Secrets at Silver Spires

by Ann Bryant

  I could have died, but I just sighed inside and tried to settle down to read the mass of words in front of me. A moment later though I felt my face getting hot because Sophie said something to Isis in a voice just loud enough for me to hear.

  “Hey, Isis, don’t you wish you could do about half the work of everyone else and not even get told off?”

  “You’re not kidding!”

  My throat felt suddenly as though it had something stuck in it and I couldn’t swallow. Half of me wanted to turn round and shout and scream, but the other half was scared and cowering. I tried not to move at all. Maybe they’d think I hadn’t heard. Everyone else was taking the opportunity to chat with their friends while Mr. Reeves was engrossed with trying to find the right place on a CD, bits of music blasting out every so often, the noise level rising.

  I forced myself to try and read the words on the page in front of me instead of just staring at them, but I’d only sounded out half a sentence when Isis’s voice made me freeze.

  “Hey, Sophie, how about we deliberately make a few spelling mistakes? Then all the teachers will be really nice to us.”

  That did it. My misery and temper started to roll into one because I was never going to be able to cope in this world of words. Not caring about anything any more, I ripped a page out of my English book and handed it back to Isis. “There you go!” I said in a hiss. “Why not start with those? There are at least three spelling mistakes on every line, because I can’t help it. I can’t spell. Satisfied?”

  I turned away abruptly, feeling my face flooding with colour. It was pathetic, what I’d just said. I was going to be the laughing stock of the class. Why couldn’t I have thought of something calm and clever to say that would make them feel small, like Naomi had done?

  Around me the class chatted on happily and Mr. Reeves pointed the remote in small impatient jerks at the CD player. Isis and Sophie fell silent behind me but I imagined them rolling their eyes at each other. And when I dared to glance round I saw that no one seemed to have noticed the little pocket of despair where I sat in the middle.

  For the rest of that day and for the next two days I don’t remember feeling happy at all. Isis and Sophie looked at me as though I was an amusing little child, and although they didn’t make any nasty comments in the next English lesson, and didn’t come anywhere near me and my friends in the dining hall, I was still tense and anxious. What if they said something to Grace and the others, now they knew for sure that I’d got a big problem?

  And if I wasn’t replaying that whole horrible English lesson and getting myself worked up all over again, I was trying to think what I could possibly do about the eyes for my art piece. It would be such a shame if this one vital part was missing when I’d worked so hard on the wire bodies. All four of them were finished now, and each figure was made with two strands of wire twisted round into a double, and then three doubles plaited together. It had taken me ages. My girl figure looked incredible, with the bubble wrap in the exact shape of a skirt, and on the top half I’d wrapped the bubble wrap round so it looked like a sweatshirt.

  I’d searched again for the missing teardrop but it was obviously lost for good. I was really despairing about what to do until I came across Tony the following day and had the sudden idea of checking with him that the chandelier had actually been thrown away. There was a tiny chance, after all, that it might have been taken somewhere else. I mean it wasn’t the kind of thing you could just chuck out with the rubbish; you’d need to arrange for a special collection. Maybe it was being stored somewhere else, ready to be taken away.

  Grace and I had been swimming, but Grace had had to stay behind to talk to Mrs. Mellor, the PE teacher, about something. I was waiting outside for her when Tony walked past.

  “Can I ask you something?” I blurted out, before I could change my mind.

  He turned and grinned at me. “As long as it’s nothing to do with maths or English or anything.”

  “No, it’s about…well, you know that room at Hazeldean next to the room where our cases and trunks are stored…”

  He stared up at the sky as though he was trying to think where I meant. “Yep, due for decorating, that one,” he said, nodding to himself.

  “And you know the chandelier in there…”

  “Oh, you saw that, did you?” He grinned. “Naughty, naughty! Didn’t you read the notice on the door?”

  I felt myself blushing as I remembered that there had been words written on a sign on the door but I hadn’t tried to read them properly because it would have taken too long. I shook my head, feeling a fool and wondering what the words might have said.

  “Strictly no admission! Don’t think you could have failed to see that!” He was wagging his finger at me, but in a jokey way. “Don’t worry, I’ll let you off. ’Spect you were just curious…”

  At least he wasn’t cross, but I was cross with myself. I felt a complete idiot. My terrible reading had let me down yet again. I wasn’t sure whether to ask my question now, because a part of me wanted to just get away and put an end to this conversation. But, on the other hand, I’d started off by saying I had a question, so really I had to carry on. “I only poked my head round the door…but I was…wondering whether…er…you’ve actually chucked the chandelier away yet?”

  He looked at me as though I’d just sprouted a horn right in the middle of my forehead. “Chucked it away? Chucked it away! You’re kidding! That is one precious chandelier, you know. We stored it in there to make sure it was safe. It’s been taken away for restoration. It’s going to take pride of place in the main reception hall once they’ve got it back to how it was, with all those bits of glass in place and the whole thing gleaming like twinkle city!” He chuckled to himself, then shook his head as though I was a hopeless case. “Chucked it away!”

  I was suddenly finding it difficult to swallow. What had I done? I just didn’t seem to be able to get anything right. If I’d been able to read the sign I wouldn’t have even gone in the stupid room in the first place, but now it looked as though I was a thief as well! They’d get the chandelier to the restorers and find that there were eight pieces of glass missing. I couldn’t bear to think about it. I was desperate to ask Tony if they’d have any spare pieces, because I really needed to know whether I was going to be in trouble. But I couldn’t ask that question, could I? Or I’d be the – what do you call it in crime films? – yes, the prime suspect. That’s what I’d be. I felt my face turning pale.

  “What did you want to know for anyway?” asked Tony.

  How did I reply to that one? The truth was out of the question. I searched round desperately and my stupid brain actually managed to come up with something.

  “I…I thought it would be nice to take a photo of it, that’s all. But it’s okay, I’ll wait till it’s hanging up in the reception hall.”

  “Ooh, yes, I reckon everyone’ll be taking photos once it’s hanging up. All that glass. Very expensive, you know.”

  Maybe this was a chance…if I was very careful. “Yes, it must be. How many pieces of glass are there in it altogether? Or doesn’t it matter about having an exact number?”

  I held my breath and deliberately let my eyes roam around as though I was just making casual conversation, and the answer wasn’t that important to me.

  “Oh, it matters, all right! You can’t replace all those pieces, you know. Well you could, but it’d cost a bit, and it wouldn’t be the same.”

  Then he was on his way, not a care in the world, while I stood there waiting for Grace and feeling a million cares weighing me down. I must be the most stupid person in the entire world.

  Chapter Eight

  On Friday evening it was history and science prep. I’d quite like history if it wasn’t for all the reading and writing, but I hate science. Georgie and I are in the same set for science and she’s no better at it than me, but not for the same reason. The thing about Georgie is that she’s just not bothered about any subjects except English and drama,
although I’ve noticed she’s recently got keener on French, but that’s because she’s interested in working on her accent because of her love of acting. I think she might even be planning on taking up another language for GCSE.

  I get really worried when I think about things like that. I used to feel okay knowing that Georgie and I were kind of in the same boat, each having one big thing that we’re good at. But now she’s getting better at other subjects, I feel really anxious that I’m going to be left on my own in bottom sets for ever, because of my brain not working properly.

  My eyes went from the mass of meaningless letters in my chemistry book to the door, then back to the book, then back to the door. I was desperately hoping that Grace would arrive. She was having tennis coaching again, just when I needed her. Mia was on the other side of me, but I didn’t dare ask her to help me. She’d think I was really thick to not even understand the simplest thing about chemical elements. When I’d had my session with Miss Cardwell earlier on she’d said she could really hear an improvement in my reading, and I’d been so happy. But it wasn’t helping me right now, when I couldn’t think of the spelling of the simplest word, and I had to keep trying things out on my piece of scrap paper, which would go straight in the bin afterwards.

  I felt myself tense up as I remembered what had happened at the end of my session, though, when I’d come out of Miss Cardwell’s room. I’d looked to right and left as usual, to check that no one I knew had spotted me, and then I’d had a nasty shock because Isis and Sophie had been at the bottom of the corridor looking at a noticeboard. I’d thought they hadn’t seen me, so I’d rushed off in the opposite direction, but I’d hardly gone any distance at all when Isis called out, “Hey, Jess, what are you doing here?”

  A ping-pong match seemed to start up inside my brain.

  Truth?

  Lie?

  Truth?

  Lie..?

  I looked at Isis and suddenly realized she knew exactly what I was doing there. She probably even watched me coming out of Miss Cardwell’s room. And she also knew I was embarrassed about it and would probably try to deny it.

  That decided it. I stood up straighter and spoke as confidently as possible.

  “I’ve been to Miss Cardwell. I would have thought that was pretty obvious.”

  They looked at each other, wide-eyed.

  Good, I’d shocked them. My heart was beating hard but I felt strong as I turned and walked away, trying with all my might to hold my head up high. “See ya!”

  Sitting here in prep, going over that memory, I suddenly felt close to tears. I still hadn’t been able to tell the truth to Grace and the others and I was just as ashamed about that as I was about my dyslexia. So why didn’t I just tell them and get it over with before they found out from Isis and Sophie?

  Was this how little fish in the great big ocean felt? One day, swimming about in the lovely blue sea, and the next, trapped in a net that was tightening and tightening.

  Grace didn’t arrive till well after halfway through prep, and by that time I’d given up on the chemistry and moved on to history.

  “Hi.” She smiled as she slipped into her seat and glanced at her watch. A moment later she was hard at work, and in no time at all I saw that she’d covered a page. I knew she wouldn’t mind helping me with a few spellings, though, like Archbishop, and Canterbury, but I didn’t want to ask her for spellings like priest and pilgrim and other words that were simple and obvious for everyone except me.

  “You okay?” she mouthed, when she happened to glance around after she’d been scribbling away for another fifteen minutes.

  I nodded dejectedly.

  “Sure?” She was looking at my work but I quickly put my arm across it so she couldn’t see, because it was so embarrassing.

  Immediately that same hurt look came into her eyes – the one I’d seen that lunchtime when I’d been telling her I couldn’t come to support her at the tournament. After that she didn’t look up any more till the end of prep. She wrote three pages of history altogether, even though she’d had less than half the time I’d had, and I bet there wasn’t a single spelling mistake from start to finish.

  As soon as my work had been safely handed in so no one could see it, I felt okay to talk about it, and as we went up to the dorm with the others, I tried to sound all light-hearted and unfazed, like Georgie often did. I just wanted Grace to go back to normal.

  “I don’t think I’ll ever get chemical elements, you know!”

  “You should have let me help you,” Grace said straight away, big concern on her face, and a trace of that hurt look I’d seen earlier.

  “Yeah, I could have done with some help too,” said Georgie. “Except that I refuse to put any effort into something that is never going to be any use whatsoever in my life. I mean, tell me when I’m going to need to know the chemical symbol for lithium, hmm?”

  Everyone was laughing by then, and I envied Georgie so much for the way nothing seemed to bother her.

  “I know I’ll get into trouble with Miss Crane,” she went on brightly, “for not paying attention to her boring, boring lesson yet again, but then if she tried to be a bit more interesting and imaginative, and let us act out little plays all about the elements or something, then who knows, I might be top of the class. So it’s entirely her fault!”

  One thing I knew for sure was that Miss Crane wouldn’t be cross with me. None of the teachers were these days. They were all acting like Mr. Reeves, treating me like a little kid. I could get away with the most rubbish piece of work and the teachers were all sympathy and smiles and telling me not to worry, whereas when other people got things wrong, they got accused of not paying attention.

  “Anyway, let’s not waste time talking about chemistry,” Georgie was saying excitedly. “Shopping tomorrow! Yea! I’m going to get a new necklace – a big fat jewel pendant!”

  And that gave me a great idea. I knew Grace was quite keen to go on the shopping trip because she needed sweatbands from the sports shop. Perhaps I would go too, because then I could look round for cheap costume jewellery with stones in. It wouldn’t even matter if the stones were blue or green, as long as they were big enough to look like eyes. Okay, they wouldn’t look as good as the teardrops would have looked, but they’d be better than nothing. I couldn’t help myself getting a bit excited again at the thought. But it wasn’t enough to mask my worry about what could happen when it’s discovered that some pieces of the chandelier are missing.

  Grace and I were both wearing jeans for the shopping trip. Normally we dress completely differently from each other. Grace prefers to stick to tracky bums and plain tops and I like experimenting with different styles. I know some people think I’m weird in the way I dress, and I didn’t used to care, but now that I’m feeling so like the odd one out with my learning difficulties, I want to blend in as much as possible.

  Katy was wearing a really fashionable tunic over her jeans and a belt that she’d made herself. It looked brilliant. She had fabulous earrings on too, and strings of bright beads around her neck. There was nothing interesting about me except perhaps my patchwork shoulder bag that I made myself, which holds my precious camera and goes everywhere with me. Feeling it swinging as I walked along with Grace and the others made me somehow more confident and secure, almost as though the bag had magical properties, and as long as it was close to me I didn’t worry so much about my dyslexia. Although it hadn’t magicked away my other problem, had it? The small matter of me being a thief. I shivered and clutched it tighter.

  There were two minibuses parked not far from Hazeldean, towards the entrance to Silver Spires. Our lovely assistant housemistress, Miss Fosbrook, leaned out of one of them and called to us that the other one was full up. “So fill up this one, now, girls. There should be plenty of room.”

  She slid back into her seat at the front as Naomi and Katy got in first, then Georgie and Mia, and finally Grace and me. I can remember what happened next as though it was in slow motion. Georg
ie had plunged ahead of Naomi, straight down to the back and was calling out to the rest of us that there were still a few spaces left there. Naomi and Katy were following with Mia, but Grace turned round to me.

  “Shall we sit on our own, Jess?” she asked in her usual quiet voice. “I don’t think there are any more seats near the others.”

  And I opened my mouth to answer but no words came out, because I’d spotted Miss Cardwell sitting at the front next to Miss Fosbrook. She gave me a huge beaming smile and said, “Hello, Jess! You didn’t mention that you were coming on the shopping trip when we had our session yesterday!”

  I think that was the moment when the net tightened so strongly that I couldn’t move. Grace was staring at me with that look I hated, that I’d seen twice before, only now it was ten times worse. I panicked and felt myself struggling to wriggle my way out of the net as I blurted something about changing my mind, and turned and scrambled down the steps of the minibus. Then I ran and ran in the direction of the secret garden, with tears streaming down my face.

  “Jess! Jess!” It was Grace’s voice.

  My tears came harder. What chance did I have of escaping Grace? She was the fastest runner in Year Seven. And after a while I had to slow down because I was puffed out, and then she slowed down too. I know that because I could hear her footsteps, and anyway she was still saying my name, only more and more weakly, until in the end I was plodding along, head down, seeing only flashes of blurry grey ground through my tears, and hearing nothing now because Grace’s footsteps were so light.

  “Jess, it doesn’t matter…”

  I hadn’t expected those to be her first words. Subconsciously I was waiting for, “Are you okay?”

  I stopped walking and felt her arm go round my shoulders, which just made me start sobbing again.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she repeated.

  “Wh…what?” I couldn’t manage another word, because my breathing was too gulpy for me to speak properly.