Secrets at Silver Spires (2 page)

“Well I'm not entering. No way!” said Georgie. “I can't even draw a sheep!”

Grace just shook her head. I think we all knew Grace wouldn't dream of entering. She's got so much sport going on. The summer term is even busier than the other two terms for that. Grace sometimes gets to miss prep because of tennis coaching, which is a bit worrying for me because, like I said, I'm not very good at any subject except art, and I usually count on Grace to help me when I can't spell things or don't understand something I'm supposed to have read. I know I could ask one of the others for help, but I feel a bit embarrassed about being so stupid, except with Grace because she's used to me.

Mia and Naomi both said they didn't think they'd be entering anything for the art exhibition and I wasn't really surprised. Mia has lots of extra work with her piano practice and Naomi always says she loves other people's art but doesn't think she's much good at it herself.

“Better get tidied up then,” said Mr. Cary, glancing at the clock, and I felt my usual sinking feeling that the lesson had gone so quickly.

“I'll come back after lunch, Mr. Cary. Will you be here?”

He nodded. “I'm pretty much a permanent fixture in here!”

“Oh great!” said Georgie. “Can I enter
you
in the exhibition, Mr. Cary? You could be my piece of installation art!”

Lots of people heard what she said and the whole room seemed to burst out laughing. Georgie often makes that happen. She doesn't do it on purpose – she's just naturally funny. The others kept giggling all the time we were packing away, but I was quiet, because my mind was buzzing away with ideas about what I'd do for the art exhibition. Nothing was clear in my head yet. Half of me wanted to talk to Mr. Cary about it, but the other half wanted him to have a surprise. Mr. Cary's opinion means a lot to me and I know I'm not the only one who thinks he's a really good teacher. There are other girls higher up the school who've told me his students get fantastic GCSE results. In fact one of the reasons Mum and Dad chose Silver Spires school for me was because of the art department. Well, that's not strictly true. What happened was this…

At the end of Year Five, my parents asked me if I'd like to go to boarding school after primary, and at first I said yes, I'd love to, because I'd seen one of the Harry Potter films and I thought it would be really exciting and completely different from ordinary school. But then Mum casually added that if I went to a school like Silver Spires I'd probably get on better with my lessons, so then I wasn't sure about this whole boarding thing after all, in case Mum and Dad suddenly had much higher expectations of me. I liked the thought of being able to manage my work more easily though, but I knew that couldn't just happen by magic.

All through Year Six, when I wasn't painting or drawing or making things, I worked as hard as I possibly could, spending ages up in my room typing words on my computer and spellchecking them, and reading as much as I could to try and get faster at it. School was just such a struggle for me, and my biggest dread was getting left behind.

When I told Mum and Dad I didn't really want to go to boarding school, they showed me the Silver Spires school magazine with all the brilliant art in it and Mum even read out to me what it said in the school prospectus about the wonderful art department. By the time she'd finished, I wanted to go to Silver Spires more than I'd ever wanted anything in my life.

And now I'm here I'm really happy. I love boarding school. It's great having Grace and my four other good friends with me all the time, and being able to wander round such amazing grounds and go on trips and outings to art galleries and museums, and eat the most delicious food (especially puddings), and go to the art room at lunchtimes and after school and at weekends. And the classes are smaller than they were at primary, so the teacher can keep an eye on everyone all the time. Actually that's the only trouble. You see, recently I've begun to sense an awful lot of eyes on me, and I've got the horrible feeling that the teachers are beginning to realize I've got a bigger problem with reading and writing than they might have first thought.

Just as I was getting lost in all these thoughts, the bell for the end of art rang, bringing me back to the here and now.

“English next,” said Naomi matter-of-factly as we left the art block.

For a second my spirits plummeted, but then like a yo-yo they swung back up again as Grace grinned at me.

“But not long till lunch, Jess. Then you can get back to your lovely art!”

I gave her a massive smile. She understands me so well. I couldn't wish for a better best friend.

I looked at my name at the top of the page –
Jessica Roud
– then I looked at the big clock on the wall and sighed inside. Eight o'clock. We were halfway through prep and I'd hardly done any of my English essay. It's not that I don't know what to write. My head is bursting with ideas, but I can't get them down quickly enough because I have to look up so many words in my dictionary. Nobody else looks up half the number of words I do. I glanced at Grace, beside me. She's not in my set for English, but she was scribbling away at her own essay. She must have sensed me looking, or maybe my sigh wasn't as silent as I'd thought, because she suddenly turned to me, raising her eyebrows, and mouthed, “
Are you okay?
”

“
How do you spell ‘destruction'?
” I mouthed back, after quickly checking that Miss Carol wasn't watching.

Miss Carol is our lovely housemistress. It's always either her or Miss Fosbrook, the assistant housemistress, on prep duty, or occasionally Miss Jennings, Hazeldean's matron. It took me a while to get used to calling homework “prep” and doing it in silence in a room with loads of other girls for a whole hour. After two terms boarding at Silver Spires, though, it feels totally normal.

Grace wrote the word down on a scrap of paper and slid it across the table towards me. The second letter was
e
. I would have put
i
. It's so much easier when Grace writes words down for me. They stand out nicely on the paper, not like the tiny little words in a dictionary, surrounded by loads of other words, impossible to find and very easy to lose. But I never ask her for easy words, because I feel ashamed about not knowing them and I don't want her to discover she's got a complete dumbo for a best friend.

“All right, girls.” Miss Carol smiled. “You can finally escape this stuffy room!”

“Hurray!” went up a big cheer. Part of me loves this moment when the silence is over and I can stop concentrating, but today it was only a very small part. My essay was so short and not even finished, and I felt embarrassed about Miss Carol seeing it. So I got Grace, Mia and Georgie to pass me their prep, then I tucked my own pathetic effort in-between theirs, and handed the wodge to Miss Carol.

“Let's go outside,” said Georgie. “I'm boiling hot.”

The six of us decided to walk down the little lane that runs behind Hazeldean and some of the other boarding houses.

“Pity the builders have gone home,” said Georgie, with a dreamy look in her eye. “That young one in charge of the cement mixer looks just like Josh from
The Fast Lane
!”

Mia laughed. “Georgie! How am I going to keep you under control?” she said, pretending to be shocked, but we're all used to Georgie with her crazy outspoken ways. Personally, I was a bit fed up with all the building work and restoration that was going on at Silver Spires. It was true that it would be wonderful when the ugly mobile rooms were replaced by lovely solid buildings that blended in with the rest of Silver Spires, but I wanted it to happen quickly so everything would be natural and beautiful and back to normal again.

“Look,” I said, stopping in my tracks to stare at the streaky sunset.

“It's lovely!” said Grace, tucking her arm through mine. “I like green in the sky,” she added.

Georgie grinned at me and waved her hands in front of my eyes as though she was hypnotizing me. “Are you taking it all in, Jess?” she asked in a low, slow voice, which made the others laugh.

“I expect in about fifteen minutes' time we'll see an exact copy in your sketchbook!” Mia added. “You're so clever, Jess!”

I always feel flattered when my friends say things like that, but they've no idea how wrong they are. I'm not clever at all. It's just that I can see the world so clearly through pictures, as though I'm wearing magic glasses that no one else has got.

“We'd better go back,” said Grace. “Miss Carol will be locking up soon.”

“It's good being allowed an extra ten minutes to go outside after prep, though, isn't it?” said Mia.

“You're joking!” squeaked Georgie. “That's like feeling grateful for one extra pea on your plate at lunchtime! Come on, let's go back to prison then!”

Mia looked shocked. “Georgie Henderson! How can you call the best boarding house at Silver Spires a prison? Hazeldean is lovely.
And
we've got the nicest housemistress!”

“Only joking!” grinned Georgie. “I just like winding you up, Mamma Mia!”

The two of them started walking back and Grace gave me her usual look, meaning,
I'll go ahead because I can tell you're thinking about stuff.

She was right. I watched her jogging off lightly and effortlessly and thought how much she reminded me of a gazelle. I'm very proud to have Grace as my best friend. She's the only person in Year Seven to be at Silver Spires on a sports scholarship.

Once she and the others were out of sight, I went into my own little world, wandering towards Hazeldean with my eyes on the darkening sky. I still wasn't sure exactly what I'd do or make for the art exhibition, but I knew it would be something to do with the way we all see the same things and yet we see them so differently. It was a shame I had to go inside because I wanted to keep staring up at the sky so I could capture the very second the first star came out. Maybe if I looked through the window on the stairs…

I hurried back inside Hazeldean and went up to the first floor. The window on the little landing looked out at the sunset, but didn't show enough sky for me to study the stars. It was amazing that already the sky seemed darker though. It was twenty to nine, and even though this was the beginning of the summer term, the daylight hadn't stretched itself out past our bedtime, like it would in June.

Our dorm, Amethyst, is the only one on the top floor of Hazeldean, and I love the feeling that the six of us are cosily sleeping right under the roof of this beautiful old building, with its creaky floorboards and beams and nooks and crannies. By the time I went into the dorm, the others were all getting ready for bed. I knew I should be doing the same, because it was Miss Jennings, the matron, on duty and she's very strict. It's impossible to get round her with jokes and things. Well, Georgie sometimes manages it, but not the rest of us.

As I sat on my bed with my coloured pencils and opened my sketchbook, Grace surprised me by breaking into a triumphant cheer. She's normally such a quiet person and I wondered what on earth was suddenly making her happy.

“I told you!” she said to Georgie. “But it's all right, I'll let you off the fifty pence!”

It was Katy who explained what was going on, as she came over to sit beside me. “They had a bet with each other about whether you'd go straight to your sketchbook!” She laughed.

Katy loves art as much as I do, but she's more into the fashion design side of it. That's what she wants to do when she's older. She watched as I lifted the sunset from my mind and coloured it onto the paper, covering the whole page with greens and pinks and purples and an attempt at gold. I didn't like it though. I needed paints to do it justice and in the end I ripped it out, screwed it up and threw it in the bin. “It was better in my head.”

“Oh no! You can't!” Grace wailed, looking as shocked as if I'd torn up a twenty pound note.

The others gasped, apart from Georgie.

“Artistic licence!” she said dramatically.

“I bet you don't even know what that is!” Katy shot at her, as she started to get into her jamas.

“Yes I do, it's…it's…” Then Naomi came back from the bathroom. “What's artistic licence, Naomi?”

Naomi frowned, then smiled. She's the wisest out of the six of us. And she's also an African princess. I love sketching Naomi because she's so graceful and upright and her eyes are big and deep. “Well, if an artist paints a picture of a bright red giraffe or something, just for the effect, that's artistic licence.”

“So nothing to do with screwing up your work and chucking it in the bin?” asked Mia, with a grin at Georgie.

“I think that's called artistic temperament!” said Naomi.