After art on Thursday, Dylan slung her powder blue quilted Marc Jacobs bag across her shoulder and skipped back to Tudor to meet Mimah for tea. It had been her best afternoon since she’d arrived at this posh prison. First, there had been tacos for lunch. Then Miss Baskin had held up Dylan’s male torsos collage to the rest of her class as an example of style and originality. And finally, Farah Assadi had asked to be Dylan’s partner on the big plaster casts project after half-term.
“Knock, knock,” Dylan said, pushing open the door to the room that Mimah shared with Gabby Bunter.
Mimah was sitting on her bed with a calculator, doing Physics equations at lightning speed. Her room was not one of Tudor’s finest, to put it mildly. It was small and poky. It was also on the ground floor, which meant that anyone who walked by could peek through her windows unless she kept the curtains drawn. Even more inconveniently, it meant that Miss Sharkreve was far more likely to drop in at strange hours to check up on her. Sharko was abominably lazy and disliked climbing the stairs to the second and attic levels. Still, those risks hardly deterred Mimah from anything.
“You’re looking chipper,” Mimah observed. “Did your high school in New York win the national cheerleaders’ championship or something?” She snickered.
Dylan rolled her eyes. Mimah never let up. “Whatever. Let’s make tea.”
“I’ll make it,” Mimah said. “You sort out the food. Just make sure you stay on my side of the room.” She padded out. She was wearing her gray gym skirt layered over the school’s gray tracksuit bottoms.
Dylan reached onto Mimah’s shelf and grabbed hold of the Rich Tea biscuits. She peeled open the packet and started nibbling pensively at one. Just like the room she shared with Sonia, Mimah and Gabby’s dorm was divided strictly down the middle. Mimah had insisted on that as soon as she’d moved in—it had been imperative to put a stop to any ideas Gabby might have had about them becoming friends. “You stay off my turf, and I’ll keep off yours,” she’d decreed.
The result, Dylan thought, was that the room looked like a clash of two worlds: freak world versus bleak world. Gabby’s side was smothered in posters of dragons and fairies and landscapes out of fantasy novels like Earthsea. Her bedspread was covered by a giant tableau of a waterfall and a ghost ship. Her fluffy slippers, laid out neatly nearby, were embroidered with characters from The Lord of the Rings.
Mimah’s half, on the other hand, was a study in absence. She hadn’t put up any photos or postcards. She hadn’t unpacked any knick-knacks from home. She was still using the school’s regulation blue duvet and pillowcase. It was as if she refused to admit that she was really living in this room—or as if she expected to be leaving it imminently.
“Are your parents coming on Saturday?” Dylan asked as Mimah returned with two mugs of Lapsang Souchong.
“What?” Mimah cracked a shortbread biscuit in half. “No. Fuck them. Obviously not.” She fell silent.
Dylan guiltily sipped her tea, then sucked in her breath. It was way too hot. She hung out the tip of her tongue. How could she have asked such a dumb question? She should have known better than to bring up Mimah’s family.
“If my dad ever tries to show his face here I’ll send him packing,” Mimah volunteered after a minute. She was staring at the empty bulletin board above her desk, and Dylan noticed that her face seemed pained.
“How about you?” Mimah asked. “Do you ever see your dad?”
“I wish,” Dylan sighed. “He still lives in our old apartment in New York. I’m visiting him at half-term, though. I decided last night. Fuck my mom if she tries to stop me.” She took a bite of her second biscuit, holding out her palm to stop crumbs spilling on the carpet. “You ever been to New York?”
“Yeah, once when I was ten, but that doesn’t really count.” Mimah looked sharply at the dark, wet ring that Dylan’s mug had left on her desk. “We all tend to prefer Europe, if you know what I mean.”
Dylan wasn’t sure who Mimah meant by “we all,” but she could guess. Sometimes Mimah slipped up and talked like she and Alice and Tally and Sonia were still friends.
“Why don’t you come with me?” Dylan managed a sympathetic-but-not-too-sympathetic voice. “We’ll have a blast. I’ll show you all the hottest bars and clubs. You’ll need a fake ID though. I can help you get one.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Mimah set down her mug. “I’ll think about it. Anyway, let’s practice. We’ve got to get the Man Muncher perfect. If it’s not the best thing in the show, it won’t work.”
She and Dylan cleared a space in the middle of the room and assumed their positions. Mimah clicked the music on and the floor began to shake as the girls pounded out their routine. At the end, breathing hard, they collapsed across the bed.
“Oh my god, we are so ready.” Dylan grinned. She scraped back a clump of hair plastered to her forehead. “Do you think people will be surprised?”
“Oh, they’ll be surprised all right.” Mimah smiled to herself. “You have no idea.”