A Royal Match (8 page)

‘No what?’

‘No, we didn’t spare the slightest thought for the poor little hungry children of the world who haven’t got enough food to fill their distended bellies.’

‘I thought as much,’ she said with a sigh, disappointment etched in every line of her face. ‘Your mother would be especially sorry to hear of you abusing food, when she does so much good work in her capacity as a senior fundraiser for War Child, Miss Castle Orpington.’

‘Yes, Sister.’

‘However, I can see you are all deeply ashamed about this affair now.’

‘Yes, Sister,’ we all agreed.

‘Yes, Sister what?’

‘Yes, Sister, we are deeply ashamed of ourselves,’ we recited.

‘Well then, let’s press on. What do you think your punishment should be on this occasion?’

‘We could … erm … sweep the corridor, or something nasty like that, Sister,’ Star suggested.

‘Actually, Star, that was going to be your punishment for cheeking Miss Cribbe last night. She was very upset about your suggestion that Misty may have been responsible for wetting Calypso’s bed.’

Star didn’t even struggle with herself. ‘Sister, she wees all over the place.’

‘Star!’

‘It’s true, Sister,’ Georgina piped up. ‘Mother says it’s really unhygienic.’

‘I’ve no doubt it would be if it were true, but then so is throwing food all over the canteen. No, I’m afraid sweeping the floor won’t be a suitable penance for this severe wickedness. I’ve decided to assign you a special task.’

We looked at one another and swallowed. This sounded ominous.

Sister Constance went on. ‘I want you to come up with some fund-raising ideas for the Children of the World
charity. Last year, the Lower Sixth raised six thousand pounds. We’re aiming to improve on that figure this year.’

We all weren’t quite sure what to say – or what it meant. Even though six thousand pounds wouldn’t even pay for a term’s fees at Saint Augustine’s, I knew it was a lot of money.

My parents are always going on about money. I am always reminding them that I wasn’t the one who came up with the idea of flying across the world to an exorbitantly expensive boarding school – to which they always reply that nothing in life is really free. They say they are more than happy to make sacrifices in order to give me a rounded education, and if that means driving around in a crappy car and forgoing pools and holidays, it’s a small price to pay. Parents have a very odd sense of logic.

Just the same, I realised that six thousand pounds was a drop in the ocean compared to what it would take to help all the suffering children of the world.

‘Here are some brochures to inspire you.’ She pushed across some pamphlets that depicted sad-eyed children clustered around an empty bowl. I suddenly felt miserable and pointless as I scanned their hungry faces.

‘Now, I know it’s too soon for you to be thinking about gap years, but later on this week one of Saint Augustine’s Old Girls will be visiting us and giving a talk at assembly about the wonderful inspirational opportunities that Raleigh International offers to girls like yourselves; opportunities to meet girls and boys from different backgrounds;
opportunities to give something back.’

My stomach rumbled really loudly, which was desperately embarrassing given how I’d only missed lunch and these kids were like missing their whole lives, basically.

‘That will be all, ladies,’ said Sister Constance.

‘Thank you, Sister,’ we replied.

‘Star, you will also have the duty of sweeping the Cleathorpes corridor.’

Damn, I thought, I’d forgotten to present my blue and now I’d missed my chance to transmute my lines to floor sweeping.

‘Yes, Sister,’ Star agreed, her eyes downcast – even though I knew she must be whooping it up inside because she didn’t have to do six double sides of lines.

‘I’ll come and see you shortly, to see how you’ve got on.’ (In other words, to bring you your Mars Bar.)

We backed out of her room, heads still bowed, the way we’d been taught to when we first arrived at Saint Augustine’s. Sometimes we did it to other teachers who weren’t nuns, just to wind them up.

‘This is so random,’ Honey complained, once we were out of earshot.

‘I think it could be quite fun,’ Star argued. ‘Doing something worthwhile.’

‘Worthwhile?’ said Honey. ‘Are you insane? Rattling a tin around like a beggar. You are such a plebeian, Star.’

But Star wasn’t backing down – she never does. ‘No, think about it. We could do some really cool things, like
have parties and stuff. I mean, it would be the perfect cover for all sorts of cool outings. And anyway, it would be for a good cause.’

Clementine had to agree, reluctantly. ‘She’s right. We could use it as an excuse to hire a minibus to take us to the Feather’s Ball. We could raffle places on the bus.’ So typical of Clemmie, who was the most boy-mad girl in our year. She rarely spoke unless there were boys around and even then she mostly only ogled and giggled.

‘Whatever,’ Star said dismissively. ‘Personally I think the Feather’s Ball is the lamest thing out. The bands they have … pah-lease!’

‘Didn’t stop you pulling that gross boy from Worth Abby at the Valentine’s Ball, as I remember,’ Honey riposted.

Star curled her upper lip and looked Honey up and down. ‘I’m surprised you can remember, after all the vodka you drank. As I remember, you were staggering around cutting in on everyone. In fact, hang on, I remember you cut in on me,
darling
, and pulled him yourself. But perhaps you were having one of your blackouts and don’t recall.’

Honey was about to open her mouth when I heard someone say, ‘Oh, shut up, both of you!’ Actually in the brief silence that followed I realised that the words had come out of my mouth, but no one said anything. Instead Clemmie merely continued with her line of thought, adding, ‘We could charge some random amount like double or triple?’

The discussion went on and no one seemed to notice I was there. I felt completely invisible. Being the school freak and not having parents with a madly grand house in Chelsea, I’d never been to any of the Capital VIP balls. But I knew about them. In the weeks leading up to a ball, it was all anyone spoke of. The balls are usually held at the Hammersmith Palais or some other huge venue and they are a highlight of the boarding school calendar. Although no alcohol is allowed, only the boys are frisked, giving girls like Honey a free hand to smuggle in whatever they wanted. Absolutely everyone who matters goes to at least a few, because it’s a great place to pull. There are bands and DJs, and goodie bags at the end. Even Star had been to one, although she said the tongue of the boy she kissed felt like a small fish. But I know she only said that to make me feel better.

‘Charging more is a fab idea, darling; actually we could charge different prices depending on how rich and important you are,’ Arabella threw in. ‘Although I do think the VIP balls are getting a little tired,’ she added – for once agreeing with Star. By important, Arabella meant how many hyphens you had in your name. Her full name is Arabella Basingdom-Morgan-Heigbrewer-Tomlinson-Protvost-Smith. But she just refers to herself as Arabella Smith, knowing full well that everyone knows the portentous enormity of her name.

Arabella flicked her mane of carefully highlighted blonde hair, and a strand of it stuck to my lip-gloss. I
brushed it away and started applying more lip-gloss.

Georgina said, ‘Or we could have pulling competitions!’

‘Five-quid fine if you don’t pull at least two boys at the Eades social.’

‘Make that ten for everyone who doesn’t pull a prince,’ Honey added cattily, arching one of her professionally styled eyebrows. She was always going on about her Russian eyebrow stylist, as if she were some sort of guru or something.

‘See you back at the dorms, I’m going down to check the post,’ Arabella told us before dashing down the stairs.

‘Grab mine, darling,’ everyone called back, apart from Star and me.

Obviously Star didn’t expect mail from parents who are perpetually stoned. My parents’ excuse is that they are too modern and technologically aware to send ‘snail mail,’ as they call it. They prefer to communicate with me by e-mail, which is so lame.

Honey’s mother sent her postcards of herself chatting to various celebrities, and Honey had them pinned all over her board. But you can’t pin an e-mail to your board when you are homesick, which means that everyone thinks you’re a sad loser whose parents don’t love you.

As soon as we got back to Cleathorpes, Star went off to do her sweeping punishment and the rest of us slumped on Clementine’s bed to consider the task Sister had given us.

‘I suppose it could be a blessing,’ Honey conceded eventually. ‘An excuse to slack off on work.’

‘Got any of those cool sweets from LA left, Calypso darling?’ Georgina asked.

‘Sure.’

‘I think Sister totally overreacted,’ she sighed, pulling herself up from the bed. ‘I mean, even my parents have food fights!’

I tried to imagine Sarah and Bob having a food fight, but couldn’t – they are just way too Californian, and besides, they hate waste. ‘Yeah, totally,’ I agreed.

‘You know, Tobias is growing quite fond of you, darling,’ she confided as we walked off arm in arm down the
corridor towards our dorm room to fetch the vodka and sweets.

‘Yes, well, the affection is a … erm … a mutual-ish thing. I mean, I adore bears – well, most soft toys, actually.’

I honestly don’t know how I let lame things like that escape from my mouth, but Georgina seemed to find this enormously funny and fell about laughing.

‘You’ve got mail,’ Arabella announced, in a bad impression of my accent, as she walked into our dorm room and tossed a FedEx package and a letter onto my lap.

Georgina looked up from her magazine. ‘Oh, fabbie! Is that from Jay, darling?’ she asked, jumping onto the bed beside me.

I turned the package over and read the sender’s address. It was my mom’s office on the Paramount lot. ‘Looks like it,’ I replied casually.

They both clambered onto the bed as I tore into the package. Inside was a DVD of a movie that wasn’t even out in the UK yet and a postcard of the Hollywood sign.

Wish you were here, babe!
L.O.L. Jay xxxxx

I wasn’t too impressed by the ‘babe’ bit, but still it had the required effect. Everyone went totally crazy about it and Clementine rushed off to show Antoinette, who had said she didn’t believe I had a real boyfriend.

I didn’t open the letter. Actually, I was so swamped with questions about Jay, I forgot all about it and then the study bell went and I had to run, leaving the letter abandoned on my bed.

Later that night, Georgina had a bubble bath that smelled all lovely and coconutty and we all sat on the side of the bath or on stools around the bathroom for a confab about our charity fund-raising ideas. (The bubbles were very high.) We made a list of possible fund-raising ideas. All of them included pulling boys, sweets and fags.

Honey continued to be quite prickly with me, but I decided to rise above it. Now that I was at the centre of things, with a fit boyfriend, I could afford to be magnanimous.

When we came out of the bathroom, Star had the pile of sweets she’d received from Sister Constance laid out in front of her on her bed. Unfortunately, our room still stank of wee so we sprayed everything with Febreze before piling our duvets on the floor for a vodka and sweet feast.

That was when Arabella came back from picking up her fags from her room. She picked up my letter.

‘You haven’t opened this yet, darling,’ she said, tossing it onto my lap.

So with my mouth bulging with chocolate I tore open the envelope. I had no idea who the letter was from; I couldn’t place the distinctive, flowing writing. Inside was a single sheet of heavy parchment paper with the royal seal on the bottom.

Hi Calypso,
Great to meet you yesterday. Hope to see you at the social –
without your sabre!
Freddie x

‘Who’s it from?’ Star enquired, passing me her mug for a sip of vodka. She always mixed hers with warm milk so it didn’t taste so yucky. We were allowed to keep milk and biscuits and other snacks in the small kitchen of Cleathorpes. We were even allowed to make ourselves toast, which Georgina did regularly – only not for herself, obviously (‘Think of the carbs, darling’). No, she fed the toast and marmalade to Tobias (‘He simply adores it, darling, and you know how he can’t
bear
the food they feed him in the canteen!’)

The milk was an inspired idea, though, because if Miss Cribbe burst in, Star would just show her the milk and say something really innocent like, ‘I find it really helps me sleep, Miss Cribbe.’

Miss Cribbe just loved us when we acted babyish.

I stared at the letter for some time. My mind had gone totally blank. I reread it a few times before it all sank in and then I dropped the letter onto my lap in a daze. Prince Freddie had written to me? A mere mortal?

Star grabbed the letter and read it out loud before I could stop her.