by Helen Eve
They nod in understanding, and then we roll our eyes as Romy storms up. ‘You’re taking all the credit! You’re stealing my hard work, and making it all about you. This has to be the most selfish thing you’ve ever done, and there’s some stiff competition.’
‘How about when—’ begins Phoebe.
‘No need for examples, Phoebe,’ says Libby. ‘As long as Siena’s behaviour is always classed as superlative, that’s all we need to know.’
‘I did win the game, Romy,’ I say as I steer her out of earshot. ‘I didn’t notice the Stripes winning before I arrived. I won our game too, and don’t forget it. Jack is my boyfriend, and it’s staying that way.’
‘You have no redeeming qualities at all, do you know that?’
I sigh. I was hoping to delay pulling this particular rabbit from my hat, but she’s so angry that I can’t guarantee she won’t open her mouth and blow my reasons for joining the Council as well as my primarily supervisory role in today’s game. ‘Actually, I’ve been doing something entirely selfless for you for a whole year.’
‘You had me exiled for the good of my health?’
‘More everyone else’s health. But something besides that. You should collect it from my room before I have it made into stew. Now go away and let people congratulate me.’
She doesn’t move, but the Starlets edge her backwards until she’s out of sight and sound, banishing her far enough that I can enjoy my party without further conflict. Unfortunately she ends up beside Jack, where they share a deep conversation before he leaves her to join me.
‘What were you talking to Romy about?’ I ask.
He shrugs. ‘Nothing that would interest you.’
‘It might,’ I say, annoyed. ‘Don’t assume I’m never interested in the things she is.’
‘I’d have invited you to offer your opinion on the French election if I’d known you cared so much,’ he says.
I stop listening in relief. I should have known that Romy would be incapable of anything approaching flirting.
‘She also had some great words of support about my mum,’ he adds. ‘Do you know she sent flowers?’
‘You’ll always find a supportive ear here,’ I say. ‘Oh, they’re playing our song!’
I drag him to the centre of the makeshift dance floor as my request, The Bad Touch, begins its opening beats.
‘Our song is Flying Without Wings,’ he corrects me. ‘You always get that wrong.’
I relax as he wraps his arms around my waist, relieved that we’re back on track.
‘I know things have been strange between us,’ he says. ‘But I have the perfect way to make it up to you.’
‘What is it?’ I remind myself that begging for presents is rude, not to mention Syrena-ish, but it takes all my willpower not to extend my left hand.
He kisses me on the nose. ‘Be patient. I can’t tell you until the end of term.’
My heart is beating faster. ‘You have to give me a clue!’
He thinks to himself. ‘Okay … I was beginning to wonder if I’d made the right decision, but everything that’s happened today has made up my mind.’
‘Another clue?’ I suggest.
‘It’s about a very big event that’s going to take place in the summer,’ he says.
‘Does it involve celebrations and dresses?’
He kisses me again. ‘Everything in your world involves celebrations and dresses. I’m sure this will be no different. Now stop asking questions, or you’ll ruin the surprise.’
‘I won’t say another word,’ I promise.
‘I’ll believe that when I see it. Although I can think of one way to keep you quiet. Do you think anyone will miss you for half an hour?’
He takes my hand and I look around for Libby as we leave the room. ‘It’s really happening!’ I mouth to her. ‘He’s going to propose before Easter!’
Showing, as always, that the truest friends can be happy for others even with nothing to gain themselves, Libby looks almost as joyful as I feel.
Chapter Eighteen
Romy
I sit moodily with the Starlets as Jack and Siena dance in the centre of the room, so miserable about the afternoon’s outcome that I ignore their horrified expressions and work through a bowl of crisps and half a discarded bottle of champagne.
Phoebe’s silk scarf slips as she reaches for her wine glass, and Madison pulls it down to reveal a mark on her neck. ‘Is that a hickey?’
‘Nice,’ I say, pushing away the crisps. ‘Very classy.’
Libby looks disapproving. ‘Have you forgotten the Statute, Phoebe? Hickeys are unacceptable for anyone over the age of fourteen.’
‘You’re disgusting,’ I tell them. ‘You act as if you’re so refined, but your minds are in the gutter.’
Phoebe pats my hand sympathetically. ‘Still a terminal virgin?’
‘You’ll feel differently when you find someone special, Romy,’ Cassidy says.
Phoebe cuts in. ‘Speaking of which … Romy, you’re amongst friends, so you can tell the truth. Has your jealousy over Jack and Siena stopped you finding anyone else for yourself?’
‘Something like that.’ I fix my eyes on the table.
‘We could find you a new man!’ Cassidy exclaims.
Libby shakes her head. ‘How many times, Cassidy? We aren’t taking on any more aid work. Our plates are full, and we haven’t even thought about the poor souls in the north of England.’
‘But we all have boyfriends right now, even Libby,’ says Phoebe. ‘Kind of. It looks weird that Romy doesn’t. We’re out of sync.’
‘I’d hate you to be out of sync,’ I say.
‘Didn’t you find anyone special in Paris?’ asks Cassidy. ‘It’s four years since you and Jack broke up.’
I think back to the many evenings I spent in the bathroom on the uppermost corridor of my French boarding house. The window overlooked Notre Dame, but it was a view I rarely saw, obscured as it invariably was by the soaking wet towels we’d be smoking into. Lying on the floor, our legs vaguely entangled as we stretched them up against the wall, Max and I had discussed everything and nothing. ‘There was someone called Max who was … special.’
‘What’s love like?’ Cassidy sways slightly as Phoebe removes a champagne flute from her hand.
‘It’s like being lit up from the inside,’ I say. ‘Warmth and light.’
They stare in disbelief, and I immediately regret drinking so much champagne.
‘Like Ready Brek?’ Phoebe giggles.
‘What do you know about love?’ asks Libby.
Trying to avoid their eyes, my gaze falls on Siena and Jack, who are still dancing. Siena kisses him slowly and deliberately, and his blindness to everyone else in the room makes it obvious that it doesn’t matter what she does, or how much she hurts, or abandons, or betrays him; that he’ll love her until the day he dies as if no other girl exists but her. He’s a reassuring anchor to her willowy, ribboning form; he tips her back and I stare at the glitter dusting her shoulders and her jutting collarbone, finally meeting her azure eyes. She’s at the heart of the dance floor but she seems to fill the room, and the Starlets watch as if they draw their life force from her.
* * *
Siena has strict rules about the right time to leave parties, although I’ve never found out why. Irrespective of how much fun she appears to be having, or how much alcohol remains, she always disappears before the clock tower strikes twelve. I endure the party until then, and head back to her room in Woodlands, climbing the stairs in time with the chimes.
She appears unwillingly at my third knock, wearing a very expensive-looking nightdress. She’s brushing her hair, which, untethered from its usual comb, falls heavily over her shoulder.
‘What?’ she asks. ‘It’s late.’
‘You told me you had something of mine,’ I remind her. ‘I want it back.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she says. Her memory is astonishingly, if selectively, bad. ‘Come back tomorrow. I’m
extremely busy with this fishtail braid.’
I’m too tired to argue, but, as I turn away, one of the nearby bedroom doors opens. Before anyone emerges, she grabs my hand and pulls me inside with such force that I nearly fall over. She slams the door as soon as I’m through it.
‘No one should see you outside my room,’ she explains, as casually as if her behaviour is reasonable. ‘Can you imagine the uproar?’
She has the corner room, which is the biggest on the corridor. She’s managed to transplant last year’s dormitory cubicle (the largest, and the only one with its own window) here on a more fabulous scale. The Starlets’ cubicles, like everything else in their lives, were practically identical; explosions of popularity manifested in one-off designer pieces, shoes they couldn’t stand in, supposedly spiritual items picked up on the rare occasions they left six-star holiday resorts to patronize local residents, and walls obscured by photographs of them intent on showing the world exactly how magnificent their lives were.
I remember Sports Days, prize-givings, gymkhanas and Halloweens; full moon parties, pool parties, hunting balls and Sweet Sixteens. These were the days when my Starlet membership was genuine, and seem so long ago that I search for myself in the images in order to connect that girl to whatever I am today.
Except that I can’t find myself in a single one. My memory has been expunged, my presence cut with clinical precision from each photograph.
‘I was in that picture,’ I say, staring hard at the Starlets at Hogmanay. ‘I was in the middle, between you and Mads.’
‘You can’t have been, because you aren’t there now.’
‘I was there,’ I say exasperatedly. ‘And in this one … we were standing next to each other in half of these.’
‘Libby decorates my room,’ she says, and I can’t tell if she knows the truth. ‘She’s the gallery curator.’
‘Then Libby should know that doctoring photographs to change history is a bit…’
‘A bit what?’ Siena’s tone is cautionary but I don’t care.
‘Sinister. What else does she have planned? Will I be eradicated altogether?’
She raises an eyebrow. ‘Suggesting that you’re the one in danger from Libby is a bit rich, isn’t it? You can’t blame her for wanting to erase troubling memories.’
I give up. ‘Tell me what this is about so I can leave you to your important work. What’s next? Painting over the school signposts in the hope that I’ll wander off a footpath and perish in a ditch?’
‘Look.’ She sits on her bed and points over the far edge. I hold back, in case Libby is lying in wait with a mace, but she reaches down and grabs a bundle of fluff.
‘What the hell is that?’ I ask as she places the bundle in my arms. Staring in confusion, I make out floppy ears, a twitching nose and a rapid heartbeat.
‘It’s your pet rabbit, of course. I’ve been looking after her, and it’s time you took her back. I’m not running an animal hospital.’
‘This isn’t my rabbit. This isn’t any kind of rabbit. It’s pink!’
‘My sister dyed her,’ she says impatiently. ‘You’re always saying that appearances are only skin deep, so I didn’t think you’d mind. She’s definitely yours – look at her collar.’
I twist the collar around, while the pink rabbit burrows into me as if she’s ashamed to be seen in public. Elisabeth, reads the familiar tag. Beneath her lurid cerise rinse, I make out white roots. ‘What if she licks it off and gets poisoned?’ I ask in horror.
‘She won’t. It’s perfectly safe.’
‘How do you know that?’
She sighs. ‘Because, after dying her, Syrena drank the remainder of the bottle to make herself match.’
‘Did it work?’
‘Not noticeably,’ she says. ‘But she’s in excellent health, so it’s unlikely that the rabbit will be adversely affected. We keep only vegetable dye at home since Syrena made over her friend Octavia with bathroom bleach.’
‘What happened to Octavia?’
‘Her hair grew back,’ she says. ‘After a year or so. I’m sure the experience was character-shaping. Anyway, this will wear off if you wash her enough times.’
‘That’s reassuring,’ I mutter. ‘Rabbits just love being washed.’
She nods at a photograph of a fair-haired toddler clutching a stuffed toy with the ears and teeth of a rabbit, but a giraffe’s neck, and demonically red eyes.
‘You owed Syrena the chance to see what an anatomically correct rabbit looks like,’ she says. ‘As opposed to that stuffed monstrosity. I didn’t want her growing up with strange ideas.’
I laugh. ‘You gave her that thing? I thought you were going to burn it!’
‘Of course I didn’t give it to her! She found it and screamed whenever it was taken away from her. She still sleeps with it now, for all I know.’
‘It served you right for stealing my Textiles pattern,’ I remind her. ‘You were going to take credit for my work, as usual.’
‘Stealing your pattern was supposed to save me valuable time that could have been better spent,’ she says. ‘I trusted you not to trick me by replacing your real template with that deformity.’
‘You still won,’ I note. ‘You got an A for originality, and Creatures from the Great Beyond is now the official brief. And I got a B-minus for my anatomically perfect rabbit.’
‘You don’t seem very grateful about this,’ she says. ‘Pets aren’t allowed in rooms, so I’ve taken extreme risks to keep this animal safe for you. Not to mention the amount of shoe space I’ve sacrificed to house it. Or the time she chewed through the lead of Mads’ hair straighteners. I had a very difficult time blaming that on Phoebe.’
I remain silent, and she scowls at me. ‘I wish I hadn’t bothered. You haven’t even mentioned the rabbit since you got back. I thought you cared about her?’
‘I do care,’ I say. ‘But my dad threw out so many of my belongings, I didn’t want to think about what he might have done with her. I’d added her to my list of collateral damage, right below Star.’
She looks stricken. ‘Have you tried to find Star?’
I blink away tears. ‘What’s the point? My dad won’t let me have him back.’
Awkwardly searching for a new subject, I notice a wooden cage under the bed. ‘So why did you take care of Elisabeth for me? And where did you get this cage?’
‘The Stripes made it in Woodwork,’ she says. ‘As for why, because your dad looked so angry when he came for your stuff that I thought he might cook her. Never let it be said that I don’t put others before myself. Especially defenceless animals.’
‘You own a crocodile-skin bag,’ I observe, seeing the pink tote hanging on her door. ‘Or don’t you consider crocodiles defenceless?’
‘My bag is fake,’ she hisses furtively. ‘It’s fake, okay? Don’t push me.’
She returns her attention to her hair. ‘You can go. I’ll have a Stripe bring the cage to your room later. And next time I do something to help you, remind me that it’s a bad idea.’
I snatch up Elisabeth and leave, slamming the door behind me. ‘I went in the wrong room,’ I say wearily to a bulge in the curtain directly opposite. ‘I got lost on my way to bed.’
Libby emerges from folds of ruched satin like a bridesmaid from someone’s nightmares. ‘I know you think you can weasel your way back into Siena’s life, but you’re wrong. Your days here are numbered.’
‘How are you going to swing it this time?’ I ask. ‘Same trick as last year?’
‘Stay away from Siena, do you hear me?’
‘Siena can make her own decisions,’ I say. ‘You’d be surprised – she’s a lot more independent than you give her credit for.’
‘Independent?’ she says indignantly. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘You might not see it, but she’s changed since I left.’ It’s very easy to scare Libby. ‘For all we know, she might want to become a career woman instead of marrying Jack.’
She’s despera
te to know if I can see a corporate path forming in Siena’s future, but can’t bear to ask me for help. ‘We’re on the home straight as far as that engagement is concerned,’ she says. ‘Don’t do anything to sabotage it.’
‘Who knows?’ I hold my own door ready to slam behind me. ‘She might do that all by herself.’
Chapter Nineteen
Siena
By the middle of term I’ve officially lost interest in Council meetings. Today’s gathering is so longwinded and pointless that I concentrate on a problem cuticle to block out Romy’s heated earnestness and Bethany’s nasal whine.
‘They’re bad for the environment,’ Romy is saying. ‘What’s wrong with tap water?’
‘There isn’t a sink near the library,’ Bethany argues. ‘Without a water cooler, students have to walk two flights of stairs to a tap. They’re missing valuable study time.’
Oh please. ‘You’ve been talking about water coolers for ten minutes, do you know that?’ I slam down my nail file. ‘How is that even possible?’
‘Stay out of this, Siena,’ warns Romy. ‘I’m sure the environment isn’t high on your list of priorities, but we’re not all as self-obsessed as you.’
‘The environment is a very high priority for me,’ I correct her. ‘That’s why I’m so concerned by all your talking and lack of positive action. Do you know how many trees in Madagascar have been felled since your argument began?’
Ambrose and Avery look impressed, but I have a feeling that Romy is going to ask me how many? so I move quickly on, scanning the agenda for something – anything – more diverting. I fail.
‘We need to decide how to spend our excess budget,’ says Avery. ‘Should we go for the vegetable allotment or the student scholarship?’
‘That’s a difficult one,’ frowns Ambrose. ‘We know that fresh, organic food has a beneficial effect on learning. It improves concentration and morale, and generates an all-round good atmosphere.’
‘That’s so true,’ nods Avery. I notice that her freckles are extra-bright when she’s feeling inspired. ‘On the other hand we must consider the benefits of opening our doors to those less fortunate. We can’t grow as a community unless we offer opportunities to all students deserving of a good education. Perhaps we should put the allotment on hold in favour of an extra scholarship.’