The Chrysalid Conspiracy Read Online Free PDF Page B

right. Anyway, Mum hates staying in the same place too long. She calls it her Gypsy Wanderlust.”
    “You’re a gypsy, then?” said Amelia, thrilled at this new revelation.
    “Yeah, sort of. Half, anyway.”
    “Good for you,” said Amelia, her mind filling with images of the romance and adventure of ‘life on the open road’.
    “Not so good, really. It’s taken me a year to get her to stay put and let me go to school to get some qualifications. Now look where it’s got me, and on my first day! She’s going to kill me.” She looked around the dank, depressing example of a bygone and much maligned age and gave a sigh of hopeless surrender.
    “I’m sorry,” said Amelia.
    “Not your fault.”
    “Yes it is,” cut in Amelia quickly. “You made me laugh, and on a day like this that’s really something. I shouldn’t have gone along with it. I just lost all sense of reason and I should have known better. It was just so refreshing to meet someone with a sense of humour that I got carried away.”
    They sat in silence for a while, watching the rain spreading across the floor towards them while they listened to the wind chasing itself around outside.
    “What’s the boss like, then?” asked Rayn. “Are we in big time trouble?”
    Amelia felt a shiver go through her, and it wasn’t just the cold. “Oh…er…well, he’s like anybody else really.”
    “But what’s he like?” Rayn persisted.
    “Don’t know,” said Amelia, too quickly. “I’ve never met him.”
    “But you must have seen him? Didn’t you get an impression of what he’s like?”
    “I…er… never took any notice, really.”
    Rayn took a deep breath. “Amelia, you’re not a very good liar. What are you trying to hide?”
    Amelia was quiet for a moment. She knew she’d been out manoeuvred and wasn’t quite sure how to respond. “Well,” she said, unable to think of anything intelligent to say. “It’s that he’s a bit, well, odd.”
    “Odd?” replied Rayn in exasperation. “Exactly what do you mean by…?” She was cut off in mid-sentence. The large, imitation-mahogany door of the Headmaster’s office opened and Miss Dempsey appeared with her nose in the air and a dark expression still on her almost pretty face. She walked quickly past the two girls without even a glance in their direction; her straight back accentuated her slim figure forcing her to take short sharp steps which echoed along the stone floor.
    The Headmaster’s secretary came out and smiled at them. She was an attractive, middle-aged woman, smartly dressed with subtle, soft make-up and prematurely greying hair. “The headmaster will see you now,” she said. Her voice was warm and pleasant.
    The room was magnificent. It could only have been a Headmaster’s office. Oak panelling on the walls hung with paintings of previous Headmasters. Glass cabinets crammed full of trophies and photos of past successes, each with their own story to tell. There were neat, tidy bookshelves filled with large ancient tomes, gold leaf titles complementing the dark red leather bindings. But most of all it was warm.
    To the left was an ornate marble fireplace, too large but somehow just right. An artificial log fire gave the impression of flame and colour. Above this was an oversize painting of a man in Cardinal’s robes. Amelia couldn’t read the inscription but it had to be ‘Our Founder’. The portrait and the fireplace looked picture perfect, like something from a luxury furnishings magazine.
    To the right there stood the great vaulted stained glass window, in much better condition than its elder brother in the corridor. In front of a long, low modern radiator beneath the window stood an oak coffee table displaying a magnificent bouquet of flowers. Amelia spotted immediately that they were professional, expensive and plastic. certainly not supplied by my mother, she thought to herself. The carpet was a typical deep luxurious red and the mahogany furnishings reflected the