by Ann Bryant
After prep I had a nice surprise because Mum called me when we were on our way to tell Miss Carol what had happened.
“See you in the common room,” I said, hanging back to talk with Mum. And of course the first thing I told her about was Grace’s stopwatch going missing.
“Poor girl,” said Mum. “Have the houseparents been notified?”
“The others have gone to tell Miss Carol right now. Do you think someone might have taken it, Mum?”
“Well someone might have found it and decided to keep it, not realizing how precious it is to Grace.”
After that we talked about The Fast Lane, and Mum told me how one of the actors was having a baby in real life so they were having to let her character be pregnant too. Then I told Mum about Naomi’s secret being out, which led to a long conversation about my own secret and how relieved I was that I’d managed to keep it so far.
The following morning it was whole-school assembly and the Amethyst girls were extra quiet when it came to the announcements at the end.
“I have something particularly important to report this morning, girls,” Ms. Carmichael began, in her slow careful voice that always reminded me of a world leader speaking. “One of the girls from Hazeldean boarding house has lost a precious possession. It’s a silver stopwatch with all sorts of functions on it, so it is valuable in itself.” She paused. “But it has a greater value too. It was a present from this girl’s great-grandmother who has now died.”
There was a silence after those words. Grace wasn’t next to me so I couldn’t tell how she was feeling. No one moved a muscle as we waited to hear what was coming next.
“It may be that one of you has come across the stopwatch and not realized its value, in which case you might now be regretting having taken it. If this is the case then all the teachers would be sympathetic. You simply have to hand the stopwatch in and it will be returned to its owner and nothing more will be said.”
Ms. Carmichael’s eyes seemed to tour round everyone and we held our breath because it was obvious she hadn’t finished. When she spoke next, her voice was much quieter and the words came out faster. “However, if the stopwatch has not been returned by the end of the day, I shall have no choice but to ask the houseparents to search the dorms.”
There wasn’t a sound and yet it was as though the whole school had done an enormous gasp. We have to stay silent till we’re out of the hall, but the moment we spilled into the corridor the words came tumbling out as everyone buzzed with conversation about what Ms. Carmichael had just said.
“Do you know whose stopwatch it is?” I heard lots of people asking.
And others were saying that having our dorms searched was like living in a prison.
“You’ll definitely get it back now, Grace!” hissed Georgie the moment we were on our own.
“Yes, I don’t think anyone’s going to search our dorms,” said Naomi. “It’s just a good way of scaring the person who’s taken it.”
“Really?” said Lydia. “You think Ms. Carmichael was just saying that?”
“Yes, I agree with Naomi,” said Jess. “It’s quite clever that, isn’t it, Grace?”
Grace didn’t look convinced. “If someone really wanted to keep it they could hide it somewhere else.”
“Well, let’s wait and see what happens today,” said Mia. And we all agreed that we’d go back to Hazeldean at morning break to see if there was any news.
Miss Carol was busy on the phone and didn’t look too thrilled to see us. “I can understand that you’re anxious,” she said, when she’d put the phone down a bit impatiently, “but you really need to concentrate on your schoolwork.” She put her hand on Grace’s shoulder. “As soon as there is any news I’ll be the first to hear about it and I’ll come and find you, Grace.”
So after lunch, even though we were all dying to go back over to Hazeldean, Grace said it was pointless. “I’m going down to the athletics field. Anyone coming?”
“I’m going for a walk,” said Naomi. “Save me a place in history, yeah?”
“Where are you going?” asked Lydia.
“Just around,” said Naomi.
And Lydia didn’t insist on going with her, thank goodness. Maybe she’d finally realized that, princess or not, sometimes Naomi simply liked being on her own.
“Coming to feed the pets?” Mia asked me.
Georgie rolled her eyes and said she’d put up with the stinky animal smell and come along too as she didn’t have anything better to do. Then Lydia surprised me by saying she’d quite like to see Buddy and the guinea pigs.
“I used to have pets when I was little but I grew out of them when I was about eight,” she told us, as Mia got Porgy and Bess out of their hutch.
“Do you want to hold them, Lydia?”
“No thanks. Let’s have a look at Buddy.”
“I’m going to put him in his run. That’s where he grazes,” I explained as I lifted Buddy out. But Lydia didn’t seem interested. She was bending over, poking about at the back of his hutch.
“What are you doing?” asked Georgie. “You’ll get pooh on your hand, you know!”
Then her words froze in the air because Lydia was standing up straight, and on her outstretched palm lay Grace’s stopwatch. My body jolted as though I’d had an electric shock as we all stared at the stopwatch in horror, and my face went white as I felt everyone’s eyes on me.
“What’s this doing in Buddy’s hutch?” Lydia asked me quietly.
I looked at her and in that split second I saw a fleeting look of triumph on her face and guessed exactly what had happened. She’d planted it in the hutch. Lydia had actually sunk so low as to take the stopwatch and make it look as though I’d taken it. But how could I say that? Why should anyone believe me? I was trapped. Completely trapped. It was as though the ceiling was caving in. I could hardly breathe. I had to get out.
I thrust Buddy back in his hutch, pushed past Lydia and hurled myself out of Pets’ Place. Then I ran towards the athletics track but went straight past it, catching a glimpse of Grace on the way. Tears were streaming down my face, but I kept running and running across the pathway through a copse and along the edge of another field. I was probably out of bounds but I didn’t care, and then suddenly I came upon a high hedge and plunged through a narrow archway to find myself in a garden.
“Katy! What’s wrong? What’s happened?”
I gasped. It was Naomi. She was sitting on a little bench. This must be the secret place she’d been going to show me two days before. The place where she came to get away from everyone. And I’d interrupted her peace.
“I…” But I couldn’t speak because of crying. I turned to go and she came after me, turned me round and steered me back towards the bench. I sat down beside her and buried my face in my hands. Her arm went round me and she patted my shoulder and said some words that must have been Ghanaian.
“Sorry,” I managed to say, pulling away from her and trying to stop crying. “Have you got a tissue?” She hadn’t, so I used my sleeve to wipe my tears, and she kept encouraging me to tell her what had happened.
In the end I just blurted out, “Grace’s stopwatch has turned up—”
“But that’s great!” Naomi interrupted. “Where?”
“In Buddy’s hutch.”
There was a silence.
“I don’t expect you to believe me, Naomi, but I swear I have no idea how it got there. Well…actually I do have some idea.”
Another silence. I was staring at the ground so I couldn’t see Naomi’s expression, but I could imagine the puzzled look on her face. “How?” she asked eventually.
I took a deep breath. “I think…Lydia planted it there.”
Naomi gasped. “But…why would she do that?”
“Because she doesn’t like me being friends with you. She’s jealous of me.” My words were tumbling out, but even as I was saying them I realized they sounded stupid and pathetic. “She wants you for herself. I sometimes think she reall
y hates me…the way she’s always putting me down and saying I’m immature and everything. You don’t see it, Naomi, because she’s always nice with you… But she’s so stuck-up and she looks down on me…”
Another silence. This was awful. Then Naomi bit her lip. “However…stuck-up she is, I’m sure she’d never do anything as bad as taking Grace’s most treasured possession and planting it on someone, Katy. Have you got any proof…or is it just that you think she’s jealous?”
“Well…no…but…” I looked straight at Naomi for the first time. “You do believe that I didn’t take it, don’t you?”
“I can’t imagine you doing anything like that. Not in a million years.”
“Thank goodness for that, because I’m scared the others aren’t going to believe me…”
“Well, what exactly happened? Tell me the whole story, Katy.”
So I did, starting from Mia saying she was going to feed the pets and the others all coming too, and finishing with me running out of Pets’ Place in tears. Naomi didn’t interrupt me all the way through and at the end she just shook her head sadly and said, “Poor you.” Then she looked at her watch and jumped to her feet. “Oh no, the bell must have gone ages ago. We’d better get back.”
“I can’t go to lessons as though nothing has happened,” I said, feeling panic rising up in me. “No one’ll talk to me. The whole school will probably think I’m a horrible thief by now…”
“Don’t worry. Mia will have told Grace and Grace will have told Miss Carol…”
“And Miss Carol is probably waiting till I turn up so she can tell me what a terrible person I am and keep me in detention every day till the end of term.”
“No she won’t. She’d never do anything like that. But you’d better go and see her straight away. I’ll go to lessons, then I can tell the others that you’re safe.”
“They won’t care. They’ll all hate me,” I said. “Lydia will have made sure of that. And there’s nothing I can do. No way I can prove I’m innocent.” I sat back down heavily. “It’s so unfair.”
Naomi closed her eyes and then opened them very slowly. “All I can say is that my father is a very wise man and I always remember something he said to me when I was eight and I’d told a lie and thought I could get away with it. He said, ‘The truth is the best tool of all, so if it goes missing, don’t make do with any other tool, just wait for the truth to turn up.’”
I was in too much of a state to work out what those words really meant. I just started stumbling back towards school as Naomi ran on ahead of me.
“I’ll tell the history teacher you’re not well. And I’ll make sure the others realize that just because the stopwatch was found in Buddy’s cage it doesn’t prove anything.”
I nodded and watched Naomi rushing off, then two seconds later she came back and gave me a big hug. “Don’t tell anyone about this garden, will you? It’s my secret place – where I come to be on my own when I get fed up with…the world.”
I shook my head.
“Go and see Miss Carol, yeah? She’ll tell you what to do.”
Then she was gone again and I was left to plod my way slowly back, going over all that Naomi had said. I started by thinking about the moment when I’d asked her straight out if she believed me and she’d said, “I can’t imagine you doing anything like that. Not in a million years.” At least that was one good thing. I wouldn’t be able to bear it if Naomi didn’t believe me. But then I frowned and stopped walking as I realized with a jolt that she hadn’t actually said she believed me. She’d just said she couldn’t imagine me doing anything like that. Was that the same? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that I wished I could wake up and find the whole thing had been a terrible nightmare.
Miss Carol answered the door to her flat as soon as I knocked. She looked serious but not cross. “Come in,” she said. “Grace has been to see me with one or two of the others. I understand the stopwatch was found in your rabbit’s cage.”
I nodded but couldn’t speak.
“Sit down, Katy, and try to tell me what happened.”
I sighed as I sat down and really had to force myself to speak. “I didn’t put it there. I don’t know how it got there. I’d never steal anything from anyone.”
Miss Carol’s eyebrows nearly joined up when she frowned. I found myself staring at them, and then had to quickly look away in case she thought I was being rude.
“If you didn’t put it there yourself, have you any idea who might have done?”
I was just about to say Lydia’s name when I stopped myself. What was the point? I had no proof that Lydia could have done it. And if I tried to explain what she was like, it would sound stupid. So I just shook my head miserably, then asked her what was going to happen to me.
“Nobody’s blaming you, Katy. Grace is naturally very upset but I’ve asked her to try and be open-minded until we get to the bottom of this.”
“What about Mia and Georgie? Did they come to see you too?”
“Yes, and Lydia.”
I tried not to let anything show on my face. “And what did they say?”
“They mentioned that you ran off in tears…”
“I felt trapped. I had to get out.”
“They didn’t understand why you didn’t defend yourself. I think they felt a bit suspicious about that.”
“Yes, but how could I? I’ve got no proof.” Suddenly I felt furious. This whole thing was so unfair. I stood up and shouted at Miss Carol. “Nobody believes me! It doesn’t make any difference, does it? You can hate me, same as everyone else, because no one can ever find out the truth because I can’t prove it!”
Then I burst into tears all over again and Miss Carol gave me a handful of tissues and tried to hold my hand, but I pulled away.
“Listen, Katy, no one’s going to hate you, because no one is going to find out. I told Grace and the others who came to see me that they must keep completely quiet about the whole thing. And if it comes to my notice that Lydia or anyone from Amethyst has been talking about the matter, they will be in serious trouble.”
“That’ll make them hate me even more. And what about me? What’s going to happen?”
“If you can put your hand on your heart and say that you have no idea how that stopwatch got in your rabbit’s cage, and nothing more comes to light, then I will draw a line under the whole thing and it will be forgotten. A notice will go out telling everyone that the stopwatch has turned up, and that will be the end of the matter. You’d be amazed how quickly things blow over at Silver Spires. Believe me, in a couple of days’ time no one will give it another thought.”
“Except my friends…” I said quietly. “They’ll always wonder.”
“Not if they’re true friends,” said Miss Carol.
I missed history altogether and met the others outside. Jess, Georgie and Mia went on ahead and my heart started beating so hard I thought it would burst out of my body. Grace didn’t look at me at all. Neither did Lydia, but Naomi gave me a nice smile. All I wanted was to get afternoon school over with so I could go and phone Mum. I’d already decided to tell Mrs. Mellor I wasn’t feeling well because I couldn’t face running club.
But in the end I couldn’t get through to Mum, so I sat at my desk playing CDs and covering pages and pages of my sketchbook with patterns for material. I love trying out different colours together and right now it was the only thing that could help to calm me down. Those words of Naomi’s father’s, about the truth going missing and how you had to wait for it to turn up, kept on going through my head. But what was the point of waiting? Even if I accused Lydia straight out of planting the stopwatch on me, she’d just deny that she knew anything about it. So how could the truth ever turn up?
I was on the next-to-last page of my sketchbook when Georgie came crashing in. “I went to modern dance. It just about killed me but I’m not giving it up because the teacher says you need dance skills to be an actress.”
I was totally shocked but really pleased
that she was acting completely normally, and I was on the point of saying something about being sorry I’d run off in tears, when she carried on. “Miss Carol says we’re not allowed to talk about ‘it’, by the way, and the others are all really upset with you, but I believe you.” She lowered her voice. “And I’ve got a pretty good idea who put that stopwatch in Buddy’s cage.” She mouthed the word “Lydia”, and added, “I went and told Miss Carol that too, but she said I couldn’t go around accusing people of doing things without an atom of proof.”
I could have hugged Georgie. “And what’s Lydia been saying herself?”
“Dunno. I’m keeping out of her way.” Georgie looked over my shoulder at the pattern I’d done. “Nice. Are you coming to prep, by the way?”
“Yes, course.” And as I got my books together I sighed to myself and wondered if Naomi’s father had a plan for what to do if the truth was not just missing, but lost for good.
Chapter Nine
The next two days were horrible because out of my group of friends, only Georgie and Naomi spoke to me, and as far as Georgie was concerned, never when anyone else was around. The others were a bit cool and distant, and Lydia tossed her head and looked in the other direction the moment I appeared. I was totally miserable and wished I could skip the next ten days and go home to Dad for half-term. But I wouldn’t be able to enjoy it because of the thought of coming back to Silver Spires hanging over me all the time. It would be best if I could just leave Silver Spires and never come back.
But eventually Miss Carol was proved right. After a while people seemed to forget about the whole stopwatch episode and things started to go back to normal, just like she’d said they would. Nobody discussed it around school any more, and Mia and Jess started talking to me again. Then Grace did too. I can’t say they were exactly the friendliest people in the whole world, but at least they were talking. I wished it was because they believed me, though, and not just out of habit.
Naomi didn’t act any differently from how she’d acted ever since we’d spoken in the garden, and that was the saddest thing of all, because our lovely friendship seemed to have disappeared for good. We didn’t laugh together any more or have fun. I didn’t feel close to her like I used to. Although she was always perfectly nice to me, we’d lost our bond and that made me really depressed and a bit afraid. I would see her mucking about with Lydia, but it was as though I was looking at the two of them through a camera lens that was out of focus. It didn’t seem real somehow. And I’d think bitterly to myself that Lydia had got her own way. This was exactly what she’d wanted to happen. Then once or twice I noticed a sad look on Naomi’s face and wondered if she was still thinking about all that had happened and puzzling over why the truth hadn’t come out yet.