High Jinx

by Sara Lawrence

  Liberty looked confused, Mimi appalled and Chastity and Jinx disgusted. Liv, who’d gulped down her entire White Russian during Stella’s short explanation, suddenly started laughing so hard she slid down her seat and landed in a heap under the table.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Liv was snorting so raucously under there she could hardly get the words out, ‘but that is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. And you’re telling us you had readers for this schlepp? Who were they – your mum and dad? Ha! Stop, it’s too much.’

  Chloe had grabbed the magazine and was flicking through it, laughing and pointing out the worst headlines and photos. ‘Class? You should have called it arse! Although I wouldn’t wipe mine with it.’

  This sent Liv into further paroxysms. The others were smirking and giggling at Stella too by now, only Chastity sat ramrod straight in her seat with a face like thunder.

  ‘You can’t be serious,’ she said, with what the others recognised as her most furious expression on her face. ‘You’re telling me someone – a proper publisher no less – actually paid for you idiots to print this shit? I think it’s disgusting.’

  Chastity pointedly turned her back on Stella and said to Charlie, ‘Thank God my parents sent me to Stagmount.’ She twisted back round to glare at Stella, ‘I’d probably be banged up for murder by now if I’d gone to Bedales.’

  Liv extricated herself from the tangle of legs, and when it became obvious Stella wasn’t going to help her up Chloe stuck out a hand to pull her to her feet. Jinx leapt up to help their favourite waitress as she came smiling up the stairs bearing a huge tray loaded with delicious calypso coffees.

  Stella grabbed her magazine and stuffed it back into her bag. Chastity threw some money on the table, said goodbye to everyone except Stella and raced off to see Paul. Class wasn’t mentioned again, although Liv and Chloe couldn’t stop themselves from emitting the odd involuntary snort.

  They made it back to Tanner House with a minute to spare, said goodnight and disappeared off to their rooms. Jinx, who’d paused to check the telephone message register, held the swing door open for Fanny Ho who was wearing Hello Kitty pyjamas with green Havaianas flip-flops and standing outside signing a credit card receipt for a motorcycle courier from Feng Sushi. He handed over a huge bento box and she made her way back in.

  ‘Thanks, Liberty,’ said Fanny, grinning shyly at her.

  ‘Er, I’m Jinx.’ Jinx was pretty pissed, but still surprised Fanny had got her name wrong given how long they’d known each other and how different she and Liberty looked. ‘We played tennis together about fifty-five times last term, remember?’

  ‘Oh God,’ Fanny looked confused. ‘Sorry, Jinx. I’ve been doing … calculus … for hours – it’s obviously turned my brain to mush.’

  ‘Hey, don’t worry about it. I kept calling my friend Davina “David” last Christmas. She wasn’t amused, but I did have the most almighty hangover.’

  ‘I’m glad I don’t do maths any more,’ Jinx said as she gestured towards the food, ‘I’d be the size of a house if I ate all that.’

  ‘Yes,’ Fanny said, giggling bizarrely as if this was the best joke in the world. ‘All those, erm, equations have made me absolutely starving. Goodnight!’

  For the next couple of weeks, in spite of Mrs Gunn patrolling the corridors in search of uniform irregularities and Dr Brown dishing out totally unfair order marks for every misspelt word in the second form spelling bee, Stagmount was the most peaceful place on earth. Stella and Liberty were living in each other’s pockets in the most sickening way, but Jinx and the others were too busy finishing off their English coursework essays on Much Ado about Nothing to pay them much attention.

  Although Jinx, smoking a covert cigarette during chapel time in the garage one morning, had been less than delighted to overhear Stella and Liberty talking round the back. ‘The thing is, Liberty,’ Stella had said in a disgustingly patronising voice, ‘you’re seventeen years old. You should have had at least five boyfriends by now. I’ve had loads.’

  ‘Yes,’ Liberty sighed, obviously desperate to impress her new friend, ‘but I just haven’t had the opportunity. And my dad would kill me if he thought I was seeing anyone. And them as well probably. Actually, make that definitely – and he’d definitely take me out of Stagmount. He’s really hot on stuff like that.’

  ‘Fuck him,’ Stella retorted nastily, ‘it’s none of his business what you do. And how would he even know? Don’t worry, Lib, I’m going to take you under my wing. Show you a good time.’

  Jinx ground her teeth and stubbed out her cigarette as she listened to the two of them walk off, making plans for a wild night out to rectify Liberty’s boyfriendless situation and giggling about something or other. Fucking Stella! All the rest of them knew exactly what Liberty’s dad was like and did their best to protect her – especially when he got in one of his psycho rages. They even went so far as to write lists of things she should say to calm him down when she was expecting one of his regular enraged phone calls.

  Jinx was thinking about this and about how she could never imagine Stella doing the same or even caring much; she was staring at the floor and chewing the side of her thumbnail when Fanny Ho strolled in clutching a packet of Marlboro Reds. Fanny looked almost as startled to see Jinx as Jinx was to see her.

  ‘Since when did you start smoking, Fan?’ Jinx enquired, looking confused. ‘I thought you hated it!’

  ‘Um,’ Fanny seemed to blush before quickly turning round to grab one of the upturned milk crates the smokers sat on, ‘yes, you’re right. I did hate it but … now I don’t.’

  ‘Well,’ Jinx said smiling at her, ‘I can’t argue with that. Welcome to our humble home.

  ‘I’d love to stay and chat,’ she added, getting to her feet and grabbing her bag, ‘but if I don’t dash up the drive right this second I’ll be seriously late and judging by her deeply unreasonable behaviour yesterday Mrs C is in one of her nut-job moods. See ya!’

  Fanny – who Jinx thought was looking very relieved about something or other but didn’t have the time to stay and find out what it was – smiled and waved as Jinx bent down and crawled out from underneath the half-shut garage door.

  Jinx flew down the drive to tutor group, half an eye on the time and the other on the decidedly stormy-looking sky above her. Christ, she just couldn’t stand it when the weather began to change for the worse. Every year about this time when the swallows started preparing to fly away she felt miserable and moody and wanted to join their flight.

  She made it into her seat seconds before Mrs Carpenter swept through the door. Mrs C was still in one of her furious moods and all the girls groaned like mad when she informed them that now was the time to start seriously preparing for their mock exams next term.

  Added to the usual lessons, matches and house plays, they could find no spare time for anything much at all. And Liberty, much as they all loved her, was not the sharpest tool in the box and still had zero idea as to how much the others disliked Stella.

  First thing Monday morning after a particularly boozy half-term holiday, Stella and Liberty – who had been bonding steadily ever since the hockey ball incident and really were joined at the hip by now, and ridiculously delighted to see each other after only a week apart having only known each other for three weeks – were both slouched on an overstuffed beanbag in the common room, flicking through the papers. Jinx and Chastity were lying top to toe on the best sofa, watching MTV Dance, staring enviously at Brittany Murphy dancing around in Oakenfold’s new video and shovelling down Coco Pops.

  Jinx was also mulling over how she’d tried to speak to her old friend Jennifer from prep school to ask her what she knew about Stella. None of them had any idea why Stella had left Bedales: they’d all asked, but she always coyly replied that as Stagmount was far higher up in the league tables her parents had wanted her to move to give her a better chance of getting into Oxford.

  Jennifer was the only person any of them knew who’d gone ther
e, and so it was left to Jinx to find out as much as she could over half-term. This detective mission wasn’t helped by the fact that Jinx had ignored all of Jennifer’s friendly overtures for the last three years since their row about slaggy behaviour, but Jinx had been trying her best to re-extend the hand of friendship to get the answers she wanted.

  She’d telephoned Jennifer’s house and got her mother. Damn it, she’d never liked the woman much. When Jinx was growing up she’d been famous for sending her daughter to birthday parties clutching a Tupperware box filled with tofu pieces, grapes and carrot sticks, and instructing the other mothers not to let Jennifer have any of the jelly and ice cream the others so happily tucked into.

  ‘Oh, hello, Mrs Lewis,’ she’d said in the politest voice she always used on parents. ‘It’s Jinx. Jinx Slater. Is Jennifer around at all? I’d like to invite her to a small party at my house tomorrow night.’

  Mrs Lewis broke down in tears – not the best response Jinx had ever had.

  ‘Gosh,’ she’d said, desperately holding back the nervous giggle that was threatening to leap out of her throat, ‘I am sorry to have called at such a bad time, Mrs Lewis. Is, um, everything OK?’

  ‘Nooo, Jinx,’ Mrs Lewis was really sobbing now, ‘it’s not. Not at all.’

  ‘Er, right,’ said Jinx, imagining the worst and suddenly feeling a bit sick, ‘is Jennifer, um, all right?’

  ‘She’s in hospital.’ The floodgates really opened at this point and all Jinx could hear for the next couple of minutes was heavy breathing interspersed with huge sniffs.

  ‘Mrs Lewis, I am so sorry, I really am.’ Jinx was appalled. ‘Can I ask what happened? And Mrs Lewis, if there is anything I can do please tell me and I’ll do it.’

  ‘That is so kind of you, Jinx,’ Mrs Lewis finally found her voice. ‘But you see – gulp – the thing is – gulp – I had to – gulp - have her sectioned.’

  ‘She’s not allowed any visitors,’ she went on, ‘and I haven’t even spoken to her on the phone – for weeks.’ The sobbing started again in earnest, and Jinx, who had been truly shocked into silence, couldn’t think of anything to say.

  ‘Er, if you don’t mind me asking, Mrs Lewis,’ Jinx faltered, not wanting to upset her further but desperate to know, ‘what was wrong with her that you had to do that?’

  ‘She was surviving on an apple a day. A single apple! I’d always made sure she ate healthily, but over the summer she fell to five stone two pounds and her father insisted I do something about it. I blame that bloody boyfriend. I always told her he was no good. Why she couldn’t go out with one of those lovely Bedales boys I’ll never understand. Anyway, he dumped her and she simply stopped’ – Mrs Lewis was clearly about to become incoherent again – ‘eating.’

  Jinx’s thoughts were interrupted when Stella held up the Daily Mail she was reading, pointing out the centre-spread feature entitled ‘Girls Out of Control’, accompanied by a huge colour picture of two gorgeous-looking girls slumped on a step outside a nightclub. ‘Aren’t chavs just gross,’ she drawled, smoothing an eyebrow, clearly pleased with herself. ‘Look at the state of that. Makes me so pleased to be me.

  ‘I don’t have any friends who didn’t go to private school,’ she continued proudly, ‘and looking at this, I’m glad I don’t.’

  Jinx sat up instantly, knocking Chastity’s half-finished cereal all over the floor, all thoughts of Liv’s plan to let Stella hang herself forgotten. ‘You are so fucking stupid,’ she exclaimed. ‘Weren’t you just telling us – in long, bloody boring detail I might add – about how pissed you got all half-term with your stupid Chelsea friends? How is that any different to a load of girls going out in,’ she snatched the paper and scanned the picture caption, ‘Newcastle and doing exactly the same thing?’

  ‘Just because,’ Jinx continued, her voice getting louder and louder, ignoring Liberty’s stunned expression, ‘you might go out and drink champagne cocktails wearing Gucci dresses, it doesn’t make you any better than them. In fact, I know who I’d rather hang out with, and it sure as hell isn’t you.’

  Jinx jumped up and flounced out of the room before Stella had a chance to say anything, closely followed by an admiring Chastity. Chastity winked at an incoming Fanny Ho, noticing only in passing that her hair seemed to be a lot shorter than it had been last night when they’d been watching – for about the zillionth time – Dirty Dancing, their number one favourite film. Those Chinese girls were so trendy they seemed to change their hair as often as they brushed their teeth.

  After a lunch break spent in their rooms, desperately dashing off the rest of the incredibly long French composition the Dick had set them, Liberty, arm in arm with Stella, yelled at Jinx and Chastity to wait up as they minced down the main school corridor towards double French with the Dick. First and second years flattened themselves against the corkboards filled to bursting with netball and lacrosse fixtures, team lists and drama society events as the sixth formers approached.

  Amongst Stagmount’s many claims to fame was the dubious honour of having the longest corridor in any building in Britain. To the casual observer, the mud-stained brown carpet, curved ceiling and myriad framed A-level artworks belied nothing more unusual than a walkway to maths. To the girls, however, the corridor was the site on which feuds and crushes were made and broken. Queenbees of all ages and their cliques reigned supreme and side-by-side, careful not to tread on the patch of anyone older than them.

  Jinx and the rest paid no attention to the younger girls. Not out of spite you understand, they simply didn’t register their existence. They’d been in awe of the sixth formers when they’d been in the lower school and it was the natural order of things that the lower years would now be in awe of them.

  Stella and Liberty, to Jinx’s increasing but silent chagrin, were arguing about what they were going to do that weekend.

  Liberty wanted to stay in school and go out in Brighton on Saturday night with the rest of their gang. Stella wanted Liberty to go raving at Fabric in London with her old Bedales mates. Jinx was frowning, half-listening to Chastity wittering on about how much she hated her mother’s new boyfriend who’d taken them to Cannes for half-term, and half-listening to Stella.

  ‘Oh stay, Lib, for fuck’s sake,’ Jinx butted in. ‘I’ve hardly seen you recently and we haven’t all been out together for ages. It’s not like you even know any of her Bedales lot anyway.’ Chastity’s face fell as she realised Jinx hadn’t listened to a word she’d been saying, and Stella pursed her lips together in excellent imitation of Renée Zellweger, who all the girls agreed had a face that looked exactly like an arsehole.

  Jinx was ripe for a fight after her outburst that morning and just rearranging her features into her nastiest scowl when Lulu Cooper, Mimi Tate and Chloe Thompson flagged them down, keen to check out what Stella was wearing. Pretty much the whole school was whispering about the mysterious new arrival’s fabulous clothes, and every day she walked down the corridor as if she were striding down a Parisian catwalk – fully aware of the many pairs of envious eyes checking her out as she did so.

  These three were on their way from morning chapel to the same French class as the others and talk quickly turned to the ridiculous amounts of prep the Dick had been setting and how much more they hated her than normal.

  So, as they huffed and puffed their way up the steep, narrow and winding staircase – clearly marked Down – to the languages department which occupied the whole top floor, they were puzzled when an unusually silent, wild-haired Dick staggered past them, gripping hard on the handrail that ran from top to bottom. Most of Stagmount’s legends were all Greek to Stella, but she’d heard the folklore so also watched this highly unusual phenomenon with studied interest.

  The girls always made sure to walk up the Down stairs, and down the Up ones, primarily, of course, to piss off the Dick. That she should walk past them going up the Down and not have anything to say about it was a revelation, a proclamation that something was seriously rotten in th
e state of the French department.

  Fascination turned to delight as they clocked a rivulet of blood running from somewhere above the ginger hairline, across her white and veiny forehead, down the side of her pasty face, disappearing drip drip drip into the open neck of her lilac shirt. Jinx snorted and nudged Chastity, whose jaw dropped faster than a pornstar’s knickers.

  They stopped to stare, openly laughing and pointing in her glassy-eyed face by now, hardly believing their luck at catching the Dick so obviously caught short like this. Her faltering progress wavered as she tottered and seemed to miss a step. Liberty slowly reached out an appalled hand as if to steady her vacillating teacher, but drew back wide-eyed as the Dick regained her footing and continued her precarious, slow-motion descent.

  The girls whooped and hollered as they bounded up the few remaining steps and burst through the classroom door. Whatever had happened to the Dick, it was pretty clear that double French was off, and, best of all, they’d seen her predicament first hand. It didn’t, of course, occur to them to go to her aid or fetch anyone for help. Why would it? They wouldn’t piss on her if she were on fire. The Dick had tormented them for three years and the only emotion they felt at her clear physical downfall was pure, unadulterated delight combined with exhilaration at the thought of the ultimate gossip they could save for the huge and easily impressed audience in the canteen at supper that evening.

  Lulu, the spoddiest girl in the school, who wore glasses with lenses as thick as the bottom of a bottle of Grolsch lager, was the first to notice that one of the grand Venetian blinds had come loose from its fixings and crashed to the floor.