‘Please be seated,’ said our Head when the prayer was over. And we all were. There followed an end of term lecture about not treating our rooms like hotels, news from the past few months (netball victories, a ‘positive’ visit from the school governors and a new bench donated by one of the trustees—who definitely was not a paedophile) and details about the Christmas Fayre that afternoon; who would be doing what and when. Stallholders would arrive to set up on the Orangery lawns at eleven a.m., the younger ones would be ‘making mince pies’ (folding impetigo into pastry) and the first year Sixth Formers (our class) would be adding finishing touches to the play, which would start in the Hall at three p.m. The candlelit procession through the Landscape Gardens rounded everything off and then the girls could find their parents and go home for Christmas.
And then it came. The dread in my chest was strangulating.
‘And lastly, I have the great pleasure of announcing my new Head Girl, who will take up her post at the beginning of next year. It’s been a very difficult decision, owing to the quality of the candidates I had to choose from, but the girl I’m appointing is kind, considerate, brimming over with focus and dedication. She is accepting and kind to all students and is a keen exponent of fair play. She is also extremely loyal to Bathory and to what we are trying to achieve here.’
She looked directly at me. I, for once, held her gaze.
‘This girl will be your representative, your prefect leader, in loco parentis when there isn’t a member of staff on whom you can call. I am sure you will agree she is the right person for the role. Your new Head Girl is … Dianna Pfaff.’
There was a lengthy pause between the announcement and the beginning of the applause. The girls were shocked. The news about my ‘quite vicious attack on Clarice’ had yet to reach the majority of them, but I could feel eyes on me, looking at me for a reaction.
Maggie stared at me, mouthing a string of choice words. I smiled, a rictus grin, and watched Dianna stride along the aisle towards the lectern, where Saul-Hudson pinned the badge to her cardigan. I clapped along with all the others as she made her way back down the aisle to her pew, badge gleaming.
Dianna passed our pew, flashing us a sanctimonious, paint-stripping smile.
‘Whatever,’ I said, like a bitten apple, feeling itself going bad from the inside. ‘Whatever.’
As I made my way to the Refectory that morning after Prayers, I walked slower than everyone else. I was swept along on the tide of other girls who were all just like me, in the same uniform, just trying to get to the same place, The same. Not special. Not the best. I felt like little pieces of the person I was were flying off behind me never to return. I didn’t care that there was a little dab of Blu-Tack on my sole, sticking to the highly polished parquet every so often. I didn’t care that my tie was slightly askew. And I didn’t care if I was late for breakfast. For once in my life, I did not care.
The Refectory was a large, high room, echoing with the sounds of clinking cutlery, loud chatter and the dishwasher whirring in the kitchen through the hatch. It had a parquet floor and walls decorated with scholarship boards dating back over a hundred years. Some of the Year Tens on my table were playing the game where you picked a name from one of the boards and everyone had to guess which one. They usually honed in on names like Smellie or Windass—the favourites were always Ethel Glasscock from 1947 and Olive Dicks from 1955.
It wasn’t long before I spotted Clarice Hoon, three tables away with all the other prefects. Her left arm was in a sling; her bottom lip was even more swollen than mine. She’d brushed her hair so that a curtain of it fell down across the bashed-up right side of her face, and tried to cover it with make-up, but she hadn’t done a good enough job. I caught details from the girls along my table. She’d fallen. Down the main staircase. Probably drunk. It had been known. Someone was covering for me. I felt a pang of guilt. I took a seat on Table Nine, aka The Rejects Table, and knowing looks all around me as I sat down told me what a huge statement I was making by not sitting with the other prefects.
‘Could you pass the toast, please?’ I called up the table to anyone who was listening and immediately, the toast rack was on its way down.
Maggie eventually scuffed in, socks rumpled down, face like thunder, looking like she’d been heaved through a hedge by her hair. I guessed by her scowl that she hadn’t been expelled. Inwardly, I sighed in relief.
‘Don’t ask,’ she griped, ignoring looks from the other girls and yanking out the chair opposite me.
‘Saul-Hudson still not expelling you then?’ I said, pouring her out some juice. It dripped on the table. I didn’t bother to wipe it up. What a rebel I was becoming. I’d be making headlines in the school magazine at this rate.
Maggie frowned. ‘I’m living in a sea of morons and the only life raft is made from moron trees. Twenty Blue Tickets, an hour in the Chiller and a loooong lecture about why I “mustn’t break in to Sickbay and steal laxatives”. What’s it gonna take to get kicked out of this dump?’
‘They’ll only send you to another school if you get kicked out of this one. Maybe a worse one.’
‘There isn’t a worse one,’ she said, looking like she meant it.
Regan Matsumoto sat down at the end of our table. As quiet as a mouse yet as noticeable as a fart, nobody liked Regan though nobody quite knew why. It was just one of those innate things, like in the wild when mother animals reject the offspring with health defects. We’d all rejected Regan. Picked her last for team sports. Left her to wander the playing fields alone at break to identify insects and talk to people who weren’t there. All I really knew about her was that her parents had won money on the EuroMillions and were now so loaded they didn’t work, just took holidays. But they never took Regan with them.
A clickety clack on the polished parquet tiles signalled the arrival of Dianna Pfaff, our sparkling new Head Girl, a bundle of letters in her hands.
‘Hello, Natasha. Margaret.’ She beamed, her blonde bob shimmering in the early morning window-shine.
‘Hi, Dianna,’ I said, biting on both words as though they hurt me to say them. I reached for the milk jug. ‘Congratulations.’
She smiled and looked down at her badge. My badge. ‘Thanks, Natasha. I really couldn’t believe it when she said my name.’
‘Yeah, me neither,’ I muttered.
‘How come you’re on post today, princess?’ said Maggie, snatching the letter Dianna handed her. ‘Thought you’d have a minion running about for you.’
Dianna’s bangs quivered with annoyance. ‘Drop dead, Margaret.’
Maggie faux gasped. ‘I’m shocked. Our new Head Girl using such a callous remark? You get any post from your brother today, Dianna? I’ve always wondered, do prisoners really stick their envelopes down with spunk or is that a myth?’
Dianna stiffened and leaned over Regan’s cereal bowl.
‘Very funny, Margaret. You really should be on Britain’s Got Talent. They’re in dire need of comedians.’ She seemed really annoyed for some reason and every time she spoke, little flecks of spittle flew directly into Regan’s juice glass.
‘You’re so full of shit, Dianna. That must be why your eyes are brown.’
It went on like this for a while. It always did. I finished my toast and a whole bowl of cornflakes, the war of words still raging around me. Eventually, Dianna was the first to run out of comebacks. ‘There’s two for you, Natasha.’
She held out two white envelopes. I took them both and saw the handwriting on the top one was Mum’s. A Christmas card from her and Dad. I didn’t recognise the second one. All around