A Royal Match (13 page)

The Eades social was only a day away, but we were almost too preoccupied with our salon to care. Just joking. I had received seventeen –
seventeen
– messages from Freddie. But I had only told the others about a few of them – apart from Star, obviously. It wasn’t just because I was trying to be cool. It was just that I was bursting with excitement and worried that if I started talking too much about Freddie I wouldn’t stop, which would be too tragic for words.

My phone’s memory was now full, so I had to start deleting the messages, which was very dispiriting, as I wanted to keep every one forever, like Georgian and Victorian ladies who kept their letters tied up in pink ribbons (only I’d use blue because blue is my favourite colour).

Every time he left a message he used a different accent, which was really funny and made me feel special. His last
one was a Russian accent: ‘Darlink, I can’t vait to share my matzo ball soup with you.’

I replied to his messages with my own accented replies – although not all of them, because I didn’t want him to think I didn’t have a life. Georgina said his messages were suggestive and that I was definitely going to pull him.

‘Yaah – it’s as bad as text sex!’ Star teased.

After the incident at the writing salon, Poppy and a few of her friends from the year above came down to Cleathorpes, looking for Georgina. Poppy actually slapped Georgina across the face and called her a bitch for telling her sister to F-off. After that Honey started to hang out with her sister’s crowd.

Clemmie said, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t Honey who woke Miss Cribbe and complained about us keeping her awake that night.’

We all agreed.

And so did Tobias.

There hadn’t been a repeat of Georgina’s bulimic episode as far as I knew, but she was smoking herself stupid every night and I was worried that I was going to die of Febreze poisoning. We were all immersed in the writing salon, even Star. Only Honey had returned to her poisonous ways, which meant my days were spent peeling Post-it notes off my back. But even that didn’t bug me the way it once had. I didn’t feel like a freak anymore.

Honey had issues way bigger than me.

Star was making me keep all the Post-it notes. She said
we might be able to do something artistic with them in the magazine. Arabella agreed, and said she’d write satirical pieces on us all. Clemmie said, ‘I can’t wait to read what you write about Honey!’

Georgina giggled and started taking the piss out of Honey. ‘Yaah, darlings, why don’t we simply have our daddies chip in a few thou?’

Star was busy doing little drawings of us all. She did one of me in my fencing kit with arrows pointing to my fluffy sticky-out bits of hair, which she’d drawn to look like horns. Then she did a drawing of Honey with arrows pointing to Honey’s Botox, collagen and other surgical enhancements.

I was having to pinch myself at how well my life was going. Instead of being the school freak, I was part of an actual writing salon and getting a school magazine off the ground. I know it had only really come about as a result of a punishment for our canteen food fight, but still it was the first time at Saint Augustine’s that I had ever really been part of something. And as well as all that, I was being pursued by phone by a real, live prince.

So why did I still feel like an impostor in an exclusive members’ club … especially around Honey? I tried to bring it up with Star during our warm-up exercises in the fencing salle, but it came out sounding like a whine and Star lost patience.

‘What is it with you and this outside/inside rubbish anyway?’ she responded almost in anger as we finished our
supermans. ‘Being accepted for who you are doesn’t come down to where you’re from, like you seem to think, Calypso. Maybe you need to accept yourself for who you are before blaming your isolation on everyone else.’

My head was in a mess. Star seemed really annoyed with me, as if I had accused her of a heinous crime – the crime of being one of Them, presumably. The crime of being of Their world at least. I put my mask on and saluted, knowing I was in too much of an emotional mess to distinguish myself on the piste. The sensible thing to do would have been to retire, to say I felt sick or had a cramp. But the only thing I had a cramp in was my brain.

It was only a friendly bout, with Professor Sullivan presiding, but in my attack
au fer
, Star gained priority by parrying and I put my whole body into the counterattack, lost my balance and landed sprawling at her feet. It was so embarrassing.

‘
Halte!
’ declared Professor Sullivan. I gathered myself together and we went back to the
en garde
line. I was dying under my mask –
dying
. Star’s words were echoing in my head: ‘Maybe you need to accept yourself for who you are.’ For once not even ‘a physical game of chess’ could grab my focus. I thought of Freddie and tried to imagine it was him I was fencing but that only made matters worse.

After she’d totally slaughtered me, when we were changing back into our uniforms, I think Star could tell I was still in a mess because she put her arm around me and went, ‘Listen, I’ve been going to school with them all my
life. Do you think that makes
me
one of them?’

‘No,’ I told her, laughing at the absurdity of it all and giving her a hug.

Yes, I was thinking as I grabbed my gear and left the salle.

The day before the social, the five of us – Star, Georgina, Arabella, Clementine and I – were in Ms Topler’s class (yawn), reading her latest offering of Literary Realism, as she called it.

I knew it was very worthy to know all about how hard life was for women in a previous age, but honestly, didn’t these people have any sense of humour?

Then Ms Topler called me up to the front and I was afraid that she was going to give me a blue for my eyebrow-raising every time we were told to bring our latest yawn-till-you-drop book out.

‘So, Miss Kelly, I hear that you and your friends have organised an
exclusive
writing salon.’

I glared at Honey, who looked up at the ceiling.

‘I wouldn’t call it exclusive exactly, Ms Topler.’

‘No?’

‘No … well, you see, the thing is, it’s more or less part of our punishment.’

‘Explain.’

‘Yes, well … erm, six of us were given the task of coming up with ways to raise money for this charity called Children of the World. They raise money for kids, like the class who –’

‘Yes, yes, yes. I am perfectly aware of the nature of this charity and the good works they do for children in areas of distress.’

‘Well, we have to find ways to raise money, so the writing salon was one of the ideas we had.’

‘An idea – one that you didn’t wish to share with others?’

Georgina, clutching Tobias to her chest, stood up. ‘Ms Topler, this is so random. Why are you hectoring poor Calypso about it? It’s not like we’re having carnal relations with Satan or anything. Besides, the whole idea is to share the group. We’re putting together a literary magazine, which is open to the whole school to contribute to.’

‘I am perfectly aware of this clandestine magazine, thank you, Miss Castle Orpington. Now kindly sit down and please put that ridiculous bear in your bag. I merely wished to put to you that perhaps it might have been more Christian of you to discuss your magazine in the forum of the English literature class … i.e.,
my
class! The one you are presently sitting in.’

OK, so this was it. Once again, I could see my dream tumbling down around me. Honestly, who was I kidding, thinking this idea would work? I said a Hail Mary without much hope, but I said it with a fervour never before applied to my prayers so that I missed what Ms Topler said next. All I heard was, ‘Thank you, class dismissed. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, amen.’

I trudged along behind the others towards the canteen,
listening to no one, saying nothing. Even the discovery that we had fish nuggets and chips wasn’t enough to raise my spirits. I was only dragged from my well of misery by the occasional thump on the back as a Post-it note landed.

Everyone else seemed on top of the world, proving what I always knew – that I was a freak who placed far too much emphasis on amusing writing. I couldn’t even get excited about the Eades social while everyone else was chattering on about it. I sat with the others and picked disconsolately at my fish nuggets while Star peeled the Post-it notes off my shirt.

‘OK, this is weird,’ she said, showing me one of the pile. It read:

Enjoy your dinner, Shit Face

‘Whatever,’ I replied. I couldn’t be bothered anymore.

‘Maybe it’s time to show these to Sister Constance,’ Arabella suggested, flicking back her blonde-streaked locks. ‘Seriously, Calypso, this is harassment. Daddy’s done all sorts of famous litigation cases and I’m sure he’d do you a good rate if you wanted to sue.’

I munched on a chip, too miserable to even smile at the irony of someone like Arabella (who could trace her family back to the fourth century) suggesting that I, Calypso Kelly, mount a legal suit in the High Courts against Honey O’Hare, daughter of England’s most famous It Girl.

After supper, when Star and I were alone, I complained,
more to myself than to anyone else, ‘I just can’t believe what’s happened…’

‘What?’

‘The magazine.’

‘Why? It’s great,’ Star said. ‘Didn’t you hear what Ms Topler was saying?’

‘Banned us from doing the magazine and probably showered us in blues.’

‘Are you mad in the head or just deaf? The school is going to let us off study time to work on the magazine
and
they are going to organise the printing.’

While everyone else was getting dressed up in their finery, I was in the infirmary with diarrhoea. My money was on Honey slipping a laxette in my dinner. So was everyone else’s – even Tobias had his suspicions.

What was worse, the horrible Sister Dumpster was being really nasty, telling me how in her day, diarrhoea took 50 percent of the population and they didn’t complain.

She was only about sixty years old so I seriously doubted it, but I said nothing.

I tried to cry myself to sleep but it wasn’t working. It must have been the dehydration.

Honestly, as if being kept away from the boy of my dreams wasn’t bad enough, I had to put up with Sister Dumpster knitting away at the end of my bed like old
Madame Guillotine of the French Revolution, who had knitted away in the front row while the bourgeoisie were beheaded.

I was too sick to even ask for my mobile phone to call Freddie – not that I had any credit left on it. I’d probably have to sell my mobile to survive the term (not that anyone would want to buy a brick like mine).

Having friends was lovely, but it was costing me a fortune trying to keep up with them in sweets and pizzas alone.

So I told God that I’d give up all the sweets in the world to be sitting next to Freddie at the social.

Then I ran to the loo.

Sister Dumpster looked at the little watch pinned to her chest and wrote down the time of my motion on her pad. She would make a fantastic prison warden.

‘Sister, maybe I need another Lomotil?’ I suggested when I came back. ‘I mean, I’m going every three minutes and I feel awful.’

‘You’ve gone from five to seven minutes, actually, Miss Kelly. That’s perfectly good progress, medically speaking. Keep up your fluids and I’ll reassess you in an hour.’

The social started in an hour.

There was a knock at the door. ‘Oh, darling, are we poorly?’ It was Honey, dressed in the baby-blue dress with the strappy bits that she had promised to me.

‘You will look after her, won’t you, Sister Dempster?’

‘Thank you, Miss O’Hare, all is in hand. The best thing
for your friend is to keep up her fluids and wait for the squitters to pass.’

‘Hmm, lovely. Well, enjoy your evening, Calypso. Chance for you to catch up on your reading. I know how you love that! Toodle-pip.’

I didn’t even have time for a spiteful riposte. I was off to the loo again. This was definitely not easing up.

I came out of the toilet weak as a kitten and tearful. Self-pity was now engulfing me. Earlier I had half hoped I would be over the worst and still make the social, but seeing Honey looking sublimely divine in her/my baby-blue strappy number had destroyed all hope.

Now all I felt was despair.

‘Oh, will you just look at yourself, you poor baby.’

It was Sister Regina. As large as life (in a four-foot-nine sort of way) sitting in the nurses station.

‘Oh, Sister,’ I moaned. ‘I feel so poorly.’

‘I’m not at all surprised. You take these tablets
tout de suite
and drink that jug of water with mineral salts that I’ve placed by your bed. I’ve read your chart and if this nasty business hasn’t passed in an hour’s time I’ll be calling the doctor before you flush yourself clean away.’

An hour later we were both sitting in the horribly uncomfortable infirmary bed, flicking through
Teen Vogue
. I suppose I would survive not going to the Eades social.