Secrets at St Jude's: New Girl (20 page)

‘Hmmm . . . well . . .’ Niffy still wasn’t sure how she was going to break the Jason news to Amy.

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Or
if
she was going to break the Jason news to Amy.

The Year Four sitting room was unusually quiet. Only Gina was in there, reading – to the astonishment of everyone, including Gina – one of her history course books.

‘What on earth are you doing?’ Niffy demanded as she walked over to the piano, flipped open the lid and reached deep inside to stack beer bottles neatly along the bass end.

‘I think it’s me who should be asking that question,’

Gina replied.

‘Temporary storage, out of the Neb’s way,’ Niffy explained. ‘It’ll be off our hands by tomorrow. So what’s with the history swotting?’

‘In case you’ve forgotten,’ Gina began, ‘my mother and I had a deal. I only get to go back to California when all my grades are good, and lovely though you are—’

‘OK,’ Amy interrupted, ‘but you have to put that book down now’ – she settled herself down on the chair next to Gina’s – ‘because I’m going to need your help. I’m going to need everybody’s help.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Niffy asked, replacing the piano lid carefully. ‘What’s the big problem today?’

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‘Well, you know this debating competition?’ Amy began.

Niffy gave an extravagant roll of the eyes.

‘Well, it’s about private schools, which I thought was fine because Penny and her second were going to be against them and Laura and I—’

‘Laura’s your second?’ Niffy interrupted. ‘She’s absolutely useless! About as much help as a chocolate fireguard.’

‘Thanks, Nif, that’s really supportive,’ Amy snapped. ‘Anyway, Miss Greig has decided she wants to stretch our debating talents . . .’

This produced a snort from Niffy.

‘And’ – Amy glared at Niffy but carried on – ‘she’s decided we’re to take the opposite sides.’

Although Amy suddenly looked close to tears as she made this revelation, Niffy burst out laughing. ‘Oh my Lord!’ she said. ‘You’re absolutely stuffed. You’re going to have to argue against Penny? Against private schools! You?! And what is your dad going to say about this?’

‘My dad?’

‘Yeah.’ Niffy nodded.

Amy hadn’t thought about this. She’d thought maybe she’d just leave the whole subject of the 226

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debate out of her twice-weekly catch-up phone calls.

Amy’s dad had a complicated past. He’d grown up in a rough part of Glasgow (something she hoped Penny Boswell-Hackett would never find out). He’d left school young and taken a job as a nightclub bar-man. A few years later he’d become a nightclub manager and now he owned four nightclubs of his own, making him very successful and very wealthy. He put his meteoric rise down to ‘working my arse off ’.

He was only thirty-six . . . er, yes – because he’d begun Amy’s life when he was just nineteen. At the time, Amy’s mum had been eighteen and totally uninterested, which meant Amy had been brought up almost entirely by her dad’s parents.

The main reason she was at boarding school was to give her grandparents a break and to let her dad go on working almost every night of the week.

Plus, her dad loved St Jude’s. He couldn’t get over the fact that his girl went there. Photos of her in her school uniform could be found all over his home, his office and even tucked inside his wallet. Would he like her to be arguing against the school, in front of the whole school? Er . . . no. Definitely not.

‘I don’t think you’re being very helpful!’ Amy told Niffy defensively. ‘Gina goes to a state school in 227

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America! I thought she might have some advice, some useful things to say about it. If you’re just going to laugh, you can get lost, Niff!’

‘Why did you get into this in the first place?’ Niffy asked, throwing herself down on the sitting room’s saggy sofa and showing not the slightest intention of getting lost. ‘Penny’s going to win. She always wins this kind of thing. The only place you and I have any chance of beating Penny is on the hockey pitch or the tennis court. And even that’s bloody hard work. She’s your classic St Jude’s high achiever. She’s probably bulimic; she’s probably going to cry for weeks, or at least puke her guts out, if even one of her exam results comes back just a straight rather than a starred A. Her dad will cut off her allowance if she doesn’t get into Oxford, even though she’ll have to do a Scottish law conversion course afterwards to be a judge in Edinburgh – which, let’s face it, is the career trajectory she’s on. Why take her on, Amy? Do your own thing, ignore her, don’t let her interfere with your life.’

‘What do you think I should do then? Just give up?

Just go in tomorrow and say I’m backing out, I’m too scared to stand up to her?’

‘Couldn’t you just be ill on the day of the debate?’

Niffy suggested.

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‘Yeah, that would be the Nairn-Bassett approach, wouldn’t it? Just flake out . . . why be bothered?’

‘Oh, shut up, Amy.’ Niffy’s face clouded over.

‘What’s up with you two?’

Min had walked into the sitting room just in time to hear the last of this heated exchange. As Amy and Niffy were now glaring at each other, Min turned to Gina for an explanation.

‘Amy’s debate with Penny . . .’ Gina began. ‘She’s got to argue against private schools, so she wants our help and Niffy isn’t’ – her voice dropped – ‘being very helpful.’

‘Oh, brother.’ Min, fresh from the track, still in a sweaty T-shirt and shorts, perched herself on the piano stool. She was just about to put her fingers to the keys when Niffy told her, ‘I wouldn’t bother playing that today – well, not the bass notes anyway.’

‘Why not?’ Min asked, but before anyone could reply, the door swung open and Mrs Knebworth was before them.

‘Hello! Beautiful afternoon. Why are we all huddled in here with long faces?’

‘We’re gated,’ Niffy reminded her.

‘Oh yes, how could I forget?’ Mrs Knebworth made an adjustment to her spectacles and glared at Amy.

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but the girls were still concerned that some further punishment lay ahead.

‘Well, you could still go and sit on the lawn,’ the Neb offered, but there were just exasperated sighs in response to this.

‘Oh dear,’ she said. She looked at Min, perched on the piano stool. ‘They need cheering up, don’t they?

Probably because they missed that party – at Charlie Fotheringham’s, wasn’t it?’

Further exasperated sighs followed.

‘Dear, oh dear. There will be other parties, girls . . .

Min, why don’t you give us a little tune? Cheer us all up. I haven’t heard you play for ages.’

A tune? A little tune?
Amy and Gina exchanged deeply worried glances, whereas Niffy seemed to be suppressing a giggle. Amy glared at her, wondering why she always seemed to find the prospect of landing in the deepest do-do absolutely hilarious. As for Min, she was frozen on the stool, terrified the piano would explode if she touched it.

‘Well, come on then . . . All those years of piano lessons weren’t wasted on you, surely?’ There was a frosty edge to the Neb’s voice which set alarm bells ringing for Amy.
Maybe somehow the dreadful woman
knew? But how could she?

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What had Niffy said? Min tried to recall the words exactly:
not the bass notes
? Her fingers went gingerly to the far right of the keyboard and she began a high-pitched, tinkly little song.

‘Nice,’ the Neb commented, and went over to stand so close to the piano that Amy was convinced she’d be able to smell the beer.

Min fingers were flying along the top keys with more confidence now that nothing seemed to be wrong. Then, with a tinkling cadence, she descended the scale towards the grand finale. One chord, then another . . . she was in the middle of the keyboard –

Amy and Gina held their breaths – then she finally reached the very end of the tune and –
clump, clump,
clump
– hit a note which didn’t sound.

Clump, clump
– she struck at it again in confusion.

The Neb turned to the piano and Amy shut her eyes, waiting for the sound of the lid lifting.

Mrs Knebworth put out a finger and hit the note:
clump, clump
.

‘The hammer isn’t hitting the string,’ was her verdict.

Her fingers were on the piano lid.

Gina pulled herself into a ball, waiting for the axe to fall.

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The housemistress raised the lid a centimetre but then Niffy blurted out: ‘A wasps’ nest!’

She was standing at the window, pointing. It was the only thing she’d been able to think of in the stress of the situation.

‘Where?’ Mrs Knebworth let the piano lid fall and hurried over to stand beside Niffy.

‘I’ve just seen five wasps go into that crack underneath the gutter, just there . . .’ Niffy was pointing to a spot as high up as possible.

‘Oh . . . right,’ Mrs Knebworth said, looking up.

Not agreeing, because she couldn’t see a single wasp; not disagreeing because, as Niffy had suspected, maybe her eyesight wasn’t up to the job.

‘Well, I’d better book in the handyman and the piano tuner for this week . . .’ she said. ‘Must put that in the diary.’

And with that, the Neb bustled out of the room to go and write it down straight away.

Before anyone could even let out a breath of relief, a Year Five girl appeared at the doorway with the words: ‘Is Gina Peterson in here? Oh, there you are . . .

Your mum’s on the phone, says it’s urgent.’

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Chapter Eighteen

‘Sadly, we are going to be missing French this afternoon,’ Niffy informed Gina during Wednesday’s lunch break.

‘Are we?’ Gina was surprised.

‘Yeah . . . I have inside information that between one forty-five and three, Banshee Bannerman is going to be talking to the governors over lunch in the annex and bringing her trusty right-hand woman, Mrs Henderson, along with her,’ Niffy announced.

‘Huh?’ Gina was now even more confused.

‘Well,’ Niffy went on, ‘you remember what Miss Ballantyne said to you this morning?’

How could Gina forget? Miss Ballantyne had handed back her latest history essay with the words:

‘Beginning to show signs of improvement, Gina.

Maybe you will not be following in your mother’s footsteps after all.’

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When Gina had asked, ‘When are you going to tell me what you mean about my mother, Miss Ballantyne?’ the old bat had merely arched her eyebrows and answered, ‘Dear, dear, surely that’s a question for your mother, not for me.’

Gina had tried asking her mother about Miss Ballantyne’s earlier remarks on Sunday, but she hadn’t got anywhere.

‘I don’t remember a history teacher called Miss Ballantyne,’ Lorelei had said. ‘You asked me about her before. What’s she trying to say? That I wasn’t a good pupil? She must be thinking about someone else. I always got straight As, Gina. I considered a B a total failure. But how is your work coming along?’ she’d wanted to know. ‘That’s much more important. My school career was over years ago.’

‘Why is this phone call urgent, by the way?’ Gina had asked. ‘The girl who answered the phone said it was urgent. I was really worried.’

‘Oh . . . I thought that would make them look for you a bit quicker,’ Lorelei had explained. ‘It always takes them ages to find you.’

‘I’m up on the third—’

But her mother hadn’t waited to hear the full story.

She’d interrupted with: ‘You know what, honey? I’m 234

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going to have to ring you back . . . I have another call coming in.’

As she replaced the receiver, Gina had realized that sometimes she didn’t miss her mother so much.

Sometimes she wished there was something even wider than the Atlantic Ocean between them.

‘Do you know what’s kept in the locked office behind the Banshee’s?’ Niffy asked Gina now.

Gina shook her head.

‘Files and files and files on every pupil who’s ever been at St J’s,’ Niffy revealed. ‘Believe me, I’ve had a rifle through them before. It’s very interesting. All you need is a surname and a leaving date, then you can look up everything about whoever you’re interested in.

And I think we’re all agreed that the Lorelei Winkelmann file has got to be one worth sneaking a peek at.’

For a moment Gina weighed up the risks of being caught in the headmistress’s office against the possibil-ity of looking through her mother’s school file. There was no difficult decision to be made. She had to see that file. What if there was a really big surprise in there? What if her mother wasn’t a straight-A student at all? What if she’d invented that to make Gina feel 235

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bad and work harder at school? What if there were B

grades in there? Or even
Cs
?

‘OK,’ Gina told Niffy nervously. ‘I think we should go in. But what do we tell Madame Bensimon?’

‘Good girl!’ Niffy’s face broke into a grin. ‘I didn’t think I’d have to persuade you. I’ve already prepped Amy to inform Madame that we’re both headed to the dentist’s this afternoon. Fingers crossed she won’t check it with anyone. Now all we need to do is hide in the cloakroom beside the Banshee’s office until ten minutes after the bell.’