Jean Ure - Secrets and Dreams

Obediently I said, “ Hey .”

“There,” said Rachel. “Now you know as much as I do! Except for tack . That means ‘thank you’.”

She picked up a pair of my socks that had rolled on to the floor.

Solemnly I said, “ Tack .” Little had I thought I would be in the dorm having a Swedish lesson the minute I arrived. Maybe chicken pox would prove to be a blessing in disguise? I’d made a friend already!

“Shall we stick together?” said Rachel. She sat, cross-legged, on her bed.

“Yes, let’s,” I said. “I’ve never been to boarding school before, have you?”

Rachel said, “No, but I know what to expect … I’ve read the books!”

“What, the leaflets?” I said. “The stuff they send you?”

“No!” She gave a great swoop of laughter. “The boarding-school books.”

“Oh! You mean, like …”

“ The Naughtiest Girl in the School , Claudine at St Clare’s —”

This time, I was the one that giggled. “Snap again!” I said. “Me too! Only I don’t think it’s quite the same these days.”

“That’s what my auntie says. She says they’re like really old-fashioned? But it’s still going to be fun! I’m really looking forward to it. Midnight feasts and climbing out of the dorm at night … That’s why I was looking out of the window! To see if there’s an apple tree.”

In spite of myself, I said, “Is there?”

“No, worse luck, but you can always make a ladder by tying pairs of tights together.”

“Tight ropes!” I said. Quite clever, I thought. I waited for Rachel to giggle, but she just nodded, very earnestly.

“It’s what they did in one book. Or of course you can climb down a drainpipe if you’re brave enough.”

“Or a fire escape,” I said. “Or even a real rope, if you happen to have one.”

I was being funny – sort of – but Rachel appeared to be taking it quite seriously. She agreed that a real rope would be best.

“Like a clothes line, or something.”

I gazed at her, doubtfully. Did she really think we were going to have midnight feasts and go swarming out of the window on the ends of clothes lines?

I started to set out my photographs on top of my bedside table. I had one of Mum and Dad; one of Mum, Dad and Nat; and one of Nat with Lottie.

“Oh, cute!” squealed Rachel.

“I hope you mean Lottie and not Nat,” I said.

“Which one’s Lottie?”

“She’s the dog. Nat’s my sister.”

“The one that gave you chicken pox?”

I said, “Yes. She breathed on me.”

“Yeeurgh!” Rachel gave an exaggerated shudder. “That’s gross!”

“She is gross.” I glanced across at Rachel’s cabinet. “Don’t you have any photos?” I said.

Rachel put a finger to her mouth, like I’d caught her out in some sort of crime. “I didn’t think.”

“You ought to have some of your family. Your mum and dad.”

“I haven’t got a mum,” said Rachel. “She died.”

Omigod! It was one of those moments. I didn’t know where to put myself.

“It’s all right,” said Rachel. “I never actually knew her.”

She pushed her hair behind her ears. It was bright silver, very fine and wispy. Mine is like a doormat. One of those fierce brown bristly ones.

“It was in childbirth, you see.”

I am not very often at a loss for words, but I honestly couldn’t think what to say. I just gulped and went, “Oh.” I wondered, if she didn’t have a mum, who Rachel lived with. Whether it was her dad, or her auntie that she’d mentioned. I didn’t like to ask, though, in case it seemed like prying. You can’t be too nosy when you’ve only just met someone.

From somewhere in the building we heard the sound of doors opening and closing, followed by girls’ voices and footsteps along the corridor.

“That’ll be the others come back,” I said.

We shot these glances at each other. Not exactly nervous, but maybe just a tiny bit apprehensive. We were the new girls! What were they going to make of us?

“We will be best friends,” said Rachel, “won’t we?”

I wasn’t sure you could become best friends just like that, but I said yes all the same. Rachel gave me this big happy smile, showing all her teeth, and I smiled back. She was a bit odd, but I did like her.

The door suddenly flew open – no knocking, this time – and four girls came bursting in. They stopped at the sight of me and Rachel. One girl said, “Oops! Sorry. Didn’t know you’d arrived. You must be Zoe and Rachel?”

Rachel giggled. I was beginning to think it must be some kind of nervous affliction, the way she kept doing it. The girl introduced herself as Fawn Grainger. She was obviously posh, like the way she spoke and everything, but she didn’t seem stuck-up. She seemed quite friendly. She introduced the others as Dodie Wang, Tabitha Rose and Chantelle Adebayo. They seemed quite friendly too. Such a relief! I might have guessed Nat didn’t know what she was talking about.

Fawn said, “Tab’s sleeping up your end. We banished her, cos she snores. I know it’s not fair, but we had to put up with her all last term.”

Rachel giggled. Again. She said, “That’s all right, my gran snores. She snores so much she makes the walls shake.”

“This one buzzes,” said Fawn. “It’s like sleeping next to a giant bee.”

After I’d finished unpacking, and everyone had looked at my photos and cooed over Lottie, we went down to tea, which was served in the refectory, in the main building next door. Us Daisies sat at our own table.

“Those are the Buttercups,” said Fawn. “Over there. I’ll introduce you afterwards.”

Fawn was the class representative on the school council. She was obviously a natural leader, though she didn’t strike me as being particularly bossy. She was just one of those people that everybody is happy to follow. Partly, I thought, it was the way she looked. She was more than just ordinarily pretty. She had a very delicate, heart-shaped face (I have always wished I could have a heart-shaped face; mine is more kind of square) and these great violet eyes with long sweeping lashes. Absolutely stunning!

The other three, I was glad to note, were more like normal ordinary human beings. Tabitha was quite plump and pillowy. I thought she looked like a comfortable sort of person. I reckoned she must be good-natured, cos she hadn’t seemed to mind when Fawn had said about her snoring. Dodie was a tiny little spidery thing with a sweet little blob of a nose – something else I’d always wished for! Chantelle could almost have been a model, being very tall and slim, except her face was a bit too round. Models always look as if they’re half starved.

For tea there were big plates of bread and butter – masses of it! – and various pots of jam. Rachel picked up one of the pots and waved it at me.

“Look,” she said. “ Jordgubbe! ”

“Oh,” I cried, “ jordgubbe jam!”

We both giggled at that.

“‘Yord’ what ?” said Tabitha.

“ Gubbe ,” I said. “It’s Swedish for strawberry.”

“And toalettpapper ,” added Rachel, “is toilet paper.”

I did think that perhaps that was a bit more information than we needed, at least at the tea table, but Rachel was beaming and seemed pleased with herself.

“What are your nicknames?” she said.

“Nicknames?”

They all looked blank. Rachel shrieked. “You’ve got to have nicknames!”

“Why?” said Dodie.

“Cos it’s what people have!”

I couldn’t imagine where Rachel had got that idea from. I didn’t specially remember anyone having nicknames in Gran’s Enid Blyton books.