A part from our daily fencing practice with Mr Bell End, I found myself slipping into what Ms Topler referred to as a malaise.
‘Miss Kelly, you aren’t yourself,’ she announced to me – and the rest of the class – during English.
‘Oh really, who am I?’ I replied and everyone laughed.
‘Don’t be droll, girl. You know what happens to droll girls!’
‘Actually, not really,’ I challenged.
‘Blues!’ she threatened, before softening slightly. ‘No dear, I fear you are slipping into a malaise, just like those poor Bronté girls.’
I hate the wretched Bronté girls I wanted to tell her, but then I realised it would just prove her point, so instead I replied, ‘Yes, Miss.’
Because she was right; I was slipping into a malaise. Brought on, I expect, by lack of text messages from boys – not one text since Monday! I know four days isn’t a long time and there were loads of reasons they might not have had the time to text me. But I had begun to panic and started a nasty habit of shaking my phone. Of course it didn’t help that every time I so much as looked at my mobile, Honey would pipe up, ‘New message from Freddie or Billy, is it?’
And then when I’d say, ‘No, they must be busy,’ Honey would smile her Apis Regina smile (that’s Latin for Queen Bee) and say. ‘Yes, that’s a positive way to deal with rejection, darling.’
Even with Portia around I never felt comfortable in the dorm with Honey and so after these exchanges I’d usually wander off to Star’s dorm where she’d invariably be chatting to Indie and Georgina. Or laughing at some new joke of Tobias’s, who’s always got an amusing story up his sleeve.
Of course I pretended everything was as it always was because after all there’s nothing wrong with discovering new friends. That’s what I kept reminding myself. It’s not as if Star was being mean to me, or cutting me out even, it was just that she wasn’t favouring me. Now that she had found someone to share her minor chord compositions with, she was as happy as her rat Hilda. And as much as I was enjoying my unexpected friendship with Portia, and as much as I couldn’t help liking Indie, I still wanted my old spiky Star back; the one who made sarcastic remarks about all the other girls and their conformism. The one who got my odd sense of humour, the one who didn’t look at me like a freak when I went on one of my rambling blurts.
This new happy, friendly Star was either wandering around the school laughing with everyone or closeted with Indie in the studio, recording their miserable songs about the sorrows of being Rich, Spoilt and Disillusioned. Also there was something even worse than Star’s friendship with Indie playing on my mind. Something I couldn’t admit to anyone (and no, I don’t mean the fact that I’d taken out my navel piercing because I told Star the whole horrible tale of Sarah and Bob marching me into the shop and humiliating me in front of the entire population of Los Angeles and she’d laughed so hard, she was almost sick).
No, the real problem was that neither Freddie nor Billy had texted me recently and I was beginning to wonder if I’d finally been rumbled for double text-flirting. Or maybe they’d found a new girl to text. Maybe Honey was right, maybe I’d been rejected.
Maybe they were texting Indie?
Don’t worry, even I knew I was being irrational. My aloof demeanour practice was definitely starting to pay off. I was feeling much less conflicted – as Bob and Sarah would say – over Star and Indie’s friendship. In fact, one evening in our dorm room, when Honey started winding me up about Freddie and Billy, Indie turned to her and asked, ‘What about you, Honey, we never seem to hear you talk about any particular boy. Have you ever pulled?’ She said it in a pitying way which implied she already knew the answer was no.
Honey almost imploded with shock at the suggestion that she’d never pulled. Before she could respond though, Indie began admiring my wristband. It was just one of those plastic charity bands that cost a pound, like the live strong yellow ones, only mine was a blue beat bullying one.
‘They’re the only jewellery she can afford.’ Honey sighed heavily, as if this was of great sadness to her.
Indie went, ‘That’s probably because she spends all her money on patience putting up with you.’
Portia and Star, who were in the room at the time, laughed, so they didn’t actually see what I saw. Honey’s face twisted into a look of pure hatred, only oddly it wasn’t Indie she was looking at, it was Portia.
The big drama of our first week back came on the Friday night – a night which would be known for evermore as The Night of the Soggy Boggies. We’d often lie on our beds and shoot soggy wads of paper up on the ceiling or on to the mirror using the plastic casing of our Bic pens, but on this particular Friday night, things got a little out of hand.
One minute we were practising our cool dance moves in front of the mirror – well, Honey was, anyway, and I think I speak for the world at large when I say she looked absurd — doing a sort of slinky tango with herself. Portia was reading an American Vogue I’d brought back from LA. I was pretending to read text messages from boys who weren’t sending them because there was absolutely no way I’d practise my dance moves with Honey. Of course I practised my dance moves, but I’d slip down to Star’s dorm these days for that sort of thing. Everyone looks a bit mad practising dance moves in front of a mirror but, as sorry a business as it is, there’s no escaping it.
It’s like Star says, ‘English boys can’t dance for toast so we girls have an obligation to hold up their side as well as our own.’ Naturally Indie was immediately voted the most phenomenal dancer in our school – after Tobias who has been taking special lessons all his life.
(Aloof demeanour note to self: Stop focusing on how marvellous Indie is!)
Anyway, there we were, having a typical Friday night, when Clemmie, Arabella and Georgina came storming into our room and Arabella propelled a sodden loo roll at us.
Splat!
The noise was enormous, like the sound of a wet bag of sand hitting a wall. It landed on the pin board above Honey’s bed (the one where she keeps all the paparazzi shots of herself with famous people). We all watched in stunned silence as the loo roll virtually crawled – like it was alive – slowly down the wall, eventually flopping lifelessly in a soggy mass on Honey’s pillow.
Predictably, this was enough to escalate the soggy, boggy prank into a full on dorm war, with sodden loo rolls being hurled through dorms by everyone at everyone. We were behaving ‘proper mad’ as the shop keepers in the village would say.
Miss Bibsmore hobbled up the stairs, just in time to catch Honey who had filled our bin with water and loo rolls and was dragging it up the wet corridor for an apocalyptic onslaught on Clemmie’s dorm.
Miss Bibsmore raised her walking stick and then she raised her voice to a level that could shatter glass as she screamed, ‘Stop right where you are Miss O’Hare, you spawn of Satan you.’
Everyone froze, apart from Honey, obviously.
‘Don’t. Move. A. Muscle,’ Miss Bibsmore repeated.
We all giggled because she was speaking the way super heroes speak when they are heavily armed with superstrength weapons and powers. All Miss Bibsmore had in the way of superpowers was a limited ability to distribute blues, a history of childhood illnesses and a walking stick.
It surprised no one that Honey still totally ignored her. I can’t think that even Miss Bibsmore, scary as she is, actually imagines that Satan’s spawn are in the least bit receptive to obeying orders squawked by mad House Spinsters who need a stick to walk, but still she persisted. ‘I’m warning you, Miss O’Hare, my temper is on a very short fuse.’
Honey flicked her gorgeously long, blond expensively streaked locks across her shoulder and replied calmly, ‘Might I remind you who pays your wages, Miss Bibsmore?’
Miss Bibsmore had her bottom lip out. She raised her cane and waved it about menacingly to show she really meant business. ‘No, Miss O’Hare, you may not remind me of any such thing. However, you might well find yourself gated, or worse, if you don’t stand stock-still this minute.’
Honey turned, and for a moment I thought she was about to hurl a soggy boggy at Miss Bibsmore. Instead she mildly remarked, ‘We’re in the middle of a soggy boggy war here and the battle has reached a crucial stage, if you don’t mind!’ Which implied that soggy boggies were on par with hard sums or letters home to parents.
Everyone froze, apart from Honey, obviously.
‘Don’t. Move. A. Muscle,’ Miss Bibsmore repeated.
We all giggled because she was speaking the way super heroes speak when they are heavily armed with superstrength weapons and powers. All Miss Bibsmore had in the way of superpowers was a limited ability to distribute blues, a history of childhood illnesses and a walking stick.
It surprised no one that Honey still totally ignored her. I can’t think that even Miss Bibsmore, scary as she is, actually imagines that Satan’s spawn are in the least bit receptive to obeying orders squawked by mad House Spinsters who need a stick to walk, but still she persisted. ‘I’m warning you, Miss O’Hare, my temper is on a very short fuse.’
Honey flicked her gorgeously long, blond expensively streaked locks across her shoulder and replied calmly, ‘Might I remind you who pays your wages, Miss Bibsmore?’
Miss Bibsmore had her bottom lip out. She raised her cane and waved it about menacingly to show she really meant business. ‘No, Miss O’Hare, you may not remind me of any such thing. However, you might well find yourself gated, or worse, if you don’t stand stock-still this minute.’
Honey turned, and for a moment I thought she was about to hurl a soggy boggy at Miss Bibsmore. Instead she mildly remarked, ‘We’re in the middle of a soggy boggy war here and the battle has reached a crucial stage, if you don’t mind!’ Which implied that soggy boggies were on par with hard sums or letters home to parents.
Portia, Star, Georgina and all the rest of the girls who were watching the spectacle from the doorways of their respective rooms giggled. Hate Honey though I do, I couldn’t help admiring her total lack of fear. Even Georgina was awed. ‘Bless,’ she said as Honey turned and continued imperiously up the corridor to Clemmie’s room and, slightly less imperiously, commenced propelling her wet missiles at the shrieking girls inside.
I think we were all secretly impressed by Honey’s audacity at that moment. Even Indie was giggling at her mettle as the shrieks and laughter of the girls inside being splattered with soggy boggies filled the corridor.
Miss Bibsmore wasn’t so in awe, though. Not even slightly. In fact she used her stick to smash the fire alarm glass, setting off the sprinkler system and we all ran shrieking into our rooms to rescue our bedding.
Although hitting the fire alarm and setting off the sprinkler system is an age old favourite with House Spinsters, they usually only resorted to it in times of imminent disaster, because as effective as the deluge is, it means calling up the local fire brigade, waking up the whole dorm and setting in motion the fire emergency procedures where we all storm off to the tennis courts for registration and then a report is filed with Sister, who would be less than impressed.
But Miss Bibsmore is no ordinary House Spinster.
Portia sensibly ignored the procedure as we knew there was no fire and started rolling up her duvet, pillow and sheets. I followed suit. Then we helped one another to squeeze our duvets and mattresses out the window of our room on to the hedges below. We weren’t the only ones either. Everyone was on the same page as to what needed to be done. There were mattresses, pillows, duvets and clothing flying from all the bedrooms on the second floor. By the time we got to Honey’s bedding it was already pretty soggy and heavy but after a hefty struggle we eventually managed to hurl it out the window as well. Then we all charged off to the tennis courts for registration where an explanation of the dud emergency was given to Sister.
Our dorm was all totally drenched and freezing by the time we returned, escorted by Miss Bibsmore, but that didn’t stop Honey screaming her head off about Miss Bibsmore being an insane witch and how her father was going to shower her in litigation suits.
Everyone took their place back in the doorways to watch the spectacle. In the silence that followed Honey’s rambling rant, Miss Bibsmore calmly and quietly informed Honey that she was officially gated and then, turning the corridor lights off, she hobbled off. We listened to the tap, tap, tapping of her stick on the stone stairs as we all stood in the soggy darkness, contemplating our behaviour and the possible repercussions to come.
Amazingly enough though, apart from Honey, we all got off scot-free. Well, free-ish. We spent most of the night mopping up the mess and struggling up the stairs with our duvets, mattresses and pillows. Honey’s mattress was too wet to sleep on though so she went and slept with Georgina in her bed.
‘Honey’s having a rough ride with wet mattresses this term,’ Portia remarked as we lay in the dark. Even though we were exhausted from all the excitement, it was hard to get sleep.
‘Perhaps we won’t have to murder her after all, darling,’ I replied, referring to our joke when we’d swapped mattresses.
‘Bob and Sarah will be disappointed.’ Portia sighed.
‘I know, they would have loved that silver cup.’
‘Perhaps we’ll have a cup made up anyway and award it to you for your work with mattresses in the dormitory community.’
‘You deserve that cup more than me,’ I teased.
‘No, but you can keep it darling. Eaglemere is choking on generations of trophies already.’
I fell asleep soon after that. It was the best night’s sleep I’d had since coming back. I never would have imagined that sharing a room with a girl like Lady Portia Herrington Briggs could turn out to be the blessing of a lifetime.