Alice-Miranda woke with a start, her brow peppered with tiny beads of perspiration. She pushed off the covers and tried to calm her breathing as the rain drummed a steady beat against the windowpane.
Millie looked up from her book. ‘Morning,’ she said, dog-earring the page she was on. She placed the copy of Lord of the Flies on her bedside table. ‘I think you were having a nightmare. I gave you a shake earlier but got thumped on the head for my trouble.’
Alice-Miranda sat up against her pillows. ‘Oh, Millie, I’m so sorry.’
Millie hopped out of her bed and padded over to sit beside her friend. ‘I had a bad dream too,’ she said. ‘I hope the other girls are okay.’
‘We’ll be fine,’ Alice-Miranda said, giving Millie a hug, ‘but I’m pretty sure the Abbouds have lost everything. It’s times like these that remind us to treasure each moment with those we love and not take life for granted.’
‘Trust you to find that silver lining.’ Millie grinned, then a pained look came across her face and she threw herself on the mattress as if she’d been dealt a heavy blow. ‘Urgh!’ she groaned. ‘I just remembered Caprice will be back from the eisteddfod. I can’t wait to hear how amazing she was,’ she added sarcastically.
‘Please try to be patient with her, Millie. You can’t deny she’s very talented.’ Alice-Miranda glanced at the clock. ‘We’d better get a move on. I still smell of smoke even though I practically scrubbed myself raw under the shower last night.’
There was a knock on the door and Mrs Clarkson poked her head around. ‘Good morning, girls. How did you sleep?’
‘Okay except for some bad dreams,’ Millie said.
‘Well, I suppose we might expect that for a little while.’ The woman walked into the room and picked up Millie’s uniform from where it had fallen off the back of her chair.
‘I love that top, Mrs Clarkson,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘Those flamingos always make me happy.’
The housemistress smiled, as that was exactly the effect she was hoping it might have – for her and the girls. She had taken an extra few minutes to get dressed this morning, locating her favourite blouse and navy trousers and adding a strand of pearls to the ensemble. ‘You’ll be pleased to know that Mrs Abboud and the children have been discharged from hospital. Unfortunately, the news is not so good for her husband. The poor man has suffered third-degree burns and has a very serious case of smoke inhalation. He’s in intensive care. I’m sorry, girls, but I knew you’d want to be kept updated.’
‘Oh, that’s awful,’ Alice-Miranda said. While she was relieved to hear that Mrs Abboud and the children were in good health, the thought of Mr Abboud in such a precarious state made her feel quite sad and helpless. Surely there was something she and her friends could do. She spotted a card on her desk and picked it up. It was from her Granny Valentina sending her love and best wishes for a happy school term. ‘We should make Mr Abboud a get-well card from all of us,’ Alice-Miranda suggested. ‘Chessie could do one of her drawings for the front and we can create a collage or something on the back.’
Mrs Clarkson nodded. ‘That’s a lovely idea. I’ll arrange for art supplies to be sent over from school. Now, you two had better make a move. I’ll see you at breakfast.’ Petunia wished she could bottle Alice-Miranda’s thoughtfulness and share it among a few of the other girls. She’d already had a run-in with Caprice, who point-blank refused to take off the nail polish she’d worn for the eisteddfod. Petunia had resorted to threatening to remove it herself if it wasn’t gone by lunchtime.
Alice-Miranda and Millie followed the woman into the hall, with their bathroom bags and towels in tow, chattering about what they could put on the card – perhaps not a picture of the restaurant but maybe a village scene would be nice.
Caroline Clinch looked up from the staff table to see Alice-Miranda and Millie enter the dining room. They were followed by Jacinta, Sloane, Chessie and Caprice. She’d spoken to the rest of the girls about not making a fuss, but her words had fallen on deaf ears. Upon seeing the group, Susannah Dare and Ivory Hicks stood up and clinked their spoons against their glasses.
‘Three cheers for the heroes of the day!’ Susannah called loudly, and the room erupted in overwhelming response. Even the teachers joined in.
Millie felt a lump in her throat and her eyes began to prickle. She brushed away the tears and took a deep breath.
‘Really, girls, that wasn’t necessary,’ Caprice sighed, with her hand on her chest. ‘It was a gruelling weekend and utterly exhausting, but I did it – National Eisteddfod Junior Champion once again.’
There was a collective groan.
Ashima Divall rolled her eyes. ‘We’re not cheering for you, Caprice. We’re cheering for the others – they rescued the Abbouds from a fire yesterday in the village. The family would have died if it hadn’t been for Alice-Miranda and the girls.’
‘What?’ Caprice snarled. No one had mentioned anything to her about a fire – not even her room mate, Sloane. ‘That’s hardly the biggest deal around. I just won the National Eisteddfod and I’m going to be on a new television show – surely that counts for something.’
‘That’s fantastic news, Caprice,’ Alice-Miranda said kindly. ‘Well done – we’re all very pleased for you. Girls, I think Caprice deserves three cheers of her own.’ The tiny child jumped up onto a chair and threw her hands into the air. ‘Three cheers for Caprice!’
There were some grumbles but the majority of the students repeated their earlier effort, although with noticeably less enthusiasm.
‘You could at least sound as if you mean it,’ Caprice spat, and stalked off to the servery with her chin in the air.
‘Seriously, I could punch her in the nose,’ Millie said, clenching her fists.
‘You won’t, of course,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘It doesn’t hurt for us to give Caprice a bit of positive reinforcement every now and then – she works hard.’
Sloane rolled her eyes and picked up a tray. ‘If only someone could teach her about humility, we’d all like her a lot better.’
‘Good morning, Mrs Jennings.’ Alice-Miranda smiled at the stout woman behind the counter. Rachel Jennings had been the cook at the senior school for a while now. She was quite a bit younger than Mrs Smith, with dark curls scraped into a messy bun. Her uniform was the same as always: a starchy white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, an A-line navy skirt paired with thick stockings and sensible brown shoes, and a navy apron over the top.
‘Hello, dear, I’ve made scrambled eggs this morning. I thought it might be easier on your throats in case they’re still sore from the smoke,’ the woman said, giving the watery yellow blobs a swirl in the tray.
It was unfortunate that Mrs Jennings’s skills didn’t exactly match her enthusiasm. Despite undertaking bouts of intensive training with Mrs Smith and her assistant, Ginny, there were still a few dishes the woman had not yet mastered – scrambled eggs being one of them.
‘Thank you,’ Alice-Miranda said warmly, spooning the smallest amount she felt she could get away with.
‘Oh, sweetheart, you’ll need more than that to keep you going all day,’ the woman said. She heaped a full serve onto the child’s plate with a wink. ‘Eat up.’
Luckily, Mrs Jennings did a much better job with the bacon and it was pretty difficult to ruin baked beans, so Alice-Miranda made sure she had plenty of both to mask the tasteless eggs.
‘Did you all sleep okay?’ Millie asked as the girls sat down.
‘Like a baby,’ Caprice sighed. ‘I was so tired. Honestly, it was such a long three days – the waiting around was diabolical – but that was because there were so many competitors in my section. If only they’d known it would be a total waste of their time.’
‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ Millie said to the girl, who immediately retaliated by poking out her tongue.
‘Forgive me for thinking you might be interested in someone other than yourself,’ Caprice retorted. She took a bite of her eggs and spat them out all over the table. ‘Oh, that’s disgusting.’
Alice-Miranda passed her a napkin.
‘I talked to Mummy for a while before bed,’ Chessie said, cutting herself a piece of bacon. ‘I think that helped a lot. She said to tell you all how proud she is of what we did, although I got the feeling she was a bit mortified too.’
‘And what about you, Jacinta?’ Alice-Miranda asked. After the phone call with her father, the girl had whispered a few words to her mother then headed off to bed.
‘Pardon?’ Jacinta said, looking up from her plate.
‘Are you okay?’ Sloane asked. She’d noticed Jacinta hadn’t said a thing all morning and had barely touched her toast.
‘I don’t know,’ Jacinta replied. To say she was feeling mixed up would have been the understatement of the year. Right after talking to her dad, she’d telephoned the boarding house at Fayle and was surprised that the housemaster put her straight on to Lucas. Having heard about the fire, the boy spent the first five minutes telling Jacinta how brave she and the other girls had been. But it was Myrtle Parker’s gossip that was really on her mind. She didn’t want to come straight out and ask if it was true, so instead she had told him about the call from her father. Her heart sank when Lucas revealed that he’d been speaking to his mother quite a bit lately too, and given their relationship had been strained for a while, he was feeling optimistic that things were on the up and up. Jacinta was sure that, if Lucas was planning to move to America, he would have said something. When he didn’t, Jacinta failed to mention it either. And now she was kicking herself because, between thinking about her father, the fire and Lucas, she’d hardly slept a wink.
‘What happened with your dad?’ Millie asked. She exiled her eggs to one corner of her plate and popped a button mushroom into her mouth.
Jacinta took a bite of her toast and chewed slowly. ‘He’s, um, coming to see me.’
‘When?’ Sloane and Millie crowed in unison.
‘This weekend,’ Jacinta replied. ‘He said that he has a lot of explaining to do and he wants to make things up to me.’
‘And how do you feel about that?’ Alice-Miranda asked. The thought of Neville Headlington-Bear being back on the scene worried her enormously, given the man’s track record, but there was always a chance he’d undergone some positive personal transformation. And who was she to judge?
‘Part of me doesn’t want to get my hopes up,’ Jacinta confessed, ‘but part of me can’t help thinking that maybe he’s changed for the better. I mean, Mummy’s a completely different person to what she used to be like. Why couldn’t Daddy do the same?’
Alice-Miranda smiled at the girl. ‘You can only take people as you find them.’
‘Are you kidding me?’ Caprice baulked. ‘He’s a deadbeat dad and, believe me, no one goes from foul to fabulous with a snap of their fingers – it doesn’t happen.’
‘You’d know,’ Millie muttered.
Caprice narrowed her eyes at the girl. ‘What did you say?’
Millie looked at her evenly. ‘I’m just saying that all your promises to try to be a better human being after what happened in Scotland clearly meant nothing.’
Caprice stood up and slammed her hand on the table so hard that the room was immediately silenced. ‘They did so!’ she screeched. ‘It’s you. You’re always mocking me no matter what I do. You don’t even care that I beat everyone in the whole country to win the eisteddfod, which is a seriously amazing achievement – not that you’d know, seeing as you have no talent whatsoever!’
‘Calm down,’ Alice-Miranda implored the pair of them. ‘You’re both going to say something you regre–’
‘How dare you!’ Millie lunged towards Caprice, grabbing a handful of the girl’s hair and yanking hard.
Caprice squealed, clutching her ponytail. She clambered over the table, knocking plates and glasses sideways before throttling Millie. Sloane and Jacinta leapt from their seats and were doing their best to loosen Caprice’s grip.
‘Girls! Stop that at once!’ Miss Reedy boomed from the doorway. ‘What a dreadful display. I will see both of you at Winchesterfield Manor straight after breakfast – and you will walk there in the rain!’ Livinia turned to the young woman beside her. ‘I am sorry about that, Miss Crowley. Millie and Caprice tend to push each other’s buttons,’ she whispered out of the corner of her mouth. ‘Actually, Caprice pushes nearly everyone’s buttons. Something to look forward to.’ She cast another glare at the duelling redheads before proceeding to the front of the room.
Millie sat with her arms folded tightly in front of her while Caprice had conjured fat tears. Chessie passed her a tissue, but she slapped the girl’s hand away, determined to stew in her misery.
The woman beside Miss Reedy did nothing to betray how she felt about the scene in front her. Alice-Miranda thought she must be mid-twenties at most, though she dressed with a style and elegance befitting someone far more mature. Her blonde fringe was swept back by two mother-of-pearl barrettes that complemented her navy pants suit and white silk blouse. A beautiful dragonfly brooch was pinned to her blazer lapel.
‘She must be the new English teacher,’ Chessie said. ‘She’s pretty, isn’t she?’
Sloane had just been thinking the same thing.
‘Good morning, girls,’ Miss Reedy said. ‘I’d like to introduce Miss Crowley, who will be taking over Mrs Reeves’s classes. I’m sure that you will all make her feel very welcome.’
The girls burst into a round of applause, which Miss Reedy silenced with a querulous glare. She then looked at Millie and Caprice. ‘You two had better hurry up and finish your breakfast. I will see you both at nine o’clock sharp.’
Livinia began to walk away when Miss Crowley gently touched her arm.
‘I wondered if I might say something,’ Tabitha said, earning herself an arched eyebrow. ‘I’ll be quick.’
‘Be sure you are. I have to get over to the junior school,’ Livinia replied, taking a step back to give the woman the floor.
Tabitha turned to face the group. ‘Hello girls,’ she said brightly. ‘I am so delighted to be here and I can’t wait to make your acquaintance. For those of you who are in my classes, I have lots of fun in store. I hope you enjoy drama and art and singing as I have been known to incorporate all of those elements into my lessons, and I am thrilled to announce that I will be resurrecting the Winchester-Fayle Singers as well.’
The hall burst into another round of applause. Jacinta was particularly pleased to hear it as that guaranteed at least an hour a week with Lucas.
Livinia frowned. The woman had been here all of five minutes. This was not the time to go making promises she might not be able to keep. Livinia could almost guarantee Miss Crowley’s commitment to the singers would fall by the wayside as soon as she realised she’d bitten off far more than she could chew. ‘Thank you, Miss Crowley. It sounds like you have many talents and we will look forward to seeing them in due time,’ she said, and marched off towards the door. Livinia turned to discover that Tabitha had stopped to talk to Millie and Caprice. ‘Miss Crowley, we need to go now!’ she barked.
Alice-Miranda glanced over in surprise. Miss Reedy once had a reputation for being meaner than a dragon with a toothache, but she had mellowed considerably over the past few years. Ever since she’d found true love with Mr Plumpton, she was fun and cheerful and one might have called her breezy on occasion, but none of that was evident this morning. Miss Reedy hadn’t even asked how the girls were feeling after what had happened yesterday and that was most unlike her. Alice-Miranda wondered what could possibly be the cause of such ill humour.
Miss Crowley whispered in Millie’s ear, causing a smile to sweep across the girl’s face. Unfortunately, it had the opposite effect on Miss Reedy and Caprice, who both looked as if they’d swallowed something particularly unpleasant.