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Swallowing, I step forward. The other seniors seem to be waiting on bated breath, and I wonder if the outcome the boys want is much different from that of the girls.
I don’t say anything. It’s not as though I did this. Baxtersawthe statue this morning. She saw my hard work, how I’d made it gleam, and she knew I was outside collecting leaves all morning.
Still, her clipped voice as she snaps at me, “Detention,” comes as a shock.
A single word, bitten off, as though I’m not worthy of more.
“But—”
I can picture it behind me, the glitter in Rory’s eyes at the mere thought of me being punished again and again and again. “It was your duty to keep this statue as clean as a whistle. And now I’m presented with this… abomination.” Her gaze slides across the statue in disgust. In a dry tone, she adds, “I preferred when your only cleaning misdemeanor was polishing gold with silver. But I shouldn’t expect you to know the difference between precious metals.”
Each cutting barb stings like a whip. All I want is for the ground to swallow me. All I want is to be away from here — far, far away, maybe an ocean away…
“You’ll clean this muck off.” Her gaze lifts to the other assembled students. “The rest of you, no dawdling. Go into the hall for breakfast.”
I don’t make sense of her words at first. For some reason, I think they also apply to me, and I turn to leave with the group. But Baxter stops me with a single pointedahem, and I glance back at her in trepidation.
“Do you think this will be easier to clean when it’s fresh? Or hours later when it’s dried and risks permanently tarnishing the metal?” She gives me no time to answer, instead deciding for me, “You’ll get to work on this now.”
“But, Headmistress…” I’m surprised to hear Freya’s voice, and for one shining moment I think she’s about to stand up for me in face of this abject cruelty. My heart tightens in anticipation. “If the porridge is all on the statue, does that mean there’s nothing left for breakfast?”
I bite my tongue almost hard enough to taste blood. It’s just the same as before, when Freya failed to stick up for me in class. Why did I ever expect better? They’re all self-serving monsters here, including the girls.
“There is a sufficient supply for breakfast,” Headmistress Baxter says, putting Freya’s poor mind at rest.
“My classes,” I whisper, failure flashing in front of my eyes. “I need to go to class—”
“Then you should have thought of that when you allowed this to happen. Get cleaning.” Baxter’s voice is curt, abrupt and utterly final. She moves into the dining hall, done with me.
As the other students follow her into the hall, not one of them says anything to me. There are a few smirks and some of the guys laugh among themselves. Becca and Arabella look torn but they keep their mouths shut when it actually matters. Freya and Li move on ahead without a backward glance, as if breakfast is more important than justice.
My stomach is rumbling. I’d rather be eating food than cleaning it away, but nevertheless I roll up my sleeves and prepare myself for hard physical work. Again. English is the first class of the day and, despite Mr. Stevenson’s grouchiness, I feel like it’s one of the few subjects I’m confident in, so if I’m lucky I’ll be finished by the time it ends. Then I can be bright and early for politics class.
As I watch everyone’s departing backs from the porridge-covered statue, something wet hits my face.
I glance up, and it’s as though it happens in slow-motion. Hundreds of dark green leaves fall to the stone floor like oversized confetti. It showers me, tickling my face and skimming my cheeks, slapping wetly onto the top of my head.
The leaves. My bag of leaves.
They took the leaves I’d painstakingly collected all morning — and for what? Forthis?
Dazed, I glance down at my leaf-covered uniform, the wetness seeping through the material.
There’s a boyish laugh from the floor above. My first instinct is to run up there and haul the gremlin over the banister, hold him out, his privately insured legs dangling on thin air as he begs for mercy.
But I’m starting to realize something as his unbroken voice shouts, “JESSA WEIRDO!GIRLS OUT!”
It’s not his doing.
Slowly, I pick a leaf off my sleeve, tracing the delicate veins leading back to the thick stem.
I get it now.
I understand.
A map of distribution.
This is how it works in Lochkelvin. The gremlins aren’t kings of the school; they’re followers. And Rory, Luke and Finlay ply them with midnight treats so that they can do their bidding.
