by Carmen Reid
‘Shut up!’ Gina ordered. ‘You might have found out how mad I was with you – how close I came to never, ever returning your calls.’
‘OK . . . time to turn our attention to the menu – all that fighting gives a boy an appetite, you know.’
‘How’s your face?’ she asked. In reply, Dermot lowered the menu and turned his tender jaw towards her.
She gave it a gentle rub. ‘Owwww,’ she sympathized.
‘Things often seem to get dangerous when we meet up.’
‘Yeah . . . be careful what you order.’
‘How about chocolate milkshakes and the homemade quarter-pounder with chips to share?’
In the taxi on the way back to the boarding house, the mood was tense and angry.
‘Just keep your coat buttoned up and don’t let the Neb see anything,’ Amy instructed. ‘If she does see the spill, it happened right at the end of the party when Willow’s dad let his glass slip. OK? Everyone clear on that?’
All she got in response to this were some mutters. Although sharing a hamburger and a brownie with Dermot had gone some way to easing the pain, Gina was still really upset about her dress.
Min had spent most of her evening trying to keep Niffy and Amy apart; she hadn’t had another chance to talk to Greg at length. Then he’d left half an hour before her with yet another handshake-only goodbye. They were doomed. The whole thing was a disaster. And she liked him so much!
Niffy and Amy were at opposite sides of the taxi, still furious with each other. The seething had continued all evening.
Amy rubbed her forehead. She’d only drunk half a glass of wine but she had a raging headache and she felt exhausted. What on earth was the matter with Niffy?! It was as if she’d gone mad. After Niffy’s outburst about Jason, Amy had looked at Finn in astonishment, but he had just laughed it off.
‘Lou! Calm down,’ he’d told her. ‘I think I can see for myself that Amy’s happy to be here with me, and that’s all I care about.’
For the rest of the evening Amy had kept as close to Finn as she could, not wanting Niffy to come and spread any more lies about her.
Niffy had aimed that glass of wine at her! At her lovely new dress. The girl was just plain vindictive. And the Jason outburst – that was just horrible. Horrible!
Suddenly Amy found herself thinking about toast: white toast, absolutely dripping with butter. Smeared with layer after layer of butter, just the way her gran used to make it for her when she was little. Oh! She couldn’t stop thinking about toast. The smell of toast, the warm melted butter . . . She almost had to move her jaws, the sensation of eating toast was so real. But there wasn’t going to be any toast-eating, she told herself sternly. She tried to focus on willowy Peta. Then she looked down and thought about her own now very small waist, tightly encircled by the sparkly dress.
The taxi braked and drew up outside the boarding house.
‘Just play it cool,’ Amy reminded them as they walked towards the front door. It was two minutes to eleven, so even the Neb, who kept her eyes fixed firmly to the clock at this time of night, couldn’t accuse them of being late.
After an evening out, the boarding-house girls had to sign themselves back in again, so they headed for Mrs Knebworth’s sitting room, where they found her surrounded by some of the younger girls, who were watching a film on the TV.
‘Oh, hello,’ she called out cheerily as she saw Min and Niffy coming into the room. ‘Had a good evening, have you?’
‘Yes,’ Min answered.
‘Delicious food,’ Gina said, just ducking her head round the door. Her coat was buttoned right up to the top but she was worried that the Neb might smell the wine – and sniff out the crimes they had committed this evening.
‘It was Willow McIver’s house you were visiting tonight, wasn’t it?’ the housemistress asked. ‘Julia . . .?’ She looked around the little group of girls and found the face she wanted. ‘Weren’t you saying you’d been there a few times, because you know Willow’s younger sister?’
Min, Niffy and Gina’s expressions stiffened. Julia had been to Willow’s house before – several times! This was a disaster. Now, absolutely no doubt about it, the Neb was going to ask them some complicated question about the house and they were going to be in deepest do-do.
‘I’m not feeling so great . . .’ Amy was standing behind the other three girls clutching her head, which was getting worse and worse.
Gina turned just in time to see two surprising things: the colour draining completely from Amy’s face, and a look of shock crossing Niffy’s face as she saw this happen.
‘Amy!’ Gina cried.
Niffy was closest and caught hold of Amy as she wobbled. Gina rushed over and managed to grab her before she crumpled to the floor.
‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ Mrs Knebworth exclaimed, and got to her feet. ‘Put her in this chair,’ she instructed. ‘Head down between her knees.’
Once she was sitting down Amy let out a little groan.
‘How are you doing?’ Mrs Knebworth asked.
‘Better,’ Amy insisted, wanting to avoid any more fuss and get out of the room as soon as possible.
‘Didn’t you eat much at Willow’s?’ the Neb wanted to know. ‘People usually faint when they’ve not had enough to eat – or they’ve been drinking,’ she added suspiciously.
‘I think I’m just a bit tired,’ Amy replied, running her hands over her pale, sweaty face.
‘OK, well, we’ll let Luella and Gina here help you up to bed – but any more fainting or feeling sick or anything and I want to know straight away. Did you eat anything unusual?’ the Neb added.
‘No, not at all,’ Gina insisted.
‘Roast beef with all the trimmings,’ Niffy remembered to say.
‘And the McIvers obviously gave you nothing to drink?’ was Mrs Knebworth’s next question.
‘No,’ Gina, Niffy and Amy all said together.
First Gina and then a reluctant Niffy put an arm round Amy’s waist and began helping her up to the dorm.
There was silence between the three at first – Amy and Niffy still determined not to acknowledge one another, and Gina racking her brain for the right thing to say.
‘You looked worried when Amy fainted,’ Gina blurted out.
‘Yeah?’ Niffy said, sounding surprised.
‘Yeah.’
‘Impossible.’
‘So you actually want me to be ill?’ Amy piped up all of a sudden between them.
Niffy shrugged.
Amy stopped and let her arms drop so that she was no longer being supported. Then she turned to Niffy and suddenly aimed a punch at her.
Niffy saw it coming and swivelled to the side.
Despite the headache, despite the dizziness, despite her raging hunger, Amy still managed to shout at her, ‘What is your problem? Just what exactly is your problem?!’
‘Jason!’ Niffy replied furiously.
‘What has Jason got to do with anything?’ Amy demanded.
‘I met him on the bus. On Thursday.’ Niffy said it as if it would explain everything.
‘So what?’ Amy asked, although she felt slightly startled by this chance meeting. She’d thought so little about Jason lately, she was almost surprised to hear that he was still around, still taking buses, still chatting to girls.
‘He told me,’ Niffy said, thinking this would make it clear to Amy.
‘Told you what? I have no idea what you’re talking about!’
It was at this point that Niffy began to have her first doubts. Amy looked so angry and so astonished. She also looked so pale and just terrible – maybe Niffy had somehow got it wrong.
With less venom in her voice now, she said, ‘He told me you’ve been emailing him every week – asking to meet up . . . and that you’re seeing him tomorrow.’
Amy’s furious glare fell from her face, and instead she just gave Niffy a pitying look. ‘And I suppose you believed every word the lying cheat said to you.’ Without another wo
rd, she headed off down the corridor.
After drinking a glass of water, Amy took off her dress, hung it up carefully and got into bed.
With a series of stomps, crashing of doors and banging of drawers, Niffy undressed, stuffed her clothes away and went to bed too.
Gina headed into the bathroom, where she ran a sinkful of cold water and then gingerly lowered in her stained dress.
Min, wrapped in her dressing gown, came in after her.
‘Did you have fun?’ Gina asked her friend.
‘Yeah,’ Min said with a half-hearted shrug. ‘Well . . . with Greg, yes – but everything else is a disaster.’
Gina nodded. ‘I know.’
‘Gina?’ Min began as she loaded up her toothbrush with toothpaste. ‘I don’t think Amy’s eaten anything all day.’
‘I know,’ Gina agreed. ‘She told us she’d stop this, but she hasn’t.’
It was nearly one a.m. when Gina, lying restlessly awake, had the idea.
She slipped out of bed, put her feet into her ballet slippers, found her dressing gown on the back of the door and tiptoed out of the dorm.
The boarding house was always creepy at night. The only light was the orangey glow of the nightlights in the stairwell. It was strange to be amongst so many people and yet surrounded by silence and stillness.
As quietly as she could, she slipped along the shadowy downstairs corridor until she came to the Upper Fifth sitting room.
Gently, gently, she turned the handle and opened the door. It creaked noisily on its hinges. Stepping into the room, Gina listened for a long time, but couldn’t hear anyone stirring.
She went over to the computer, turned it on and waited for it to go through its whirring – then finally she called up the Internet page and logged on to her account.
The corner of the screen told her that it was 1.15 a.m. GMT, so in California it would be late afternoon. With any luck she would get a reply straight away.
She opened a new email page, filled in Paula, Maddison and Ria’s email addresses at the top, then typed out her message:
Hi guys,
Missing you! I can’t sleep because I’m so worried about a friend of mine here. Her name is Amy. P and M, you met her, remember?
She isn’t eating. I’ve tried to speak to her about it, but that hasn’t worked. Should I speak to someone else? As you know, our housemistress is a bit of an old-fashioned DRAGON lady and I can’t think of a teacher who I really, really trust.
Guys, I don’t know what to do. Because of what’s happened to Ria’s sister and because you’re my oldest friends, I hoped you might be able to give me some good advice.
I love you!
Gina xx
Chapter Twenty-eight
AFTER SCHOOL MIN walked back to the boarding house alone. Her rucksack was really heavy. One drawback to doing more S-grades than anyone else in her year was that she had to carry more books and jotters around; she also had far more homework.
She felt a bit like a snail, crawling along with this big heavy load on her back. The afternoon was cold and grey; early December winds had stripped all the remaining withered brown leaves from the trees and the grey sky promised darkness and more rain.
Back at home in Durban, her little brothers and sisters would be finishing school too. But they would be scampering home in T-shirts and sandals, preparing to go out and play in the sunny garden. Min felt a pang of homesickness and decided to phone home this evening. She and her family emailed regularly, but it would be really nice to hear their voices – although sometimes phone calls were the worst because after you’d finished talking and had to hang up, you felt so far away.
Min wanted to tell her mum about Greg, but she really wasn’t sure how it would go down. And she still wasn’t exactly sure what to call Greg. Was he really a boyfriend? Did someone who took you to cafés and museums, who talked to you really intensely, really enthusiastically, but never once held your hand or tried to kiss you – did he count as a boyfriend?
She didn’t know. She didn’t know who to ask for advice either. Amy and Niffy thought she was just being silly: ‘Just give him a kiss, for goodness’ sake! . . . Just lean over and kiss his cheek! . . . Give him the idea! . . . It really isn’t that big a deal!’ they’d insisted.
But it was. Or it seemed to be. Or it was turning into one.
Although Greg had already asked her if she wanted to meet up next weekend, Min had a feeling that this couldn’t go on much longer. She had to do something; she had to give him some sort of sign or signal that she wanted things to go a little bit further. If they could just hold hands and kiss, she would relax. She wouldn’t feel so tense about what was going to happen or when.
Tongues? To be honest, Min was concerned about tongues; she didn’t know if she really wanted to do that. When she’d glanced surreptitiously at Amy and Finn on Saturday night . . . well, it had looked rather messy and slobbery. But holding hands and giving little kisses on the neck like the ones she saw Dermot give Gina, now that looked . . . nice.
Maybe she would write Greg a letter. A poem! The idea made her smile. Could she write him a poem telling him how she felt? Maybe she wouldn’t sign it. Maybe she would write it, post it and never mention it. Never admit it was hers – just see what happened. See if it made any difference at all.
As soon as she got back to the boarding house, Min dumped her coat in her locker and hauled her heavy bag along to the study. If she was going to try and write a poem, she would need peace, quiet, and maybe a book or two from the library for inspiration.
‘Where are you off to?’ Amy asked as she ran into Min in the corridor. ‘The study already? Not even time for a cup of tea with us?’
‘No,’ Min told her. ‘Hectic schedule.’ She pointed at her heavy bag.
‘You poor old thing,’ Amy sympathized, as she carried on past in the other direction.
Min sat at her desk in the silent study room. She opened a page of her notebook and selected a nice sharp pencil. She stared at the page.
Kissing, she wrote down. Then she scored it out.
A kiss, she wrote underneath. She stared at it.
Is a very strange thing, she added.
She stared some more.
She looked out of the window. Then she chewed the end of the pencil. Good grief! This was hard. Maths problems and physics equations were much, much easier than this. They had a question and an answer. This . . . this felt like plucking something completely unknown from the air. She had no idea how to do it.
A kiss is a very strange thing, she read.
Taking hold of her pencil again, she added, I don’t know how to start it. I don’t know how to end it. I don’t know where to begin.
Begin rhymed with thing – well, almost. That was surely a good thing. Maybe she could work with that.
All of a sudden, a look of determination came over Min’s face. Her pencil hovered over the page and she suddenly felt ready to grapple with words and create something brand new.
‘Pssssst, Min,’ came a whisper right against her ear.
Min instinctively cupped her hand round her work, not wanting anyone to read what she’d written. She looked up to see Amy holding out a small envelope.
‘You were in such a hurry to get to the study, you didn’t check the post,’ Amy told her, and held out the envelope.
Min took it. It was small and white with her name on the front in careful black handwriting.
‘Who’s it from?’ Amy asked. ‘You never get letters unless they’re from your mum. And this isn’t air mail.’
‘I don’t know,’ Min replied, puzzled.
‘C’mon, open it,’ Amy instructed. Clearly she was going to stay right here until she found out what was inside the envelope too.
Min tore open the flap and brought out a small, folded piece of cream-coloured paper. She opened it up and saw, written in the same careful black handwriting . . . a poem!
‘What is it?’ Amy asked, desperate to know.
‘Oh! OK then!’ Amy rolled her eyes and reluctantly took several steps away from Min’s desk.
Now Min carefully laid the piece of paper down on her desk. She opened it, she smoothed it out and very slowly she read the words Greg had written:
When I close my eyes
I dream of kissing you.
But when I open them again
I don’t know if I dare.
Your eyes say yes, but
How much do you care?
When I close my eyes
I dream of kissing you.
It was a little cheesy – it was kind of embarrassing and corny . . . but . . . but Min couldn’t help herself. She folded the paper up into a tiny, tiny square and tucked it into her pencil case. She couldn’t wipe the astonished smile off her face as she wondered what her mum would think.
‘Sorry to interrupt your happy thoughts . . .’ Amy began.
‘Oh!’ Min was snapped back to the study room.
‘I was just wondering – if I gave you Jason’s email address . . . would you consider . . .?’
‘Writing to him and telling him to explain himself? With pleasure,’ Min said. ‘Do you think it will help?’
Amy sighed, then answered: ‘Finn and I don’t have a hope if Niffy and I can’t get over this.’
Chapter Twenty-nine
‘GINA! PHONE!’
Gina heard the shout in the corridor, dropped what she was doing and hurried out of the dorm. She rushed down to the little payphone housed in a booth under the stairs.
Dermot? she wondered. Or her family? Menzie? She hadn’t spoken to her little brother for ages! These were the only possibilities. No one else ever phoned her on the boarding-house landline. It was so hard to get through for a start.
‘Hi,’ she said, as soon as she picked up the receiver.
‘Hi!’ a chorus of voices came back at her.
‘Paula? Maddison?’ Gina asked.
‘And me!’ came Ria’s voice. ‘We’re on speaker phone. This is a conference call,’ she joked.