A Royal Match (29 page)

We all laughed, even though a part of me was still put out that they hadn’t included me on the plan earlier.

‘So it was just herbs?’ I confirmed, still slightly unconvinced. ‘But she had the munchies even! Honey never eats sweets; she just uses them to bribe Year Sevens to do her blues!’

‘I know, wasn’t that incredible? I’ve never seen anyone gobble down calories so fast,’ agreed Indie, looking at me. She threw back her head and laughed long and loud,
completely unembarrassed by all the looks she was receiving from other tables.

‘We wanted to let you in, but we couldn’t in case you started giggling,’ Star explained sweetly, giving my hand a squeeze.

‘I wouldn’t have giggled!’ I exclaimed indignantly.

‘Yes, you would. You even giggled when you had your navel pierced. And that hurt.’

‘The thing I loved the most was the way she even started talking like she was stoned,’ Georgina marvelled. ‘You know, in that slow, “Hey man, where’s my brain” way.’

I brooded on how they’d voted not to share the joke with me beforehand as I fished out most of the croissant.

‘Are you still going to do Latin this term, darling?’ Star suddenly asked, changing the subject as Honey approached our table and nestled herself neatly beside Georgina.

I tried to get the rest of the sloppy croissant into my mouth. ‘Yaah, we both are,’ I reminded her, deciding to abandon the croissant as a lump fell on my tie.

We’d both signed up for Latin, Ancient Greek and French in Year Ten for our GCSE subjects because they’d all be quite easy As and we’d have more time to focus on our fencing. Star looked at me now as if I was mad. ‘I
loathe
Latin with every fibre of my being, Calypso.’

‘So do I,’ I replied defensively.

‘So Daddy told me I can chuck it. Besides, I need the extra time to concentrate on my music,’ she said.

‘Can you do that?’ I asked, pretty certain that you
couldn’t. I looked at the soggy flakes of croissant still floating in my hot chocolate.

‘If your father built the music wing you can do pretty much anything, Calypso,’ Star joked. Actually, it was probably true.

‘Yes, why don’t you get
your
father to build us something?’ Honey asked me faux-kindly before quickly adding, ‘Oh, that’s right, I always forget. He’s got no money, has he?’

‘Shut up!’ Star and Indie said in unison, only Star added the word ‘bitch’ at the end.

‘Darling, that spliff gave me the best night’s sleep since Mummy gave me that Valium,’ Honey raptured.

Georgina almost burst into giggles as she leant over to tell me, ‘I’m chucking Latin too.’

‘What?’ asked Clemmie, joining our table as I took a bite of my dry croissant.

‘Calypso’s still doing Latin,’ Georgina explained, making it sound like I was electing to do voluntary lunch clearing.

‘God, what for, darling?’ Clemmie asked, looking at me as if I was barking.

‘They said it would be quite an easy A for me. We were all doing Latin last year, remember?’ Was I the only one who found this new turn of events perplexing, I wondered, as I looked at the girls munching their breakfasts around me. ‘Have you dropped it too, Clemmie?’ I asked, trying not to sound as confused as I was.

Star snorted as if we hadn’t
always
chosen our subjects
together. ‘Calypso, if you really find it that easy, why not chuck the lessons and sit the exam anyway?’ she asked.

‘Yaah, I guess I could.’ I shrugged, feeling the colour rush to my face. ‘When did you decide this, though?’

‘It’s not a big deal. Georgina and I spoke about it on the flight back and then I asked Daddy before Ray drove me back to school.’

‘I didn’t ask anyone,’ Georgina added.

Clemmie shrugged. ‘Nor did I.’

Georgina, Star and Clemmie all rolled their eyes at how seriously I was taking it all, but Star knew that Bob and Sarah would never allow me to drop subjects without a big brouhaha. ‘I should have told you, but I didn’t realise you cared.’

‘I don’t mind,’ I lied.

‘Maybe if you spoke to Bob,’ Star suggested. ‘You know, explain to him howuse less GCSEs are. Eight subjects are plenty after all.’

‘And besides, the best public schools are dropping them now, it’s such a pointless diploma. Eades has dropped GCSEs altogether,’ Clemmie added.

‘As Daddy would say, “Structured exams are just a political subjugation of youth, man,”’ Star added.

Everyone giggled. Tiger had become a bit of cult figure amongst the girls since his appearance last term at the launch of our satirical magazine,
Nun of Your Business
.

‘Is that really how your father talks?’ Indie asked, giggling at Star’s mimicking of her perpetually stoned
sounding father. Because even when he wasn’t stoned he still sounded stoned.

‘There’s no way I’d let
my
parents choose
my
GCSEs,’ Arabella added as she climbed onto the table with a bowl of cereal. ‘It’s my life. My parents wouldn’t dare imagine they had the remotest right to ask what subjects I’d chosen. I’d cut them off, totally cut them off’ – she imitated a pair of scissors cutting – ‘if they tried to influence my life in any way whatsoever.’

‘Off that table right now,’ ordered one of Sandra’s henchwomen walking by. ‘Tables is for sitting at innit, not on. I don’t know what your parents is teaching you, I don’t.’

‘Grammar mostly,’ Honey sneered, and everyone laughed. Arabella still sat down on the bench, though. ‘My parents couldn’t care less what I study or what grades I get. They haven’t ever read one of my reports.’

‘Nor have mine,’ Georgina agreed.

‘Sophisticated people realise that life is for living, not working,’ Honey remarked pointedly, knowing I didn’t have a trust fund to rely on like everyone else in the school. ‘Besides, I’m probably going to fail everything anyway, what with all the time I’ll be taking off this term. Darcy Greggs wants me in his show at London Fashion Week,’ she explained. ‘Mummy says it’s the opportunity of a lifetime.’

‘More of an opportunity than Latin, that’s for sure,’ agreed Star, necking her juice.

I felt like I’d been slapped. After all our years of mutual
loathing of Honey, it was as if Star were siding with her against me – even if it was over something as dismal as Latin. I looked around the group of girls as they nodded their heads in agreement and spooned their cereal or dipped their croissants. I felt like I was in a play without a script.

‘It’s not as if I don’t loathe Latin too,’ I explained helplessly, ‘but I do think that I’ll be able to do quite well without putting in much work, as my main objective is to focus on my fencing.’ I looked to Star for support on this as we’d been fencing from the first day we started at Saint Augustine’s. We were sisters-in-arms, and over the summer we’d discussed at length how pleased we were that we’d chosen easy subjects that wouldn’t be too demanding and cut in on our fencing.

Star avoided my gaze in a guilty-ish sort of way and began playing with her braids. I carried on gamely. ‘Maybe you should reconsider, because we’re going to need all the easy subjects we can get with the Nationals coming up, Star.’

Everyone blinked at me disinterestedly, as if I’d been talking about the variety of school jumpers on offer this season. Honey took this opportunity to inform Georgina that she had already secured front row seats at the show for her and her mother. But I barely heard her because suddenly Star, still playing with her braids, remarked casually, ‘Actually, Calypso, I’ve decided to drop fencing.’

‘No!’ I blurted before I could stop myself. ‘You can’t drop fencing!’

Star and I had first bonded on the piste. Fencing was how we had distinguished ourselves from the ghastly Sloaney girls she’d always professed to hate. It was the cornerstone of our relationship. She couldn’t drop fencing. It would be like dropping … well, it would be like dropping
me
. ‘Why?’

She avoided my gaze by looking deeply into one of the corn braids in her hand. ‘Yaah, see, Calypso, I’m going to focus on my music.’

I watched as Indie and Star smiled excitedly at one another. ‘Indie and I have already spoken to Sister Constance and we’re going to lay down some tracks for a demo CD,’ she added.

‘Isn’t that cool?’ Indie finished, her eyes brimming with enthusiasm.

I felt like I was hovering outside my body as I watched Star and Indie look at me as if I should be thrilled. As if I should be jumping up and down with glee that my best friend was walking away from our greatest bond. Instead, I looked at her like she was someone I didn’t know anymore.

What had happened to Star and Calypso, the sabreurs, the girls who wore their pain like lip-gloss, the Star and Calypso who rinsed boys on the piste and kissed them off? Besides, Star had a massive crush on Mr Sullivan, so I didn’t know how she was going to cope without a daily shot of him. And then I remembered we had a new fencing master this year.

Portia joined us then, sitting down in her quiet, long-legged,
elegant way and touched my arm. ‘Guess that leaves just you and me on the sabre team, darling.’

‘I guess it does,’ I agreed, only I was looking at Star as I said it. ‘The thing is you need three people on a team in order to fence.’

And then suddenly, Indie turned to me and remarked, ‘I’m doing Latin, actually. I’ll come by your room after inspection. We can share the joy of verb declensions together.’ She turned back to the others. ‘I’m following Calypso’s plan to go for the easy A-star. I’m doing French, Italian and Ancient Greek as well.’

‘Ancient Greek!’ Honey shrieked in her hyena squeal. ‘No one does Ancient Greek, apart from miserable train wrecks like our American Freak here, of course. But no one who
matters
does Ancient Greek. It’s a dead language.’

‘I wish you were dead,’ I almost said, and then I realised Star had said it for me. She looked at me and I saw she was miming lip-gloss application and looking at me as if wanting my forgiveness. Honey continued to laugh, though. Most girls look even lovelier when they smile and laugh, but because of all her cosmetic enhancements, Honey looked hideous. The Botox meant all the wrong parts of her face moved. When she finally stopped her giggles, the table was silent and we stared as Indie slowly and contemptuously raised one eyebrow to her.

‘See, that’s where you’re wrong, Honey. I’m as far from being “no one” as you are ever likely to meet in your dismal little world of wind-ups, put-downs, bad piss-takes and
designer nastiness.’ With that, Indie stood up in the most composed way I’ve ever seen anyone other than Portia stand up. She gave Honey the most withering look I’d ever seen – and believe me, at Saint Augustine’s I’ve seen plenty of withering looks.

Everyone’s eyes flicked between Indie and Honey. Honey seemed to shrivel with each passing nanosecond of the look Indie gave her. I was right. Between Miss Bibsmore and Indie, Honey was going to have a rough term. I almost felt sorry for her.

Indie smiled gaily at the rest of us, reminded me she’d drop by my room before Latin and excused herself with a sweet little wave and walked out of the ref imperiously, trailed by her bodyguards. The effect was slightly spoilt when one of the guards, attempting to put Indie’s tray in the tray trolley, was ticked off by Sandra and told to fetch ‘the little madam’ back to do it for herself.

Star and Georgina, their corn braids as stiff and hard as the lump forming in my throat, giggled at the poor bodyguard humiliated in front of a school of girls for being a lap dog. ‘Perhaps Cheltenham ladies let bodyguards fetch and carry?’ Star joked.

‘Imagine if they allowed that here! We’d all make our parents assign us bodyguards if that were the case!’ Georgina laughed.

Honey didn’t join in; she just stared evilly after the disappearing figure of Indie.

‘I’ll see you in the salle before French, then? Mr Wellend is expecting us.’

‘Mr Wellend?’ I repeated, confused.

‘The new fencing master?’

‘Oh yaah,’ I agreed, remembering that not even fencing was going to be the same this term.

Portia added, ‘Think of it this way: now that Star’s chucked it, he’ll have more time to focus on us, darling. We can be his star pupils.’

I smiled, knowing she was reaching out to me, but the truth was I felt like the ground beneath my feet was shifting and that it was only a matter of time before I lost Star and Georgina to Indie for good.

After breakfast, we went to chapel and then back to our rooms to make our beds and clean our teeth before room inspection. Any fantasy I had briefly clung to that Honey’s newfound enemy, Miss Bibsmore, would dilute Honey’s
horribleness evaporated as soon as the first bell went and Honey accidentally-on-purpose spilt a full glass of water on my bed, seriously drenching my mattress.

Portia was in the bathroom brushing her teeth at the time and without a witness it was pointless to dream Honey would ever apologise. All I could do was pull the covers off and hope the mattress would dry out before I had to sleep on it that night. But I wasn’t counting on any miracles.

Out of misery more than anything I turned my mobile on to check for messages, and Honey’s meanness was suddenly the furthest thing from my mind. I had two new txt messages.