Lorraine Wilson - Rebellion of a Chalet Girl:

LORRAINE WILSON

A division of HarperCollins Publishers

www.harpercollins.co.uk

Harper Impulse an imprint of

HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by Harper Impulse 2015

Copyright © Lorraine Wilson 2015

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2015

Cover design by Zoe Jackson

Lorraine Wilson asserts the moral right

to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue record for this book is

available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are

the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to

actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is

entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International

and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.

By payment of the required fees, you have been granted

the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access

and read the text of this e-book on screen.

No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted,

downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or

stored in or introduced into any information storage and

retrieval system, in any form or by any means,

whether electronic or mechanical, now known or

hereinafter invented, without the express

written permission of HarperCollins.

Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress.

Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780007558353

Version 2015-03-06

In memory of Celia Cady, 'mother' and lifeline to many.

Also special thanks to both the lovely team at Harper Impulse and to Catherine and Dawn for everything.

Contents

Cover

Title Page Rebellion of a Chalet Girl LORRAINE WILSON A division of HarperCollins Publishers www.harpercollins.co.uk

Copyright Harper Impulse an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First published in Great Britain by Harper Impulse 2015 Copyright © Lorraine Wilson 2015 Cover images © Shutterstock.com Cover layout design © HarperColl‌insPublishers Ltd 2015 Cover design by Zoe Jackson Lorraine Wilson asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Digital eFirst: Automatically produced by Atomik ePublisher from Easypress. Ebook Edition © March 2015 ISBN: 9780007558353 Version 2015-03-06

Dedication In memory of Celia Cady, 'mother' and lifeline to many. Also special thanks to both the lovely team at Harper Impulse and to Catherine and Dawn for everything.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Also by Lorraine Wilson…

Lorraine Wilson

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

Okay, Tash got it. There were some very important people coming to stay at Chalet Repos.

Blah-de-blah.

Did they really need yet another 'briefing' from Holly? And since when had she taken to scheduling briefings into the day anyway? You cleaned, you cooked and you were always polite to the guests. Even when they really, really hacked you off and you were hung-over. There wasn't much more to it, surely?

Tash could do this job in her sleep. Sometimes it felt like she almost did.

She nestled back into the comfy brown leather sofa and yawned. It'd been a late one last night and even once she'd got to bed she hadn't slept much. But then she caught Holly's gimlet eye and shrugged sheepishly in reply.

"So, you all get how important this is, right?" Holly asked, perched on the edge of an armchair covered with a faux fur throw, one hand resting lightly on her barely visible bump.

Everything's changing around here. Holly's pregnant, Sophie's moved out and engaged. And now we're having 'briefings.' Not to mention the rumours about the other changes that might be coming.

A wave of panic swelled in her chest, threatening to submerge her. Why couldn't things stay the same?

Tash's gaze fell on Rebecca, Sophie's replacement. Rebecca's high blonde ponytail bobbed up and down as she nodded earnestly at Holly, bright lipsticked smile in place. Amelia and Lucy also appeared bright-eyed, if not quite so bushy-tailed. Tash glanced back at Rebecca's hair. You didn't get hair that sleek and bouncy using supermarket’s own-brand shampoo and dying it yourself over the bathroom sink.

Tash examined one of her own split ends with a sigh. She didn't give a flying snow fairy what anyone thought about the home-dyed pink stripes on her mousy hair but it might be nice to get her hair done properly one day. If she could ever afford it.

"Tash?" Holly asked, eyebrows raised, a mixture of impatience and concern in her eyes.

"Um, no, not so much…" Tash admitted. "Aren't all our clients important? And I think we're pretty nice to them already. Just how extra nice do you want us to be exactly?"

She smirked and Amelia and Lucy sniggered. Only Rebecca remained straight-faced, hands folded primly on her lap.

Maybe the rich pay to have their sense of humour surgically removed too?

Holly rolled her eyes. "Not that nice obviously. Weren't you listening to anything Tash?"

Maybe she should plead this morning's hangover in her defence? On balance, probably not. Now Holly was pregnant and not drinking, her sympathy quota for hangover symptoms had been drastically reduced.

"I'm sorry, I got a bit distracted." Tash met Holly's stare. "I'm listening now."

They both knew she'd been tuning out a lot lately. Not to mention getting drunk as often as she could afford to. Mind you that was kind of tuning out on a bigger scale if you thought about it, something she tried very hard not to do. It wasn't illegal and was a hell of a lot safer than some of her other coping mechanisms.

Anyway this job was a doddle.

Until Holly had decided to rewrite the job description, that was.

"Hmm, I'll be testing you at the end." Holly raised her eyebrows a fraction.

Is she going to ask me to stay behind at the end? Put me in detention?

Tash suppressed a sigh; that thought wasn't fair. She owed so much to Scott and Holly. They'd been good to her. More than good, they were almost like family. As one of the longest standing chalet girls at Chalet Repos and the only one who got to stay all year round, Tash already got a lot of slack.

She'd never actually told Holly all the gory details about her past and growing up in care but Holly seemed to know she'd had a lot of serious crap to deal with. In her bleaker moments, Tash glimpsed an empathy in Holly's expression, a recognition and understanding of pain. Sometimes the weight of all the unspoken memories threatened to cave in on Tash but still she couldn't, wouldn't verbalise them. Where on earth would she start?