Davina Dupree Predicts a Plot (4 page)

Oh no Diary, worst news!

There’s been another theft. This time it was Maya and Aretha from Ruby class who had their dorm looted. They came running into the dining hall yesterday during high tea, just after Arabella, Lottie and I had sat down with a plate of cherry scones, clotted cream and plum jam. We were trying to cheer Lottie up, she’s hardly touched her food since being accused of stealing.

‘We’ve been robbed,’ Maya burst out. I like her, she’s really good at singing and has been given the part of Titania, Queen of the Fairies, in the play.

‘Our room is a TOTAL mess,’ Aretha said, arriving next to Maya. She’s playing the part of the Duke of Athens. ‘And our purses have been emptied and the platinum necklace my grandmother gave me is missing.’ She burst into tears. Maya hugged her.

‘And my ring collection is gone,’ Maya said, her lip wobbling. ‘The pot’s still there but the rings are missing, they took me years to collect and I managed to find some really unusual ones.’

‘Look, we’re not being rude, Lottie,’ Aretha said, giving a little sob and coming over to our table. ‘But if what Cleo and Clarice said the other day is true and you have taken our stuff because you can’t afford your own, please could we have it back? We wouldn’t blame you or anything, it’s just that it’s really special to us. The thing is, we noticed you weren’t at the rehearsal again this afternoon.’

‘But it WASN’T ME,’ Lottie cried in a sort of strangled way. ‘I wasn’t at the rehearsal because I went to see Mrs Fairchild to ask if she could send me home. Scholarship or no scholarship, I don’t want to be anywhere that I’m accused of being a thief. Ask her if you don’t believe me. Oh this is all so awful.’ She pushed her chair back and ran out of the dining hall.

‘But Erica wasn’t at the rehearsal today or at the one yesterday either,’ Arabella whispered. ‘I think we need to do some serious detecting.’

‘Me too,’ I whispered back, watching Mrs Pumpernickle put her arms round Maya and Athena before leading them off. ‘I simply couldn’t BEAR it if Lottie was bullied into leaving. Right, I’ve got an idea.’

How
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, Diary!

So yesterday afternoon, Arabella and I skipped the rehearsal and followed Erica, to see what she did while everyone else was in the Grand Hall. Lottie had gone to sit with Mrs Fairchild again, too upset to face anybody. It was a bit of a shame because Alfie had got over his tantrum and returned to the rehearsal yesterday and I have to admit he’s rather good at what he does, and really pulled everyone’s acting together. We gave Melody a note to give to him, explaining that we couldn’t come as we had a job to do.

‘I hope we don’t get caught,’ I said as we positioned ourselves behind bushes near the door to the Grand Hall. I’d noticed a pattern, Erica seemed to arrive for the BEGINNING of the rehearsal, blow bubbles loudly and annoyingly, then slip out unnoticed once everyone became absorbed in the play.

‘Or more likely WE’LL catch someone: the thief,’ Arabella said grimly.

We waited for about ten minutes, all wrapped up in our cashmere scarves and big puffy jackets. The weather was getting colder and Mrs Pumpernickle said she thought it might snow soon.

One half of the giant door creaked open and Erica tiptoed out.

I waggled my eyebrows at Arabella and we sneaked after her, darting from bush, to statue, to fence, holding our breaths and hoping she wouldn’t see us.

To my surprise, instead of heading back into the main school building where all the dorms are, Erica headed round the
side
of the school and through the kitchen garden, where Marcel grows his fruits, vegetables and herbs for cooking. She walked straight through the gate at the end and into the Japanese Rock Garden. The one good thing about the route she chose was the amount of things we could hide behind on the way, like sheds, trellises, boulders and trees. But I was completely
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about where she was heading.

We dodged through the rock garden, almost being discovered when she dropped her hankie and turned to pick it up. Luckily we had just enough time to drop behind a mountain of stone before she saw us. We watched her push open the gate and walk through it to the Medieval garden. By now we were a very long way from the main building and by the looks of it, the only ones out in the freezing air.

Arabella and I stayed just behind the gate, peering through the gaps in a nearby hedge to see what Erica would do next. To my UTTER
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, she pulled her fur coat round herself tightly and sat down on a bench near a fountain. Then she took the gum out of her mouth, wrapped it in a tissue, put it in her pocket, and began to sing.

Sweet, sad notes filled the air and wrapped themselves round Arabella and I. A tear rolled down Arabella’s cheek and on to the grass and I found my own eyes were also a bit weepy. What a beautiful voice, but the song was full of such loneliness and passion, it went straight to my heart and made it hurt.

‘Wowzers,’ whispered Arabella. I nodded. At that moment, I felt like we were intruding on something very private; after all Erica had taken great pains to be away from everyone. Maybe she came here every day while were rehearsing. It seemed unlikely now that she was the thief. I wondered what was making her so sad.

‘Hey Arabella,’ I whispered, shifting position. ‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t we go and get Stephania and ask her to listen to Erica sing. After all, she’s the singing coach and with a voice like that Erica should be in the play. Maybe she’s shy about singing in front of other people or something.’

Arabella gave me the thumbs up, so we crept back through the gardens as quietly as we could and slipped into the Grand Hall, only to get shouted at by Alfie for having commitment issues about the play. But Arabella said we needed to speak to Stephania about an important, private matter and very soon we were tiptoeing back to the Medieval garden with Stephania in tow.

Tears gushed down her cheeks as she listened to Erica sing.

‘I haven’t heard natural talent like this for a long time,’ she whispered, wiping her eyes. ‘But it’s such a melancholy song. Why is she so sad?’

We both shrugged, shaking our heads. We simply had no idea. I was starting to feel a bit bad for just writing Erica off as rude and arrogant, although to be fair that IS how she’d seemed.

‘I can’t bear it any longer, I’m going to go and talk to her,’ Stephania said. You two go and join the rehearsal now please, and thank you for alerting me to Erica and her gift.’

‘Goodness,’ I whispered to Arabella on the way back. ‘I wonder what Erica’s going to say to her.’

Mysterious events, Diary…

Erica didn’t tell us or her roommate Lottie about what happened in the Medieval garden, but from that afternoon on, something seemed to change in her. For a start, she stopped going on about how silly things were at Egmont and also stopped blowing bubbles with her annoying gum. She actually gave me a half smile at dinner yesterday, which was a relief because I’d been worrying in case she was angry that we told Stephania about her singing, and was also feeling rather guilty because we’d presumed she was the thief without any real evidence.

When I met up with Lottie in the library yesterday evening so we could do our Maths homework together, she told me that Erica was being much nicer now and had confided in her about how she hadn’t wanted to come to Egmont but that her father had insisted, saying that he and her mother didn’t have time to look after her anymore now that his business was going global. Her feelings had been really hurt and she’d decided to hate everyone here. But apparently Stephania got on really well with her and is going to give her a singing part in the play.

‘I didn’t know there were any singing parts?’ I said, trying to remember the script.

‘Well there aren’t really, but Stephania’s invented some songs for a few of the fairies and elves to sing. I think she wants the girls with great voices to have a chance to show off their talents.’ Lottie said. She was looking a bit better, less pale.

‘Perfect for Erica then,’ I smiled.

‘Yes but apparently Alfie’s mad about it,’ Lottie chuckled. ‘Says it ruins the purity of the script, or something.’

The doors to the library swung open and Amy from Emerald class burst in.

‘I’ve been robbed,’ she wailed. ‘Me and Poppy went straight to our riding lesson after the rehearsal this afternoon and we only got back to our dorm five minutes ago. It’s a tip and my collection of pearls is missing and Poppy’s golden necklace has gone too. What shall I do?’

‘Come on, let’s go and find Mrs Pumpernickle,’ I said, jumping up and putting my arm round Amy. ‘She’ll know what to do.’ Lottie ran past us before we’d even gone through the library doors. I stared after her feeling really worried. She hadn’t been in the rehearsal again and at this rate she wasn’t going to know what props to bring on and off the stage at the right times. I’d started painting the scenery this afternoon, but could really have done with some help. Where on earth was she going every day, surely not to Mrs Fairchild’s office every time? What if we’d been wrong about her? I couldn’t BEAR to have that thought even once…

A disappearance, Diary!

The plot thickened yesterday, that’s for sure, and I’m not just talking about the school play. After hearing about the most recent theft, Cleo and Clarice tried to find Lottie to question her about it and no doubt bully her. But they couldn’t find her anywhere.

Good for her, I thought at first, feeling bad about doubting my new friend, even for a second. Arabella and I tried to find Lottie before the afternoon’s rehearsal but she’d simply vanished. Even Erica had no idea where she was, and seemed quite concerned.

‘She usually comes back to our room when she’s upset about something, to phone her mum, or to write her a letter or an email,’ she said. ‘But she didn’t come back on Friday evening at all. I was so worried I went to ask Matron if Lottie was sick and had been taken into the infirmary, but she said she hadn’t.’

‘How odd,’ I said, twiddling my plait round my finger, while trying to think about where on earth she could be. ‘I
do
hope she hasn’t run away.’

‘I think we should go and tell Mrs Fairchild,’ Arabella said. ‘If something has happened to Lottie she should know, so that she can call the police to look for her if it turns out she has run away.’

Arabella, Erica and I went and knocked on Mrs Fairchild’s door, making Arabella late for a costume fitting with Mrs Blinkham, which she said she didn’t mind a bit as last time she was sure Mrs Blinkham had stuck pins in her on purpose.

Mrs Fairchild was listening to a CD of chimpanzee noises while doing yoga on her round mat when we went into her study.

‘The lotus is always the most difficult to achieve, don’t you think?’ she asked. We all nodded, not knowing what to say. I was wondering how on earth her legs were so bendy.

‘Well it’s lovely to see you all my darlings,’ She said, standing up gracefully before going to her kitchenette and switching the kettle on. ‘And to what do I owe this pleasure?’

‘I’m…er…afraid we’ve got some bad news,’ Arabella said. As soon as she said that I felt like what we were going to say sounded really
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, but it was too late to back out.

‘Oh yes?’ Mrs Fairchild did some ballet moves while she waited for the kettle to boil. ‘Nothing fatal, I hope?’

‘Erm, no,’ I said, while Erica fiddled with her bag. ‘It’s just that Lottie Greenwood seems to have disappeared.’

‘Gracious,’ Mrs Fairchild said as she poured tea for everyone. I didn’t think she looked shocked or surprised at all. ‘That is, indeed, unusual news.’

‘Yes it is,’ Arabella said. ‘And we think her disappearance is connected with these robberies. It seems no one’s stuff is safe anymore, and Clarice and Cleo have been blaming Lottie for it so publically, and-‘

‘Yes,’ Mrs Fairchild’s sparkly eyes darkened. ‘They have, haven’t they. Possibly an unwise choice of action, to blame a new girl without any proof, don’t you think?’

‘Yes absolutely,’ I said. ‘We’ve stood up for Lottie from the start, it’s just that she’s never at rehearsals and now she’s gone missing, and um…do you think she might have run away?’

‘It wouldn’t surprise me at all if she felt like running away,’ Mrs Fairchild’s eyes still hadn’t got back their sparkle. ‘How would you feel as a new girl who hasn’t had the same material privileges as the rest of the school, to be named, shamed and blamed so soon after arriving, for a crime you most probably did not commit?’

‘I think we’d all feel awful,’ Arabella said, hanging her head and me and Erica nodded. My heart fell into my feet, thinking about how TERRIBLE and sad Lottie must have felt to have the whole school doubting her.

‘But where is she?’ I said. ‘If only we could find her, we could somehow make her feel better.’

‘That is a nice, kind thought,’ Mrs Fairchild’s eyes twinkled again. ‘But I fear you are asking the wrong questions. Perhaps instead of asking, “Where is Lottie?” You should be saying to yourselves, “Who is the real thief and how can we catch them?” She finished her tea and stood up, walking to the door. Our meeting with her was clearly at an end.

‘Blimey,’ Arabella whispered, as we walked away from her study. ‘She seemed pretty sure that Lottie wasn’t the thief, and she didn’t seem at all surprised to hear she was missing, did she?’

‘Nope,’ I said. ‘I think she knows what’s happened to Lottie, whatever that may be. But I think she wanted us to investigate further and find out who else might be the robber.’

‘And that,’ Arabella said, sighing. ‘Is going to be very difficult.’

Still no sign of Lottie, Diary.

It’s been four days now, and rumours are sweeping through the school, (probably started by Cleo and Clarice), that Lottie’s been expelled for thieving. But after talking to Mrs Fairchild that just doesn’t seem likely. Arabella and I have been interviewing everyone who’s had things stolen, trying to see if the thief left any clues in any of the dorms but so far no one’s come up with any evidence.