Secret Letters at Trebizon

by Anne Digby

  STRAW HAT

  First published by Straw Hat 1993

  This ebook edition first published by Straw Hat 2011

  Copyright © Anne Digby, 1993, 1994, 2007, 2011

  The moral right of the author has been asserted.

  All rights reserved.

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the above publisher, Straw Hat

  A Catalogue record of this book is available from the British Library

  eISBN-13: 978-1-899587-29-2

  Rebecca thought they'd told each other everything. But have they?

  Rebecca and her French pen friend have never met, but from the beginning they've felt like sisters and told each other their secrets. Emmanuelle's letters are safely tucked away inside Rebecca's bedside locker with her diary and other private things. It's unthinkable that anyone would spy in there.

  Unthinkable – till the locker is raided and the letters tampered with. By whom? And why?

  Rebecca thinks about everything she and Emmanuelle have shared together in their letters. About Robbie . . . and Cliff . . . and her worries over the mock GCSE exams. And now on the French Exchange visit to Paris she'll meet Emmanuelle for the very first time . . .

  This is the thirteenth book in the classic Trebizon series.

  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright & Permissions

  About this Book

  Chapter One Putting Things Off

  Chapter Two Not to Plan

  Chapter Three Knight on White Charger

  Chapter Four After the Mocks

  Chapter Five The Startling Discovery

  Chapter Six Rebecca Remembers

  Chapter Seven Disbelief

  Chapter Eight A Very Secret Meeting

  Chapter Nine Boy Trouble

  Chapter Ten An Identity Crisis

  Chapter Eleven Pretences

  Chapter Twelve The Lowest Point

  Chapter Thirteen The End of the Romance

  Chapter Fourteen Something Explained

  The Trebizon Series in Reading Order

  More Anne Digby Titles

  And Some Other Favourites...

  Free Downloads, Facebook & Twitter

  ONE

  PUTTING THINGS OFF

  It was when life got back to normal, after the mocks, that Rebecca Mason made the startling discovery. It was as she was sorting out her bedside locker, intending to write to her French pen friend at long last. She noticed that someone had been going through her things, her private letters included. Some of them had been put back in the wrong envelopes!

  It was such a shock. It was despicable. Bedside lockers were sacrosanct; the place where all the Fifths on the top floor of Court House kept their special things. Rebecca was no exception.

  There was her diary, her photos and bits of jewellery and, of course, all her letters. From her parents in Saudi Arabia; from her boy friend, Robbie Anderson; and from Emmanuelle. Those were particularly special, for a good reason. Over the months, Rebecca had confided secret thoughts to her French pen friend that were difficult to speak out loud, even to her five friends at Trebizon. Emmanuelle would respond with advice and with secrets of her own. For example, they each longed not to be an only child but to have a sister. And there were other things, too. They wrote great letters to each other.

  Writing at a safe distance to somebody you'd never met (and in French!) was like having your own private agony aunt. Emmanuelle, always writing back in English, confessed to exactly the same feeling. Of course, the relationship was going to change soon. They were going to meet, at last. A school exchange to Paris was fixed up for the end of the Easter holidays. Rebecca would meet her kindred spirit across the sea, face to face.

  Meanwhile, she really hated the idea of someone unknown reading Emmanuelle's letters. She was to recall the business of the history Time Chart, too. Had she got a secret enemy? But, if so, who and why?

  It was going to be a tough mystery for Rebecca's crowd at Trebizon to solve. 'Looks like Action Committee's weirdest one yet,' Tish Anderson would say.

  All this was a little way off. In the meantime, sorting out her locker and writing to Emmanuelle was no more than a worry at the back of Rebecca's mind. It would have to wait. She had plunged for ten days into mock GCSE exams and nothing else mattered. She was anxious to get good passes but she knew she hadn't done enough work. It wasn't laziness. Right from the start of the course, which began in the Fourth Year, she'd been driving herself in a different direction. She'd been much too involved with tennis (and at quite a high level) to work as hard as the others.

  Now - she'd just come through a crisis. Over this spring half-term, she'd had to make the biggest decision of her life. That decision was now behind her. But if she wanted to stay on at Trebizon with her friends, she had to get accepted for Trebizon's Sixth Form next year. That meant she had to pass well in her GCSE exams this summer, especially as the Advanced Level course she wanted to do was said to be very difficult.

  The first mock exam, a maths paper on Friday, had not gone well.

  The next, on Monday morning, was the second maths paper. That was even worse.

  'Cheer up, Rebecca!' said Tish Anderson, at lunch time, a great grin on her face.

  The six, as Rebecca and her friends were known, had wandered along to the dining hall after the second maths, discussing the paper as they went. Now they sat round the end of their usual table, eating lunch. Chill March winds rattled against the big windows. There was fish today, fresh local whiting caught in Trebizon Bay, dipped in breadcrumbs, served with lemon and parsley and crisp brown chips. They were all eating hungrily except for Rebecca who was playing around with her food and looking despondent.

  'It may never happen, Becky,' said Sue Murdoch.

  'It already has!' moaned Rebecca.

  'Really bad then?' said Margot Lawrence, sympathetically. 'Did you do any of the last question?' asked Sally Elphinstone, hopefully. 'The one with 10 marks?'

  'No, Elf, I did not,' sighed Rebecca.

  'It was a horrid paper,' announced Mara Leonodis. The Greek girl looked at Rebecca with warm, dark brown eyes and fellow feeling. They were both in Div 2 for maths. The other four were in Division 1, Tish brilliant enough to be doing a special paper as well. 'It was a disgusting, horrible, disgraceful and diabolical paper!'

  'Hear, hear!' said Rebecca. She gave a weak smile at last.

  'For goodness sake eat your chips, Rebeck!' said Tish, with another groan. 'Then you'll feel human again!' Tish enjoyed exams; she revelled in them. Her short dark curly hair was gleaming and bouncy. While the others had been poring over maths revision before breakfast, she'd been singing in the shower and washing her hair. But now she looked at Rebecca and Mara affectionately and said: 'They make the mocks hard. They do it on purpose. It's all a pretence. They make them harder than the actual exams, just to give you a fright!'

  'Then I'm frightened!' replied Rebecca, laughing for the first time.

  'No, I'm serious. D'you know something, when Helen was here, she failed the mock -and then when she did the real exam she got an A.'

  'Horrible Anderson family,' commented Mara. 'They are disgusting.'

  'Did she really?' asked Rebecca eagerly. Tish's elder sister had been at Trebizon some years earlier. 'Is that the honest truth?'

  'Of course it's true!' said Sue. 'Moyra Milton told me just the same thing. She did much better in all the proper exams last summer, much better than she did in the mocks.'

  Mara smiled at Rebecca.

  'You he
ar that? Then there is hope for us yet.'

  Rebecca nodded. She bent her head and attended to her chips, suddenly feeling more interested in them.

  Mara looked at her protectively. She would never tell the others but she knew how worried Rebecca had been about the maths exams. Because of last Thursday night, the night before the first maths paper. Mara had opened her eyes in the middle of the night and noticed a crack of light shining brightly along the top of her partition wall. It looked as though Rebecca, in the cubie next door, had forgotten to turn her bedside light off! She'd slipped out of bed and walked round to Rebecca's cubicle, intending to nip in, switch off the light for her. But then, as she approached, she was sure she heard movements, the sound of book pages being riffled. Rebecca was still awake! Rebecca was still swotting in there!

  'Rebecca!' she'd whispered through the curtain. 'Mrs Barry will kill you if she finds out!'

  Silence now. Except for the sound of deep, regular breathing.

  Parting the curtains, Mara had peeped in. Rebecca appeared to be fast asleep.

  With a shake of her head, Mara had tiptoed in and switched off Rebecca's bedside light. Then departed. Poor Rebecca! Pretending to be asleep! So anguished about tomorrow's maths exam; revising her book in the middle of the night; not wanting any of her friends to know! Well, let her pretend to be asleep if that's what she wanted. Mara hadn't been fooled.

  Now she said:

  'Aren't we lucky, Rebecca! We haven't got an exam this afternoon. We can revise for English literature. You must help me! You are much better than me!'

  'And me!' said Elf, digging into some more chips.

  'You lucky things,' said Margot. The rest of them had a physics exam after lunch. 'Do some revision for me!'

  'We'll try!' said Rebecca, brightening up. 'Let's work in the library, shall we, Mara? It's good there.'

  'Let us do that, yes!' replied Mara, with pleasure.

  'Are you going back to Court first, Rebecca?' asked Sue, suddenly. 'Robbie's been nagging Justy to get me to bring some photo.' Justin Thomas was a friend of Robbie's at Garth College. He and Sue were devoted and apparently would be meeting in town after Sue's physics exam. 'Robbie says you forgot to post it. Can you put it on my locker or somewhere, for me to take? It'll save you a stamp, anyway.'

  Rebecca gave a guilty start. Robbie's photo! She hadn't seen Robbie lately but when he'd phoned her last week he'd asked for a photo back. Just a spare, passport-sized one that she'd liked and cadged off him once. He'd now told her he needed it back to get some I.D. card or other. The trouble was --

  'It's - er - gone,' said Rebecca, looking embarrassed.

  To France, in fact. Last term. She'd quite forgotten, when he rang. She'd sent it to Emmanuelle. But she couldn't tell the others that even before she'd explained to Robbie. She'd been putting off phoning him, hoping she might have another photo the right size though that was unlikely.

  'Oh dear,' said Sue.

  'What does it matter?' asked Tish, noticing Rebecca's unease and promptly taking her side. She laughed. 'Tell Justy my brother's a pain. What's wrong with the photo machine in Woollies, anyway?'

  'Broken down,' replied Sue.

  'Has it?' said Rebecca. 'Oh, what a nuisance.' She made a face. 'Look, Sue. Tell Justy to tell Robbie that I'm trying to look something out and I'll ring him soon. I promise. Okay?'

  As she set off for the boarding house with Mara, to pick up their English set books, the Greek girl said -

  'Don't look so worried! Robbie will forgive you!'

  Rebecca laughed. She'd been thinking about something else.

  'I should hope he would,' she commented. 'Seeing he gave it to me, in the first place.'

  But her mind was elsewhere, not on the photo at all. It had simply reminded her of something else she'd been putting off. . .

  She owed Emmanuelle a letter. It was going to be embarrassing but it had to be done. She had to let Emmanuelle know the truth!

  However this, at least, could be put off for a bit longer. She simply hadn't got the time just now. Not to compose a letter in French!

  She'd write to Emmanuelle after the mocks.

  TWO

  NOT TO PLAN

  They wandered over to Court House together feeling agreeably relieved that they didn't have to go straight on to another exam this afternoon, like everybody else. The wind was still quite high but there was a hint of sun now, up there behind bright cloud. On the grassy bank that led up to the shrubbery there were masses of daffodils out, their bright yellow heads swaying backwards and forwards in unison.

  Climbing the stairs to the attic floor, they chattered together about some of the terrible questions in the second maths paper and stood back, when they reached the top, to let Jenny Brook-Hayes pass.

  'Awful paper, wasn't it,' said the easy-going Jenny, looking quite unusually strained. 'Tough, I thought.'

  As the Div 1 girl went on down, Rebecca and Mara smiled at one another. Jenny was usually so laid back it was a wonder she didn't fall over, as Tish once said. But not today.

  'There, Mara, doesn't that just prove it. It must be true. About them making the mocks so hard!'

  'Yes,' agreed Mara. 'If Jenny says the paper was tough . . .'

  'Then it was very, very tough,' finished Rebecca.

  It was a shame to see Jenny, of all people, looking rather stricken. But being only human, Rebecca gave a small sigh of relief.

  Rebecca went into her cubicle, found her English set books on the shelf above her work table, straightened her duvet a bit and combed her hair: then she and Mara walked briskly over to the main school together, determined to put in a good afternoon's work.

  She quite enjoyed the rest of the day. Main school was an eighteenth century manor house, once a nobleman's country seat complete with fine library. This was the school library now and was both tranquil and beautiful. Its walls were wood panelled all the way round. Its high windows overlooked rolling parkland and distant deer grazing. That changless view, Rebecca often realised, would have been just the same in the eighteenth century. It would have been like this when Pride and Prejudice was written! Jane Austen might be alive now, sitting at her shoulder . . . For a while Rebecca was immersed in the set book, living through it, as though she were back in those times.

  'Can I see your notes?' Mara whispered then, breaking the spell.

  The girls compared notes on the Jane Austen and then the E. M. Forster – which shot them abruptly forward into the future. Then they zoomed all the way back to the distant past, to learn a key speech from Romeo and Juliet off by heart and test each other.

  They giggled loudly when Mara got something wrong. They were told to shut up by Sujata Seal, Trebizon's senior prefect, who was on library duty. But anyway, it was nearly tea time.

  After tea, Rebecca knocked a tennis ball against the side wall of Norris House for half an hour. Josselyn Vining had promised her a game after lunch tomorrow, after the English exam.

  During half term Miss Welbeck had told Rebecca she must have a complete rest from competitive tennis. But that didn't mean she wouldn't play for pleasure, to try to keep her game up to scratch! For the future! She was looking forward to the game with Joss.

  On Monday evening she read again The Machine Stops with its chilling vision of the future and revised her Shakespeare notes; then had a bath and an early night. Just before she fell asleep she remembered she hadn't rung Robbie. It would have to be tomorrow evening then.

  On Tuesday morning she picked up Biffy the one-armed teddy bear that she and Robbie always regarded as a lucky mascot, to take to the exam. Bonzo, the big toy dog that she'd won at a disco with Cliff, seemed to give her a reproachful look. So she decided to take them both.

  They brought her luck because mock English lit went quite well.

  As, after lunch, did the game against Joss. They were allowed to play on the staff tennis court, these two, during the netball terms. Rebecca beat Joss comfortably.

  They walked back to
wards their boarding houses together and parted near Court House. Joss, like everybody else in the Fifth Year by now, knew all about Rebecca's big decision. She suddenly patted her on the shoulder, with her tennis racket.

  'You'll be back,' she said.

  'Thanks for the game, Joss.'

  Rebecca felt fit and glowing with health. Hard physical exercise always cleared her brain. She had it all planned. The next exam was history, on Wednesday afternoon. She must do well in that one! She was going to learn her Time Chart off by heart. And she had twenty four hours in which to do it. No exams at all timetabled for this afternoon, and tomorrow morning was chemistry, which she'd dropped in the Third Year. The history mock wasn't until the afternoon. Good!

  It was Miss Maggs, dismayed by Rebecca's Fourth Year history results, who'd shown her how to make the Time Chart. She'd worked on it all last term. A broken wrist had meant no tennis for a while -there'd been time for some school work for a change. Rebecca's chart ran to six pages altogether. No-one else had bothered to make anything so meticulous. It traced British Social and Economic History since 1750 (the chosen syllabus) year by year, down long easy-to-read columns. It was a real boon.

  Rebecca had colour-coded the different columns with felt-tips. There were blue ones alternated with yellow ones for the reigns of different monarchs; red ones for wars. Alongside each year she'd written its most important events, with more colour-coding. Green for agriculture, brown for industry, orange for prime ministers and purple for social developments and new laws.

  From her Time Chart, Rebecca could see at a glance that in the year 1848, for example, Queen Victoria was on the throne, the Chartists presented their third petition, there was another cholera outbreak - and a Public Health Act. Russell was prime minister. By running her eye down the 'wars' column she could also see that this was peace time, though the Crimean War wasn't far off. The wonderful thing about the chart was that it gave the overall picture. She just had to learn it properly for the details of various events to begin to slot into place in her mind. It was the key!