Alice-Miranda slid onto the bench beside Millie, eager to tuck into her roast dinner. The usual dining-room chatter was rather muted this evening, replaced by the sound of chinking cutlery instead.

‘Mmm, this smells good,’ Alice-Miranda said as she reached for the salt and pepper shakers in the middle of the table. The potatoes were especially crispy and the meat was cooked to perfection. Only the gravy seemed to have a few extra lumps, so Mrs Jennings was definitely improving. Alice-Miranda glanced over at Millie’s plate that was already half empty.

‘Sorry, I couldn’t wait any longer,’ Millie said with her mouth full. ‘My stomach was grumbling so loudly that Sloane thought there was a thunderstorm coming, but at least I got the rest of my community service out of the way. Honestly, you won’t recognise the stables. Dervla had already made a start on the tack room, and this afternoon we cleaned the place from top to bottom and oiled all the woodwork. It looks like new, though it smells foul.’

‘Well done, Millie,’ Alice-Miranda said. ‘Dervla mentioned Miss Reedy had set her a long list of jobs, so she’d have been glad of the help. How are you going with your activities, Caprice?’

‘Fine and dandy,’ the girl replied curtly. ‘I’m almost done.’

But that wasn’t true at all. So far, she’d managed thirty minutes of weeding with Charlie and that was it. With all the extra rehearsal time for the festival, she wasn’t going to waste a minute on pointless chores. Miss Reedy was so busy at the moment Caprice was hoping she’d forget about the whole boorish business altogether.

As meals were finished, the noise levels rose again with girls chatting about their day. There was much excitement about the festival too. Jacinta waxed lyrical about her father, who had sourced a fire twirler and had promised to hire the country’s most renowned balloon artist for her too. ‘Daddy said he’s going to take Mummy and me skiing later in the year,’ Jacinta added giddily. ‘They never used to take me when they were married, but he has it all planned.’

Alice-Miranda beamed at the girl. ‘It sounds like he’s a different person.’

Jacinta nodded, unable to wipe the smile off her face. ‘He really is. I just know it.’ She stabbed a potato with such force that all four girls looked up from their plates. ‘At least that’s one part of my life that’s on the up and up.’

‘Do we have another headline act yet?’ Chessie asked Alice-Miranda. They had to get the publicity materials out tomorrow and Tilde McGilvray was going to start promotions on her show this week too.

The tiny girl waggled her eyebrows. ‘I do.’

Caprice rolled her eyes. ‘Well, who is it?’

‘I can’t say yet,’ Alice-Miranda replied. ‘You’ll have to trust me on this one. How about we put everything we have on the flyer and just add “plus special surprise guests”? People will be intrigued.’

‘Or not,’ Caprice snarked.

Once everyone had returned to their meals, Millie nudged Alice-Miranda’s leg. ‘So, who is it?’ she whispered.

‘I’ll explain all before bed,’ Alice-Miranda said with a glint in her eye.

Chessie glanced at Sloane from across the table. The girl had been uncharacteristically quiet during dinner. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

Sloane shook her head. ‘No, not really. I went for a walk this afternoon to see Mrs Howard because she’s helping me with a sewing project and, when I got to Grimthorpe House, she was having afternoon tea with Mr Trout and Mr Winslade and they were talking about Miss Reedy and it wasn’t very nice,’ the girl explained. ‘They said Miss Reedy had been bossier than ever and had made some very unreasonable demands. Mr Winslade said she’d written him a letter telling him he had to work back every night until seven and keep the library open on weekends too and that there was no room for discussion if he wanted to continue his position as librarian.’ Sloane looked at them helplessly. ‘That doesn’t seem fair at all.’

Alice-Miranda bit her lip. She had a strange feeling there was more to the story than any of them could possibly know.

‘And Mr Trout said that he’d received a letter telling him that, if he continued with his choice of extravagant assembly music, he had better start searching for another job,’ Sloane added. ‘The even weirder thing is that the teachers didn’t seem to care that I was there. Mrs Howard was grumpy with Miss Reedy too. She’d punished two of the youngest girls with hours of extra homework and threatened that, if they complained to their parents, they’d be expelled. Again, there was no discussion to be entered into.’

‘That is bizarre,’ Millie agreed.

‘No, it isn’t,’ Caprice scoffed. ‘Reedy has been pretty cranky lately. Look at what she did to us.’

Alice-Miranda shook her head. ‘I don’t think it’s like her at all. Miss Reedy has been so supportive of the festival and I know she’s had a lot to do, but that sounds very strange. You said that the teachers received their messages in note form?’

Sloane nodded. ‘Mrs Howard said Miss Reedy sent out a message to all staff saying she was so flat out running the school, and Miss Grimm would be busy interviewing new students for the next couple of weeks at least, that she had no time for face-to-face meetings and that all communication would be via handwritten letters until further notice.’

‘Wouldn’t that take more time than just picking up the telephone or chatting to someone in person?’ Jacinta said, scrunching her nose. ‘I know it would for me.’

Alice-Miranda could only agree. It was very odd indeed. Something wasn’t right and she was determined to find out exactly what was going on.