The Lost Twin

by Sophie Cleverly

  I watched her shuffle out of the room, and then lifted the heavy desk lid. Underneath where the book had lain were several old sheets of paper and a green exercise book, all of which smelt like a rose garden. And underneath that I spotted the catch. A little metal thing in the bottom. I lifted it, and it opened a smaller hole. Inside it was an ink well, some dusty old pen nibs and – folded into a tiny square – a piece of paper.

  I snatched it out quickly and immediately my eyes were drawn to the first word …

  her.

  Her? The last line from Scarlet’s diary reappeared in my mind. Someone needs to know the truth about … her.

  The question was – who was she?

  omeone needs to know the truth about her. And what’s really going on at this school because otherwise the Fox will have won.

  I know you can do this, Ivy. I believe in you.

  Your sister,

  Scarlet x

  P.S. This is the final straw.

  I wiped a tear from my cheek. I’d spent a good deal of my life alternately being infuriated by Scarlet or trailing after her like a lost puppy, but now I missed her more than anything.

  I folded the paper neatly and hid it in my dress pocket. I sat staring into Scarlet’s rose-scented desk, the silence of the empty classroom flowing around me. But then I noticed the ticking of the clock and realised that it was only two minutes until my next lesson.

  I glanced up at the blackboard. It was still completely covered with names and dates! I picked up a dusty board rubber from Madame Lovelace’s desk and scrubbed it as hard as I could. Chalk filled my nose and I suppressed the urge to sneeze. It was useless. I’d wiped the whole thing and it had just turned from writing to a white cloud, no black in sight. It would have to do. Madame wouldn’t expect Scarlet to do a decent job of it, anyway.

  I hurried out of the classroom and heard someone call out to me.

  “Scarlet!”

  I spun around to see Ariadne leaning up against the wall.

  “Have you been there the whole time?” I said, baffled.

  “I was waiting for you,” she said, staring at her shoes.

  Oops. I hoped she hadn’t seen me looking in the desk. “Oh …”

  “What were you doing in there?” she asked.

  I ran a hand through my hair. “I didn’t want to get on Madame Lovelace’s bad side already, so I cleaned the blackboard for her.”

  Ariadne looked confused and then panicked. “It must be time for home economics! It’s in W3, right? The third room in the west wing?”

  “Of course,” I said. “Perhaps you should lead the way, so that you remember how to get there.”

  Ariadne nodded and then set off in what I hoped was the right direction, her little leather satchel bobbing up and down on her back. I followed behind, keeping my hand curled tightly around the diary page in my pocket.

  The rest of the morning was a blur. I tried to act indifferently in my lessons, even when they were fascinating, like the stuff about Isaac Newton and gravity, or fun, like making Victoria sponges in home economics. I spent lunch ignoring the looks that Penny tried to give me. By the afternoon I felt exhausted from the effort of being Scarlet, and couldn’t remember what I’d been doing most of the time. All I could think of was the letter in the diary.

  And then it came to the last class of the day. Sport.

  Miss Fox lined us all up in the hall and we stood there blinking in the low sunlight spilling through the windows.

  “Now, girls,” she said sharply, “as it’s the beginning of term, you must pick which exercise to partake in. You may choose between swimming, horse riding, hockey, lacrosse and ballet. However, if you are lacking in any particular talent –” she looked one of the larger students up and down like she was a cow at a market – “I recommend you take part in one of the team sports. I’m sure we can find a place for you somewhere in the field.”

  The girl hung her head even lower than it had been before. I shuffled uncomfortably, tugging at the hem of my uniform. I was glad not to be the focus of Miss Fox’s attention for once.

  “Write your names on the sign-up sheets and join your classes,” said Miss Fox.

  I thought immediately of my soft pink ballet shoes wrapped in tissue. I hadn’t danced since Scarlet died. But even if I felt hesitant about starting again, there was no choice. Scarlet would have picked ballet.

  So I headed straight for the corner where a group of slim, elegant girls had already gathered. But before I could get there, Miss Fox had grabbed my arm.

  “I presume you’ll be choosing ballet, Miss Grey?” she hissed in my ear.

  I looked up at her, wide-eyed. “Yes, I’m good at ballet, Miss,” I said. “I’ve had lessons for years.”

  Miss Fox gave me a nod, accompanied by a murderous stare, but before she could say anything else another teacher appeared next to us – a tall, strong-looking woman with bobbed hair – and started talking loudly about a shortage of hockey sticks.

  I glanced over at the hockey corner. A group of nervous-looking girls stood there, and I was surprised to see Ariadne among them. She shrugged hopefully and I waved back. I couldn’t imagine poor Ariadne lasting through five minutes of hockey but it seemed Miss Fox had struck a nerve.

  I joined the ballet girls. It took me a few seconds to remind myself to write Scarlet, not Ivy. I pulled out my fountain pen and signed my name with a flourish. I prayed that no-one was paying close enough attention to notice that I wrote with my left hand, not my right.

  When I looked up, the other ballet girls were all staring in my direction.

  “Scarlet,” said one of them. She had dark skin and big wide eyes, like a deer’s. It wasn’t a greeting, or a question, just a statement.

  “Hello?” I said guardedly.

  The other girls giggled and turned aside, whispering to each other. Several of them had already pulled their hair into tight buns, giving their faces a strange, sharp quality.

  “Is this everyone?” I heard a voice say behind me.

  I turned around to see a woman who looked so young that had she not been out of uniform I wouldn’t have been sure if she was a pupil or a teacher. She was wearing a black leotard with a long white satin skirt and a matching headband. Her hair was red, not a wiry copper like Penny’s but a lovely soft colour, almost blonde.

  “Yes, Miss Finch,” said the deer-eyed girl.

  “Nearly the same as last year, then. You girls go and get changed, and then meet me in the studio.” She smiled at me warmly. That was a relief, at least.

  I trekked back up to my room to get my ballet clothes. As I stretched my pink tights over my legs, I felt like I was secretly becoming myself again.

  The ballet studio was one of the few locations I remembered from the map that Miss Fox had given me, in the school’s basement. Winding stairs led down to it, and I could feel the air getting colder as I descended.

  The studio itself was lit with gas lamps rather than the modern electric lights I had seen dotted elsewhere in the school. It had wooden floorboards and a mirrored wall, with a barre running all the way around it. I winced as I caught sight of my flickering reflection. With my hair tied up I somehow looked even more like Scarlet.

  Most of the others were warming up at the barre, doing familiar stretches. I stayed at the far end of the room, hoping to avoid anyone’s attention.

  I laced on my toe shoes, then began copying the rest of them. It felt good to be doing something I understood. If only I didn’t have to look at my own face quite so much. I tried to do my exercises facing away from the mirror.

  A chiming note rang out around the room. Miss Finch was sitting at a shiny black grand piano in the corner. It looked new and expensive. “I’m glad to see everyone’s remembered their warm-up,” she said. “You’re going to need it. I apologise for the temperature of the studio, but unfortunately the heating isn’t wonderful down here.”

  Some of the other dancers were rubbing their arms, and I had goose bumps r
ising already.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “please carry on with your exercises at the barre.”

  As everyone began to practice their pliés and tendus, Miss Finch sighed and shuffled her sheet music half-heartedly. A moment later she slipped out through a door at the back of the room.

  “Centre work now, girls,” she said when she reappeared. We all moved into the middle of the room and began our exercises there. She walked between us, occasionally correcting arm and leg positions.

  I was out of practice. My muscles ached as I stretched them, my joints clicked. At least I remembered the moves well enough.

  Miss Finch instructed us to move on to adagio, where she led us through different steps. I watched closely as she tried to demonstrate, and I noticed that although she was quick and graceful, her right leg seemed to be trailing. When she walked she had a limp, as if it pained her.

  The room was getting warmer the more we danced in the glow of the gas lamps. The sound of our shoes shuffling on the floorboards was relaxing, especially now that the others were too busy concentrating to whisper about me. Well, about Scarlet.

  Finally we came to allegro, the part of the class where you do the fastest steps, turns and jumps. It was always my favourite part, and despite my aching legs I was longing to try it again.

  But while I was doing my pirouette, I lost my balance, and before I knew it I had hit the floor with a thump. The sounds of stifled laughter reached my ears.

  I looked up to see Miss Finch standing above me.

  “Really, Scarlet?” she said. “You need to move your head before you complete the turn, or you’ll lose your balance and momentum. You know that.”

  I nodded, ashamed. I knew that full well. “Sorry, Miss Finch,” I replied. I was obviously more rusty than Scarlet had been.

  We concluded the class with reverence, where we curtsied to Miss Finch as she played some sweet, flowing music on the piano.

  As she waved everyone out, I lingered behind, wanting to avoid the other girls. The deer-eyed one gave me a suspicious look under her eyebrows as she walked out.

  I was trying to take as long as possible to unlace my shoes, and eventually Miss Finch noticed my presence. “Scarlet? Is something the matter? You didn’t seem like yourself today.”

  That wasn’t good. I shook my head. “It’s fine, Miss. I’m just getting used to things again after being ill for such a long time.”

  “Well, you were a little less –” she waved her hand in the air, as if searching for the right word – “unruly than usual.”

  That sounded like Scarlet all right. “Sorry, Miss,” I replied. “I’ll try to be more unruly in future.”

  Miss Finch laughed. “It’s good to have you back. None of us will miss Penny though, eh?” She turned around on her piano stool and played a trill of notes in succession.

  I smiled, but I didn’t have any idea what she was talking about. What had Penny got to do with anything? I wanted to ask, but I had to stop myself before the words rolled off my tongue. Whatever it was, Scarlet must have known about it. “Good riddance!” I said instead.

  Miss Finch stood up, a little awkwardly on her bad leg. “You’d better get going now,” she said. “Perhaps you and Penny could sort out your differences, despite what happened before. Don’t you think?”

  I nodded, but I remained silent.

  How could I sort out our differences when I didn’t even know what they were?

  hat night I lay in the unfamiliar sheets of my new bed, wondering what had really happened between my sister and Penny.

  “What did you do, Scarlet?” I whispered into my pillow. I received no answer but the sound of the wind blowing through the trees.

  I read the diary pages over and over again, with fevered glances to make sure Ariadne was asleep, but I wasn’t learning anything new. Still, it was comforting to read Scarlet’s words by the moonlight. I could almost imagine her sitting with me, whispering them into my ear. She had always been one for riddles. I could never get the hang of them.

  I hid the diary back in the mattress during the day. I hoped it was a place that no one was likely to look, even my roommate. Though I was sure if Ariadne found it, she’d presume it belonged to me and not even take a peek out of sheer niceness.

  But there were more devious people to think about. Penny. Miss Fox. I prayed that they didn’t know about the diary, and I shuddered to think of either of them getting their hands on it.

  I flipped my pillow to the cold side and attempted sleep, but none came. I dreaded living another day of Scarlet’s life, convinced that I was going to be found out. And if that happened, Miss Fox was sure to have me expelled and I’d never find out what Scarlet was trying to tell me.

  Still, there was hope. Even if I had to search the entire school, I would find the rest of her messages.

  Just tell me where to look, Scarlet.

  I spent most of the next day in a sleep-deprived daze, my eyes fuzzy and bits of my curled fringe sticking out at awkward angles. Yet whenever I got the chance, I searched. I lifted up the desk lids in every classroom, peered under the tables in the dining hall, even opened up the high cisterns in the lavatories.

  When Ariadne spotted me trying to get a glance under our English teacher’s desk after class, I hastily told her I had lost a ring, even though wearing jewellery was forbidden at Rookwood. This resulted in Ariadne telling me a rather rambling story about how her mother thought she’d lost her wedding ring in Venice and ordered a gondolier to search the canals for it. The elusive ring was eventually located on the finger of their maid back in Shropshire, who had apparently been given it by the light-fingered stable boy.

  If anything, this story was helpful because it meant that Ariadne didn’t seem to find my erratic searching at all questionable.

  “What does it look like?” she asked, as we got on our hands and knees to examine the floor of the classroom.

  “It’s … gold,” I said. “With a ruby in it.”

  “Oh my goodness!” Ariadne exclaimed. “It must be of such value!”

  “Oh, definitely.” Well, zero is a value, I thought.

  I hadn’t considered what I’d do if I actually found more of the pages in front of Ariadne, but she was so keen to help me and I found her presence oddly reassuring.

  In fact, I realised, as we scrabbled on the floor together, she was becoming a friend. She was the only person who was looking at me and not seeing my sister.

  At dinner time, Ariadne was still searching for my non-existent ring, and almost got a caning for attempting to crawl under the dining table to look for it.

  Penny found all this hilarious. As she leant back in her chair, pretending to stifle her laughter, I noticed the girl from ballet sitting next to her. She was laughing too, but there was suspicion in her deep brown eyes. Nadia, I realised. Nadia Sayani. This is the other girl Scarlet warned me about.

  I frowned as I ate my cold ham and potatoes. I almost preferred it when they were laughing at me. As much as I loved my twin, she had surely done something to provoke them – Ariadne was as harmless as they come.

  When we got back to our room that night, I made a show of looking around for ‘the ring’ as Ariadne watched me from her bed, a miserable expression on her face.

  “I’m so sorry, Scarlet,” she said. “We’ll find it tomorrow, I know we will.”

  I felt awful for lying. My new life was just lies upon lies. And now it seemed like Ariadne would never stop worrying about my non-existent ring. “It’s fine,” I reassured her. “It doesn’t matter if we can’t find it. I’ll live.”

  Ariadne nodded sadly and folded herself into her bed sheets. I plaited my hair and got into my own bed. Once again my eyes refused to shut, and I lay awake with thoughts of Scarlet and Miss Fox and the diary spinning around my head.

  A few days later, I walked down the dark steps to the ballet studio, bleary-eyed. I was shocked to see Miss Fox standing over the piano. She glared at us all as we walked in. Did
n’t she have any other expressions?

  “Girls,” she said. “Miss Finch is unwell today and won’t be taking your class. Instead, you will join in the swimming lesson with Miss Bowler.”

  Everyone groaned. Miss Fox tapped her cane sharply against the floor. “That’s quite enough! Swimming is an essential part of your education. You never know when someone will push you out of a boat.” She looked pointedly at me. “Now get changed and off to the pool with you!”

  The swimming pool was outdoors, as I discovered – much to my dismay – when I followed the other girls there after changing back into my uniform in my room. It was a bright day, but it definitely wasn’t warm enough to submerge myself in freezing water. Nothing short of tropical conditions would make that seem welcoming.

  An old stone building next to the pool had been converted into changing rooms, its outer walls lined with striped life rings. The swimming class were already lined up outside, so the rest of us joined the back of the queue. I gazed into the water and shivered. Scarlet and I splashed around in the brook during hot summers, but I had never been in a pool before. This one had a faint green colour to it and looked wholly uninviting.

  A stout flustered-looking woman appeared, reflected in the murky water.

  “Class, it looks like we’re being joined by extra students today.” Miss Bowler looked down at the wooden clipboard she was holding. “I’ll take the register, and then you’ll need to get changed as quickly as possible.”

  I didn’t have a bathing suit. I started to feel panicked, before I realised that no one else from the ballet class would either.

  “You girls will have to borrow one of these each,” she said, leading us to a large cupboard filled with woollen bathing suits. They were saggy blue things with the Rookwood School logo embroidered over the chest. I must have spent a little too long staring at mine in revulsion, because Miss Bowler clapped her hands in front of my face and gestured dramatically towards the changing area.

  I heard snickering nearby and wasn’t surprised to see it was coming from Nadia. “What’s wrong, Scarlet?” She was already changed, and somehow managed to make the hideous thing look glamorous.