by Ann Bryant
About This Book
Secrets, hopes and dreams… School friends are for ever!
Silver Spires is the best school in the world – they’re even filming a TV documentary here to prove it!
I’m not bothered about the cameras though. I’m more excited about my fab new idea to make our school more “green”. The trouble is, this older girl, Jet, thinks I’m trying to steal her camera time – she’s such an attention-seeker. I wish she’d just leave me alone so I can get on with making my dream a reality…
To Valerie Wilding, with lots of love, and thanks for your humour and wisdom.
Contents
About This Book
Acknowledgements
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Emily’s Top Ten Eco Tips
Sneak Preview of Magic at Silver Spires
About the Author
Want to know more about the Silver Spires girls?
Collect the whole School Friends series
Copyright
Chapter One
“Ouch!”
What’s Bryony doing attacking me like this? She’s supposed to be my best friend. I stopped staring at the cloudy grey sky through the gap between the treetops, and raised my eyebrows at her in a vague kind of way.
“Ems, come back from whatever planet you’re on!” said Nicole, laughing. “We’ve been trying to attract your attention for ages!”
And when I looked round I saw that it wasn’t only Bryony and Nicole who were finding me amusing, but all of my little group of friends.
“What were you daydreaming about, anyway?” asked Sasha.
It was true I’d been miles away, thinking about my other best friend, my beautiful horse, Barney, who lives back home in Ireland. I was imagining myself galloping him across open fields on a beautiful summer evening when all the work on our farm had been done – well, all the work I had to do at least, because Mum and Dad and my big brother Will always work till really late in the summer.
But how could I explain all that to my friends? None of them have got much of a clue about horses, and they certainly don’t know the first thing about farming. I still love them dearly, though, because the six of us have been together in the same dormitory here at Silver Spires Boarding School for Girls for a term and a bit now, and the others don’t seem to mind that I’m always either daydreaming or, if you press my other button, rushing to get out in the fresh air. They’re not bothered that I don’t care about fashion or that I’m not the best in the world as far as lessons are concerned. They all just accept the way I am. Well, apart from a few times like right now, when I think I do get on their nerves.
But I always know how to bring them round. “I was daydreaming about winning the lottery and just wondering which friends I might take with me on my trip to see the wonders of the world!”
That had exactly the effect I expected. Izzy and Sasha stopped trying to keep warm by jogging on the spot and gave me big beaming smiles, while Antonia and Nicole both shuffled close to me and linked their arms through mine, and Bryony started batting her eyelashes about two centimetres away from my face in a totally over-the-top way, which looked so funny, knowing what a tomboy she is. We must have seemed like a really weird little group standing in the middle of the main lane that runs through the Silver Spires grounds.
“Okay, I’ll take you all!” I said, sighing a bit and pretending they were a lot of pestering children that I had to keep quiet somehow.
When they’d finished being amused by me for the second time in two minutes, Izzy started doing vigorous star jumps. “How come you don’t feel the cold, Emily?”
“I’m just used to it, I suppose,” I told her with a shrug. Then I looked at my watch. “Surely a few of the guests should have arrived by now, shouldn’t they?”
Well that sent Izzy and Sasha straight back into their big excitement zone. “I can’t wait to see them. I’ve got so many questions!” said Sasha.
“Me too!” squeaked Izzy. “And I bet they’ve got loads to ask each other, too. I mean, it’ll seem so strange meeting up for a grand reunion party after all these years.”
And then Nicole and Antonia were joining in with the buzz, while Bryony and I stood quietly to one side. Neither of us was looking forward to the afternoon in quite the same way as our friends were, and we’d only really come outside to look out for the guests arriving because the others had wanted us to.
“I suppose it’ll be quite interesting when we get talking to people, but I’m not as excited as the others, are you?” I asked Bryony quietly.
She’s a very thoughtful person, my best friend, so she didn’t answer me straight away. But then her face suddenly brightened. “I’m looking forward to the tea!”
“Me too!” I said, giggling. “All those totally fab home-made cakes and biscuits!”
“I hope they decorate the hall to make it very grand,” said Antonia, joining in with us now. “And use Silver Spires’s best silver teapots and china!” she added, with a dreamy look in her eyes.
“Is that what your dad would do in his restaurant in Italy?” I asked her, because I’m interested in how the different countries all have their own traditions and ways of doing things.
“Afternoon tea isn’t a custom in Italy, like it is in England,” Antonia replied. “But yes, it’s true, Papà makes his restaurant look extra-specially wonderful for important occasions.”
Just about every time Antonia speaks I think how much her English has improved. When she joined Silver Spires with all the rest of us Year Sevens last September, she had trouble with lots of English words and she had a really strong Italian accent. But now you only notice her accent a bit. Nicole, her best friend, has helped her loads with the language. Antonia’s also taught Nicole quite a bit of Italian, which Nicole has picked up really quickly, as she’s the brainiest one in our group.
When Antonia started talking about decorations, I’d been imagining the big hall here in the beautiful old main building of Silver Spires full of women in their sixties all enjoying their grand reunion, introducing themselves to each other and chatting away about what they’d done since they’d left Silver Spires all those years ago. Now I suddenly felt myself wanting to break into giggles again.
“Isn’t it funny the way everyone always calls them old girls?” I spluttered. “I mean it sounds kind of rude, doesn’t it, to say, ‘A load of old girls are coming to a reunion party at Silver Spires’!”
“Well, if you put it like that it sounds rude. But that’s exactly what they are, aren’t they?” said Nicole. “Old girls. It’s really amazing that they’re all coming back to meet up after fifty years.”
“Yes, they might not even recognize each other,” said Sasha. “It’ll be so weird for them all, won’t it? They’ll be comparing notes about what boarding houses they were in and what their housemistresses were like…”
“Just think,” I said, as something suddenly dawned on me, “this party could be us in fifty years’ time.”
“Yes,” said Antonia, nodding firmly. “And we will all agree that it is Forest Ash which is the best boarding house, and Mrs. Pridham the best housemistress!”
“And Miss Stevenson the best assistant housemistress, and Miss Callow the best matron,” I added.
“I’ve just had a thought!” said Nicole, looking shocked. “Forest Ash wouldn’t have even existed fifty years ago, because it’s one of the modern boarding houses, isn’t it?”
Bryony was staring round. “
That’s right. In fact the whole school must have been so much smaller in those days.”
“I can’t believe that we’re just about the only Year Sevens who’ve signed up to come to the tea party,” said Izzy, frowning. “It’ll be really interesting talking to the –” she let out a giggle – “old girls!”
“See!” I said, stabbing my finger in the air with triumph, which was a bit over-the-top, I have to admit. “It is funny!”
“Yes, but seriously,” Izzy carried on, “don’t you think it’ll be great to ask them questions about the old days and what the rules were like and the uniform and whether they had midnight feasts…”
“And what the lessons were like,” Nicole chimed in.
“Yes, and what kind of things they got up to at weekends,” said Izzy.
“And whether any of them came from foreign countries, and if they were homesick,” Antonia added, looking a bit sad.
Nicole immediately put her arm round Antonia. “Imagine what it was like with no mobiles to call their parents or text them.”
“And no e-mails,” said Bryony. “Not even computers.”
“What about TV?” asked Sasha. And we all looked at Nicole for the answer to that one.
“Oh, they definitely had TV,” she said, nodding. “Only it would have been black and white, I think.”
Izzy’s eyes shone. “I bet that not one single person who comes for the reunion today ever, ever imagined fifty years ago that they’d be coming back to Silver Spires fifty years later and their whole reunion would be filmed for TV. How amazing is that?”
“The TV crew will have set up the cameras by now, won’t they?” said Sasha.
Izzy grabbed hold of Sasha’s arms excitedly and spoke in one of her squeaks. “And then the cameras will be around school for another two weeks! It’s going to be so exciting!”
Bryony tipped her head to one side and looked at Izzy. “We’re supposed to act normally, remember?” she said, keeping her face straight.
“I know,” said Izzy, immediately letting go of Sasha and straightening out her expression until she looked completely serious. “And I shall.” She flicked her eyes across to Bryony. “Act normally,” she added.
We all laughed, because Izzy looked anything but normal – in fact, she was practically going cross-eyed with the effort of not smiling.
“Look, here comes Juliet and her fan club,” Bryony said. She rolled her eyes. “Looks like she wants to be noticed by the cameras. What a surprise.”
I had to agree. We’d all been told to wear school uniform this afternoon, even though it was a Saturday, and whereas Juliet’s friends looked pretty normal, Juliet herself had a pair of high wedges on and she’d rolled her school skirt over at the waist. She’d also got loads of make-up on, so she looked like a tall thin doll, in my opinion. I only know her through riding club, but we don’t get on at all because I can’t stand the way she’s always showing off during the hacks. Then afterwards she never puts her saddle back on the saddle rack properly and hardly ever bothers to wipe down the rest of the tack. One time, when I saw her friend tidying up after her, I gave them both a withering look, and Juliet called me a little goody-goody.
“You’re supposed to call her Jet, remember,” said Antonia, dropping her voice as Juliet approached.
It’s true that absolutely nobody uses her proper name, Juliet, because Juliet has told everyone to call her Jet, which personally I think would be much better suited to a pony. And whenever I hear someone saying “Jet”, I always want to break into giggles as I imagine her neighing. She doesn’t look anything like a pony though. In fact, she looks more like a model, with her nearly black hair that hangs exactly where it ought to hang, unlike my own bright auburn mop that lies in clumps and pokes out of the sturdiest hairband. Juliet is always going on about her hair being jet black, and then she bats her eyelashes and says, “It’s such a coincidence that my name matches my hair!”
“Hey, guys!” she said, as she passed us. “Looking out for the visitors, are we? Ah, how sweet!” Then I caught her rolling her eyes at her friends, and I definitely heard a few sniggers before they walked on.
It really annoys me how Juliet always makes me feel so young and kind of pathetic, even though she’s actually only one year older than us. Just then I found her extra annoying, because I was sure Bryony was right about the cameras, and Juliet wanted to be quite certain that, with her make-up and high shoes, she got plenty of attention.
I know it makes me the odd one out, but I wasn’t all that excited when Ms. Carmichael, the headmistress, announced in assembly that Silver Spires was to be the subject of a TV documentary. You see, my family doesn’t actually have a television back home in Ireland – we’ve never had one, so I don’t miss it. When I was at primary school and the other kids started talking about TV programmes, I just used to tune out. Sometimes they’d say, “Hey, Emily, isn’t it weird not having a telly?” and they’d look at me as though I was a complete freak, but I didn’t care. Things like that don’t bother me. I asked them if it was weird not having horses to ride and cows to milk and chickens and rabbits to feed and vegetables to look after and eggs to collect. I think they probably thought I was even weirder after that little speech, but it still didn’t worry me.
Actually there was one time I can remember when we were in the playground and everyone was talking excitedly about a programme they’d watched the evening before, and a girl asked me what I’d been doing instead of watching the programme. I can distinctly remember the pitying looks that everyone was giving me at that moment. But then the pity quickly changed to big respect when I told them I’d been helping Dad deliver a calf.
Now that I’m at boarding school, my life during term time is totally different from my life in the holidays. When I first came to Silver Spires last September, I felt like a fish out of water. It’s true that Antonia had had further to come than me because of her family living in Italy, which is much further away than Ireland, and also it must have been terrible for Antonia not speaking much English. But for me it felt as though someone had drawn the curtains on my normal world and I had to learn how to live a different life.
At home I’m so free. Our farm is enormous, with loads of fields. We’ve got a proper big flower garden as well, and even better than that, a kitchen garden, as Mum calls it, with vegetables and herbs in it. I can spend all day in that garden, and it’s not just planting and watering that I enjoy, it’s the hard work as well – hoeing and raking and turning over the soil, and digging in the fertilizer to prepare it for planting. It’s so satisfying making the soil tidy and rich, pulling out every single weed.
In the fields we’ve got a huge herd of cows and quite a few bullocks. And because the cows need milking every morning and evening, and Mum and Dad like to keep an eye on things, we’ve hardly ever been on holiday as a family. But I don’t mind. I love my life, because it’s the only one I’ve ever known…until I came here to Silver Spires.
I used to want to break out of the room where we have to do prep (that’s homework, by the way) because the school days at Silver Spires are much longer than they were at primary and I’m always exhausted after all those lessons. It’s not the lessons themselves that make me tired, it’s just being inside all the time. Even now it’s January and quite cold, I often feel like being outside, while the others are only up for watching something on TV.
I used to imagine how great it would be to lift my lovely farm life up from Ireland and drop it into Silver Spires, but now I’m used to it here, I feel totally happy that I’ve got the best of both worlds. Although, I do miss my gardening. When I first told the others that, they looked at me as though I was completely mad. It’s hard to explain why I love it so much, but I always have done, ever since I was a little girl.
The grounds are absolutely massive at Silver Spires. They mainly consist of sports fields and lawns, as well as some grassy areas near Pets’ Place, which is where a few girls keep their guinea pigs and rabbits and thing
s that they’ve brought from home. Then there are the two massive shrubberies, one on either side of the lane where you first drive in, a few other shrubberies dotted about and two beautiful flower gardens. But that’s all. No vegetable gardens.
And that’s what I miss – the thrill of digging for potatoes. It feels like you’re digging for gold. And then you get the extra treat of eating all the vegetables, because they taste a million times better when you’ve grown them yourself. It’s such a shame that at Silver Spires the vegetables are all bought into the school in big catering packs.
Anyway, I had to stop thinking about that. After all, there wasn’t going to be anything pre-packed about today’s special afternoon tea. Mrs. Pridham had told us there’d be chocolate eclairs, which are my personal favourite cakes ever, and all sorts of other delicious cakey things as well.
“Look! Look!” squeaked Sasha. “A car!”
“It’s starting! The guests are arriving!” Izzy joined in excitedly.
“They might think we’re the reception party if we stay here,” said Bryony.
Izzy giggled. “A few Year Sevens shivering in the lane? I don’t think so!”
“Anyway,” said Nicole, “now we’ve caught a glimpse of them, let’s go back to Forest Ash. We’ll see them all properly at the party once they’ve had their welcome meeting with Ms. Carmichael and the Year Elevens.”
We all agreed and started to walk away, but suddenly I couldn’t resist looking back and saw two more cars coming along the lane. The second one was moving very slowly and, as it drew level with us, I noticed that the lady driving it was leaning forwards, flicking her head from side to side, staring out first to one side, then the other. On her face I caught such a look of wonder that I stopped in my tracks and tried to see the school through her eyes for a moment. It must have felt so strange to be seeing it after all those years.
Then the sun came out, blinding me for a moment, and at the same time Nicole broke my little spell, calling out, “Ems, come on! Sun’s out!”