“Afraid not, Yankee. You’ve got double English this morning. Word of warning.” She wiggled her dark, full eyebrows. “Hit the coffee hard, you’re gonna need it.”
“Thanks.” I laughed and pulled on the blazer. I’d say a strait jacket would have more breathing space. “This is really uncomfortable. Do I have to wear it?” I couldn’t remember the last time I’d tried to force myself into something so stiff and unyielding.
She nodded. “Yep, unless you want to have a love-in with Mrs Cox during detention this afternoon. Which you will if you break the uniform rules.” She sighed. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for independence and individuality; it’s just really, there is nothing worse than a detention with Cox.”
“I’ll take your word for it and wear the damn thing.” I grimaced though. It all felt suffocating and unnatural.
“Thought you would.” She winked and got up from the bed, placing the pile of clothes she’d folded into a drawer. “Is this everything?”
I glanced at the pile. It was very small. “Yeah, I didn’t have much to bring.”
“Good thing you’ve uniform then.”
“Thought we didn’t get to go anywhere anyway?” Whilst it might be nice to put on a pair of jeans and get out of this weird damp castle, there hadn’t looked like a lot of places to go on the drive here from the airport.
“True. Very, very true. But at the weekends we have to go outside for exercise and fresh air.” She used her fingers to quote mark her words. “Lots of tramping about getting muddy.”
I stared at her, shocked. “I don’t do mud, I’m a city girl.”
She grinned and walked for the door. “Not anymore. Don’t worry, I’ve got some spare boots you can use.”
“Thanks.” I sent her a withering look. First a uniform and then tramping about in mud? This place couldn’t get much worse.
But I was wrong.
Because there was English and then there was him. And that was a whole lot worse.
During my deep dreamless sleep, I’d forgotten about the strange events at lunch with the tall blond boy. Or would I say man? I still wasn’t sure.
And neither would I be. Because I couldn’t be in the room without wanting to kill him.
I pushed through the door to English. It gave a creak, but I was becoming used to the eerie sound effects. None of the hinges seemed to have been greased in the last hundred years or so. That wasn’t the only sound effect to my arrival in English. My stomach gurgled and groaned, clenching with annoyance at my one meagre spoonful of porridge. Who puts salt in porridge? Nobody in their right mind, apart from the cooks at Fire Stone. I’d swallowed one spoonful and washed it down with weak coffee. I’d made Phil promise to divulge where she’d got the toast I’d seen her with when I’d arrived.
“Hi,” I waved uncomfortably as I slipped in through the noisy door. Internally I cursed my great aunt and the fact she’d tracked me down and brought me all this way. The teacher was already up front stood by a blackboard wiping it clean with a cloth. She turned, and I gave her an apologetic smile. “Sorry I’m late, I got lost.” Lost was an understatement. I’d walked for at least five minutes down the wrong corridor which didn’t seem to lead anywhere. I needed a map, but I’d been assured at breakfast that such a luxury didn’t exist.
“Maeve Adams, if I’m correct?” Another petite member of staff, but whereas Mrs Cox was tiny and birdlike, the English teacher was as short as she was wide. Her hair was piled in a greying dark bun on top of her head, a pencil poking through securing it in place, and it appeared no one had told her she had a splatter of breakfast down her fuzzy cardigan—or if they had, she didn’t care.
“I prefer Mae.” I stepped further into the room glancing about. The room was large and airy, almost warm, although where the heat was coming from in this rundown building I didn’t know. It certainly wasn’t outside where it was raining and had been constantly since breakfast. The sun didn’t appear to exist in Scotland. If it did, it was on holiday.
“Mae, perfect.” She concentrated hard, straining almost. “Right, I think I’ve remembered that. I’m Miss Barlow.”
“Okay then…” I trailed off, unsure of what to say. I wasn’t going to pull a funny face and pretend to try to remember her name.
There were a handful of chuckles, but I didn’t lift my eyes. Last thing I needed was a laughing fit in my first class.
“Is this your first time to Scotland? I understand you come from the States.” she asked.
I internalised my groan. Please don’t make me do the new kid speech.
“First time,” I mumbled, shuffling from foot to foot and staring at the flagstone floor.
“You will love it here, so much history, so many stories. It’s a wealth of knowledge for the soul.”
Another giggle lifted from the back of the classroom. I dared a peek from under my bangs and saw one of my companions from lunch yesterday sitting there grinning. She gave me a cheery wave and a thumbs up which Miss Barlow didn’t catch. My eyes swept straight back to the floor. I mustn’t laugh.
Barlow wasn’t going to let me go without my saying something, so I mumbled about the rain, and that it seemed pretty from under cloud cover, but how I had jet lag… please let me sit down now.
She waved me off, and I marched
