Drama Girl Read online

  ‘Look at the stair rail!’ Maddison exclaimed, with her hand on the ornate wooden banister. ‘It’s sooooo old.’ Snap. She took another picture.

  ‘Is it always so dark up here?’ Paula wanted to know as they took the staircase up and up to the second-floor bedrooms; the little ones tucked up in the attic of the cavernous Victorian house.

  ‘Yeah, compared to back home, everything seems much darker and greyer,’ Gina had to admit. ‘But you get used to it. When the weather’s bad, dark rooms feel cosy, I guess.’

  ‘Cosy?’ Maddison asked – she didn’t think she’d heard the word before.

  ‘Warm,’ Gina explained. ‘Nesty.’

  ‘So who do you share a room with?’ Lorelei asked, needing a reminder.

  ‘OK,’ Gina said, a little exasperated. ‘Once again . . . try and take it in this time, Mom.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Lorelei said, ‘but I’m busy. I have to remember a lot of stuff.’

  But that just made it worse; that made it sound like: I have to remember so many other things, I can’t be expected to remember the names of your closest friends in Scotland.

  ‘There’s Amy,’ Gina began. ‘She’s really friendly and pretty, and she’s from Glasgow in Scotland. She lives there with her dad – when she’s not here, obviously.’

  ‘So no mom at home?’ Lorelei asked.

  ‘No,’ Gina said, and left it there. It was too soon to go into the story of how Amy’s parents were teenagers when she arrived, and how her dad and her grandparents brought her up . . . Then there was the interesting fact that Amy’s dad now had a boyfriend.

  ‘Then there’s Min,’ Gina went on. ‘She’s Asian, she has this big family – four little brothers and sisters – and they all live in this huge house, close to the beach in Durban.’

  ‘Where’s that?’ Maddison asked.

  ‘South Africa.’

  ‘An Asian girl from South Africa? That’s complicated,’ Paula added.

  Gina smiled. ‘Get used to it! There are people from all over the world here. Take me: I’m from California, but my mum’s half Scottish and half German; I have a stepdad and a half-brother – that’s complicated too!’

  ‘Suppose,’ Paula had to admit.

  ‘Min’s really, really nice,’ Gina continued, ‘and she’s sooo clever. Her parents are both doctors and they want her to be a doctor too.’

  Again, it seemed too soon to tell them that Min always fainted at the sight of blood and was planning on going into medical research instead.

  ‘Then there’s Niffy,’ Maddison chipped in as they took the final, narrow flight of stairs. ‘I always remember her name.’

  Gina told them the joke: ‘She’s called Niffy because her real name’s Luella and she thinks it stinks. She’s great. She’s not been here this term – she stayed at home because her mom isn’t well. Amy’s going to visit with her for half-term, and then I think Niffy’s coming back to school because her mom’s getting better.’

  By now, Gina’s hand was on the doorknob of her dorm. She looked at the faces of the three people who’d travelled all this way to see her, her new school and her new friends. It was kind of exciting to get these two groups of people together.

  Pushing open the door, she announced: ‘Ta-dah.’

  ‘Hi!’

  ‘Come on in . . .’

  ‘Welcome to the Iris dorm,’ the voices inside the room chorused.

  The Californians squeezed themselves through into the cramped room.

  Three beds, three chests of drawers and a wardrobe had been shoe-horned into the room, leaving hardly any floor space for anything else. If Niffy was coming back after half-term, a bunk bed would have to be installed.

  Maddison’s camera flashed several times, making the dorm girls blink with surprise.

  ‘Whoa!’ Amy said, and held her hand up in front of her face. She hated having her photo taken – well, unless she’d spent hours arranging her hair and make-up beforehand.

  Hurried, last-minute packing was in progress: Amy’s suitcase was wide open on her bed as she tried to decide which of her many wonderful outfits should come with her to Niffy’s threadbare ancestral home, Blacklough Hall.

  Lorelei, Maddison and Ria shook hands with everyone and said friendly hellos.

  ‘What lovely clothes!’ Paula exclaimed as she cast a practised eye over the expensive jeans, cute tops and label-laden little skirts Amy had spread out over her bed.

  ‘Thanks!’ Amy replied. ‘Gina says there are some great shops in California. I must come and visit some time.’

  ‘Definitely!’ Gina said, thrilled at the idea.

  Lorelei was shaking Niffy’s hand. She wouldn’t be shaking it quite so hard, or smiling in quite such a friendly way, thought Gina, if she knew that this was the girl who’d helped Gina break into the school records office last term to find out all about her mother’s time at St Jude’s.

  ‘Hi, Ms Winkelmann, it’s so nice to finally meet you,’ Amy gushed. ‘I’m sorry about the mess in here. It’s just, I’m going to Niffy’s place – the coldest house in the known universe – so I have to take a lot of clothes.’

  ‘Not that that’s going to keep you very warm,’ Niffy pointed out, picking up a vibrant pink mini-dress and holding it against her tall, long-limbed frame.

  ‘It’s a layer,’ Amy insisted. ‘Aren’t you supposed to wear lots of layers in sub-zero temperatures?’

  ‘It’s not that bad at Blacklough!’ Niffy protested.

  Amy looked up, caught Gina’s eye and gave a little laugh. ‘Yes it is! It is pure, dead frrrrreezing!’ she insisted, rolling her rs for effect. ‘Back me up here – Gina? Min?’

  ‘It is quite cold, yes, I would have to agree, but maybe because we’re not used to it. We’re not outdoorsy types like you, Niffy,’ Min said diplomatically, brushing through her waist-length hair and preparing to tie it in a plait for her auntie’s approval.

  ‘I have loads and loads of jumpers at home, plus jackets and coats, so you don’t need to worry,’ Niffy said, earning herself a roll of Amy’s eyes.

  Amy was a strictly designer-label girl. She was only fifteen but she already had account cards for all the smartest shops in both Edinburgh and her home town, Glasgow. Her jeans, her tops, her jackets, her dresses, her shoes, her handbags – in fact just about every single item she owned, apart from her school uniform – had an impressive, expensive label attached. The idea of allowing one of Niffy’s great hairy, smelly, horsy jumpers or vile, damp wax jackets to even come in contact with her was just . . . Ugh! Enough to make her shudder.

  ‘What are your plans for half term?’ Min asked, politely turning to the visitors.

  ‘Well, we’re going to stay in Edinburgh for a couple of days,’ Lorelei replied. ‘Do some sightseeing and some shopping. Then we’re going to make a trip to one of the little islands off the West Coast.’

  ‘Very nice,’ Amy said. ‘So, you must be Maddison?’ she asked, looking at Paula.

  ‘No!’ Paula seemed slightly taken aback. ‘I’m Paula, this is Maddison. People don’t usually confuse us – it’s not like we look the same. I mean, she’s blonde and I’m black!’

  ‘Sorry,’ Amy said. ‘And you were both at school with Gina back in the States?’

  ‘Yeah, Gina and I have known each other since kindergarten. Hasn’t she told you all about us?’ Paula asked, sounding hurt. ‘Because there’s nothing about Gina that we can’t tell you. We just heard all about your Halloween party and Dermot sneaking in under the name of Oliver Hughes – your housemistress wasn’t too pleased to find out about that.’

  ‘I think Halloween’s a bigger deal in the States though,’ Maddison chipped in. ‘We were so sorry to miss our school’s party this year. Everyone dresses up—’

  ‘Everyone dressed up for our party,’ Amy pointed out.

  ‘Yeah, but we have these amazing carved pumpkins all the way up the road to the school—’

  ‘We had pumpkin lanterns on the boarding-house s
teps—’ Niffy countered.

  ‘And we have all this Halloween candy – mountains of it – and people make pumpkin pie and it’s a really big deal.’ Maddison was determined to make her point.

  ‘Bet you didn’t have liquorice treats shaped like real beetles,’ Niffy added.

  ‘Oh, they were invented in the States years ago,’ came the breezy reply.

  ‘I thought three of your friends were coming over?’ Niffy said to Gina.

  ‘Ria couldn’t come,’ Paula answered. ‘Her sister is sick. An ED – it’s serious, so Ria doesn’t want to leave her family right now. Didn’t Gina tell you?’

  Although Niffy, Amy and Min would have liked to ask what an ED was, the pleased look on Paula’s face, the happy ‘I-know-something-you-don’t-know’ expression put them off.

  It also inspired Amy to enquire, ‘Have you heard about the play Gina’s written? It’s going to be performed at school later this term.’

  ‘No,’ Lorelei replied. ‘Gina, how fantastic! You should have told us—’

  ‘I thought I had – I know I meant to,’ Gina added quickly. She didn’t want anyone to feel left out or hurt.

  ‘We’ve known all about the play for weeks,’ Amy said. Then, sneakily, she added, ‘It’s called Seeing Scarlett, and it’s based on something that happened to Gina.’

  ‘Really?’ Lorelei wasn’t the only one who looked surprised to have heard nothing about this.

  But Paula quickly countered, ‘Of course, we know that Gina’s a really good writer. We’ve known her for sooooo long – we learned to read and write together. We’ve been at swim camp together every summer since we were—’

  ‘Ten,’ Maddison was quick to point out.

  ‘That’s nice,’ Amy said coolly. ‘But I feel I’ve got to know Gina really well too, and because we’re together all day and every weekend—’

  ‘We have a great time together,’ Niffy chipped in. ‘I suppose that’s why you decided to stay on, Gina. You were only supposed to come to St Jude’s for a term, weren’t you?’

  There was an awkward silence before Lorelei replied, ‘I was very pleased with how well Gina was getting on at school here – but, yes, Gina’s the one who wanted to come back.’

  ‘There are so many things I miss about California though, especially you guys,’ Gina quickly told Maddison and Paula. ‘It’s so amazing you’ve come over!’

  She hoped this would ease the growing sense of tension in the room. Why were her friends all trying to prove they knew her the best?

  ‘Gina, are you going to let your mum and your friends meet Dermot?’ Amy underlined that she was Gina’s really good friend, who knew all about Dermot.

  ‘Oh, I hope so.’ Paula turned to Gina with a smile. ‘We’ve heard so much about Dermot – haven’t we, Maddison?’

  ‘Well . . . we’ll see,’ Lorelei answered. She caught Gina’s eye and gave her a slightly disapproving look.

  ‘Dermot’s lovely,’ Niffy told them.

  ‘We have to meet him,’ Maddison pleaded. ‘C’mon, Ms Winkelmann. We’ve got to get to know Gina’s guy!’

  ‘I’m not sure if we’re going to have time for that. I have a pretty big schedule planned,’ Lorelei replied. ‘Are you all packed up to come to the hotel with us, Gina?’

  ‘That would be such a shame,’ Amy couldn’t resist adding. ‘You won’t get to know him as well as we do.’

  ‘We have to!’ Maddison insisted.

  Gina felt as if she was being pushed and pulled from one side of the room to the other: the Californians on one side, the Iris dorm girls on the other. She was in a tug of war between them.

  Stop it! she wanted to shout out. She liked all these girls. No, she loved them. They had to stop this point-scoring about who knew her best.

  ‘Ms W,’ Paula began firmly, ‘if you don’t let us meet Dermot, we’re not setting foot on the boat that’s going to take us out to your cute little island.’

  Chapter Three

  ONCE GINA WAS in the taxi, she found she was able to focus much better on her mother and the two friends who’d all made such a long journey to see her.

  As the grey stone terraces of Georgian Edinburgh whizzed by, she was no longer worrying about whether Niffy’s mum was going to be OK, or if Amy was going to be warm enough at Blacklough Hall, or if Min was going to survive an entire half term at her auntie’s in Leicester – the most boring family I’ve ever met, trust me.

  No, now she found herself slipping back into Californian Gina. Her accent seemed to grow stronger and more twangy with every word, and suddenly she wanted to know all about what was going on back home.

  How was her brother, Menzie? How was Mick, her stepdad? What was all the latest news from her old school?

  ‘You will never guess who Ria is seeing now . . .’ Maddison was telling her, and Gina found herself dying to know.

  ‘Lewis Bayer! Do you remember him?’ Maddison revealed.

  ‘Of course! Of course I remember him. No way!’ Gina replied. ‘And what’s her sister got? What’s an ED?’ she asked.

  ‘An eating disorder,’ Paula told her. ‘Megan’s really underweight and really sick. They won’t let her out of the hospital until she weighs more.’

  ‘Oh my goodness! How awful.’ Gina resolved to call Ria just as soon as she could.

  Lorelei wasn’t saying anything, but she was listening, which struck Gina as unusual. Normally her mom could always find something else to be doing. She hated to sit still, to ‘waste time’. Sitting down just to talk wasn’t something she did often.

  But here she was with her head turned towards them, listening. Her brand-new BlackBerry phone – so she could keep in touch with everything going on back at the office – was in her handbag, not in her hands.

  Ah . . . but of course! Gina realized. It was still the small hours of the morning in California, so even Lorelei probably didn’t have any mail in her inbox just yet.

  ‘I suppose you’d better give Dermot a call then,’ Lorelei said all of a sudden, making Gina start.

  ‘Wha . . .?’ she began.

  ‘Yeah.’ Lorelei smiled encouragingly. ‘Not just because of Paula’s threats. If he’s important to you, then I’d like to meet him.’

  Paula and Maddison began to whoop and whistle their encouragement.

  ‘Well, I guess . . . I mean . . . I can try . . . ’ Gina offered shyly. ‘Not here,’ she added quickly. ‘Not in front of you guys!’

  ‘Here’s our hotel,’ Lorelei said, glancing out of the window just as the taxi swooped into the entrance driveway.

  Before she’d even stepped out of the cab, Gina could see that it was a gorgeous hotel – but then she had expected nothing less. Her mother and stepfather worked very hard running their own software company. As a result of their efforts they were unmistakably rich. Home in California was a wonderful modern mansion with huge plate-glass windows, marble floors, a full-sized pool and staff. Obviously Lorelei wasn’t going to slum it when she went on holiday. In fact, she liked to live even more luxuriously whenever they went away. So Gina knew this big, imposing building was going to be a full-on five-star residence with all the trimmings.

  Through the glittering entrance hall they went, and into a shiny lift where a doorman in top hat and tails pressed the button for them.

  On the first floor, at the end of a plushly carpeted corridor, they found their rooms.

  ‘Wow!’ Gina gasped, as she opened the door. It wasn’t just the chandeliers or the three generous beds draped with velvet and satin; it was the stunning view out over the rooftops of Edinburgh.

  She loved the shiny slate roofs, the crooked chimney pots and higgledy-piggledy rows of houses stretching all the way out to the imposing set of hills which framed the city in the distance. She loved the fact that people had been standing in rooms like this looking out at this view for hundreds of years. Sure, there had been a few changes here and there, but this town was so old, it humbled you.

  ‘The girls’ dorm,
’ Lorelei explained. ‘Is that going to be OK?’

  ‘Yeah!’ all three friends agreed.

  ‘I’ll be next door,’ she told them. ‘There might be some work I’ll need to catch up with late at night. I have a new personal assistant and I don’t know if she’s shaping up as well as I’d hoped.’

  ‘Thanks, Mom,’ Gina said. She’d thought maybe she’d be sharing with her mother, but she was pleased Lorelei had understood that this arrangement was going to work much better. She, Paula and Maddison had so much late-night catching up of their own to do.

  ‘So what are we going to do today?’ Gina wondered out loud as she set her bag down on the thick blue carpet.

  Lorelei checked her small, diamond-studded watch. ‘It’s a full day of sightseeing, baby,’ she replied. ‘Paula and Maddison are only in Edinburgh for two days, so we have to show them all the best things. I’ve got tickets booked for the castle at two thirty.’

  How could Gina have thought for a moment that her mother wouldn’t have a plan?

  ‘Gee! It is soooo old. It is soooo historical. I can’t believe how old it is!’ Maddison gushed all over again.

  They’d walked up the long, cobbled Royal Mile leading to the gates of Edinburgh Castle. Perched high above the city, the castle walls gave a panoramic view over Edinburgh and the surrounding countryside.

  Even in the slanting golden sun of a Scottish afternoon, the light seemed to be fading fast. Although it was the first of November, the castle was packed with tourists.

  Gina had never been in this part of the town before. Her school friends had always laughed at the idea of going to the castle because it was ‘so touristy’. Now, although she was acting the part of tour guide, she felt just as bowled over by it all as the others.

  On each side of the street leading to the castle, shops were selling the Scottish paraphernalia that Scots themselves never seemed to eat, wear or use: shortbread, crystal tumblers, walking sticks made from antlers, ceremonial swords, shields with clan crests emblazoned on them.