Monster: The perfect boarding school thriller to keep you up all night. C.J. Skuse

put these back in the yard. I need to get my libretto.’

      * * *

      Later, as the others squealed off to the dorms to collect luggage and leave with their parents, Maggie helped me put the signs up in the Landscape Gardens saying ‘Keep Out’ and ‘Unsafe: Frozen Water’ and then we got two hot chocolates from one of the stalls and played cards in the bay window of the common room. Girl by girl, trunk by trunk, car by car, the school emptied, the Christmas smells disappearing and the chatter evaporating on the polar white air. A Pup called Tabitha Bonham, who was also staying behind until her army parents picked her up some time before Christmas Eve, had latched on to me and was sitting by my feet with a floppy toy rabbit, the ear of which was in her mouth.

      ‘SNAP,’ Maggie shouted and banged her hand down on the coffee table between us. I stared out of the window as she shuffled the stack. I longed to see my dad’s blue Volvo Estate beetling down the driveway, sweeping round the turning circle at the front of school. To see Mum and Dad get out of the front. To see my brother Seb leap out of the back seat and come running up to hug me. But it was so far away. They were so far away. The night grew darker and emptier.

      The door to the common room burst open and Dianna Pfaff stormed in, mumbling and cursing under her breath.

      ‘Bloody stupid do this do that. Hateful …’

      ‘Hi, Dianna,’ I said. She did a double take.

      ‘Natasha,’ she said. ‘Margaret. Pup.’

      ‘Princess,’ said Maggie, slamming down a jack on top of my jack. ‘SNAP!’

      ‘Dammit!’

      Maggie smiled, collecting up her cards. I had seven left. It was the third game in a row that I’d lost, but I didn’t mind. I’d seen a bright side—me, Maggie and a fairly sweet Pup on our own with Matron over Christmas. We could make the best of it.

      I looked over at Dianna, who was removing a plastic container of Rice Krispie cakes from her locker. ‘Everything okay, Dianna?’

      She closed her locker. ‘No, not really. I just got off the phone to my mother. Looks as though I’ll be staying for Christmas as well.’

      Then again …

      Maggie groaned. ‘Oh you are fu—’

      ‘SNAP!’ I shouted as Maggie took her eye off the stack. Then the door opened again and the one person I wished had been oven-roasted with our reconstituted turkey strode in and removed her coat.