Respect, respect, respect,” droned Mrs. Traphorn, the headmistress of St. Cecilia’s, rolling her r’s with relish. It was Monday morning, and The Trap was making her weekly address to the school’s 250 students during Chapel. As usual, she’d chosen a bland moralistic theme and was squeezing all remaining life out of it.
“Respect comes in many forms,” she intoned, leaving what she obviously thought was a pregnant pause between each sentence. Interminable was more like it.
“Let us list the many different forms in which respect may come. Number one, self-respect. That is very important. Number two, respect for your peers. That is also very important. Number three, respect for your superiors—such as teachers. Also. Very. Important.”
Tally yawned and squirmed on her hard wooden pew, wishing The Trap would shut it. This was the worst speech she’d ever heard. Plus, not only was she dying for a fizzy drink and a cigarette, she desperately needed to fix the wedgie she’d given herself as she rushed to get dressed. Pulling up your tights while shaking your ass to Justin Timberlake while sneaking a few puffs of a cigarette out the window was not the most efficient way to end up looking neat and tidy. But Tally’s morning routine kept her sane. She’d never changed it—not even after three years at St. Cecilia’s—and she wasn’t planning to anytime soon. Best leave sensible things like that to Alice.
Which reminded her: Where on earth was Alice this morning? She’d completely disappeared.
Bella Scott tapped Tally’s knee and leaned in. “Have you seen Sonia’s nose?” she whispered.
Tally nodded.
“How does she look?”
“Like Hannibal Lecter.”
Bella giggled.
“What?” Clemmie Lockheed nudged her from the other side. “What are you two saying?”
“Sonia looks like Hannibal Lecter. Tally says.”
“Like who?”
“Hannibal Lecter. You know, the cannibal from Silence of the Lambs?”
“Cannibal? But Sonia’s a vegetarian.”
“Oh forget it,” Bella sighed. Little Clem was so sheltered, she’d probably never even heard of Silence of the Lambs. Most people felt protective over Clem, because, at age fifteen and a half, she was by far the youngest girl in their year. She was a bit like a mascot. She still wore her hair in braids and spent her free time grooming her pony and reading horsey magazines. Everyone knew she’d never even kissed a boy.
“In conclusion,” The Trap’s voice banged on monotonously from above, “respect makes the world go round. I urge you all to think about that this week. And now for the announcements.”
Clearing her throat, Mrs. Traphorn at long last picked up a sheaf of papers from the lectern. She smoothed the front of her white blouse, over which she wore a sleeveless green cardigan. Teacher fashion never changes, Tally thought. “Miss Baskin’s pottery classes will resume tonight in the small art annex,” The Trap read. “Please sign the sheet on her door if you plan to attend.… This next one is from Miss Wilde. Auditions for The Importance of Being Earnest will be held at lunch tomorrow in the auditorium. Interested GCSE students should see her by the end of today.”
Tally gave an exasperated sigh and cupped her chin in her hands. Hadn’t The Trap ever heard of e-mail? This system of reading out the notices was so unbelievably antiquated. Hoping for distraction, she looked round at the Chapel’s ornate decorations. The place had been built back in 1882 for Lord and Lady Cornwallis, St. Cecilia’s founders, and most of its detailing was intact. Well, as intact as it could be with thousands of pairs of shoes shuffling down the marble aisle every year, thousands of fingers jabbing into the stone carvings, and thousands of asses fidgeting along the benches.
“Oy,” Bella whispered.
“What?”
“Is it true that George Demetrios shagged both of the Wyndham-Rhodes sisters on Saturday? At the same time?”
“That’s what I heard,” Tally said. “He’s such a man whore. Have you ever seen him dancing?”
“He’s a whore?” Bella choked. “They’re sisters! How could they be so foul?”
“Maybe they’re lesbos,” Clemmie joined in.
Bella rolled her eyes. “Do you even know what that means?”
“Did Mimah come back to school last night?” Tally interrupted.
“Yeah. No one’s talking to her. I pushed my chest of drawers up against my door in case she tried to strangle me in my sleep. I think she’s a crack fiend.”
“Girls! Quiet,” Miss Sharkreve hissed from the end of the row.
“The weekend before half-term,” The Trap continued, “there will be a literary excursion to Dublin. The trip has only eight spaces so book early to avoid disappointment. Juniors wishing to go must tell Mr. Wagon straightaway.” She squinted doubtfully at the piece of paper. “Oh, pardon me, that’s Mr. Logan. Not Mr. Wagon. Strange handwriting some people have.”
Bella tittered; Mrs. Traphorn was always cocking up the announcements, mispronouncing everyone’s names. She nudged Tally.
“See? She’s illiterate,” she snorted.
“Shhh,” Tally ordered. At the sound of Mr. Logan’s name, her teeth had practically started chattering in anticipation. Dublin with her crush for two whole days? How utterly perfect. They’d take long walks through the rain-heavy city, drink Guinness late into the night, stay in cozy adjoining rooms at a B&B with a crackling fireplace. Maybe he’d even read her more poetry. Tally didn’t have a clue what poets came from Dublin, but she was sure Mr. Logan knew all the best ones. Who cared if half-term was weeks away? Digging a pen from her pocket, she scribbled a reminder on her hand: ♡ DUBLIN ♡
“And lastly,” declared Mrs. Traphorn, “we have a message from Sonia Khan about the junior class’s upcoming charity event. Sonia? Where is she?”
Tally, Bella, and Clemmie craned their necks as Sonia emerged from the choir stalls. She looked less than her best, to say the least. Dr. Essex, the Khans’ famous plastic surgeon, had put a cast round her nose, and above it her two bruised eyes loomed like black holes. Tally made a Hannibal Lecter sucking noise with her tongue.
Blinking down at the assembly, Sonia drew a deep breath. “Boverdy,” she announced. At least, that’s what it sounded like. “Boverdy is nod a joke.”
“What the hell is she saying?” Tally mouthed. Bella gave an exaggerated shrug. Sonia’s voice was all blocked and nasal.
“Boverdy is a very serious broblem,” she said. “When we bicture boverty, we bicture blaces like Africa and India, where beoble have disgusting diseases that make us not wand to douch them. And that’s derrible. Because boor beoble deserve do be douched. Boor beoble need a lod of love. Yes, even if they are disfigured.”
On the word disfigured, Sonia paused dramatically. Tally clapped her hand over her mouth and cracked up.
“Sonia’s talking about herself again,” she whispered.
Up on the dais, Mrs. Traphorn was furrowing her forehead. She stepped forward as if she might intervene.
“But none of thad is the boint,” Sonia carried on, stopping the headmistress in her tracks. “The boint is, there is boverdy in England, too. Like, some beoble can’t even afford do buy bedrol for their cars. And that is why we, the juniors, have chosen to subbort the London-based charity CrisisAid. Blease help us. Blease buy dickeds to our fashion show, Bashminas to the Rescue, in two Saturdays’ time. I’ll be selling them all this week. Beace,” she made a peace sign with her fingers, “and thank you.”
A long, unimpressed silence filled the chapel. Several people coughed. Then came a halfhearted smattering of applause.
“That was crap,” Bella remarked.
“Yeah, I thought the point was to make PTTR sound glamorous,” whispered Clem. “She’s just grossed everyone out.”
“And she didn’t even say what it is. I mean, maybe she’s upset about her nose, but that’s no reason to ruin everything for us.”
“Whatever,” interrupted Tally, standing to file out of Chapel behind the rest of their row. “Everyone’ll come anyway. It’s school. What else is there to do?”
She jabbed her fingers into Bella’s back. “Hey, hurry up.” She had ten minutes to catch Alice before their first lesson began.