Secrets at St Jude's: New Girl (2 page)

And the home landline had been busy all afternoon because Ria had been on it for hours trying to book an 7

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extra Water’s Edge ticket. And Lorelei wouldn’t have been able to call Dominique, their housekeeper, because today was her day off. And even if Lorelei had managed to get hold of a neighbour, Gina wouldn’t have heard the front doorbell because the music was so loud.

So – to conclude – Lorelei must have had to leave her very, very important meeting or whatever it was she was doing that afternoon, speed down the highway to Menzie’s school and finally pick him up from the janitor, or wherever he’d been for the past two hours, and bring him home herself – which might explain why she was so eye-poppingly, outrageously furious.

Ooops.

‘I think I’ll head off now, Ms Winkelmann,’ said Paula, edging past Lorelei and out of the door.

Lorelei glared at Paula, held out her hand and snapped, ‘My necklace, please.’ Paula obliged wordlessly.

‘Yeah . . . um . . . got to go,’ Maddison added, making her break for freedom.

‘Earrings!’ Lorelei commanded. Maddison un-clipped the pearls and surrendered them.

Ria followed on quickly, handing over a fringed silk scarf and mumbling something nervous-sounding.

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‘I’m sorry, Mom. Jeez . . . I’m really sorry, Menzie,’

Gina said as contritely as she could.

But the bedroom door just slammed shut and she was left alone in her mother’s shoes and the stupid legwarmers with a mountain of stuff to put away.

Gina picked up the remote and switched the music back on, then flung herself down on the bed. The worst thing was she’d have to wait absolutely hours now before she could ask her mother about going to the festival.

‘And turn that garbage off !’ came a shout from the other side of the door.

It was close to 10 p.m. when Gina dared to leave her room in search of her family again. When she’d come down an hour earlier, she’d found a chicken salad set out for her in the kitchen, but it was obvious her mother and Menzie had already eaten and were now busy with Menzie’s bedtime. Unfortunately Mick, a welcome and soothing influence on her mom, wasn’t home yet. Gina had bolted down the salad and headed back to her room.

Now, as she came down the stairs, she saw the light was on in her mom’s home office; she could hear the 9

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TV at low volume. She opened the door quietly and tiptoed in.

Lorelei was at her desk, staring with concentration at the big computer screen in front of her. Her dark blonde hair had begun to slide out of the tight up-do she kept it in for work, but she was still in her silk blouse and skirt. As flip-flops had replaced the heels and there was a glass of white wine crammed full of ice on her desk, Gina knew that her mother was winding down for the evening.

‘Mommy?’ she said, approaching the desk. ‘I’m really sorry about Menzie. I’m really sorry you had to come and get him. I won’t forget again. I promise.’

Lorelei turned from the computer screen and gave just the tiniest of half-smiles in Gina’s direction.

‘Gina,’ she said quietly. ‘Gina, Gina, Gina . . . What am I going to do with you? What am I going to do?’

Gina decided it was safe to get a little closer, so she put her hands on her mother’s shoulders and began to rub at the tight muscles a little.

‘I’m still really annoyed with you – there’s no use trying to butter me up,’ Lorelei began. ‘And I might as well tell you straight off that I know about the festival, and Paula’s mother and I are in agreement. No way.

Definitely not.’

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Gina’s attempt at a massage stopped abruptly at this news.

‘What?!’ came the outraged voice Lorelei knew so well.

‘Really, Gina.’ Her mother turned to face her. ‘Did you seriously think I was going to let you go off with some guys I’ve never met to who knows where, doing who knows what, when it’s not even the holidays and I know you’re way behind with your schoolwork and your grades are slipping?’

Gina felt a surge of anger sweep through her as she thought of the trip: of the two tents and four boys, of her sleeping bag, which was bright red, of her ticket, stored safely in her jewellery box upstairs, and of Aidan and the fact that now Ria would be at the festival with him and not her . . .

‘I want to go!’ she yelled. ‘I
have
to go! There is no way that I can’t go!’

‘You’re so spoiled, Gina!’ her mother replied in a tone that was rising rapidly. ‘You have no idea how lucky you are, how much freedom you already have . . .

and how much stuff !’ she added. ‘When I was a teenager . . .’

Good grief, Gina so didn’t want to hear this; she rolled her eyes theatrically. Her mother had never been 11

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a teenager! Well, obviously she had, but everything Lorelei had ever told her about
her
teenage years proved to Gina that she was the daughter of a total geek.

Her mother had been a robot teen: the kind who does extra homework for fun, gets amazing grades, becomes captain of the school debating team, never even notices a single boy.

Gina’s mother had been the cleverest girl in her year; Gina’s mother had gone to a top university; Gina’s mother had won trophies for ‘outstanding achievement’; Gina’s mother had been presented to the Queen of England; Gina’s mother had a lump on her middle finger from writing so many hundreds of pages of notes and essays when she was a teenager –

‘
We didn’t have computers then, you know
.’

In short, Gina’s mother was perfect and Gina didn’t have a hope of ever living up to her. So why bother even trying?

‘You can’t go,’ her mother said firmly. ‘You can’t go because, guess what? You won’t be here,’ she added.

‘What?!’ What was her mother talking about now?

‘I’ve had enough of this,’ Lorelei said sharply. ‘I’m exhausted with you. I’m exhausted with fighting all 12

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the time, picking up after you, sorting out your messes, solving your problems, doing your homework, Gina! I’ve just looked through the maths project you’re intending to hand in and it’s all wrong. Needs total re-working.’

Gina managed to gasp out an exasperated ‘But . . . !’

as she was handed her homework folder, which had been taken from her school bag without her permission, before Lorelei stormed on.

‘I no longer want to watch you change from an A student into a D, maybe even an F if you keep at it. I’m about to take on a really important new project. I’m going to be working all the time. It’s a great,
great
opportunity! So I’ve hired a nanny to look after Menzie out of school . . . But for you, Gina, for you we really need to do something different. We need to turn things around for you or you’re going to be in trouble.

All you care about is clothes, boys and being cool. No good will come of this. No good at all!’

The way Lorelei was looking at her was making Gina nervous. It sounded like she had a plan. Gina couldn’t remember the last time she’d liked one of her mother’s plans.

‘You know about St Jude’s, don’t you?’ Lorelei was asking her.

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See, although it was hard to recognize these days, Gina’s mother wasn’t Californian. Or even American.

She was British. No, actually her dad was German, but anyway, she had spent most of her schooldays in
Edinborrow
, or whatever it was called – some city in Scotland. Anyway, Lorelei had been sent there to some school for girls called St Jude’s.

It explained a lot, Gina was sure.

‘Yeah?’ She crossed her arms, wondering what on earth her mother’s school had to do with anything.

‘I’ve been speaking to the headmistress of St Jude’s,’

Lorelei continued. ‘I’ve told her all about you and she’s very interested . . . very sympathetic.’

‘Huh?’ was Gina’s bewildered response.

‘And they have a space in the boardinghouse. Most of the pupils are in Edinburgh and go home after school, but about one hundred or so are boarders.’

‘
Huh?!
’ Pennies were dropping for Gina. Warning lights were clicking on and flashing up. Big time.

‘Yes, you’re going to start this summer semester –

although it’s called “term” over there – at St Jude’s, in Edinburgh, in Scotland.’

‘I am not!’ Gina exclaimed.

But Lorelei was carrying on in her
I haven’t heard
you
way. ‘Yup. You’re going to St Jude’s and you aren’t 14

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coming back until you have good grades. Really good grades, Gina. I don’t care how long that takes, by the way: a term, a whole year, even the rest of your school career.’

‘I’m not going. No way!’

‘Oh yes, you are going. The ticket’s already booked.

You arrive in Edinburgh on the twenty-fourth of April, the day before term starts, just like all the other boarders.’

‘NO!!!’

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Chapter Two

The big black taxi, which had rattled Gina about in the back seat all the way from the airport, pulled into a side street, slowed as the driver checked out the house numbers, then came to a sudden standstill. ‘Number nine?’ the driver asked.

‘Yes . . . well . . . I think so . . . This is Bute Gardens?’

she asked.

‘Aye.’

She looked out of the window at the solid stone house beyond the thick pillars and bushy green hedge they’d pulled alongside. It was still raining. It had been raining since she stepped off the plane at
Edinborrow
.

(It was spelled Edinburgh, by the way, but no one in Edinburgh said it like that. They said ‘Edinburra’.) Gina had been travelling for sixteen hours. For much of that time she had read, re-read and pored over the ten-page St Jude’s handbook, trying 16

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desperately to imagine what this was going to be like.

She had begun to picture a school full of beautiful, intelligent British girls: teenage Kates with long blonde hair and really posh voices. And at some point mid-Atlantic, she had started to convince herself that it might not be so bad: it might even be fun. In fact, maybe it would be really glamorous! Some of her classmates might even be related to Prince William . . .

or at least know him!

Gina had also closely studied the photographs of the wood-panelled library, the grassy tennis courts and the soaring assembly hall, which came complete with those churchy lead-paned windows and wooden beams. It was all so old, so traditional – so positively
historical
.

‘You’ll make the most amazing friends,’ Lorelei had promised her. ‘Won’t that be great? I mean, I know you love Paula, Ria and Maddison, but you’ve known them for ever. Wouldn’t you like to meet some new people? And boarding-school friends are different,’ she had gone on; ‘boarding-school friends are like family.’

The taxi driver sat still. Gina sat still. Surely he wasn’t expecting her to carry her bags out by herself ?

Jeez, what kind of service was this?

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She looked in her purse and brought out the sheaf of curly notes the fare required, and because she was Californian and proud of it, she figured in a big tip as well, even though the driver was the rudest man on the planet; then she got out of the cab and hauled her two heavy black bags behind her towards the front door of number 9 Bute Gardens.

The driveway beyond the pillars was crammed full of cars, girls, luggage and parents. At the sight of so many strangers, all so different looking, Gina felt her stomach knot up. The last time she’d been a new girl at school, without a single friend, she’d been going to kindergarten for the first time and she’d had Mommy’s hand to cling onto for the whole morning.

Ever since then, she’d moved up through Junior School, then Junior High, with a gang of ready-made allies.

This was new. This was
very
new, and despite all Lorelei’s encouraging words, still ringing in her ears from the call made by cell phone in the back of the cab, Gina felt nervous enough to puke.

Just one look at the other girls in the driveway was enough to tell her that, despite her handbook-inspired fantasies, she was not going to fit in here. Gina was wearing heels, they were wearing sneakers; her jeans 18

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were designer, theirs were scruffy; her top and jacket were D&G, the girl in front of her was in some sort of mountaineering polar fleece. No one in a polar fleece was likely to know Prince William, were they?

The only thing that stopped Gina from calling her mom straight back to say, ‘OK, big joke over, can I come home now?’ was that, for once, she wanted to prove her mother wrong.

That night when Lorelei had first suggested St Jude’s and Gina had been utterly horrified, her mother had thrown down the challenge:
Oh, I knew you
wouldn’t go, you’re too scared. Too boring. Any one of
your friends would have jumped at a chance like this.

But not you. Eek, eek
(Lorelei had added a frightened mouse squeak for effect).
You won’t even go to the mall
without two of your friends holding your hands
.

Gina had listened stony-faced before declaring, ‘OK

then, I’ll go. But only for the summer term. Just one term. I’ll work hard – what else will there be to do? And then you’ll let me come home again.