Secrets at St Jude's: New Girl Read Online Free PDF Page A

benefit,
    ‘and we’re all going to be doctors. That’s the Singupta family plan.
    ‘I drank a lot of water too,’ she went on, ‘because home food is so hot after boarding-school food, and I 32
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    listened to talk and more talk about promotions at the hospital and the latest weddings.’
    ‘Instead of hanging out at the flash new riverside penthouse in Glasgow, Amy flew first class to Dubai,’
    Niffy continued, ‘and turned mahogany by the five-star pool while her dad pursued a “great new business opportunity”.’
    ‘Yeah . . . a business opportunity dressed in head-to-toe Dolce,’ came Amy’s reply. The colour and glamour of her ‘holiday’ (tagging along while her dad considered buying a nightclub in Dubai City) was still so bright in her mind that the boarding house looked particularly dingy by comparison.
    ‘And she dreamed of the gorgeous Jason Hernandez,’ Niffy went on, ‘and the day when he will finally sweep her into his arms and offer to be hers for ever.’ There was no mistaking the tease in her voice.
    ‘Oh, please, put a sock in it!’ was Amy’s response.
    ‘And what about you?’ Min asked. ‘No, no, don’t tell me: you spent three weeks at Blacklough Hall in the rain . . .’
    Min thought with a slight shudder of the one and only visit she’d made with Amy to Niffy’s ‘ancestral’
    home. Blacklough had once been a splendid country mansion set in vast grounds, but now it was shabby 33
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    and decaying; a place with terrifyingly big dogs, freezing bedrooms and threadbare carpets and curtains. Everyone had stayed huddled in the kitchen for the entire weekend, only venturing out once in a while to get soaking wet on a walk.
    ‘You should come and stay with me in Durban –
    we’d have a great time,’ Min had offered Niffy in sympathy as soon as the trip to Blacklough was over.
    ‘Or me in Glasgow!’ Amy had volunteered. ‘You’d have your own bathroom – with underfloor heating and a Jacuzzi.’
    ‘Were you riding Ginger?’ Min asked now, ‘or listening to your mum and dad’s rows, or smoking behind the stables with your big brother?’
    ‘All of the above,’ Niffy admitted, thinking of the latest round of parental arguing. Glasses and vases had been thrown; furious threats of divorce had rung round the cold and crumbly corridors of the Hall.
    ‘I’m so glad to be back at school. If only Ginger could be stabled nearby, then I could totally love it here,’ Niffy admitted.
    Amy’s groan at this was interrupted by the loudest, most awful wailing alarm Gina had ever heard. Fire alarm? Air raid? She cowered with her fingers in her ears.
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    ‘Supper!’ the other three girls explained.
    ‘And I love school food,’ Niffy added, springing up with enthusiasm.
    Much later that night, Gina lay in her narrow bed, sleepless despite her jetlag, and listened to the breathing sounds of the other girls in the dorm. She had no recollection of ever having shared a room before – well, apart from sleepovers, when no one ever slept. Min gave a cough and turned over, causing her bed to creak.
    ‘You asleep yet?’ Niffy whispered. Gina didn’t reply, sure that it wasn’t aimed at her.
    But then, still in a whisper, Niffy added, ‘Gina?’
    ‘Yeah?’ Gina kept her voice low.
    ‘Goodnight. Don’t worry – it takes us a week or two to settle in again, and Amy and I have been here since we were ten. You’ll take a while to get used to everything, but you’ll get there.’
    Ten?! Gina stared up at the shadowy, unfamiliar ceiling, wondering if she would ever get used to anything. There had been the supper, eaten at long tables in the dining room. Surrounded by the chatter of the ninety teenage girls who boarded at this school of 450
    girls, Gina had picked at a plate of something she could only describe