Pegasi and Prefects (3 page)

“Does it really matter so much what family she comes from?” I ask.

“Apparently very much so,” mutters Cecily. Her usually sunny face is drawn in a scowl.She catches my eye and visibly tries to relax and smile.

“You have no idea how much it matters, darling.” Esther’s smile is as smooth as silk. “No idea at all. But I’m sure Diana will let you know. She’s utterly
enchanting
, I promise you.” There’s an odd emphasis on the word.

I shrug, not sure what to say. It’s all beyond me. Truthfully, it’s starting to bore me. If the new girl tries on any snobbish airs and graces, she’ll be sat on until she’s squashed into place, and either way, it’s not really my concern. I leave all the squashing to the girls who care.

When we reach the San., I realise yet again how well trained the babes are to defer to the older girls. The queue to see Matron melts away on our arrival, and we three give her our certificates without any waiting. I don’t quite like it, to be honest. I frankly detested being expected to give way to the older girls when I was younger, and I don’t quite see why we should be treated as grand personages now, when we only have a few years on even the littlest first former. It makes me feel ridiculously self-conscious.

Matron nods at us. “Back again! Ready to work hard, girls?”

Cecily and Esther nod, quite gravely. They will be going in for difficult exams this year, hoping to enter university. Me, I just grin. I mean to take it easy this year. Matron twinkles at me, as if she’s reading my thoughts.

“You’re to make good use of your studies, you know. To learn something, not to give parties. I’m sure you’re anxious to know who you’ll be sharing with.” She checks a list. “Now then… There we are. Cecily, dear, you’re with Gladys White.”

“Gladys?” Cecily says, disbelievingly, and then catches herself at Matron’s disapproving sniff. “Oh, I’m sorry, Matron. I just assumed that Gladys would be sharing with Frances. Aren’t cousins usually put together?”

Matron sniffs again. “Would you like to ask Miss Carroll her reasoning?”

“Oh, no, of course not.” Cecily smiles, with as much grace as she can muster.

Esther and I glance at each other. Perhaps, I think, it means I’ll be paired with Esther. It’s not a bad thought, except I suppose that it will be awkward sharing with a girl I know would prefer to be with Cecily. Even so it won’t be so bad, I catch myself thinking, for once not to be the one on the outside. It’s a petty thought and I’m a little ashamed of myself for it. Still, there it is.

“Frances is sharing with the new girl, Rosalind Hastings,” Matron said cheerfully. “I suppose Miss Carol thought new girls need someone with more experience to help them settle in. On that note, Charley’s study.” Matron is the only member of staff who calls me Charley, and I love her for it. ”You’re sharing with the other new girl, Diana Struthers.”

Esther snorts with laughter, and then represses it, glancing quickly around at the lower form girls who are apparently patiently waiting, but are watching us with great interest. “And I, may I ask?”

“You’re with Valerie Lincoln,” Matron says, just as pleasantly as if she doesn’t know exactly how Esther will feel about it. Matron always does know things, somehow. She smiles serenely, and ticks something off on her list. “Cecily, Miss Carroll wants to see you directly you’re settled in.”

Cecily and I manage to thank Matron and get Esther away somehow without her bursting. Once we’re out of the San., Esther marches us straight into an empty classroom, and turns on us, blazing.

“Well! The gang split up, by all that’s merciful! What is this, some new scheme of Miss Carroll’s to force us to make new chums? It’s not going to work, if so. Valerie Lincoln, of all the shattering news.”

Cecily frowns warningly at her. “You’ll have to play nice, Esther. It won’t look good for the House if Val spends the year in tears.”

“It wouldn’t be a problem if she wasn’t such a soppy, water-logged. . .”

“That’s enough of that!” Cecily is clearly in prefect mode already. “You’ll just have to watch your tongue and try and make the best of it. We all will,” she adds, a little dismally.

Esther hoists herself up onto a desk and lets her legs swing, her flames dimming a little. “It’s worse for you, my poor pet. Do you think even little Frances got to the point where she couldn’t stand her precious cousin Gladys?”

“I said that’s quite enough, Essie. Gladys isn’t so bad when you get to know her,” Cecily says, although she doesn’t quite sound convinced. “She’s a little hard to get on with, sometimes.”

“She’s a domineering beast.”

“Esther!” Esther subsides a little, one slender leg kicking out like pendulum. Cecily doesn’t snap often, but when she does, people tend to shut up. “I think it might be. . . well, perhaps Gladys is going to be a Senior Prefect this year, and Miss Carroll wants us to work together.” Cecily leaves unspoken that, if that’s so, she is almost definitely going to be Head Girl. Gladys is the only other obvious candidate. She’s clever and good at games and well-organised, and the only score against her is that the younger girls fear her bullying and dictatorial streak as much as they worship Cecily.

“Gladys as a Senior Pre. is going to be a catastrophe, simply cataclysmic.” Esther seems to be starting to see the funny side of things. “Gladys has no patience at all with the little ones.”

“And you do?” I flash a grin at her, taking a seat on another desk.

She grins back. To give her her due, Esther rarely takes offence, and her temper never lasts all that long. “Point taken. I’m not precisely prefect material. Although I’ve never yet let a fireball off to sizzle the eyebrows of some poor kid who failed to block a goal, you must admit. Actually,” Esther goes on slowly, “thinking it over, our Charles has it worst of all. And she doesn’t yet even know the depths of her dire fate. Shall we take her and introduce her to the lovely Diana, then?”

“Perhaps they’ll get along,” Cecily says, but even she doesn’t seem to be able to summon much sincere hope. I am beginning to dread the new year. “Don’t put Charley against her before they’ve even met, for heaven’s sake.”

“Perhaps they
will
get along, after all.” Esther still looks amused, but the amusement is harder, somehow. Her teeth no longer show in her smile, if it is a smile anymore, rather than just a tight, pressed-together uplift of her lips. It’s the kind of smile she used to give in lower forms, when plotting some ridiculous trick to enliven lessons, or the kind of smile she used when playing Puck when the Dramatic Guild gave some scenes from a Midsummer Night’s Dream at the school concert. “Charley might quite like her. Diana’s extraordinarily decorative, even I must admit that. And so very
charming
. Maybe I’m just being a beast out of petty jealousy.” She slips from her desk and stands in front of me, still looking down at me with that odd, fey smile. “How does golden hair take your fancy, dear heart?”

She lifts a hand to ruffle my curls. She’s standing very close, forcing me to tilt my head back to meet her gaze. Esther’s own hair is almost golden, a fair bronze, and her long dark eyes are sparking with mockery.

The heat rushes up past my neck and flames in my cheeks.

“Knock it off.” I push myself to my feet, shoving her aside none too gently. “I’m bored with all this gossip. I’m going to go see if my things have arrived.”

Cecily’s lips are parted with surprise, but I don’t have any words to explain my rudeness, and I don’t want to talk just now. I want to get away somewhere by myself, and I know it’s impossible in this house full of girls. At least I can get away from Esther.

My cheeks are burning so much that I change course to go to the bathrooms and splash some water to cool them down. I feel like it’s evaporating straight off my skin. I lean against the wall and give myself a moment to think.

Back in the stables, my brother William’s friend Roy had asked me, in exactly the same teasing tones, if I was going to miss him when I returned to school. When I looked up at him in surprise, he leaned over me and ruffled my hair in just the same way, and then—

I am such an idiot. Just for a crazy second, just because of a tone of voice and a hand in my hair, I’d thought Esther was going to kiss me, right there in front of Cecily. It’s a ridiculous, shameful idea. Unwholesome sentimentality has never been encouraged at Fernleigh Manor; we’re allowed, even encouraged, to form particular friendships, so long as we try to be good influences on each other, and the kids sometimes pick out a heroine in the upper forms, but anything tinged with soppiness is treated with scorn and rubbishing once you get into the Senior School.

When Roy stole his kiss, I utterly loathed the awkward feel of his lips on mine, the slight roughness of his face. I’d shoved him aside almost as roughly as I had Esther. The problem is, as hard as I try to shove the thought and the feeling down inside, I suspect that Esther’s kiss would not be nearly as awkward and objectionable as Roy’s.

I don’t know what to do with the thought. I’ve never cherished the slightest hint of sentimental feeling toward Esther. She’s remarkably good looking, of course, with her unusual colouring and graceful figure, and amusing. There’s also something uncomfortable about her, with her air of gently mocking the world while being too clever by half. There’s nothing in that to explain why the thought of that puckish mouth on mine, even now, is making my heart feel like it is beating in my ears and my throat all at once.

CHAPTER TWO

NEW GIRLS

As I make my way to Blue Dormitory, I feel like every girl I pass can hear my heart pounding, and suspects why. I can barely make myself return the greetings of the other seniors.

“Ow—oh, sorry.” I’ve half fallen over a girl outside the dormitory. I manage to sort myself out enough to see that it is the girl with the spectacles who had patted Ebony so firmly. She’s easy enough to recognise with those plaits: they are very pale and have an odd silvery tinge to them. Platinum blonde like a film star, I suppose, although I’d always imagine platinum blonde to be brighter and more golden, less of a dull grey.

Even in the state I’m in, I feel guilty at charging into the girl. She seems nice enough—sensible when it comes to fabled beasts of uncertain temperament, anyway.

I pat her shoulder as kindly as possible. “Did I trample you underfoot with my big clumsy feet?”

“Please don’t mind it,” she says. Her voice is so soft that I can hardly catch the words. She has large eyes of an unusual roundness and blueness, and her spectacles magnify them even more, so she is all eyes. Like an insect or something. Her cheeks are almost as flushed as mine, probably out of terror at being forced to speak to a sixth former on her first day, poor babe. To make it worse, she has the sort of pale, translucent skin that turns a violent red at times of emotion or embarrassment. Even though all I want to do is find my cubicle and draw the curtains tight, I resolve to be kind.

“Were you bringing a message to the sixth form, kid?” I ask her. “You can leave it with me.”

Those big blue eyes widen to the size of saucers. “Oh. No, you see. . .” She bites her lips, apparently paralysed by awkwardness, and I’m torn between pity and impatience. I’m usually pretty good with shy little things—there’s a lot of patience you develop when you work with magical animals, and I pride myself on being able to coax a newly born dragonling out of its shell—but I seem to have reduced this one to a puddle of melted ice-cream. I wonder if thumping her on her skinny little back will help her get the words out. “I was waiting for Frances White.”

Frances! Over the girl’s shoulder I spy a plump, familiar form, and I hail her with relief. “Hi, Frances! Take this kid off my hands, will you? I think she has a message for you.”

Frances’ eyes widen for a moment, and then she lets out a squeak of laughter. “Oh, Charley, you’re a scream! Come on, Rosalind, I’ll show you our dormy.” She takes the girl’s arm, and steers her into our dorm.

Esther pokes her golden-brown head out of the same door. “Oh, good shot. Glad to see you’re setting the new girls at their ease. That child, my love, is the mysterious Rosalind, and a new ornament to the Senior School.”

“Shut up.” I push past her. I don’t know, at this stage, what is making me blush more: that I made it clear to a painfully shy new girl that I thought she was a lower former, or that at the sight of Esther laughing at me my heart started up in my ears again.

All because she looked for a moment like a boy who had kissed me. It’s ridiculous.

“Hi, Charley!” Gladys pauses in arranging her possessions on her nightstand to look back at me over her shoulder. “Miss Carroll wants to see you, when you can spare the time, if you would be so good. Don’t tell me you’re in hot water with the Head already, kiddo.”

This is not turning out to be a good term.

With Miss Carroll, ‘when you have the time’ means ‘drop everything, now.’ I stick my tongue out at Gladys, rather babyishly, and flee, cursing myself for the stunt with Ember.

It’s not that I’m scared of Miss Carroll, precisely. She’s a little awe-inspiring, but can be a sport, when she wants. But she also has a way of looking gravely and directly at you with her clear hazel eyes that makes you feel the worst kind of worm. I never know how to deal with it, and I forget where to put my hands and don’t know where to look.

Well, all right, I’m a little bit scared of her.

There’s a horrible temptation to knock on her door very, very softly, so that she won’t hear me. It’s a childish, cowardly temptation. In reaction I hammer far too loudly, the door shaking. It’s all I can do not to cringe with embarrassment.