“So,” said Mrs. B., looking round at the rest, not liking the smirks she’d just witnessed at all, “I’ve been looking at your timetables, and I see you all have Tuesday afternoons free.” She paused slightly before delivering her hammer blow. “And since the three of you have made a sport out of the school rules, making a mockery of them at every recent turn, it would seem, Mr. Morris and I have decided that as the sports hall needs a spring clean before next term, you three will be the perfect ones to help us out in your free time until the end of term, starting this Tuesday coming.”
“But--” Chastity attempted a weak defence.
Mrs. Bennett started speaking again, cutting her off entirely as if she hadn’t said a word. “I want,” the head explained, “the entire place to be turned inside out, all of the equipment labeled and catalogued and put neatly in its rightful place. And,” Mrs. Bennett continued, almost purring with satisfaction at her final thrust, “the sports staff will be on hand to make sure everything is done their way. Right.”
She stood up and clapped her hands together before throwing open her door and ushering them out. “That’s all. I don’t want any of you leaving the school boundaries for the rest of the day, and I have told Mr. Morris you are not to receive any visitors, either. I suggest you all take it easy today and think about next week’s lessons. I should think you three have had quite enough excitement recently to last a lifetime. I’ll let you know when I’ll need to see you again, Jinx, but rest assured it will be sooner rather than later.”
“Well,” said Jinx, linking arms with Liberty and scuffing her shoes on the drive as they walked back home to Tanner House, “that could have been a lot worse.”
“Hmm,” Chastity said with a sniff, tossing her nose in the air as she so often did when she felt something was beneath her. “I guess. We still don’t know what she’s going to do to you for a start. Aren’t you worried about what punishment you might get?”
“Of course I am,” said Jinx, who really was but was trying not to show it. “But it’s only Mrs. B. after all—she digs us.”
“Come on, Chas,” Liberty said, upbeat, “Jinx is right. We got off fucking lightly considering what could have happened last night. So we lose our Tuesdays—big freaking deal. We never had them before and we seemed to survive okay. The worst thing is being confined in a closed-in space with the fucking sports staff for hours on end, but I’m sure we’ll cope okay.”
“You know what, Lib?” Jinx asked, smiling at her best friend in astonishment as something clicked in her head. “I think you’ve really changed!”
“What do you mean?” Liberty replied indignantly, snatching her arm away from Jinx in mock fury. “How very dare you!”
“No, no,” giggled Jinx, “not in a bad way. I just mean you seem a lot more, I don’t know, like sensible or something this term. Although not,” she added hastily, spying Liberty’s disbelieving expression, “in a boring way at all. You’re still YOU, you just seem to have your head screwed on a bit tighter, that’s all. You’re a bit more streetwise, I suppose.”
“We still need to work out what happened last night,” interrupted Daisy. She’d been chewing her lip thoughtfully as they walked along and didn’t really care to analyse whether or not Liberty’s personality had, in fact, changed at all. “There’s a meeting of all the head girls this afternoon and I’m going to ask the other heads-of-years if they’ve seen anything or know anything. I’m absolutely determined to get to the bottom of this one. Someone stitched you guys up, and by extension me too, and it’s not fair.”
“Thanks, Daisy,” said Chastity as they started up the path that led to Tanner House’s front doorway. “That’s really kind of you. If we do find out who did it they’re going to get the nastiest shock of their fucking lives. No one makes me do chores and gets away with it.”
“I’m totally ruined,” said Jinx, flopping down onto the sofa as they walked into the reception area. “I need to have a little lie down and a think about things.”
“Me too,” agreed Chastity, lying down on the same sofa in the opposite direction and coiling her arms around Jinx’s bent knees. “Wiped out.”
“Broken, destroyed and wrecked,” added Liberty with a sigh, lifting up Jinx’s legs and squidging herself onto the end of the sofa by Chastity’s head.
Daisy looked a tad uncomfortable at this frank exchange. Moving towards the exit and in search of her neat and tidy desk, where all the pens and pencils were lined up in neat rows alongside Post-it notes in every colour, stickers and dictionaries of all kinds. “Right, then,” she said. “I’m going to go and make myself another chemistry crib sheet. I’ll see you girls later.”
“Laters, Dais,” the sofa-ridden three chorused, weakly waving her off before collapsing in a heap again.
“So,” muttered Liberty, tickling Jinx’s feet after a few minutes’ comfortable, companionable silence from the three on the sofa. “Are we going to, like, lie here all day long or go and watch music videos or what?”
“Music videos,” trilled Chastity. “But can you carry us there, Liberty? And can we get our duvets out of our rooms?”
“Yes!” agreed Jinx. “And a packet of custard creams from the kitchen!”
Suitably furnished for an afternoon’s extreme relaxation, the three of them got into their Juicy tracksuits, fired up the central heating and settled into the common room. It being Sunday lunchtime with only three weeks left of term, the school was deserted. And since anyone who had stayed in had done so to work, they had the place to themselves.
After three solid hours of America’s Next Top Model interspersed with VH1 golden oldie music videos during the ads, Jinx, Liberty, and Chastity had roused themselves to chatting about the previous evening. They were more alert than they’d been all day.
“Do you believe that thing about the truth always coming out when you’re drunk?” Chastity asked, rolling round on her sofa so she could see the other’s faces.
“No, Chas,” Jinx replied instantly. “Drunk people don’t generally purvey considered opinions do they? I quite often lie when I’m drunk—more so than when I’m sober anyway. I normally think it’s funny at the time.”
“What about during an argument?” queried Chastity, who was thinking about Paul and feeling bad for the first time about some of the things she’d screamed at him in the street.
“Well,” said Jinx, knowing exactly what Chastity was getting at, “sometimes—in an argument or whatever—you’re so cross you just look for the worst possible, most wounding thing you can say to the other one. And when you’re drunk and having an argument you don’t have the same sense of boundaries that you have when you’re sober. You just want to purposefully upset the other one as much as possible.”
“Hmm,” nodded Chastity, clearly not yet convinced by this, for although she didn’t regret breaking up with Paul in the slightest, she didn’t want to make the guy suicidal or anything—what a drag that would be.
“And you’ll notice,” carried on Jinx, wanting to make Chas feel better about things, but also really believing in what she was saying, “it’s ALWAYS smug, victim-type people who are the ones to latch onto drunken bad behaviour and emphasize the drunken part of it. I think it’s so they can use the excuse of every bit of drinking being bad and negative when we know most of it’s hunky dory. It’s like one night in fifty that goes bad, and I don’t think that’s too bad a price to pay for fun and games the rest of the time.”
“Fucking killjoys,” added Liberty supportively.
“Exactly, Lib,” said Jinx with a smile. “They constantly justify why they’re always right and everyone else is wrong and it gets freaking tedious if you ask me. It’s the ultimate ‘I told you so’ from boring people who are too afraid of rocking the boat or—God forbid!—losing control of themselves to risk ever having any fun in their lives.”
“You’re so right,” agreed Chastity, feeling a hell of a lot better about things after this pep talk. “I don’t trust people
who don’t drink—what have they got to hide?”
“Who doesn’t drink?” giggled Olga, pushing open the door and leading a procession entirely made up of her sisters into the common room, thereby causing the others to forget their conversation entirely. “Are they feeling okay in the head?”
The girls on the sofa laughed delightedly and ushered them over to spill all about the party. Wearing skinny jeans, pumps, and soft cashmere jumpers in blue, green, and pink to match their diamond rings, the trips looked stunning as ever and betrayed not a single shred of evidence of a late night.
“My brother’s been unusually silent all day long,” said Jinx, winking at the girls. “What ever did you lot get up to last night? We’ve been dying to find out!”
“Forget about us,” said Masha, running her fingers through her hair so that her green diamond ring sparkled in the harsh light from the long bulb on the ceiling. “We want to know what the hell happened to you girls. People came over to us and said you’d been taken away in a police van. We couldn’t believe it, but then George said this morning you had texted him about what to say to Mrs. Bennett. Is it true?”
“This morning?” Jinx almost screamed with shock. “You were still with George this morning?”
“Why yes,” sighed Irina. “He picked us up from our hotel and took us to Bill’s for breakfast. “We really like him and his friends very much.”
“That bastard hasn’t even texted me back to see what happened with Mrs. Bennett,” Jinx snorted, furious at her brother’s apparent total lack of concern for her physical and mental well-being. “And now I find out he’s been squiring you lot all over town. Well, I’m pleased you had a good time with him but he’s going to get a flea in his ear the next time I speak to him.”
“So come on then,” urged Masha, sitting forward eagerly and clasping her hands together in anticipation, “tell us what happened last night!”
“Yes,” agreed Olga, “come on!”
In the face of such pleasing interest in their latest exploits, and from such damned good-looking girls, too, Jinx, Liberty, and Chastity were more than happy to regale the triplets with highly exaggerated scenes from last night’s theatrical debacle. Halfway through their tall tales, Igor mooched into the room, threw a dark look at the triplets and settled himself into an old leather armchair by one of the windows. He stared out to sea and didn’t appear to take any interest in the girls’ conversation. After a few minutes they forgot he was even there and carried on as normal, shrieking and laughing and generally behaving very boisterously indeed. If they had paid any attention to him they would have seen him absentmindedly twisting what looked like a replica of the triplets’ rings, but in white, on the middle finger of his right hand and staring thoughtfully out the window.
Judging by the glowing reports, George had been at his most charming, funny, and naughty self and had made a massive hit with the triplets. Jinx couldn’t help but reflect that at least she’d get amazing presents if one of these birds ended up as her sister-in-law. Not, of course, that George would be likely to be able to keep himself in the good books for very much longer. Trouble had a way of following him around and she didn’t suspect this time would be very much different from all of the other relationship disasters he had endured.
At ten o’clock the others had just finished watching television and were beginning to say their good nights and gather all their stuff up, ready for bed, when Liv and Charlie swept into the room in a cloud of what smelt like real ale.
“Where the hell have you two been?” yelled Chastity, jumping up and dropping the duvet she’d just neatly folded onto the floor in her excitement, “we’ve been trying to ring you both all freaking day!”
“You smell like a bloody brewery,” sniffed Jinx admiringly. “What the hell have you been up to?”
“Um,” giggled Liv, flopping onto the floor in front of Jinx’s sofa and dragging an equally unsteady Charlie after her. “We’ve been, you know, hanging ten in town.”
For some reason this statement caused the pair on the floor to clutch each other and start screaming with laughter. Whatever they’d been up to they were clearly more than a little soused. The others doubted they’d get much sense of any kind out of either of them, but pressed on with their questioning nonetheless.
“Come on,” Chastity insisted, “what exactly have you been doing? And what the hell kept you last night? Although,” she added thoughtfully, “it’s actually pretty good for you two that you weren’t there earlier or you’d be cleaning out the fucking sports hall alongside the rest of us.”
“What?” demanded Charlie, the realization that she and Liv must have missed a whole lot more school chat than they thought slowly filtering into her befuddled mind.
“Yeah,” slurred Liv, resting her head on Charlie’s lap and peering up at the others through half-lowered eyes. “Spill!”
All thoughts of bed pushed aside, Jinx, Liberty, and Chastity immediately launched into yet more of the luridly embellished tales they’d already spun the triplets. The latter three, even though they’d heard it all before, didn’t make any tracks for bed either.
Igor was still sitting in his chair by the window, but since the girls were all so intent on their stories they paid him no attention at all. If any of them had bothered to look at him they would have seen him staring out to sea with an expression of pure longing on his face. He looked the picture of stoicism as he sat there, very occasionally letting out a long sigh. None of them noticed, anyway, since they’d all settled in for a glorious gossip bitch fest and lots of comic speculation as to who might have banged on Mrs. Bennett’s door.
None of them took Daisy’s theory particularly seriously, and basically assumed the whole thing was down to sheer bad luck. Jinx was much more interested in hearing about George from the triplets anyway. And they in turn quizzed her relentlessly about her feelings for Jamie. Jinx was flattered by their interest, so pleased they clearly adored her brother and so keen to talk about Jamie that she answered their questions for two hours straight without a break. Liv and Charlie were so shocked to hear about Paul and Chastity splitting up they made her retell the whole gory story in exhaustive detail, and what with all the excitement everyone forgot to ask them what they’d been up to. They also failed to notice a nasty scratch on Charlie’s elbow.
It was past midnight when they got to bed, and every single one of them fell asleep within seconds of their heads hitting their pillows. Whilst every other person who lived in Tanner slumbered, Igor remained sitting in his chair in the dark common room. He got up to open the window and as he did so a tear glinted on his cheek. It was illuminated by the quarter moon which cut almost as stark a figure as Igor tonight, so bleakly did it seem set against the night sky.
20 A Very Average Day
Miss Strimmer and Miss Golly eyed a defiant-looking Jinx, Liberty, and Chastity with inappropriate amounts of glee as the three lower-sixths stood in front of them. It was Tuesday, the bell signaling the end of the lunch period had just rung throughout the school and the girls had turned up at the sports hall to begin the first of their afternoon-punishment cleaning sessions.
Lunch had been a particularly filthy effort on the part of the terrible catering company Stagmount used. Slimy chicken with hairs still visible on the undercooked, puckered skin; overcooked cabbage swimming in gross, greasy margarine; and potatoes with black bits in them did not help make the girls feel good in any way about what their afternoon held. Oh no, quite the reverse.
All three were in moods as filthy as their lunch had been when Dirk flew through the spin doors and came to a halt in between the two female sports staff before slinging a matey arm around each’s neck. The girls nearly vomited up their disgusting lunch at this point. The sight of someone willingly touching these two total tools was almost too much to bear.
Standing purposefully slouched in front of these three fools, eyes lowered mutinously, awaiting their instructions, Jinx, Liberty, and Chastity could hardly believ
e what a freaking chore this punishment was obviously going to be. And in more ways than one considering the task masters they had to put up with.
“So,” Dirk said to his colleagues, nodding his smarmy head at the sulky girls in front of them. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
“These three,” Gosh said with a delighted snarl at Jinx, who was her least favourite out of this very poor bunch, “are going to be spending all their Tuesdays until the end of term cleaning out the sports center, bagging and tagging all the equipment, and basically doing whatever we tell them to.”
Strumpet and Gosh had hated Jinx ever since the summer term of the first year, when she’d been instrumental in the freeing of a neighbouring farmer’s flock of pygmy goats and the subsequent canceling of a very important tennis match against Millfield. They hated Liberty because she couldn’t care less about games of any kind. Also, since she was a favourite of Sister Minton’s and thus able to throw medical sign-off notes around like confetti, there was nothing they could do to force her to attend games lessons when she conveniently seemed to get her period three times each month. And although Chastity was an excellent hockey player, captain of the tennis team, and a brilliant swimmer, she was far too wealthy to be liked by this pair, who were extraordinarily jealous of some of the richer girls and made little attempt to hide it.
“Fucking hell,” muttered Chastity under her breath to Liberty, “I’m not sure I can stand three weeks of this.”
“Shut up Max-Ward,” snapped Strumpet. “We haven’t finished with you yet, not by a long shot, and if I were you I’d keep quiet until we have.”
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