Party at Silver Spires
Read Party at Silver Spires Online
Authors: Ann Bryant
Secrets, hopes and dreams⦠School friends are for ever!
I can't believe I'm at Silver Spires â it's just as brilliant as I dreamed it would be! I only wish I didn't have to worry about fitting in.
I'm here on a scholarship, and I'm so scared that people will think I'm a geek if they find out. Now there's a big party coming up and everyone has amazing expensive outfits, except me. What if my friends realize I don't really belong here after all?
For Fiona Hodgson. Thank you for your friendship, and for loving my books!
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Dancer at Silver Spires
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My name's Nicole Williamson and today is the very first day of my new life at Silver Spires Boarding School for Girls. I can't believe I'm here at last after all the days and weeks and months of waiting. I've actually only been here about two hours, but everything is just as brilliant as I'd hoped and dreamed it would be.
There are six of us in this enormous bedroom, or dormitory as it's actually called, and we are all sitting cross-legged on our beds, talking across the room to each other. When I look at my duvet cover I can imagine for a moment that I'm still at home, as we've all brought our own duvet covers with us, but then when my eyes travel round the room I feel a million miles away from home because everything else is so different.
The dormitory is completely square with a lovely green carpet, and the walls are painted in a colour that I would describe as apple white. My dad's a painter and decorator, so I know lots of different paint shades, as I've seen them on colour charts and in brochures and things. There are two big windows, with curtains that are patterned in dark green and white splodges and go right down to the floor. I think all the green in here is because the Year Seven dormitories in all six boarding houses are named after precious stones, and ours is called Emerald, which is a beautiful green stone. The light seems to stream through the windows, which makes it really bright and I love the way it all feels so modern and luxurious. I've never ever stayed in such a beautiful room before.
I must stop thinking that I'm
staying
here like a visitor, though, because I'm actually
living
here, and that feels so exciting â but also scary, as I'm not used to it yet.
Each of us six has our own big piece of furniture that consists of a desk for our laptops and things, some drawers, a narrow wardrobe, and a ladder that you have to climb up to get to the bed. There are two little lamps â one built into the desk area and one in the headboard so we can read in bed until lights out at half past nine.
Actually, at the moment only five of the six of us are sitting on our beds chatting. The sixth girl, Antonia, who comes from Italy, is sorting through her photos and not really joining in the conversation. She's very pretty, with masses of curly black hair and lovely olive skin. I feel a bit sorry for her, as I think she's only not saying much because her English isn't very good. And I wonder if she really understands what the rest of us are saying. We keep trying to draw her in by chatting about Italy, but she stays quiet, and I'm starting to wonder whether she's just naturally a quiet type of person.
“Have
you
ever been to Italy, Nicole?” Sasha asked me just then, giving me a lovely warm smile. The first thing that struck me about Sasha was how still and calm her face is, with a really open, friendly expression.
I shook my head, because the only country I've ever been to is France. “I went to Paris on a school trip last year though. It was totally brilliant!” I said, speaking quickly, as a picture of the Eiffel Tower and the excitement I'd felt when I first set eyes on it came flooding into my mind. Then I realized that I probably sounded a bit overexcited, like someone who wasn't used to going abroad on holiday, and although that was true, I didn't want anyone to know. I felt sure the others would have visited all sorts of foreign places, and it was important that I didn't come across as different from them. I'd drummed that into myself so often, because I was determined to fit in properly here. Silver Spires is my big,
big
chance to prove myself. And so I gave myself a little telling-off, which turned, inside my head, into a teacher's comment on a report â
Nicole must try to think before opening her mouth
.
Sasha smiled at me. “I agree, Paris is lovely! Did you do a boat trip on the River Seine?”
I shook my head. “We didn't have time. Did you?”
Sasha nodded and her eyes danced. “But I liked the little canals in Venice better. We went on a gondola there. It was amazing!”
I glanced at Antonia, wondering whether she might have something to say about Venice, but she still stayed silent. Poor Antonia. Perhaps she was feeling homesick. She'd had much further to come than any of the rest of us, after all. She was taking photos out of a dark brown shiny box with gold edging, and sorting them into piles. She'd already stuck one or two on the pinboard above her bed. A wisp of worry flitted through me then, because Antonia's gleaming box was just as expensive-looking as her suitcases. I'd seen her arriving at school when my parents were driving away, and I'd had to stop myself from staring as, one after another, her smart suitcases had been taken out of the amazingly long, luxurious-looking car.
Of course, I'd instantly worried that I hadn't brought anywhere near enough clothes and stuff to school with me in my two big, squidgy bags. But then I didn't have any more clothes to bring. Thank goodness Mr. Monk, the caretaker for our boarding house, had taken most of our cases and bags down to the storeroom. Having them all in here earlier had made me feel a bit uncomfortable, because I couldn't help noticing that mine were definitely the scruffiest. I'd felt a bit sorry for Mr. Monk when I'd realized that, because they didn't have any wheels like everyone else's cases, he'd have to carry mine along the corridors as well as down the stairs. I'd even offered to help him, but he'd chuckled and said, “No, love, you're all right! Unless you're here for a job as Forest Ash porter!” I knew I'd said the wrong thing, and I felt embarrassed, but I liked Mr. Monk instantly.
I also loved our boarding house, Forest Ash, straight away. All the boarding houses are named after trees and I thought Forest Ash sounded the most interesting and magicky. From one of our dormitory windows we can see the forest of ash trees in the distance. I'd read all about our boarding house name at home and learned that ash wood is very hard and is used to make charcoal. And in the old days, the charcoal burners would have actually lived in the forest and chopped the trees down themselves and burned the wood to make the charcoal in a special pit dug in the ground. I could just imagine that.
“Which part of Italy do you come from, Antonia?” Izzy suddenly asked, in a bright, clear voice. Everything about Izzy is bright. She moves so quickly and gracefully, like a gazelle.
“Milan,” Antonia replied, with a dreamy faraway look in her eyes. She'd pronounced it the Italian way,
Mee-lon,
but she repeated it with an English accent. Then she sighed, and looked as though she was about to say something else but had changed her mind. And next thing, she was straight back to her photo sorting.
I saw Izzy bite her lip and look down, and I guessed she felt sorry for Antonia like I did. But a moment later I wanted to giggle, because the girl called Emily, who I thought might turn out to be the craziest in our dormitory, suddenly flopped back on her bed and said in her lovely Irish accent, “There's sooooo much we've got to get used to, isn't there?”
It wasn't just me who found her funny, because everyone, apart from Antonia, burst out laughing at the way Emily had sounded so dramatic. That made her sit bolt upright again, wide-eyed and palms turned up. Then she deliberately went a bit cross-eyed. “What?” she said, pretending to be indignant. “What's so funny?”
I couldn't help noticing that, even though she started flicking her head from side to side to look at us all individually, her hair seemed to stay completely still. It was the thickest mass of red hair I'd ever seen, and she'd tied it back into a rough sort of ponytail, but there was just as much hair out of the ponytail as in.
It was Bryony who answered Emily. She scrambled down her own ladder and up Emily's, then sat down cross-legged beside her, wearing a big grin. “It's the way you said it like it's going to be really painful getting used to everything! But I think it's going to be great!”