by Carmen Reid
‘Good grief!’ she exclaimed loudly, jumping up from her seat.
This immediately brought a small group of girls who’d been passing to the open sitting-room door.
‘What on earth is going on?’ the Neb demanded, holding the foaming mug well away from her. But it still spluttered and fizzed, sending more tea onto the carpet now.
‘Why has my tea gone mad?’ she asked, causing the girls at the door to giggle.
‘Don’t just stand there goggling!’ she told them off. ‘Go and get some cloths. Now! This is my best skirt. Luella! What has happened to my tea? This has to have something to do with you.’
The stern face was once again turned in Niffy’s direction, but this time Niffy was prepared.
‘No idea,’ she replied with the wide-eyed look which she used to get away with just about everything. ‘Maybe the milk’s off and something in the sugar has reacted to it.’
‘Ha!’ Mrs Knebworth was totally unconvinced. ‘In all my years of drinking tea, milk has never reacted with sugar to make a mess like this.’
She gave Niffy another long, appraising glare. ‘If you’re up to something, I will find out about it,’ she added.
Niffy was tempted to say: ‘You haven’t found those bottles yet, have you?’
But she knew that might be extremely dangerous. She might end up being gated for the whole term.
Amy and the other girls came in with cloths and paper towels they’d found in the kitchen.
‘If you would be so kind as to clean up the tea on the carpet,’ the Neb said, setting the frothing mug down on a side table. ‘I’ll have to go and change.’
‘Ermmm . . . Miss McKinnon, I know I should stay and help clean up,’ Niffy said quietly, so she couldn’t be overheard by the Neb, ‘but I have to head out to my hockey practice, remember? I told you . . . and that other . . . appointment.’
Amy glanced up, wondering what Niffy was up to now.
‘Oh yes,’ Miss McKinnon recalled. Glancing at her watch, she added, ‘You better hurry along. You don’t want to be late.’
Chapter Ten
IT WAS JUST a few minutes before supper time on that same Saturday, when Min looked up from an intense burst of chemistry revision and spotted Gina bent over her desk in the study room. Min decided to pack away her books for now and go over to speak to her friend.
‘Hi, Gina,’ she whispered, ‘I didn’t know you were in here.’
‘I know, I’m following your good example,’ Gina said proudly.
‘Impressive,’ Min whispered back. There was a handful of other, older girls in the study, so they had to keep very quiet. ‘Have you spoken to your mum yet? Is everything OK?’
‘Yeah!’ Gina replied with a grin. ‘I finally spoke with them about an hour ago. Everything’s great. They got the deal!’ At this, Gina mouthed the word ‘Yeaaaaay!’ and punched the air with her fist.
‘Is it a really good one?’ Min asked.
‘Well, let’s just say they were still in bed, sleeping off a big celebration.’
‘That’s really, really great news, Gina,’ Min told her.
One of the older girls looked up and cleared her throat in a way which made Min and Gina realize they had to stop talking.
‘Supper?’ Min asked in the tiniest whisper possible.
Gina nodded, but as she began to pack away her stuff, they both spotted Amy walking into the study.
Amy went to the row of computers, picked a chair, sat down and began to log on.
‘Checking email?’ Gina said beneath her breath. ‘Let’s go over.’
So Min and Gina tiptoed across the quiet room, to let their friend know they were there.
As they got to Amy’s chair, she was already calling up her mail, clicking through the junk, looking for the interesting messages.
Turning to see her friends, she whispered a tiny: ‘Hi.’
Min and Gina stood behind her; it was just a moment or two before the supper bell would ring so they thought they might as well wait for her.
Amy was reading through an email long enough to cover half the screen when all of a sudden, she gasped.
‘Oh no!’ she exclaimed, loudly enough to cause every head in the room to look up.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘What’s up?’
Concerned, Gina and Min both spoke together.
‘Oh no!’ Amy repeated. She leaned in towards the screen and seemed to begin reading the email again. As if she wanted to be sure of the contents.
‘This can’t be happening,’ she whispered. ‘I can’t believe it . . .’
She turned to her friends and they saw the look of horror on her face.
‘Amy?’
‘What?’ both asked.
‘Read it, just have a read . . .’ she instructed her friends, then she got up from her chair and began to hurry towards the door.
For a moment, Min and Gina were torn.
Should they follow her?
Should they read the email first?
‘Read it first.’ Min made the decision. ‘We’ll be able to help her better.’
Both girls bent over the screen and raced through the message, which was from Amy’s dad.
Although they weren’t familiar with some of the financial terms, they both understood the general drift pretty quickly.
Amy’s dad’s nightclub business was in serious trouble. One of his business partners had racked up a huge debt and now most of the business would have to be sold off to pay the debt back.
Call me as soon as you get this, princess, [the message had ended]. I want to explain it to you properly. I’m going to come and see you as soon as I can. And please, try not to worry. It’s a big thing, but we can deal with it. OK.
Loads of love,
Dad.
Min and Gina both looked at one another.
‘That’s terrible,’ Min said.
‘Let’s go find her,’ Gina replied as she closed down Amy’s email, sure that she wouldn’t want anyone else to read this.
Just then the supper siren blasted through the study room and as Min and Gina went out into the corridor, the first person they ran slap bang into was Niffy. She was in muddy and damp hockey kit, slightly out of breath as if she’d had to run to get back in time and she still had her kit bag over her shoulder.
‘Hi!’ Niffy called out.
‘Have you seen Amy?’ Gina asked.
Niffy shook her head.
‘We have to find her,’ Min said urgently.
But now the corridor was filling up with girls coming from every corner of the boarding house and heading towards the dining room.
‘We’ll try the dorm,’ Gina said.
Both Min and a sweaty, panting Niffy followed Gina down the corridor against the crowd of girls moving in the other direction.
‘What’s the matter?’ Niffy wanted to know.
As they headed up the flights of stairs towards the attic, Min and Gina gave Niffy the details of the email.
‘You have got to be joking!’ was Niffy’s reaction. ‘Her dad? The nightclub business? I thought everything was fine. Didn’t Amy say that just the other day?’
‘I know,’ Min agreed. ‘She looked totally shocked.’
‘I think it’s a complete surprise to her dad as well,’ Gina added.
As they rounded the next corner, to mount the final flight of stairs, they saw Amy coming down the stairs towards them. Her face looked pale and strained, as if she was working hard to hold herself together.
‘Amy!’ Niffy was the first to speak. ‘I’m so sorry. We’re all so sorry about what’s happened.’
Amy put her hand over her mouth and gave a wide-eyed gasp. Her eyes filled up with tears and she looked as if she was struggling not to cry.
‘I don’t know the full story yet,’ she blurted out in a wobbly voice. ‘Maybe it’s not as bad as it sounds. I’ll have to call him . . . I’ll speak to him after supper. Maybe I’ll call him now . . . I won’t be miss
ed at supper . . .’
But when she saw the anxious looks on the three faces, she quickly added, ‘No, it’s OK, I’ll come to supper. I know how much you’ll worry about me if I miss a meal.’
Stepping down to their level, she gratefully accepted the hugs and the pats on the back that they all wanted to give her.
‘Your dad’s a really good businessman,’ Gina reminded her. ‘He’ll figure something out.’
‘You’re right,’ Amy said, and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
‘You’ll feel better once you’ve had something to eat,’ Niffy told her. ‘I know I always do.’
‘Niffy!’ Amy was suddenly staring at her friend with a look of absolute horror across her face.
‘NIFFY!’ she repeated.
Gina and Min were now looking at Niffy too, mouths opening in astonishment.
‘You’ve cut off all your hair!’ Amy said, although now that everyone was looking at Niffy properly, this was totally, stark-staringly obvious.
Chapter Eleven
IN THE DAFFODIL dorm that night, long after lights out, it was hard to fall asleep. Each of the dorm girls lay very still in their beds and thought about a whole list of worrying developments.
Amy stared at the ceiling and thought about her dad. He was going to come to Edinburgh to see her next weekend. She had managed to speak to him not long before bedtime and he’d told her not to panic: ‘All businesses go through ups and downs,’ he’d said. ‘We have to keep calm and not do anything stupid. It’s important to think hard together before we act.’
But Amy lay there in the dark, and she was panicking. What if they lost their home? What if he lost all his nightclubs and didn’t have a business left? What if . . .? She could feel tears drip from her eyes into her hair as she let herself think about this. What if she had to leave St Jude’s?
It did happen.
It happened more often than anyone liked to think about. What about Laurel in the dorm next door? She’d had to leave all of a sudden. Imagine if Amy had to do the same thing?
In the bed next to Amy’s, Niffy was also awake and thinking exactly the same thing. What if Amy had to leave? What if Amy wasn’t going to be at St Jude’s any more? And what about Amy’s stressful relationship with food? Niffy had noticed that Amy had hardly eaten a thing at supper. This was what had happened last term – Amy had stressed out about things and her eating had got totally messed up. They were all going to have to look after Amy carefully and make sure that it didn’t happen again.
As if this wasn’t enough to worry about, Niffy also moved her hand up to her head and felt the raw ends of her hair.
Raw . . . that was how the ends felt. As if they were broken off and supersensitive, like nails that had been bitten too deep.
Despite the very kind comments that her friends had made as soon as they’d spotted the dramatic haircut, Niffy now had the feeling that she’d made a terrible mistake.
‘It’s sooooo short!’ Gina had marvelled. She’d had to walk all round Niffy, to take in the bare ears and the exposed pale neck.
‘What do you think?’ Niffy had pressed her for an opinion.
‘Wow!’ Gina had said. ‘It’s so daring. A real boy’s cut.’
‘You don’t think it’s too frizzy at the front?’ Niffy had worried.
‘I’m sure there’s something you could put in it, to calm it down,’ Amy had suggested.
‘You cut off all your hair?’ Min had gasped. As she took in Niffy’s hairstyle, she’d held her own long, inky locks in her hands, as if she’d been worried that someone was going to sneak up and cut hers off too.
‘It’s very sporty,’ Gina had added. ‘Think how easy it will be to wash and dry.’
‘Hmmm . . .’ Niffy had agreed, only too aware that no one had told her it looked good.
‘Do you like it, Amy?’ she had asked her oldest friend directly. ‘Do you think it looks good?’
Amy had looked back at her and said nothing for a few moments. Then she’d finally answered: ‘I’m going to have to stare at you for the rest of the evening and just try and get used to it. Ask me later.’
That was when Niffy knew she’d made a mistake.
She’d gone to a barber’s shop. One with a sign outside which promised: ALL CUTS £8. That had fitted with her frugal budget. So she’d walked in as she’d planned, cool as a cucumber, and asked if she would be able to get a ‘short back and sides’.
The barber had raised his eyebrows and asked her several times if she was sure.
‘Yeah, yeah. Definitely,’ she’d insisted, then she’d settled herself into the chair and the barber had bunched all her hair together into a hand-held pony tail at the back and just chopped it all off in a single whack. Ouch. It had almost physically hurt as the hair had hit the floor.
For the next thirty minutes or so, Niffy had felt incredibly daring and excited as the barber had worked over her head. She’d felt the scissors move up above her ear lobes, much higher than she’d ever had her hair cut before.
But at the end, when she’d turned to face the mirror, she’d felt disappointed with the result. Instead of looking anything like as sleek and as chic as Ailsa in the French class, she looked like a curly-haired boy. In fact, she looked scarily like Finn – her older brother!
That was not what she had wanted. Not at all. She’d hoped that a short haircut would make her look older, more glamorous, and just a bit exotic and exciting. Not like a big, overgrown boy in hockey kit!
Several hot tears slid from Niffy’s eyes now and slipped into her shorn hair. She told herself off for being so silly. Hair! It was just hair. It would grow back. It would grow just a little bit more every day and she would be fine. But one thing was for definite: she would never, ever cut her hair again. Ever.
Gina was also trying hard to fall asleep. Her eyes were closed, and although she felt very sorry for Amy, she couldn’t help feeling relieved and proud of her mom and her stepdad, who were managing to make their business thrive, even when times were so tough.
Just as Gina started to relax and feel the very first touch of sleepiness take hold of her, a face swam in front of her mind’s eye. Usually the person who she liked to think about last thing at night, with a secret smile, was Dermot. But now . . . She was startled. Her eyes opened wide. Why on earth was she thinking about Callum? What was Dermot’s friend Callum doing in her mind last thing at night?
Min was the first person in the dorm to fall asleep. But no sooner had she let go of her real worries than she began to pitch fast-forward and headlong into her dream worries.
In her dream, Min was sitting in the St Jude’s assembly hall. There were desks all around her and at every single desk was a St Jude’s girl, bent over and writing furiously.
Min looked down at the pages on the desk in front of her and with horror realized they were completely blank. Totally empty. There were no questions. There were no answers. She was just staring at white sheets of paper.
Heart leaping, Min looked up in her dream at the big clock on the wall. There were just seconds to go. The exam was about to end! Why hadn’t she said anything? Why hadn’t she asked for another exam paper? What had she been thinking? Where had she been? Had she slept though this exam and just woken up?
Before the clock could strike the hour, Min woke up from the exam torture with a start.
For several minutes, she lay still, trying to gather her thoughts. It was OK, she told herself. She was still in bed in the boarding house. That was just a dream, even though it had felt so real; she could still see the clock, the blank sheets of paper and even the backs of the girls right in front of her.
A dream.
Just a dream.
She tried to calm herself, but her heart was still hammering. She had a horrible dry feeling in her throat, as if she had been breathing through her mouth. She sat upright in bed and listened to the sounds around her.
Everyone else seemed to be asleep. Amy was snoring slightly. Good,
Min couldn’t help thinking. She’d had a horrible evening and deserved a good night’s rest.
After staring into the darkness for several minutes, Min decided that she would get up. Maybe if she went to the bathroom and drank a glass of water, she would get rid of this horrible, tense thumping in her chest.
The glass of water helped a little, but Min still wasn’t ready to go back to bed. She didn’t want to lie there in that dark dorm, listening to everyone else sleeping. She suspected that would make it even harder to drop off again.
Although it was against boarding house rules, she decided to tiptoe downstairs to the Upper Fifth sitting room. There she would read for a bit . . . maybe log on to her email . . . perhaps even make a cup of weak tea.
Min sneaked across the landing and opened the big fire door at the top of the stairs as slowly and as quietly as possible. The staircase was dimly lit with fire-escape lights and as Min began to make her way down it, every step seemed to creak.
Chapter Twelve
‘PASS! WILL YOU just pass?!’ Amy urged Niffy as they ran side by side down the hockey field towards the opposition’s goal.
Niffy was steering the ball expertly this way and that with her stick. She’d already managed to make it past two defenders, but Amy didn’t trust her to get past a third on her own.
‘Pass, you pig-headed glory-hunter!’ Amy shouted in exasperation.
But Niffy was determined to get right to the goal mouth and to score this point herself. The match wasn’t exactly going well. Niffy and Amy’s team was down 3-1 to the team being captained by Penny Boswell-Hackett.
The rivalry between Penny and her friends and Niffy and Amy was always at its fiercest during hockey lessons.
Now, 3-1 down, Niffy was determined to at least equal the score before the end of the lesson. Penny, Niffy and Amy took even the matches played in hockey lessons very, very seriously. The scores were personal.
Just as Amy had predicted, the final defender before the goal snatched the ball from Niffy and walloped it up to the other end of the field.