A cloud of dust blasted out as Alice rammed her heel into the old attic door, forcing it open. She cringed and listened for a second, making sure she was alone. No one ever came up here, into the eaves of the art block, but if anyone got suspicious it would be the end of the Grubhouse, her and Tally’s favorite and most secret smoking lair.
She stepped over the familiar broken floorboard and into the loft. The place looked the same as ever: crammed with disused easels and workbenches, still-life drapery and canvases, lit by two garret windows and a skylight that hadn’t been cleaned in years. It smelled the same as ever too: slightly sharp but musty, like dried paint encrusted with dust.
Alice sank down onto her and Tally’s lookout post. That was what they called the rough-hewn bench that they’d dragged over last summer from under a pile of crusty palettes, and to which they nipped off whenever possible to spy down on the Great Lawn. Alice hugged herself at the thought of lurking up here all alone, just a pair of all-seeing eyes, when no one else at St. Cecilia’s had any idea.
The door banged open. Tally burst in.
“Hey, babe! I knew you’d be in the Grubhouse. Saw you running off after Chapel.”
“Shhh! Keep your voice down,” Alice said. “How on earth did you know?”
“I didn’t think you’d be in the mood for news hour today.”
“Yeah. Bunch of lame bitches talking about lame shit.” With her fist, Alice smudged a circle clean in the filthy windowpane. Normally she had a wicked time at news hour, the fifteen-minute gap between Chapel and lessons when the whole school milled about on the Great Lawn, scrambling to catch up on the weekend’s gossip. She held court in the most prestigious spot, the steps leading to Quad. But today, considering her private life was the gossip, she’d made a dash for it. Sprinting in three-inch heels was possibly the most indispensable skill of boarding-school life, and she was legend at it.
Tally sat down next to Alice, fishing out the hip flask she kept stowed in her satchel. “Here, have some of this.”
“Thanks. What’s in it?”
“Lemonade.”
“Excusez-moi?”
“Duh. Obviously it’s whisky, darling.”
“Thank fuck,” Alice laughed, taking a swig. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“Have you heard anything from T?”
Alice lit up a cigarette and opened the window a crack. A few flakes of paint drifted to the floor. “No. He hasn’t texted me since after the party.”
“I don’t get it. Maybe he’s giving you some space.”
“He can do whatever he wants. I don’t give a shit.”
Tally watched Alice take a puff of her cig and blink calmly. Typical of her to pretend everything was fine. But her face told another story. Which was a nice way of saying she looked rough. Her skin, instead of its usual glow, had an ashen tint. Her eyes were bloodshot. There was a frown-line on her forehead. As far as Tally knew, Alice hadn’t cried since Saturday, when she’d stormed out of George’s party and spent five hours bawling hysterically onto Tally’s shoulder. But she was obviously still cut up about T. She really should have worn more makeup if she didn’t want people to know.
“They’re all so predictable,” Alice sighed. She was watching the girls clot together on the Great Lawn.
“Yeah, look at Sonia, totally milking her nose situation,” Tally snorted. “Know what I found out on the way here? She has to wear that hideous cast for an entire week. What a joke. Do you think her nose’ll go back to the shape it was before the plastic surgery?”
“I bloody well hope not. We’d never hear the end of it. I’d have to punch her myself to shut her up.” Alice took another slosh of whisky and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Maybe I should punch her anyway. That might fix the stupid thing for good.”
Tally giggled. “A nose job courtesy of Dr. Alice Rochester. You could send her the bill.”
“Exactly. I never give out my services for free.”
“Hey, look at the losers convention.” Tally was peering out the window in the other direction. In the shadow of an oak, way off to one side, stood Dylan and Mimah. Dylan was still wearing that stupid pink pashmina. It was like she had no other clothes or something. “No prize for guessing who the outcasts are.”
“Mimah should be a sumo wrestler,” Alice sneered. “Her shoulders are so massive.”
“Nah. She’d look too ugly in a loincloth.”
“Oh my god. What the fuck is Dylan doing?”
Dylan had whipped off her scarf and was using it in a dance move. She was slinky, fluid, as if each part of her body had its own set of controls. When Alice tried to dance like that, she looked like a robot whose wiring had gone wrong. “Exhibitionist,” she growled. “What, does she work in a strip club?”
As if on cue, Dylan grabbed the tree trunk and started gyrating in circles round it, then dipped all the way down and touched the ground with her ass.
“Whoa!” Tally’s voice was admiring.
Alice snatched the cigarette out of her hand and took a drag. “How many people do you think she’s slept with?” she snapped.
“Oh, loads. At least six.”
“Six? Random. Where’d you get that from?”
“Well, Bathsheba Fortnum has slept with five. And I bet Dylan’s shagged even more than her. Slut.”
“What the fuck are they doing?” Alice’s voice squeaked even higher as Emilia Charles and Farah Assadi skipped over to the oak tree.
“Probably telling Dylan to put it away.”
“They’d better be.” But Alice pressed her nose closer to the window, wishing she could hear the conversation on the grass. Nobody was safe around Dylan.
The first bell chimed. It was ten minutes to nine.
“Hurry up! English,” Alice cried. She prided herself on never being late.
Tally uncoiled herself. “Cool. What did you write about for your Othello prep?”
Alice froze. “Oh fuck. Fuck!”
“What?”
“I haven’t done it! I haven’t even finished the play.”
“You haven’t read the play?” Tally couldn’t believe her ears. She was the one who messed up assignments, not Alice. “But Mr. Logan reminded us on Friday.”
“I know, I know. Shit. I’ve been so preoccupied. What should I do?” Alice was practically hyperventilating.
“Okay, don’t freak. I’ll tell you what happens.” Tally screwed the top back on her flask, concentrating. “It’s very tragic actually. Othello’s obsessed with the fact that his wife is cheating on him, even though she’s not. He’s just insecure.”
“Why’s he insecure?”
“Er, because I guess he’s always been the best at what he does. Popular and admired and everything. But now he’s in love and he has no idea how it works. So he messes it all up.”
“And?”
“That’s it.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep.”
“I thought it was meant to be, like, a masterpiece.”
“It is a masterpiece.” Tally nodded enthusiastically. “You really have to read it to get it.”
Alice glared at her. “Oh, I have to read it, do I? Now why didn’t I think of that?” Her phone buzzed in her pocket.
“Oh my god. It’s from Tristan.” Alice’s heart leaped, but she twisted her face into a sneer. “What does he want? Bastard. Does he think he can cheat on me and then just contact me? He can go fuck himself.”
“What does it say?”
“Nothing much.” She held the phone out for Tally to see:
Hey Ali, u alright? Let’s talk soon. Maybe drink this week? T.
“I knew it!” Tally squealed. “If you waited long enough, I knew he’d come crawling back. What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know.” Alice shut the window with a smug smile. “But let’s make him wait now.”