‘Oh, didn’t I mention it?’ Gunn said, smiling more wickedly than she had all morning before playing her trump card. ‘Mr Morris won’t be back this term – IF AT ALL. I’m in charge now.’
The girls were shocked into silence and Gunn finished taking the register, ticking off each name with a flourish before conducting what she informed them was the ‘daily dress inspection’.
Charlie and about ten others were banned from taking trips into town all week for daring to still be in their pyjamas, Liberty was given lines for wearing heels that were more than two inches high – ‘not appropriate for school, I’m sure you agree, Latiffe’– and Jinx was given three evening detentions for general untidiness. In fact, she looked exactly the same as most of the others but Jinx knew Gunn was delighted at being able to punish her again and that this was a mere warm-up designed to freak her out.
The girls wandered off to chapel in a daze. Most of them hadn’t been all term and on the way there they joked that at least Mrs Stanwell would be thrilled to see them. However, when they got there the usually smiley Mrs S had a very pinched look about her face and puffy eyes as if she’d been crying. What the bloody hell was going on?
Mrs Carpenter was lovely to them in tutor group. She hated Mrs Gunn too and was very sympathetic to their plight, but couldn’t – or wouldn’t – answer any of their questions as to how long they were likely to have to endure her for. A furious Liv had tried to get in to see Mrs Bennett at least four times throughout the day to make her complaint about Mrs Gunn, but Jo – who looked progressively more stressed as the day went on – kept fobbing her off.
Liberty was speaking to Jinx and the others again, but the only topic of conversation was what had happened to Morris. Stella sat with them at lunch but didn’t join in their Morris speculation, preferring to chat to Liberty about the new issue of American Vogue, pick at her usual dressing-free mixed salad or gaze out the window towards the sea with a profoundly annoying smile on her face, clearly daydreaming about something or other. Jinx totally ignored her – as did Chastity, Charlie and Liv. They all noted a deeply irritating smug look that kept flashing across her face but were too wound up to wonder about it. The fucking bitch seemed to thrive on disaster.
In case he’d come down with a contagious flesh-eating disease that the rest of the teachers were trying to keep quiet, Charlie went to the san pretending to be suffering with terrible period pains. She surreptitiously checked all the cubicles whilst Mister S was off fetching her trusty jar of paracetamol but came back dejected, saying they were full of nothing but fluey first years.
Despite their best efforts, by the end of the day none of the girls knew anything about where Mr Morris was, and if any of the teachers knew they certainly weren’t saying. The only thing they did know was that Miss Cusk, Gunn’s timid deputy, was in temporary charge of Wollstonecraft House. They clung to that word temporary as if it were the last disco biscuit in the Lost Vagueness tent at Glastonbury.
By the end of the day the old reference library was uncharacteristically packed with lower sixth formers. They were pretending to revise but in reality avoiding returning to Tanner House and the dreaded Gunn until the last possible minute. When Mrs Bennett was appointed she’d decreed that no Stagmount girl was allowed to study after seven o’clock at night, reasoning that they worked hard enough all day. Today – wishing they could stay in there all night – was the first time any of them had ever dissed this rule.
As they trudged down the drive in small groups the girls discussed how they were going to get round Mrs Gunn. Jinx and the rest of the old Wollstonecraft girls strode ahead looking boot-faced – they knew there was no getting around the Gunn when she was in a full-on strop like this. The best strategy was avoidance, pure and simple.
And there was not much chance of that either. Most of Jinx’s gang assembled themselves in the common room on the second floor where the Sky system was set up, and settled down to watch Newlyweds, their favourite show on MTV. Although they loved it, they usually spent most of their time in front of it throwing things at the TV and screaming abuse at the terrible Nick.
How dare he make such a fuss about Jessica spending her own money? Why the fuck should she do the cleaning herself when she has a full-time job – a career that, incidentally, is about a zillion times more successful than his piss-poor attempt? Why does he always railroad her into doing things he wants by making her feel guilty? For fuck’s sake! Why doesn’t she just divorce him?
Anyway, they were about ten minutes in and loving every second when Xanthe Miller – a beautiful black girl who’d been in Steinem and was the best artist the school had ever produced – kicked open the door and rushed in with the palest face they’d ever seen on her.
‘What’s wrong, Xan?’ Chastity pressed Pause on their Sky Plus and they all turned round expectantly.
‘You’ve not seen them have you?’ she panted, leaning despondently against the wall and pointing a shaking finger towards the window. ‘Look out there.’
The girls ran to the window and stared out, shocked into silence. On the path outside were cardboard boxes filled with bottles of booze of all descriptions, boxes and cartons of cigarettes, myriad Rizla papers, stacks of takeaway menus and a solitary miniature fridge.
‘Oh my God,’ Chastity screamed, ‘that’s my fridge!’
‘And our vodka,’ yelled Jinx, glimpsing the Vanilla Absolut they’d nearly finished the other night.
‘What’s with the menus?’ asked Liv, who was leaning so far out the window Charlie had taken the precaution of grabbing hold of the back of her thick woven leather belt.
‘There’s posters up all over the foyer,’ said Xanthe, ‘saying she’s done a room inspection and that she’s chucking all this stuff out.’
‘Whaaat?’ the girls yelled in unison, turning around and staring at Xanthe open-mouthed.
‘Yep.’ Xanthe’s face was slowly regaining its original colour. ‘This first lot is an amnesty apparently. She’s getting rid of this stuff but says if she finds any more booze, fags or – as she calls it – drugs paraphernalia after this the “perpetrators” will be suspended or expelled depending on the severity of the offence.’
‘But we’re allowed to drink in Tanner. It’s practically the whole point of making it into the sixth form,’ Chastity was apoplectic. ‘And Morris lets you smoke so long as you keep quiet about it. Everyone knows that!’
‘It gets worse,’ Xanthe interrupted. ‘We’re all banned from town for the rest of term thanks to this, we’ve got to be in our rooms by nine-thirty every night, there’s to be no more ordering food in and she’s put up a cleaning rota.’
‘I am not cleaning this fucking house,’ Chastity raged. ‘What does she think our parents pay the fucking fees for? I’m phoning my mum right now. I’m going to have her sacked.’
‘Hold on, Chas.’ Jinx was pointing past the cardboard boxes lining the path at someone walking in their direction up the drive. ‘There’s Stella. Where’s she been all afternoon? I bet you she’s got something to do with all this. Everywhere she goes shit happens. In fact,’ she gasped and covered her hand with her mouth, ‘what if she got rid of Morris like she did that guy at Bedales?’
‘You could be right, Jinx,’ Liv agreed. ‘I think it’s time we had a serious word with Ms Fox.’
Liberty spun round. ‘What the fuck are you all talking about?’ she yelled, stamping her foot and quivering with anger. ‘You’ve all gone fucking mad. Especially you.’ She turned to point at Jinx. ‘You’ve been jealous of her since the day she arrived. You just can’t stand the fact that I’ve got a new friend, can you? Well I’ve fucking had enough of it. I’ll be happy if I never see or speak to you again. That’s it, we’re finished.’
Liberty ran out the room, slamming the door behind her with such force that it jolted the Sky Plus back into action. None of them paid any attention to Newlyweds however. They were too busy looking at Jinx whose face was fixed in the grimmest expression they�
�d ever seen on it.
Fanny Ho wandered in a few seconds later looking very dapper in her lilac Paul Smith suit with newly short hair. ‘Hey, guys, what’s with all the boxes outside?’ she said. She’d just returned from a long day in London where the University of Miami was holding pre-entry interviews, and was oblivious to Gunn’s instatement. ‘What’s going on?’
As they filled her in she looked increasingly despondent. ‘Oh shit,’ she whispered, her head in her hands, ‘oh shit.’
‘Come on, Fan,’ Charlie put her arm round Fanny’s shoulder, ‘it’s not that bad is it? Anyway, you’re probably the most model pupil here.’
‘Yeah,’ Liv added, ‘and I’m sure Gunn won’t be here next term. She’s got Wollstonecraft to run. It’s only for a couple more weeks.’
Fanny shook Charlie off, picked up her Financial Times and left the room without saying a word. The others sighed and settled down in front of the telly again, although there was no more shouting at the screen and it was a very subdued group who shut themselves in their rooms at nine-thirty as ordered.
‘Liv!’ Jinx hissed, pulling the end of Liv’s duvet in what was proving to be a futile attempt to wake her up, ‘Liv – wake up will you!’
Jinx looked around in the dark and spied a jumbo bottle of Evian on Liv’s bedside table. She grabbed it, opened it and spurted it all over Liv’s face before quickly holding a pillow over her friend’s mouth to muffle any screams. Liv’s room was not far from Mr Morris’s flat and Jinx knew Gunn’s amazing supersonic hearing of old.
‘Jesus Christ, Jinx!’ Liv gasped when Jinx lifted the pillow, her terrified eyes wide, ‘what the fuck are you doing? I thought I was being murdered. What do you want? This had better be good.’
‘Sorry, sorry! Keep your hair on.’ Jinx couldn’t stop herself from giggling in the face of Liv’s outrage. ‘I need to talk to you and I don’t want Gunn hearing anything. This is like being in the fucking first year again.’
‘I couldn’t sleep so I was smoking out the window just now and I heard Liberty answer her phone. I’m sure she was talking to Stella.’
Liv was still half asleep but she looked sceptical and muttered something about fucking mad paranoia into her pillow.
‘I’m sure, Liv!’ Jinx bounced up and down on the side of her bed in irritation. ‘She was talking about the row tonight and saying everything we’d said about thinking Stella was responsible for Morris’s disappearance.’
‘So what if she was?’ Liv loved her sleep and clearly wanted to get back to it. ‘We’ll find out soon enough if that’s the case and in the meantime what can we do about it? It’s not like we’re going to get a confession out of her, is it? I don’t think there’s anything we can do except sit tight and sweat Gunn out for the rest of term.’
‘Liv,’ Jinx said seriously, ‘I’m disappointed in you. You used to be able to do anything, get rid of anyone.
‘OK,’ she continued as Liv pointedly rolled over and pulled her duvet up to her chin. ‘I’m going. But I’m going to do something about this, and if I have to do it alone I will. I’m not going to sit back and be made a fool of even if all of you are.’
Jinx said goodnight and carefully opened the door to let herself out. As she crept silently down the corridor leading to the foyer she heard voices and threw herself behind a thick velvet curtain covering the long disused tradesman’s door a few metres to the left of the front door everyone now used.
As she stood in the dark holding her breath she heard Gunn’s unmistakable baritone and a lighter voice she immediately recognised but couldn’t quite place. It was only when the latter giggled girlishly and said ‘à bientôt, ma cherie’ that it clicked. It was the Dick. She didn’t even live on the school grounds, and she was supposed to be laid up at home with a serious head injury. What the fuck was she doing with Gunn in Tanner House at midnight?
Jinx waited until she heard the front door being locked and bolted and for Gunn’s heavy footsteps to thud in the direction of her flat followed by the unmistakable sound of her shutting her own door behind her before she came out from behind the curtain. She legged it back to her room and breathed a sigh of relief as she softly closed her own door and rammed the handy chair underneath the handle. She turned off the lights, planning to lie on her bed in the dark and analyse the evening’s many events. However, barely had she shut her eyes before she slipped into a deep and dreamless sleep, only waking to the sound of that bloody handbell the next morning.
Gunn took the register and did her dress inspection again. Although there was a palpable sense of rage and injustice hanging in the air where the girls were lined up on the path outside, the events of the previous evening meant the lower sixth were taking her seriously now. Despite this, the old witch still managed to dish out a couple of lots of lines for inappropriate facial piercings and demand that the perpetrators remove them by the end of the day.
As they marched off en masse to chapel, Liberty grabbed Stella’s arm to make her hang back, clearly not wanting to be anywhere near Jinx et al. Chastity was punching out her mother’s many numbers on her top of the range mobile phone, leaving urgent messages with cleaners and hotel staff all over the world trying to locate her. She was still spitting about the theft of her fridge and the ransacking of her booze closet, adamant that she was going to have Gunn fired. Jinx was grinning as she whispered to Liv and Charlie what normally happened to girls whose parents complained – Chastity was funny when she flew into one of her rages.
Jinx was in the middle of double art, sitting in the mezzanine drawing area above the studio proper and lining up all the pastel crayons in a circle in the order of the rainbow when she decided she was bored and hungry. Lunch had been a monstrous bean pie and Jinx hated beans. The kidney, the baked, the broad, the white – all of them, in fact, apart from the runner, which any fool could see was not a bean but a vegetable. She was not a fussy eater at all, but the texture of beans was so abhorrent to her she knew she’d vomit if one found its way into her mouth. So, having hardly eaten anything since breakfast and feeling peckish, she told Professor Crawford she needed the loo and excused herself in search of a few biscuits.
She was wandering down the corridor in the direction of the dining rooms, half-heartedly looking at the team lists and ‘interesting and/or relevant’ articles cut from the broadsheets and pasted on to the noticeboards every day by the various heads of departments when she bumped into a harassed looking ginger man. Wearing khaki trousers, walking boots and a navy-blue jumper he was carrying a bulging backpack that was so full he hadn’t quite managed to zip it all the way up. Staring around in confusion with beads of sweat sprouting on his top lip, he was obviously lost.
‘Hi there,’ she said, approaching him and sticking out her hand, ‘Jinx Slater, lower sixth. Can I help at all?’
The Stagmount girls were always helpful to strangers and lost parents; it would have been more than their lives were worth if any of the staff caught them behaving otherwise. Mrs Bennett was red hot on politeness and what she called common courtesy.
‘Oh,’ he said, staring at Jinx, apparently rather taken aback that she’d spoken to him, and belatedly taking her hand in his decidedly clammy one, ‘oh yes, that would be fantastic. If you don’t mind.’
‘Of course I don’t mind,’ Jinx smiled, thinking how dearly she would like to wipe her hand on her jeans but forcing herself to resist the impulse. What a loser – if she minded she wouldn’t have bloody offered, would she? ‘Who are you here to see?’
‘Mrs Bennett. Your headmistress? I, uh …’ he seemed dazed. ‘I’m, er, Brandon Brannington. From the Guardian? I’m here to interview her?’
‘Right, Mr Brannington, I’m walking that way myself.’ Jinx smiled again. The man really did seem distinctly uneasy. And so much for all that stuff adults normally say about teenagers using up-speak, she knew far more of them that did it. It was nerves. Anyway, the only time some adults seem to actually like teenagers is when they’re lying dead in
a secluded beauty spot somewhere and thus unable to mooch about wearing hoodies and looking threatening.
As they walked up the corridor, frustratingly slowly so Brandon could admire the framed artworks and – or so Jinx thought anyway – perv over the team photos pinned to the walls, Jinx noticed a tape recorder sticking out of his bag.
She had a sudden eureka moment standing there on the muddy brown carpet in the yellow hallway. ‘Mrs Bennett loves journalists,’ she said conversationally, leaning against one of the walls he was admiring in what she hoped was an alluring manner, ‘she’ll probably keep you in her office for ages. There was a woman from The Times who missed five trains! She wrote about it in her piece.’
She was gratified to see Brandon look slightly uncomfortable. ‘Yes,’ she continued, gazing into his eyes, ‘Mrs B can natter on for absolute hours. She’s got so much to say about really interesting stuff – you know, political stuff about education. It’s especially interesting when she gets on to the government’s threat to remove private school’s charity status and things. She’s really hot on that one, totally knows her stuff. I expect you do too,’ Jinx smiled winningly at him, ‘don’t you?’
Brandon coughed, blushed and mumbled something that could have been in the affirmative if only she’d heard what it was.
‘Sorry,’ Jinx said, ‘I didn’t quite catch that. Did you say you wanted to use the loo? Look,’ she continued, taking his arm and frogmarching him in the direction of the men’s room, ‘it’s right over here. Don’t worry about a thing. I’ll look after your bag and take you to her office when you’re done.’
Brandon looked a bit confused as he was practically shoved through the door, but toddled off inside obediently. Jinx breathed a sigh of relief as the door slammed shut behind him, and scanned the corridor both ways. Thankfully it was deserted as it always was in the middle of lessons and she delved into the bulging backpack, rooting around to try to find the tape recorder that seemed to have slipped to the bottom when he dropped it on the floor.
High Jinx Page 19