Lowewood Academy

The bonfire at the centre of the clearing was as tall as a man and as bright as a blowtorch, but the dense woods around the school concealed it completely. Old Fingerham was the only person likely to discover us here, but Rufus and his gang didn’t look a bit worried about this. They must have paid him off to look the other way. For all I knew, they might have paid him to build the fire in the first place.

Even if you didn’t know which of the guys were among Rufus’s retinue, you could immediately tell them by their dress. Wear your athletics kit, my instructions had said, and so, apparently, had the notes in eleven other people’s pigeonholes. Despite the fire, we shivered in our white running shorts and t-shirts. Rufus’s people, on the other hand, looked comfortable in their coats and gloves.

I tried not to stare; tried not to be too blatant in guessing what piece of blackmail Rufus held over the heads of the other guys. With Adam Blackburn, I was guessing his sexuality was involved. But what dark secrets could they possibly hold over the head of Patrick Hobsbawm, the geek supreme? Or Oliver Priestley? Or my own best friend Alex, who had refused to meet my eyes ever since we both began to change into our running gear at eleven at night?

Rufus spoke. “If I may have your attention, gentlemen?”

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“Come along Jessica, you can do better than that”

The voice was sibilant, the tone deadly and the tawse gleamed, catching the light in a threatening manner. I managed, by huge effort of will, to increase my pace just slightly. For now, it seemed to satisfy the man in black and he moved over to the window of the gym and gazed out over the bare branches of the trees surrounding the playing fields. But he’d be back. And I wasn’t sure how much longer I could carry on without flagging.

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At Lowewood, healthy competition was considered perfectly normal. Some might call it dog eat dog. Anyway, by the end of a tenure at Lowewood, the average female was as ruthless as Margaret Thatcher and had the mad power of a pitbull terrier, crossed with the raw cunning of a Medici woman. You had to be, if you didn’t want to get eaten alive. Over the years, I’d developed an outer shell of toughness that was pretty hard to crack. But I lacked what might be called a killer instinct. Especially when it came to games. And that was exactly where Reverend Jenkins came in.

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I’ve decided that whenever Ned gives me post in the morning, if he’s first past the pigeonholes, it’s never good news. This was what he threw at my head the other day. And it went in the Marmite before I could catch it!

Mr Archibald Shaftebotham requests the pleasure of the company of Miss Lydia Seymour for dinner on Tuesday next at Headmaster’s House, Lowewood Academy.

RSVP to Miss B. Bellend.

“What the fuck…..” I’d said, giving it to Claudia.

She scraped the marmite off it with her fingernail, then peered at it. Her eyes went round.

“Christ, I think you’re the first one of our lot to get one! Oooo! They always start in January!”

“A dinner invitation from the boss?”

“Yes! It’s etiquette you see – all the sixth formers get invited to dinner with Mr Shaftebotham at least once a year at his house – so you can practise light social conversation and not drinking to much or going yuk at asparagus.”

“Please tell me you are joking!”

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