by Carmen Reid
‘Why?’ Gina had asked.
‘I know,’ Amy had agreed. ‘Completely antiquated. It’s not enough for us to have to compete against other schools, we have to compete against each other as well. But that’s the St Jude’s way: you’re not doing anything useful unless you’re winning.’
As this was the last match of the hockey season (postponed from last term because of flu, apparently), Niffy’s team had to win it to secure the house junior hockey cup. ‘But don’t freak out,’ Niffy had insisted to Gina. ‘There’s no pressure on you. We’ll win.’
But Gina had found out that Penny’s team had beaten Niffy’s 3–1 in the house match last term, so she had continued to ask slightly desperately, ‘Isn’t there someone else who could do this?’
Niffy had just rolled her eyes. ‘Year Three is full of weak-armed weeds,’ she’d insisted. ‘I need someone who can belt the ball up the field, if required. You’re good, honestly.’
Before Gina could worry further about whether or not she should be there, the referee blew the whistle and, with a hearty thwack, the rock-hard ball was on the loose, with girls brandishing wooden sticks thundering after it.
Within moments, Penny had the ball and was moving at a terrifying rate towards Gina’s end of the pitch. She crossed the ball deftly to Louisa and, with a lurch, Gina saw Louisa move skilfully towards goal.
Gina fumbled her stick and saw Penny charging towards her, shouting out, ‘I’ll get it! She’s the new girl and she’s useless!’
As the ball sped towards her, Gina realized it was a now-or-never moment. She had just a second or two to stop the ball and hit it away with all her strength or else Penny was going to take it from under her nose and score.
Gina’s first thought was to throw down her stick and run as fast as her legs could carry her. She hadn’t wanted to be in the stupid team anyway. She couldn’t play this dumb game! If she was totally honest, she was only here because she thought it might help her make friends with Amy and Niffy, but now she saw that it was much more likely that they would never speak to her again. Because she was going to mess up!
Then Penny, still running, began to laugh. Feeling a rush of anger, Gina made her decision. She wasn’t going to run; she was at least going to try.
She swung her stick as hard as she could. There was a crack as she made contact with the ball. But the rebound, which shot up into her hands, made her drop the stick in pain.
‘Ow!’ she couldn’t help wailing as she tucked her smarting fingers under her arms.
‘Dangerous play!’ Penny was shouting, and Miss Chrysler was blowing her whistle. All Gina could see was Niffy’s thunderous face. Although the ball was right up at the other end of the field, clearly Gina had not done a Good Thing. She suspected her stick had gone above her shoulder again. And hadn’t Niffy warned her about this? ‘It’s not frigging golf!’ she’d told her.
In the blurry moments that followed, Gina was sent off; Penny was awarded a free shot and scored, making it a terrible 1–0.
It was nearly an hour later when Amy and Niffy returned to the dorm to find Gina sulking angrily.
Before they could even get out a word about how the rest of the match had gone, Gina let rip. ‘Don’t blame me! I never want to be in your team again! I didn’t want to be in it in the first place! It was a really bad idea. I just felt guilty about Willow.’
Both girls just smiled at her.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Amy. ‘You’re right.’
‘We were desperate, newbie,’ Niffy agreed. ‘But it’s OK,’ she added, her smile spreading further.
‘Oh!’ Gina got it. ‘You totally won, didn’t you?’
‘Yes!’ they both replied together, and Niffy gave some sort of bizarre little victory jig.
‘You total daftie.’ Amy laughed at Niffy.
‘It was a good shot,’ Niffy assured Gina. ‘You’ve got very strong arms. Do you do weights?’
‘No. It’s probably from tennis,’ Gina told them, ‘and swimming. We have a pool – and a court – at home.’ For once she didn’t say this boastfully: she didn’t want to put these girls off. She was beginning to realize they were the only chance of friends she had in this dump.
‘A tennis court?’ Niffy asked, looking excited.
‘Yeah . . . but it’s not such a big deal over—’
‘You play tennis?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Do you play well?’
‘I’m OK . . . but just a minute . . .’ Gina was suspicious. ‘Don’t tell me – there’s a junior house tennis cup as well, isn’t there?’
Niffy just nodded and said, as if to herself, ‘We need six: three pairs and two people good enough to play singles as well—’
‘Don’t even think about it!’ Gina told her.
‘Oh yes! The hockey season is now officially over and it’s tennis from now on,’ Niffy explained, stripping off her muddy and sweat-soaked games clothes and bundling them into her laundry bag.
‘OK,’ Amy began, ‘the plan is we get showered and changed, then we take you out to see the many sights of Edinburgh.’
‘We’re allowed to go out?’ Gina asked; she’d somehow thought they’d have to stay in the boarding house all weekend.
‘Of course!’ Amy laughed. ‘We’re allowed out at the weekend, by day and by night,’ she added.
‘Under carefully controlled conditions,’ Niffy reminded her.
‘Which we bend a little.’
‘What about Min?’ Gina wondered. ‘Where is she?’
‘In training,’ said Amy. ‘Look out of the window.’
The dorm’s high third-floor window gave an eagle’s-eye view of the school playing fields. The pitches were empty now, but on the athletics track there was a lone figure still in sports kit.
Min was pacing out distances and marking them with what looked like two water bottles.
‘She’s hoping to win the under-sixteens eight hundred metres on Sports Day,’ Amy explained. ‘She came third last year, so there’s a good chance. But anyway, c’mon, scrub up, we’re going shopping!’
‘I can come with you?’ Gina wanted to check, because going shopping with someone . . . it was kind of personal. Did Amy really want to invite her?
‘Yeah. We’ll show you round, newbie,’ Amy replied. ‘It’ll be fun.’
‘OK, here’s the deal.’ Gina turned to them with a determined look on her face. ‘You have got to stop calling me that!’
‘Six hundred and fifty quid for a handbag!’ There was no mistaking the outrage in Niffy voice. ‘A handbag!’ She put the offending item back on the shelf. ‘I’m sorry, Amy, but even you can’t afford that.’
‘Well’ – Amy tossed her blonde hair, knowing perfectly well they were within earshot of the sniffy sales assistant – ‘if I wanted to use up my entire term’s allowance on one fabulous investment piece, I could.’
‘Get lost,’ Niffy told her. ‘Six hundred quid? You could buy a horse for that.’
‘Yes, I’m sorry, but we’re in Harvey Nichols,’ Amy snapped, ‘not Pony World.’
Niffy snorted in a very horse-like fashion.
‘Come on,’ Amy instructed. ‘Let’s go and buy some make-up.’
Ever since they had got off the bus . . . OK, that had taken Gina by surprise.
‘We’re going by bus?!’ she’d asked the others. ‘Is that OK? I mean . . . will we be safe?’
Back home, when Gina went anywhere, she was taken by car, which usually meant there was a parent on hand wherever she went. Buses were for crack addicts, muggers and beggars, or so she’d been given to understand.
The idea of three girls just jumping onto a bus and travelling into town was . . . terrifying.
But Niffy and Amy looked at her in astonishment.
‘Safe?’ Niffy laughed. ‘Unless you think toddlers or little old ladies in hats are dangerous, then yes, it is safe!’
But as soon as she’d stepped off the bus and in through the shiny revolving glas
s doors of Edinburgh’s chicest department store, Gina had felt just ever so slightly at home.
Unlike the boarding house, with its screaming alarm and weird food and communal bathrooms, unlike school, with the bitching and the hockey and the uptight teachers, Harvey Nichols was a place Gina immediately understood.
This glossy consumer paradise was all about clothes and shoes and shopping. Here, just like at home, she could linger over the expensive shampoos and luxury lipsticks, and then treat herself to an overpriced latte. Here, she got it. For the first time since she’d arrived in this strange Scottish city, she felt herself relax.
Considering they came from opposite sides of the globe, Amy and Gina were dressed in remarkably similar fashion. They were wearing their latest shopping outfits: tight jeans, flat pumps, complicated jackets and bags (Diesel and Mulberry for Amy, Nordstrom and Coach for Gina). Amy had wound a thick pink and silver scarf around her neck and applied too much blue eye shadow. Gina had overdone the bronzing powder and had picked a buttercup-yellow top, which would have worked in sunny California but was too strident for the cool grey of Edinburgh.
Niffy was the one who looked out of place in this shopping Mecca. She was wearing scuffed riding boots, oversized jeans and a big beige mac. Although it was Saturday and there was every chance of bumping into the male of the species round every corner, Niffy’s only concession to make-up had been the application of Vaseline to several nasty lip cracks.
While Amy and Gina bonded over Aveda blushers (‘This one’s nice – not too pink, not too red’; ‘Mmm . . . yummy’), Niffy continued with her diatribe: ‘This bottle of shampoo costs twenty-eight pounds – they’re having a laugh!’
‘Could you just shut up?’ Amy hissed, her patience finally snapping. ‘You’re a flaming bumpkin! You sound like my gran. And you know what? You could probably do with some of that! Look at your rat’s nest!’
Amy took Niffy by the shoulders and turned her to face one of the store’s mirrors, so she could examine her curly mop, bundled up into a scrunchie.
‘Jason could be here – he could be in this shop, we could bump right into him and I’ll be with you, mop-head! Flapping about in your mac, looking like a scarecrow!’
‘Oh, this is all about Jason, is it?’ Niffy replied, but her eyes hadn’t left her reflection and it was hard to miss the hurt expression on her face.
‘Don’t, Amy,’ Gina broke in. ‘Niffy looks fine.’
‘What about the trial size?’ Amy’s voice sounded a little less angry. ‘Why don’t you get the trial-size shampoo and conditioner for curly hair? Honestly, it’s really good. No! You know what?’ As Amy took Niffy by the arm and led her round the corner, Gina recognized the zeal of a true fellow shopper.
‘Ta-da! This is the shampoo for you,’ Amy announced in front of the display. ‘Barielle shampoos, conditioners and nail care made from’ – she flourished a bottle under Niffy’s nose – ‘hoof oil.’
‘Really?’ Niffy exclaimed with enthusiasm. ‘Does it smell the same?’ She began unscrewing the lid of the bottle.
‘Oh, no doubt!’ Amy rolled her eyes.
When Gina handed her credit card over to the woman behind the till, she hoped her mother wouldn’t mind too much.
‘You’ll have to get some warmer things,’ Lorelei had warned her, after all. ‘Even though it’s summer, summer in Scotland isn’t like anything you’re used to. Let’s put it this way – you won’t be needing your bikini, or the factor forty.’
Gina’s purchase of two pairs of very expensive jeans, two DKNY tops and a cute red jacket from Whistles had impressed Amy.
‘I’m going to get one of those tops too,’ she decided. ‘You don’t mind, do you? We’ll just wear them on different days.’
‘Sure, no problem.’ Gina had smiled at her, and suddenly Amy was her new best friend because this was just like going to Nordstrom’s with Ria and arguing about who was going to buy the pink one and who’d have to get the blue because they both adored it so much.
When the shopping was over, it was time to ride the escalators up to the café on the top floor.
‘We’ll go to the toilets first,’ Amy instructed. ‘Check ourselves over. This café is really popular – everybody comes here . . . anybody could be here,’ and they knew exactly who she was thinking of.
In Amy’s mind, the scene was playing. She would emerge from the Harvey Nichols toilets, hair freshly brushed, lip gloss applied, looking as gorgeous as possible. She would round the corner into the café and there, bathed in the late afternoon sun streaming in through the huge windows, would be Jason, alone, sipping moodily at a cappuccino (or did he drink espresso?). Well . . . no matter. He would look over, see her, smile and say, ‘Amy’ – yes, he’d remember her name – ‘hello there! You’re looking great. Come over and join me.’
Instead, as Amy emerged from the toilet, all fragrant and fluffy, rounded the corner into the café and scanned the sunny room in hope, she heard a nasty mocking voice call out, ‘Oh look! Someone’s let the boarders out! Are you sure you’ve got time for a coffee, girls? You don’t want to miss the bus and be late back.’
Penny revolting-Boswell-totally-revolting-Hackett. Complete with Piggy and Weasel and two boys, one of which had to be Penny’s state school boyfriend, Llewellyn.
Amy had a split second to decide which would be worse: turning and leaving, so allowing Penny to laugh and feel she had the upper hand; or staying here and having to endure the snide glances and even snider remarks from the other side of the room.
‘Table for three,’ Amy told the waitress defiantly. ‘As far away from the window as you can, please.’
‘He’s not here, you know,’ Penny sang out as they walked past her table.
Amy turned her head and glared.
‘Been spending some of Daddy’s cash?’ came the sneer. ‘Dressing up later, are you? Or won’t you be allowed out again?’
‘Come on, Amy.’ Niffy ushered her along, giving Penny just the merest snooty nod of acknowledgement.
‘A little overdressed for the cinema, aren’t we?’ the Neb commented as Amy, Niffy, Min and Gina came into her sitting room to sign out for the evening, wearing a colourful mix of denims, bright skirts and tops, strappy shoes, make-up, latest hairstyles and room-filling perfumes. Gina was in her new jeans, Amy her new top, and both of them had worked hard to dress up, make up and generally style the more fashion-challenged Niffy and Min.
‘It’s a natural reaction to wearing sludge-green all week,’ was Amy’s defence.
‘So what are you going to see? And where? And will you be back by ten thirty and not one moment later? In a taxi?’ the Neb wanted to know.
Mrs Knebworth was in her armchair, still neatly clad in a tweed skirt and satin blouse. She made no dressing-down concessions to the weekend. Some of the boarders staying in tonight were nestled on sofas and floor cushions all around her because they were actually going to watch a film with her. Just the thought made Amy and Niffy’s toes curl.
Min was primed to answer. She’d done the Internet research: she knew the times, the cinema, the in-depth on-line reviews of the film they weren’t going to see tonight. They had something much more interesting planned instead, but going out on café crawls was banned, as the Neb suspected, quite rightly, that this might lead to the two evils it was her job to guard the girls against: boys and drinking.
‘The Girlfriend Project, up at Tollcross,’ Min informed her. ‘And yes, we’ll get a taxi there and a taxi back.’
When their cab pulled up at the boarding house, the girls climbed in, then passed the fifteen-minute journey twitching and twittering.
‘Is my hair OK?’ Amy wanted to know, running her hands over it for the hundredth time.
‘Fine,’ Niffy told her, but although Niffy had been her best friend since their first day at St Jude’s, Amy looked to Gina for expert reassurance.
Gina fished a wide-toothed comb out of her bag and smoothed over the back of Amy’s long locks.
Min held her feet up to examine the red mid-heels she’d borrowed from Amy for the night. ‘They’re lovely but we can’t walk too far, OK?’
Niffy, who’d finished her outfit off with long, flat brown boots, just snorted at this.
The excitement in the air was infectious. Gina could feel a little tingle of nerves starting up in the pit of her stomach. She wondered how different Edinburgh boys would be from the ones she hung out with back home. She was bursting with curiosity. Where were they going to find them? What would the cool places be like here? Gina had faith in Amy.
Amy had showed her a picture of Jason. It was kind of blurry, downloaded from the St Lennox website, but he was undoubtedly good-looking, and so were lots of the other boys in the team photo. They looked clean-cut and preppy-ish.
The black cab dropped them not outside the cinema in Tollcross but in George Street, right in the centre of town, where the bars, cafés and restaurants were gearing up for the busy night ahead. Ideal territory to start hunting for the gangs of boys the girls knew would be out and about tonight.
As Gina was beginning to understand, far from having no boys in their lives at all, the St Jude’s girls knew boys from every other single-sex private school in town. Inter-school dances, dancing lessons, theatrical performances and debating competitions were ways in which the schools socialized formally; hanging out at weekends was how the girls met the boys informally.
‘OK.’ Amy took charge of the group. ‘I have a list of places to try, but some of them are over-eighteen only.’
Something, she had to acknowledge, that was going to be a problem. She and Gina might just about get away with it, but Min and Niffy, with their girlish faces – not a hope.
‘Oh, I’m not doing that!’ Min insisted, crossing her arms. ‘We could get expelled!’
‘Rubbish!’ Amy exclaimed. ‘Who’s going to tell? Well, you’ll have to wait outside then . . . Maybe Nif can keep you company,’ she added hopefully.