The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School Read Online Free PDF Page A

veritable
ornament
, oh…’
    Frecks cuffed the chit about the head. She squeaked like a pig.
    ‘Out of the way, scum, or be mistaken for a carpet and
walked over…
’
    The theatrically inclined First was between the Dorm Three girls and the stairs. The little tragedienne’s clique had laughed at her turn but now just laughed at her. In the show business, applause was fleeting.
    Frecks and Kali picked Bernhardt
fille
up and slung her to one side. She spat ‘I’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you’ and scurried away.
    ‘That exit line was from
Twelfth Night
,’ said Amy. ‘She’s a Viola?’
    ‘You heard the blubbing,’ said Frecks. ‘Of course she’s Viola.’
    ‘It’s not Viola’s line, though,’ said Amy. ‘It’s Malvolio’s.’
    Kali gave the departed thespian’s audience the evil eye.
    ‘Any a’ you mugs got complaints?’ she asked.
    The down-table girls looked duly intimidated. Kali made neck-breaking gestures. They fled.
    ‘This is gonna get monotonous,’ said Kali.
    Amy was not reassured.
    ‘It’ll blow over when School finds something else to play with,’ said Frecks. ‘These things pass, like the wind…’
    ‘Wind does damage, sister…’
    ‘’Tis true, ’tis true.’
    The Dorm Three girls trooped upstairs.
    At their landing, Light Fingers made a sign, and they halted.
    ‘Uh oh,’ she said. ‘We’re Belgium?’
    ‘Belgium?’ asked Amy, puzzled.
    ‘Invaded and occupied, Thomsett,’ said Frecks. ‘Likely to be outraged by the Hun. Best get it over with.’
    Their cell was already crowded. Amy’s trunk took up most of the limited floor-space. It was open, disclosing the rumple of her possessions.
    A womanly Sixth sat in Light Fingers’ rocking chair, which was much too small for her. She hummed dreamily to herself, as if thinking only modest, chaste,
improving
thoughts. Her complexion was healthy cream, brushed lightly with rose-petal red on her cheeks. She had merry cornflower-blue eyes and rippling golden hair. She looked the sort of angel you’d never sully by placing her up on a Christmas tree. Her grey blazer had gold piping. Above her school badge was picked out, in gothic script,
Head Girl
.
    ‘Gryce,’ acknowledged Frecks.
    ‘Shut your hole, Walmergrave,’ said a bony, dark girl whose sallow face was half-masked by a wing of black hair. ‘This isn’t your bailiwick.’
    She stood behind the rocking chair, arranged side-on as if to present a thinner target. She had been poking through Amy’s Book of Moths with a long-nailed finger.
    Frecks held back, along with Kali and Light Fingers.
    Two other Sixths were in the cell, taking up room: a big-shouldered, tubby girl with a face like one large pimple and rope-braids hanging to her waist; and a fey, huge-eyed sprite with a white streak in her enormous cloud of brown hair. They all had gold piping.
    These were the Murdering Heathens.
    ‘Amy,
entrez votre
cell and
asseyez-tu
on
votre
cot,’ said Gryce, sweetly. ‘I fervently hope we shall be
les amies eternels
.’
    Frecks gave Amy a gentle prod between the shoulder blades, and she crossed the threshold. She had to bend and twist to make her way without touching the Sixths or tripping over her trunk. She sat on her cot, knees together, hands in her lap. She tried to ignore the hammering of her heart and the lightness of her spine. This was no time for floating. She
thought
herself heavy. Her cot-springs creaked.
    ‘I am Sidonie Gryce,’ she said, looking Amy directly in the eyes. ‘I am Head Girl. I embody School Spirit. ’Tis my duty to make
filles nouvelles
welcome. If Discipline is necessary, it is my sacred trust to apply the gentle hand of guidance…’
    The dark girl snickered. She had fingernails like painted knives. Her uncovered eye was blue with a dash of red.
    ‘If Encouragement is needed, I shall be at your back, urging you to do your
plus que belle
for School. If Praise is merited, it shall not be withheld. That is the Code of Drearcliff