Crushworthy

by Sara Lawrence

  Mrs. Carpenter chose that moment to wipe her eyes for the final time in their presence, stand up, and nod her thanks at the pair who’d witnessed her breakdown. She didn’t say a word, but smiled weakly as she gathered her things together and headed in the direction of the san. Mrs. C. was no stranger to Mister Sinton’s lair, and she knew the matron would give her a couple of strong sleeping pills and the loan of a private room for the rest of the day.

  “Bloody hell,” said Jinx, staring at Daisy with uncharacteristic gratitude. “Am I glad you came in or what! I honestly don’t know what I would have said to her if you hadn’t turned up. She was practically babbling.”

  “Poor thing,” Daisy replied, looking sideways at Jinx as she accepted the offer of half a piece of Juicy Fruit. “What did she say? I’ve got the feeling something very weird is going on at this school.”

  “Well,” said Jinx, chucking the gum wrapper at the bin and missing, “she said a lot of stuff about knowing him, but not knowing him. I didn’t understand a bloody word of it, Dais, I really didn’t. And what do you mean about something weird going on? I mean, it’s sad that they broke up and all, but I can’t see it being anything more sinister than that. Can you really?”

  “Yes I can. Something’s not right, Jinx,” Daisy said, looking at Jinx and willing her to listen for once. “And I’m not sure what it is, but it’s definitely something and it’s definitely not been right for a while now. And,” she continued, warning Jinx with a glance not to interrupt her, “I know you hate it when I say this, but I’m convinced it’s something to do with the triplets and Igor.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Jinx, suddenly exhausted. She wanted nothing more than to be curled up in bed listening to the new mix Chastity had made her, drinking a Diet Coke, thinking about Jamie, and maybe flicking through one of her old Malory Towers books.

  “Have you noticed their rings?” Daisy responded, unable to believe any of the others had totally missed them.

  “No,” said Jinx, who could distinctly feel a headache brewing behind her frontal lobes. “What about them?”

  Daisy, whose avaricious eye missed nothing, sighed deeply at such negligence before continuing.

  “The triplets all have matching diamond rings,” she said, speaking slowly to make sure Jinx was listening. “One stone is blue, one is pink, and one’s green, but they’re all set in exactly the same ornate gold base.”

  “So,” Jinx pressed, keen to get this chat over with and herself out of the loos as soon as possible. Someone must have left the heating on too high or something; she was beginning to feel a bit queasy. “What about it?”

  “Igor has exactly the same ring as they do,” Daisy said, her chest puffing up with delight at being the only one to have noticed. “The only difference is the stone in his is a regular white diamond. What kind of so-called bodyguard has exactly the same item of very expensive, unique jewelry as his clients? And,” she continued, pleased to see Jinx appeared to be concentrating at last, “what kind of bodyguard is more often than not nowhere to be seen anywhere near his precious cargo? Lastly,” she said with an officious shake of her head, delighted at finally getting the chance to expound upon her theory, “I saw him coming out of the bursar’s office a few days ago. Whatever it was they’d been talking about was not to Igor’s liking—far from it. He was in a proper mood, Jinx; I heard him shouting in the office and he practically kicked the door when he came out. If he hadn’t seen me waiting down the corridor I think he would have done it.”

  “Okay,” said Jinx, leaning forward, resting her elbows on her knees and cradling her head in her hands, “so let’s say you’re right. Let’s say there is something suspicious or sinister or whatever going on. Let’s say the triplets, Igor, and the bursar are all over it. But what the hell are we supposed to do about it?”

  “I don’t know yet,” muttered Daisy, “but I do think we need to find out what’s going on.”

  “Join forces you mean?” Jinx asked, not looking up but clutching her head tighter as she spoke.

  “Yes,” agreed Daisy, smiling for the first time since she’d started talking. “That’s exactly what I mean. I think together we’ll find out whatever it is a damn sight quicker than if I go it alone. Also, you’re much more friendly with the triplets than I am, so it’ll be easier for you to hang around them and ask questions without looking suspicious.”

  Jinx sighed but raised her head and looked Daisy in the eye. She held up her right hand and Daisy’s left met it in a weak high five. They were now locked in together, for better or worse, but at least Jinx was now free to go back to Tanner and get into bed for a couple of hours.

  Well, she would have been if Betsy Johnson hadn’t chosen that moment to come crashing back in through the door of the loos, her face and most of her curly brown hair hidden behind a pile of towels she had clutched in a stack in front of her. In her surprise at seeing Jinx and Daisy in front of her she stumbled and the stack went flying. As they settled around the place in messy heaps, a piece of shiny paper flew out from between two of the unattractive maroon ones. The three of them watched as it came to rest, front side up, on the white tiled floor.

  “Oh my God,” Daisy gasped, leaping on it and glaring up at a flame-faced Betsy. “It’s my chemistry revision aid. What the hell is it doing here?” She took a menacing step towards the second-year in front of a completely confused Jinx. “Where did you get it?”

  “It’s nothing to do with me,” snapped Betsy, beyond cross at the way these sixth-formers thought they could boss everyone about all the time and get away with it. She had to bite her lip hard in order not to stamp her foot. “You told me to gather up all the Steinem girls’ towels and bring them down here and here they are, as requested. Whatever that piece of paper is, it must have been stuffed in between a couple and fallen out when I dropped them. Can I go now?”

  “You just hold on,” Jinx interjected sharply, fixing Betsy with a look that told the junior this particular member of the lower sixth was not at all inclined to put up with any cheek from a member of the lower school, however disgruntled she might currently be feeling. “Is that the thing you were looking for the night we came back in the police van and Mrs. B. opened her door and caught us all?”

  “Yes,” said Daisy, throwing a by-now terrified Betsy an even scarier look than Jinx just had and pointing at the offending items on the floor. “It is. And I intend to find out exactly where it came from. Come on, Betsy, out with it. Now! Where did you get those maroon towels from?”

  “Katie Green’s room,” said Betsy sulkily, staring at the floor and mentally cursing Katie Green to hell and back. “She’d obviously washed them and shoved them in the back of her wardrobe instead of bringing them down here. She’s very lazy, you know,” Betsy continued, throwing caution to the wind and deciding she couldn’t be bothered to stand up for Katie, whom she didn’t like much anyway. “And weird. She’s obsessed with you lot for a start.”

  Jinx and Daisy both frowned at the obvious intended insult, but decided not to pass comment on it at this stage.

  “Right,” said Jinx, standing up and looking down at Betsy, who was really quite short from this angle. “We’ve heard all we need to from you. But before you go,” she continued, taking a step closer and narrowing her eyes as Betsy shrank back against the wall, “there are a couple of things you won’t be doing when you leave here. Number one: you will not mention a word to anyone—ANYONE—about what you’ve seen in here. Number two: you will especially not be saying a word to Katie Green about any of this. And let’s have number three for a bonus: if we find out you have said anything, your life will literally not be worth living.”

  “Capiche?” Daisy added, thrilled with her new role as a Sopranos-style enforcer alongside Jinx.

  Betsy stared mutinously at the pair of them for a second before dropping her eyes in compliance and muttering her assent. No one said a word as Betsy turned round and walked out the door, but as soon as she’d gone Jinx and
Daisy stared at each other in amazement. What a fucking day.

  “Let’s go back to Tanner, Dais,” begged Jinx, who was concerned about what might happen next if they continued to lounge around in here and fearful for her sanity. “Come on, we’ll go and thrash the whole thing out if you like, but whatever we do we’ve got to get out of here.”

  The two of them walked back to Tanner mostly in a stunned silence, each marching along highly occupied with her own whirling thoughts. Since Daisy had a pressing English essay to write—although Jinx, who was in the same class couldn’t for the life of her think which one it might be—they separated once they walked through the front door, agreeing to hook up later on and discuss the whole shebang.

  “Well,” muttered the head girl of the lower sixth, “I can’t remember the last time I had such fun at Stagmount.”

  23 You Couldn’t Make It Up

  Jinx was Sitting On her bed in between Liv and Chastity after dinner that evening. Charlie, whose cello practice sessions kept her over at the main school far later than the others, was sitting on a bean bag she’d brought with her and resting a plate containing four fish fingers alongside a handful of oven chips on her knees. Liberty was sitting on a pile of Jinx’s clean bed sheets on the floor next to her and periodically grabbing a chip off the teetering plate. The five of them were arguing good-naturedly about who would go and get the two bottles of Merlot Chastity had stashed at the back of her jumper drawer next door when there was a timid tapping at Jinx’s door.

  “Come iiiiiin,” they chorused, looking up expectantly until the door opened and their faces registered shock at who stood before them.

  “Hi Daisy,” Jinx said nonchalantly, standing up to greet her visitor and ignoring the shocked expressions of the others. “Come and have a seat. I’d grab the desk chair if I were you. Hey Lib, you’re closest to the door—go and get the wine!”

  The others exchanged querying glances as to the head girl’s unusual presence at their soiree, but shrugged their shoulders and prepared to be entertained when it became apparent Jinx was giving nothing away.

  Daisy settled, Liberty returned and six glasses of wine were poured. A hush fell over the six girls in the small room as they each took their first sip.

  “God,” Daisy giggled nervously as she accepted her glass of red wine, “I feel like I’m at some kind of initiation ceremony. Like I’m at a meeting of the Inner Elite or something!” She giggled again. “Do you call yourselves the IE for short?”

  “Anyway,” said Jinx swiftly, keen to bring the discussion back to order, “we’re here tonight because a few weird things happened today and, well, Daisy and I think we’re on to something. Or rather, Daisy does, but I agree with her. Or something.” Jinx looked across the table at her old nemesis and smiled. “Daisy, why don’t you explain it? I think you’ll do a better job than me; I’m not sure I quite understand most of it myself.”

  “Okay,” said Daisy, thrilled to be treated so respectfully by these girls for once and really rather enjoying drinking her wine in so civilized a manner. “Here goes. Basically, I think there’s something fishy going on between Igor and the bursar.”

  Jinx clocked the various sarcastic looks flying amongst the rest of the girls in the room. “No,” she said. “Let her finish.”

  “Thanks, Jinx,” Daisy said, smiling shyly at her in gratitude for the stick up. “So, I’ve heard all of you guys talking about Mrs. Bennett arguing with the bursar, and I just think it’s significant that he and Igor are looking pretty close all of a sudden. These are a couple of things I’ve noticed,” she said, pulling a small notebook out of her cardigan pocket and flipping it open to a page closely covered with her small handwriting. “The triplets and Igor all have matching rings. He’s so laissez-faire about his so-called shadowing of them he’s practically out of town. He broke up with Mrs. Carpenter this morning and she has no idea why, except I saw him having a huge row with the bursar last night and I just have a hunch it’s all connected.”

  “Oh my God,” said Chastity, putting a hand over her mouth as something clicked in her mind. “What about the plans we found in the gym? The plans of the school with Russian writing all over them?”

  “What plans?” Daisy, Liv, and Charlie asked in unison, having not been privy to the others’ discovery during their punishment in the gym.

  “Plans of the school,” said Jinx, staring at Daisy in amazement and wondering if maybe there was something in what she was saying after all. “We found them stuffed between a couple of the yoga mats when we were cleaning out the gym last week. I’d forgotten all about them. Go and grab them, Chas.”

  Chastity jumped up again and raced next door. Whilst she was fetching the plans from where she’d handily stored them in her waste-paper bin, Jinx and Liberty quickly filled the others in on the circumstances as to how they were found. During this conversation Daisy went very still and thoughtful. She was obviously thinking deeply about something or other, although the rest had no idea what this might be.

  Heads bent over the plans spread out on the end of Jinx’s bed, the girls were in total agreement that they were of the school. Charlie, whose father owned a very successful business building and running his own nursing homes, assured them that these were most definitely property-related. At that moment Liberty’s head shot up and she put a hand over her mouth in shock.

  “Shit, guys,” she said, turning to Jinx and smacking her arm for emphasis, “my dad said something to me about seeing a plan of what looked like Stagmount turned into luxury flats or something. He said he recognized the shape of the main school and the exact location of the helipad! I thought he was just making up some rubbish as an excuse to call me after such a long time.”

  “I don’t get it though,” said Jinx, confused as hell and more than a little alarmed at how fast things seemed to be developing. She’d considered Daisy’s theories little more than a series of benign coincidences and only decided to humour her as payback for helping her out with Mrs. C. earlier. “How does it all link up?”

  “I think,” said Daisy, sitting up and looking round excitedly, “we’re all forgetting something very important. Maybe the most important thing yet, in fact.”

  “What?” screamed Liv, who really could be very impatient and couldn’t stand having important information withheld from her for any length of time. “What is it we’re all forgetting?”

  “The day the fire alarm went off,” Daisy said triumphantly. “Don’t you remember Dirk coming from the sports hall?”

  “Yes,” said Liv, who tended to grasp things quicker than the others. “He said he’d heard foreign voices coming from the gym but that someone had thrown a glass at him and he’d felt so threatened he honestly believed he’d been shot so he ran all the way along to main school before collapsing at Mrs. B.’s feet.”

  “And,” Charlie added, bouncing up and down with excitement, “the bursar didn’t appear for ages, even though he’s the one who’s supposed to be in charge of all the fire regulation stuff.”

  “And loads of us heard him and Mrs. B. having a massive row about it later on,” Liberty finished with relish.

  “So what are the facts then?” asked Jinx, wanting to get this bundle of crazy information all neatly tied up in her head. “What does all of this tell us?”

  “Well,” said Daisy, who had been busily writing lists of everything they were saying on a fresh page of her notebook and connecting things with arrows back and forth, “it reads like this to me. Firstly, we have a meeting of what we can only assume are some kind of Russian businessmen in our gym on the day of the fire alarm some weeks ago. Secondly, we have Dirk disturbing this meeting and whoever was present at it subsequently seeing fit to get rid of him before, presumably, fleeing the scene, but mistakenly leaving some of their plans behind. Thirdly, we have the bursar—alongside generally suspicious behavior and an even more suspicious alliance with some Russian pupils’ bodyguard—appearing late at the fire alarm as if he had rushed to the ma
in school from somewhere a lot farther away than his office. For our purposes here tonight I think we must hypothesize that this place was indeed the gym. He did also, I clearly remember it, arrive after Dirk did.”

  “Don’t forget the triplets and Igor having matching rings,” cut in Liv, who was quietly fuming at Daisy’s casual takeover of her normal role as plan formulator and general brain behind the scams of the lower sixth.

  “I won’t,” Daisy replied tightly. “After all, I was the one who thought of it first anyway.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Liv, “keep your wig on, I was only saying. What do you suggest we do about all of this then, Ms. Brainbox? How the hell are we supposed to find out whether the triplets’ dad is involved with the bursar or whatever? I know we’re clever and everything, but we’re only schoolgirls, and we’ve got seriously limited access to the kind of information we’ll need to make this thing—whatever it is—stand up.”

  “One of us needs to speak to him,” Daisy said. She looked around and felt exasperated by the blank stares that greeted this announcement. “He’s obviously in love with Mrs. C. And she’s clearly in love with him—we’ve never seen her look happier than she does this term, and I bet you it’s mutual.”

  “So?” muttered Liberty, concentrating hard on pulling apart one of her split ends.

  “So,” Daisy said passionately, “that’s his Achilles heel. I also bet you he’s involved in whatever it is that’s going on and suddenly got cold feet because of her. And somehow the bursar found out and forced him to dump her. I have never,” she went on, betraying a sensitivity no one could ever have assumed existed inside that geeky, stuck-up, suck-up exterior, “seen anyone quite so lovesick as he was this morning. Did you see his face?”