Secrets at St Jude’s: Rebel Girl Read online

  ‘Three-day-eventer,’ Niffy corrected her.

  ‘Oh yes, let me go through the list of world-famous, multi-millionaire, three-day-eventers I know,’ came the sarcastic reply.

  ‘Ooooh, it’s the little Irises, are we having a fight?’

  All four dorm girls looked round to see Mel crouching down beside Amy’s chair.

  Mel was the Lower Sixth girl who liked to think of herself as the boarding-house wild child and sexpert. Her hair was bleach-blonde and elaborately styled, her eyeliner was dark and shiny and this evening her shirt was unbuttoned low enough to reveal a black lace bra, while the denim miniskirt beneath it was barely long enough to cover her knickers now that she was crouched down beside them.

  ‘Are you going out somewhere?’ Amy asked.

  ‘No. Just trying out a few new things, perfecting the Mel Wintertastic look.’

  ‘You’re obviously expecting a heat wave this January, are you?’ Niffy had to ask.

  Mel ignored this and carried on with her own line of questioning: ‘So, tell me your news. How were the Christmas hollies? What did we get up to? How many fabulous new boys did we meet? Not as many as Mel, I don’t think.’

  Amy snorted at this.

  ‘Did Amy get back together with Niffy’s brother, Finn? That’s my number one question,’ Mel said.

  ‘Mind your own beeswax,’ came the sharp reply from Amy.

  ‘Oooooh, I’ll take that as a “no” then, shall I?’

  Amy made no reply.

  Niffy quickly looked down at her plate and spooned up another mouthful. She didn’t even want to hear this conversation. It was still a sensitive subject.

  Mel turned to Gina. ‘Please tell me that at least all is well with you and the sweet little waiter from the Arts Café?’

  ‘Yeah, all is well,’ Gina confirmed.

  ‘Seeing him this weekend?’ Mel asked curiously.

  ‘Well . . . I don’t know yet. He’s really busy studying for his Highers so I’m not going to see so much of him. He’s got Mocks, just like us, and then in the summer he sits the real thing. He’s trying to do well enough to get into Edinburgh University.’

  ‘Oh dear.’ Mel gave a roll of her eyes. ‘Then it will be goodbye Gina and hello to unlimited Uni totty. I’ve seen it so many, many times before,’ she said in a totally infuriating superior way.

  ‘That’s not very nice, Mel.’ Gina wanted to defend Dermot against this horrible accusation, but she didn’t really feel as if she could.

  Dermot going to university felt like an age away, but she couldn’t promise that he wasn’t going to dump her. Not now or in a few months’ time or whenever . . .

  ‘Poor Gina.’ Mel sighed, although she didn’t sound in the least bit sympathetic. ‘Maybe you should dump the soon-to-be-uni boy before he dumps you. Believe me, it’s always better to be the one doing the dumping. Definitely.’

  Chapter Six

  ‘JUST WHAT EXACTLY is that?’ Amy wanted to know when she spotted a large cardboard box underneath the boarding-house mail table as she and Niffy arrived back from school several days later.

  Amy bent down to have a closer look at the box and turned to Niffy with surprise: ‘It’s got your name on it! Are you expecting a parcel?’

  ‘Really?’

  Niffy sounded casual.

  She sounded too casual, in fact. Amy knew at once that something interesting must be going on because this was Niffy’s way of trying to play it down.

  ‘I think my mum might have sent me some new hockey boots. My old ones are a size too small and they’re falling apart.’

  ‘Hockey boots? In a box that size?’ Amy looked at her friend suspiciously.

  ‘You know what mail order companies are like . . .’ Niffy picked up the box and began to head towards her locker with it. ‘The boots are probably inside three layers of cardboard in there.’ She opened the door of her long, metal locker and began to stuff the box into the narrow space.

  ‘Aren’t you going to open it?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Nah . . . it’s boring, honestly,’ Niffy assured her, applying the force required to squeeze the box into the locker.

  ‘I’ll do it later. Right now, I need tea and I need cake.’

  Then from her skirt pocket, she brought out her locker key, which was attached to some gruesome little hairy haggis key ring.

  Now this was unusual, Amy couldn’t help thinking. Niffy usually just banged her locker door shut and left it unlocked.

  ‘Why are you locking your door?’ she asked her.

  ‘Oh . . . well . . .’ Niffy put the key back into her pocket and began to walk jauntily down the corridor towards the kitchen, ‘they’re brand-new boots, Aim, my mum would kill me if they went off for a walk on their own.’

  Min was in the boarding-house study room staring at a computer screen in horror. Right in front of her eyes were the current entry requirements for the university she was aiming to get into when she left St Jude’s: Cambridge.

  Yes, it was still two years or so before she could even think about filling in the application form, but right here was proof that she would have to do incredibly well not just in her Advanced Highers, but also in her Highers and the Standard Grades she was going to sit this summer.

  Good grief. Nothing but a long line of As and starred As was going to do.

  Min gave a deep sigh and sank her face into her hands for a moment. But that just upset her even more, because now she could feel all those soft bumpy spots that had broken out all along the sides of her face.

  Eeek!

  She pulled her long hair down around her cheeks to cover the offending breakout. This was just horrible: she’d always been so proud of her lovely smooth skin. She was just about to Google ‘spots’ and ‘treatment of’ when she thought about the other thing she’d been meaning to do when she’d sat down here at the row of terminals in the study.

  Greg.

  Super-nice Greg Riley – who she’d met via an online physics club. Super-nice Greg who’d helped her so much with her biology . . . who’d taken her on two dates last term . . . whose mum was a bio-chemist who believed in healthy eating and had given him two brown paper bags of homemade popcorn to take to the cinema. Super-nice Greg, who’d kissed her under the mistletoe at Christmas!

  Ooooh . . . just thinking about the mistletoe moment made blood rush around her system in all sorts of strange and tingly ways. Min was a highly intelligent girl; she knew these feelings had nothing to do with butterflies.

  Greg had emailed all through the holidays, just as he’d said he would, and he’d already asked what she was doing this weekend and could she pencil a slot into her revision timetable to see him?

  That was the problem.

  There wasn’t going to be any time in her life to see him. She was going to have to study every waking hour until the Mocks and then, as soon as they were over, she was going to study every waking hour until the real thing.

  It was the only way to secure the Cambridge-worthy results.

  How else could she possibly get a string of As if not by studying all the time?

  Greg was super-nice. But she had to think about Cambridge. Focus on Cambridge. It was what she and, above all, her mum and dad, desperately wanted for her.

  Min opened up a new message and began to type:

  ‘Hi, Greg, Hope you’re good. I have soooooo much work on. It is only 16 days till my first exam. I can’t believe it. Scary!’

  Min paused. She wasn’t sure how to put this next bit. She really, really liked Greg. He was so into all the same things that she was and he was totally nice and cute too. But they’d only actually kissed once – well, maybe two or three times on that same day. So did that technically make him a boyfriend? Did Min actually have to finish with him? Or could she just say ‘See you soon’ in a vague kind of way and hope that he understood?

  And then there were the spots. Greg hadn’t seen her spots. They hadn’t been there before Christmas. She didn’t think she wan
ted him to see them. They were so grubby-looking and so embarrassing.

  ‘I know I can’t see you before the Mocks,’ she typed. ‘I just won’t have time. I’m not sure how much time I will have after the Mocks. I have to do really, really well in these exams. I’m aiming to get an A in everything. I know you are too, so I know you’ll understand.’

  She paused again and wondered how to sign off. Love? NO! Yours? No. See you? Well . . . considering she wasn’t going to see him, that wouldn’t be right.

  ‘Very best wishes, Min.’

  She quickly typed in two kisses then scrunched up her eyes and hit Send before she could even think about reading it again and changing her mind.

  Then she sat looking at the screen and felt a wave of panic. What would he say? Was this really a good idea? Wasn’t she just going to regret this? Wouldn’t it be nice to see him again?

  She flicked back to the Cambridge University entry requirements page again and tried to focus on it. This was what she wanted to do. This was where she wanted to go. This was much more important than Greg . . . wasn’t it?

  She flicked back to her inbox again. No reply. She stared at the inbox, willing Greg to be reading her note and to be thinking of a way they could get through all their work and still be friends. Be slightly more than friends.

  When the ping of incoming mail went off, Min gave a little jump of surprise. Yes! It was from Greg.

  Her fingers suddenly felt a little unsteady as she moved towards the keys that would open up the message.

  But then there it was before her. Just the very brief:

  ‘Oh, I see. G x’

  Min’s face was in her hands again.

  This just didn’t feel as if it was what she really wanted.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘GIRLS! THREE OF you! This is too much! I can’t take it!’

  ‘Shut up, Dermot!’ Amy told Gina’s boyfriend playfully.

  Dermot O’Hagan was such a teaser; he had to be told to shut up regularly and in Amy’s opinion Gina didn’t do it nearly enough.

  Dermot was manning the counter in the stylish first-floor Arts Café this morning, maybe because his dad wasn’t around. Usually on a Saturday, Dermot was head waiter, bustling about the tables in his uniform consisting of a bright-blue shirt, dark trousers and an apron.

  ‘Hey, Gina,’ he said, his eyes lighting up and a grin splitting his face at the sight of her.

  ‘Hey, Dermot,’ she replied, smiling straight back.

  He ducked briefly out from behind the counter to plant a quick kiss on Gina’s mouth.

  ‘Welcome back to bonnie Scotland. More kissing later . . .’ he told her, fixing his blue eyes on hers. For a moment such an intense look passed between them that it felt as if everyone and everything else had stopped in its tracks. The two of them were just so happy to be together again.

  ‘OK, you two . . .’ Amy said, breaking the spell.

  ‘Amy, nice to see you.’ Dermot turned and gave her a smile, then he paused, not able to remember for a moment who the third girl with them was.

  ‘Rosie,’ Amy reminded him, ‘from the year below us.’

  ‘Hi!’ Dermot said cheerily. ‘Sorry, I’ve had a caffeine overdose this morning, brain not working properly, liable to collapse any moment. If I do, just shove a chocolate brownie in my mouth, that usually works.’

  The girls giggled in response to this.

  He hurried back behind the counter: ‘Now, it’s two grande lattes with super-skinny-skim,’ he remembered for Gina and Amy. ‘Rosie, my dear, what is your preferred poison?’

  Once Rosie had placed her order, Dermot busied himself with the coffee machine, but he still wanted to know: ‘So, where are Min and the Nifster? Why are they not with you on the first Saturday outing of the term?’

  Gina began the explanation. ‘Min is studying, because you know, we all have these tests for the first two weeks in February. And Min is convinced she’s going to flunk out unless she studies for ten hours a day,’ Gina added, with a roll of her eyes.

  ‘Flunk out?’ Dermot asked with a grin. ‘I like that.’

  ‘Yeah, fail, whatever you guys call it. And because of studying, by the way, we’re only allowed out on Saturdays . . . and only if we’re very, very nice to Mrs K.’

  ‘And Niffy?’ Dermot reminded her.

  Amy chipped in with the answer to this question.

  ‘Niff has managed to get herself, and very nearly Gina, gated for at least three weekends.’

  ‘Really? Exciting story?’ Dermot wondered.

  Amy nodded. ‘Oh yes, it involved a love-struck boy wandering about the gardens at night with a bag full of wine, jam and croissants.’

  ‘What?!’ Dermot laughed.

  ‘Not love-struck for Niffy,’ Amy added. ‘I think she was just there for the croissants. But anyway . . . she’s gated, the wine is dotted about toilet cisterns all over the boarding house and what more can I say?’

  Dermot laughed again. ‘Never a dull moment.’

  He put the drinks in front of them, took their money and told them, ‘I can’t wait to hear more.’

  But now there were other customers waiting at the counter, so the girls knew to go and take a seat. Dermot would come over and chat to them when he could.

  As they made for a table, Rosie couldn’t help saying with a little sigh, ‘He is so cute and so funny – I wish I had a Dermot.’

  ‘Hands off!’ Gina said immediately.

  Rosie winked at her, then as they settled into their seats, she turned to Amy and asked, ‘So are you finally going to tell us all about Finn, or what?’

  Amy leaned back in her chair, put her mug of coffee to her lips and took a little sip before finally answering. ‘Well . . . the truth about Finn is that there’s nothing to tell. Three whole weeks of the Christmas holidays went by and I didn’t go down to Niffy’s place. Neither of them came over to Glasgow to see me. We were all “too busy”, or maybe it was all too awkward. So there you go . . .’

  She sipped calmly from her coffee cup again.

  ‘But,’ Gina protested, ‘you must have phoned? Or mailed? Or something?’

  ‘Yeah, well . . . there was a bit of that, but it’s just friendly. There’s nothing romantic going on,’ Amy admitted.

  ‘He phones you and you just chat . . . like friends?’ Rosie wanted to make sure she’d understood this properly. ‘You and Finn, who last term were panting at the thought of each other?’

  ‘Positively drooling all over each other,’ Gina added.

  ‘Stop it!’ Amy complained. ‘He sounded strange on the phone. Maybe Niffy was listening in on his calls. She always talked to me when he’d finished. I really, really like Finn,’ she admitted with a sigh. ‘There. I’ve said it. But neither of us wants to upset Niffy like we did last term. That was terrible. Really just bogging awful. So I’m just leaving it as it is and we’ll see. Maybe something will change . . . in a bit.’

  ‘Really?’ Gina wasn’t so sure. ‘You’re just going to wait and see?’

  ‘Really,’ Amy confirmed.

  ‘Have you talked to Niffy lately? Do you know what she thinks now?’ Gina asked.

  ‘No. I don’t want to stir it all up again,’ Amy said. ‘Now . . . how do we feel about blueberry muffins?’ she asked, desperate for a change of subject.

  ‘We feel generally quite positive,’ was Gina’s reply.

  ‘Yes,’ Rosie agreed, ‘we do.’

  ‘So if I went up there and got a blueberry muffin, you two would share it with me?’ Amy asked.

  ‘Yeah,’ Gina and Rosie both agreed, then as Amy left the table, they gave each other a little look. Amy had been weird about food last term, going for entire days sometimes without eating anything, but it was all supposed to be sorted now. If she wanted to eat one third of a blueberry muffin as a little mid-morning treat, they knew they should encourage her. It was a good thing.

  When Amy came back with the muffin, she brought Dermot along with her.


  ‘Five minutes off for good behaviour,’ he said, pointing to the assistant who had taken over behind the counter.

  ‘Where’s your dad today?’ Gina asked as Dermot slid down onto the sofa beside her, wrapped his arm round her waist and pulled her in for a kiss.

  ‘He’s still in bed. Heavy night for him last night, I think, he’s not going to come in until later.’

  ‘Oh. So, no non-café based dates for us until . . .’

  ‘Until July,’ Dermot said, his face so dead-pan it wasn’t obvious if he was joking or not.

  Gina looked at him. ‘You’re kidding, right? No dates till July means I may have to find someone else to take me on dates.’

  ‘Gina, you wouldn’t do that to me!’ Dermot protested.

  ‘Yes, I would!’ she insisted, but playfully.

  ‘You’re not allowed out on Sundays, I have to work Saturdays and study on Sundays . . . we are doomed,’ he teased.

  ‘Totally!’

  He squeezed her hands in his. ‘Don’t say that.’

  His eyes were looking at hers all serious now.

  Then she voiced the thought which had been on her mind ever since Mel had mentioned it: ‘Aren’t you just going to finish with me when you get to university anyway?’

  She didn’t mean it to sound at all heavy, but somehow it did.

  ‘Gina!’ Dermot protested.

  He glanced over to the café counter. The queue was small and moving steadily through the capable hands of his dad’s assistant.

  ‘C’mon, let’s go out into the hallway and talk . . . See you in a minute,’ he told Amy and Rosie.

  Gina followed Dermot out of the café’s main double doors. The Arts Café was a large, modern space above a lively modern art gallery.

  Out through the doors was a white hallway with a lift, and wide stairs leading both up and down.

  Dermot led Gina up a step or two, just so they were out of the way of the doors and the lift.

  Then he wrapped his arms round her again and pulled her in for the proper ‘hello and welcome back from the holidays’ kiss he’d been longing to give her since she’d set foot inside the café.