK innocently gazed at her.
“Dude, I just yelled at Elaine!” Kit shut her eyes, knowing what she had to do now. “Oh, this is so not going to be good.”
Elaine knocked on Lady Covington’s office door, not too loudly but not too softly, either. She judged it to be just right: loud enough to hear, but reserved enough to be polite. When the headmistress opened the door, Elaine said, “Good afternoon, Lady Covington.” She stepped in, immediately searching for something to compliment. “Oh my, are those new curtains?”
“Yes,” came the headmistress’s hesitant reply. “Should I have consulted you before purchasing them?”
“Oh, gosh, no! They’re lovely. I love the fabric.” Elaine took a seat on a cushy chair. “I just want to say thank you for inviting me. I truly appreciate it.”
Lady Covington gave Elaine an odd look. “Actually —”
“I’ve waited so long for this opportunity, and I do love tea.” Elaine glanced gleefully at the serving table, crowded with several three-tiered trays filled with goodies. “And cake.”
A moment passed before Lady Covington responded. “Oh?”
Sally entered and said to her boss, “The gentlemen from the board are — oh! Elaine.” She paused. “Uh, did I miss you from the schedule?”
Something clicked in Elaine’s mind: Lady Covington’s unusual expression, Sally’s surprise, the strangely awkward conversation . . . She glanced again at the serving table, at how many trays and cups were set out, at how two people couldn’t possibly warrant such an elaborate feast.
“Elaine,” said Lady Covington, “I’m a bit confused as to the purpose of your interruption.”
The puzzle came together. Elaine’s heart dropped somewhere down around her ankles. “Um.” She jumped up, realizing that she hadn’t been invited after all. This was somebody’s idea of a prank! Rage bubbled up within her, but she fought it down. First she had to remove herself from this horrible situation. Only then could she seek revenge. “Um. Yes. Absolutely. I won’t keep you. Straight to the point, um . . . I would like to . . .” She combed her brain for something, anything to say — “to take on the role of . . . of tea and cake coordinator at next year’s annual spring bake sale!”
Ever so slightly, Lady Covington’s eyebrows lifted. “Because you love tea,” she said slowly. “And cake.”
“Exactly!” Elaine tried desperately to give the impression that this request was super important to her. In a way it was, because the moment she was free, someone was going to suffer.
Lady Covington was still groping to make sense of the conversation. “This couldn’t wait until spring?”
“I like to be —” Elaine gulped. She liked to be what? What? What? “Forward thinking!”
“Indeed.”
“Excellent! Well —” Elaine pointed at the door. “I’ll be on my way. Thank you for seeing me.” She left the room as quickly as possible, trying to maintain what little dignity she had left.
Oh, someone was going to suffer, all right, and she knew exactly who it was going to be.
Kit couldn’t help but feel silly. Here she was, going from building to building, from room to room, trying to find the last person on earth she should ever want to find: Elaine Whiltshire. The irritating girl wasn’t in her dorm room or any of the study rooms, and she didn’t have class at the moment. Where in the world was she?
Kit tried the student lounge next. “Have you guys seen Elaine?” she asked Anya and Nav before she noticed that both of them were in a stupor, slumped at their table with glazed eyes. Then she saw why. “Whoa! What is this?”
Anya moaned her way
back to life. “Our project,” she said, pointing to it. “Big Ben.” Her arm flopped back to the table. “So tired . . .”
“It’s amazing!” Kit said, and it really was. Anya and Nav had built a lolly-stick model of Big Ben, and it was perfect. Kit wasn’t entirely sure that Big Ben had a pool on the roof or a helicopter pad, but it looked incredible nonetheless.
“It took us all night,” said Nav, his words slurring a bit.
Will and Josh came over to take a look. “And exactly how many Popsicles did you need to eat?” Josh asked.
While Will laughed at the idea of them forced to eat mountains of frozen ice lollies, Anya whimpered, “I never want to touch one again.”
Kit pulled out her phone. “Do you want me to take a photo?” She angled up a nice shot of the model with an exhausted but smiling Anya and Nav behind it. Will and Josh horned in, too, leaning down into the shot with dopey grins on their faces. Kit snapped the photo. “So have you guys seen Elaine?” she asked them again, pocketing her phone.
“Maybe. Today?” Anya looked to Nav for confirmation, but Nav didn’t look so sure.
“It was yesterday,” he said tiredly.
“Really?” Anya shrugged at Kit. “I’ve lost track of time.”
“That was the most childish prank in the history of Covington!” came Elaine’s voice as she stormed into the lounge, her eyes blazing in fury. She directed that fury right at Kit.
Kit pointed at herself. “Are you talking to me? Because I have no idea —”
“Don’t deny it! You set me up to look stupid in front of Lady C!”
“What?” Kit cried. “I was looking for you so I could apologize, actually. TK ate my invitation. I just found out.”
Elaine was too busy snarling to listen to facts. “From the second you showed up, I knew you weren’t fit to be one of us!” she shouted. “Same goes for your horse!”
That hit a nerve. “I have no idea what you’re talking about! And at least TK isn’t some kind of prissy diva horse like Thunder!”
Everyone in the lounge was watching now as the two girls verbally tore each other apart.
“I’ll have you know that Thunder has won more ribbons at this school than any other horse!” Elaine said.
“Because you bullied him into it!” Kit shot back. “You’re not as perfect as you think you are! I bet Thunder doesn’t even like you!”
Will and Josh, who had been visibly enjoying the show, gasped at Kit’s words. Kit herself was a bit shocked at what she’d said, even though Thunder was a prissy horse. Elaine did work him hard. Everybody knew it, but no one else was going to say it to Elaine’s face.
The childish insult stung. “How dare you!” Elaine shrieked. She grabbed the closest object — a cup full of unused lolly-sticks — and threw it at Kit.
Kit didn’t have enough time to figure out what the projectile was. She instinctively ducked, afraid that it might be something heavy. She threw an arm to one side, striking Big Ben. The model crashed to the floor in pieces.
“Katherine Bridges and Elaine Whiltshire!”
Everybody froze. Of all the voices they didn’t expect to hear — of all possible people to have seen this very un-Covington-ish argument — Lady Covington was last on the list.
“My office!” Lady Covington continued, standing in the lounge doorway and radiating absolute rage. “Now!”
Anya and Nav were upset, to say the least. All their hard work, smashed! They gathered up the pieces of their ruined Big Ben, placed them in a box, and trudged to Juniper Cottage.
Will and Josh were also heading to Juniper, but they walked ahead of Anya and Nav. “So as it turns out, Elaine wasn’t even invited,” Will informed Josh as they walked. “So she thinks that Kit set her up, but Kit —”
“Kit didn’t do it,” Josh said, and giggled.
Will looked at him. “How do you know?”
Josh remained silent, letting the sneaky grin on his face say it all.
“You did it?” said Will. “You sent Elaine walking into Lady C’s office like she owned the place?”
Josh shrugged with mock humility. “I like to snowboard and call people dude, right? I don’t have a fancy accent or anything, but that doesn’t mean I’m a moron. Or predictable. And I’m definitely not lowering the bar for anybody.”
Will remembered those words, the words Elaine had used to insult Josh earlier. Josh had gotten revenge, all right. “I can’t believe you did that. That is gold! And gutsy.”
Josh basked in the compliment, yet he still said, “I should probably apologize.”
Will nodded. “Yeah, you really don’t want to be on the bad side of Elaine. You’d better have a good plan for that.”
They bumped fists. “Wish me luck,” said Josh.
Behind them, Anya and Nav walked along carrying their box of shattered dreams. “We did all that work for nothing,” Anya complained. “I can’t believe it. What a waste!”
Nav was half asleep, but he managed to suggest, “We can still submit it.”
“Like this?” Anya held up two broken pieces. “And say what, this is Big Ben after a Godzilla attack? That’s our idea of an improvement?”
Nav didn’t like seeing Anya so upset. He racked his tired brain for another idea. “Or,” he said, “we could show the class our photo, the one that Kit took. We could talk them through it, and our teacher could still see our creativity.”
Anya’s unhappy face broke out in a smile. “Yes!” she cried. “You’re amazing!”
Nav grinned. He was so tired that, for once, he didn’t think about trying to look charming. He just let his grin spread across his face and felt really good seeing Anya’s eyes twinkle. She was happy now, so he was happy, too.
Anya suddenly looked awkward. “I mean, good idea.” She started walking faster.
Nav followed, still grinning.
A cold silence reigned in Lady Covington’s office. Kit stood, arms folded, her face set in a firm Bridges scowl. Beside her, Elaine stood with her hands loosely folded and her body more relaxed. But she was gritting her teeth like she wanted to bite someone, namely Kit. They were waiting for Lady Covington to arrive.
“This is your fault,” Elaine hissed.
“You threw Popsicle sticks at me!” Kit retorted.
“I was provoked. By your existence.”
“Fine! I will stay as far away from you as possible in the future.”
“An excellent plan.”
Lady Covington came into the room and sat down at her desk. She folded her hands. She looked at the two girls before her with an almost restful expression. “Manners and etiquette can be quite subjective, can they not, ladies?” she finally asked them.
“Yes, Lady Covington,” Kit and Elaine answered in unison.
“Wrong! We have a very clear and strict code here at Covington.” The headmistress focused on Kit. “Miss Bridges, I understand that you are new to our ways, but you are beginning to try my patience.”
Elaine couldn’t hide a small smile.
“And I would be very careful if I were you, Miss Whiltshire. You more than anyone ought to know that that piece of theater the two of you performed goes way beyond the realm of what is acceptable here. And you — a prefect! I’m shocked and appalled.” Lady Covington paused to let her words sink in. “As punishment,” she resumed, “Miss Whiltshire, you will tutor Miss Bridges and TK. I have already added them to the Rose Cottage roster.”
Kit felt her stomach drop. That wasn’t a punishment. It was torture!
Elaine’s look of horror revealed that she felt the same way.
Lady Covington, of course, didn’t care. “And I expect excellence, ladies,” she finished, eying them frostily.
Elaine dared to speak. “Lady Covington, respectfully — she can’t ride!”
For once, Kit was quick to agree. “She’s not wrong!”
Lady Covington still didn’t care, not one whit. “Well, then, this should give you both further motivation toward that end.�
� When both girls remained in place, too dumbfounded to move, she snapped, “You are excused.”
Josh had just started his shift at the tuckshop, and he was already bored. This was one of those days when nobody needed dental floss or a new school tie or a packet of peanuts to munch on the sly during detention. He didn’t need to do inventory, there was no new stock to shelve, and the price list was up-to-date. Things were dull dull dull.
He was halfheartedly tapping out the beat of his favorite song on the countertop when Kit showed up. He guessed that she had just left Lady Covington’s office, where she had no doubt been chewed out by the headmistress for the Elaine-stick-throwing incident. Kit’s expression was hard, her eyes cold, her body tight. “Candy bar,” she snarled. “A big one. With almonds. I don’t care what brand.”
Josh picked out the perfect product and set it on the counter. “That’ll be two pounds sixty.”
Kit gave him the money and accepted her change. “Have you seen Miss Priss recently?”
“Elaine?” Josh shook his head. “You’re the first person I’ve seen in the last half hour. If I see her, do you want me to —”
“Shave her head bald and paint it puce? Sure, go ahead. Send me the photo.” She stalked away.
Josh sighed. He knew it was his fault. In a way. He felt bad, but he soothed the guilt by reminding himself that he may have set Elaine up, but she had deserved it. He’d had nothing to do with Kit’s unfortunate involvement. The two girls had been at each other since they’d first met.
Still, he needed to apologize to Elaine somehow. He just couldn’t think of how to do it without suffering major bodily damage.
No sooner did he entertain that thought than Elaine herself entered the shop. She, too, looked frighteningly angry, and she was glaring directly at him.
He decided to turn on the charm. “Hello, Elaine. Can I help yooo — ulp —!”
Elaine grabbed his tie and yanked him forward. “I just had a conversation with Peaches,” she said in a low, icy voice. “Guess what she told me?”
Kit Meets Covington Page 12