by Ann Bryant
That thought gave me such a good feeling.
Chapter Nine
I was so touched that Antonia had planned to let me borrow one of her dresses for the party. But now I came to think about it properly, it was actually embarrassing too, because I’d given Sasha and Izzy the impression that I’d got something amazing in my wardrobe. I was going to look a bit of a fool coming back from the storeroom with a dress that was obviously Antonia’s.
“Right! Time to get ready for the party!” said Sasha.
“You’re joking!” said Bryony. “We’ve got the whole afternoon!”
“And you and I are supposed to be going abseiling!” added Emily, looking at her watch. “Let’s get ready, Bry. The minibuses leave in twenty minutes.”
“What ees abseiling?” asked Antonia.
“It’s jumping down the wall of a high building, attached to a rope,” I explained as best I could, feeling happy that it felt so easy to talk to Antonia now.
“Ah!” said Antonia, saying something in Italian that finished with doppia and must have been a translation.
Then there was a knock at the door, and in came Matron.
She looked round at the six of us and instantly started chuckling. “Well I was expecting to find an invalid in here, but I must say, you all look in very good health!” Her eyes settled on me. “How are you feeling, Nicole? Did you manage to have a rest?”
“Er…not really…” I said hesitantly, as Antonia and I exchanged a look. We couldn’t help giggling a bit. “Sorry, Matron. I can’t explain what’s funny, but I’m feeling much better now.”
“Well I’m delighted to hear it. No need for this then!” She whipped a thermometer out of her pocket, waved it in the air, and popped it away again. “Right, I’ll be off, and I’ll see you at the party!”
“Yes, bye, Matron. Thank you!” I said.
“You’re welcome!” she replied. And on her way out, she winked at Antonia. “Or should I say, prego?”
Antonia nodded and grinned, and explained to us that Matron was trying to learn Italian. Then she turned to me. “Let us go down to the common room.”
It felt funny but lovely that she was talking just to me, and we said good luck to Emily and Bryony, then went off together.
The moment the door shut behind us, Antonia turned to me with shining eyes. “I do not really want to go to the common room,” she explained. “Really, I want to go to the storeroom to find the dress for you!”
I grinned at her. She looked so excited. “But we’ll have to go to Mrs. Pridham for the key,” I pointed out.
She nodded. “Of course.”
So we made our way to Mrs. Pridham’s flat and knocked on her door.
Her eyes really flew open when she saw it was the two of us. “Oh!” Then she seemed to recover herself and broke into a nice smile. “Good to see you’re much better, Nicole. Did you want to come in for a chat?”
“Er…we wondered if we could borrow the key for the storeroom to get something,” I explained.
“Yes, I’m sure that’ll be fine, but what about a cup of tea first? I was wanting to talk to both of you actually, but I must admit I’d planned to see you separately.”
She raised her eyebrows and I found myself blushing. It was obvious now that Mrs. Pridham knew much more about what went on in her boarding house than I’d thought.
The three of us sat down in her sitting room with mugs of tea and biscuits and talked for a bit about the abseiling trip and other trips that would be happening during the term. It felt like very safe chatter until Mrs. Pridham suddenly put her mug down and looked at us both carefully.
“I’m so pleased to see that you’ve finally worked through your differences.”
Antonia was frowning and I realized she didn’t understand what Mrs. Pridham meant.
“Yes, we’re…friends now,” I said, biting my lip.
“Yes,” said Antonia. “Amiche.”
“That’s Italian for friends,” I explained to Mrs. Pridham.
She smiled. “It sometimes take a couple of weeks for life to settle down at a boarding school like this, and sometimes a lot longer. I’ve been aware that you two have had problems, but I wanted to give you time to work things through yourselves before I stepped in.”
Antonia was frowning even harder, and that made me realize again how much we take for granted about language. I was determined that from now on I’d help her all I could to improve her English.
“We just had a whole load of misunderstandings,” I told Mrs. Pridham carefully.
“My Engleesh ees so bad,” Antonia chipped in.
“No, it’s not your fault,” I quickly said.
“Fault means mistake?” Antonia asked me quietly.
I nodded. “We’ve both made mistakes. And we’ve sorted them all out by talking…”
“Yes, we had a truth talk,” said Antonia. And I thought that was such a sweet way of describing all that we’d said. “And sometimes we shouted,” she added, her eyes twinkling.
“Yes, that’s true.” I smiled.
“But now we are friends,” she finished off, as she nodded firmly at Mrs. Pridham. “Amiche.”
I felt very touched that she wanted to make this point so clear, and I think Mrs. Pridham felt moved too, because she blinked a lot and reached for her tea as though she wanted to cover the moment.
“Well, that’s really put my mind at rest,” she said, smiling at us both once she’d taken a sip and put her mug back down. “Miss Stevenson said it would all come to a head soon, and she was right!”
That gave me quite a shock because I never thought Miss Stevenson would notice anything wrong. “Miss Stevenson?”
But Antonia seemed much more alarmed than me. “Miss Stevenson went to see Ms. Carmichael?” she asked.
“No, no, it’s all right,” I told her, realizing straight away why she’d got the wrong end of the stick. Poor Antonia must have heard the words Miss Stevenson and then the words come to a head, and thought that Mrs. Pridham was talking about Ms. Carmichael, because she’s the Head of Silver Spires. “It’s all right. It’s just an expression. If something comes to a head, it’s a bit like a spot that gets bigger and bigger and then it pops!”
“Oh!”
Now Antonia looked really bewildered and it wasn’t surprising. I hadn’t explained it very well at all.
“Do you know, I’d never noticed how often we use expressions like come to a head,” Mrs. Pridham said. “No wonder you get confused, Antonia. Thank goodness you’ve got Nicole to help you along.”
It was really nice chatting to Mrs. Pridham, and when we’d finished our tea she gave us the key to the storeroom. “What did you say you wanted from down there?”
“Something to wear for the party,” answered Antonia.
Mrs. Pridham beamed. “Lovely!”
A few minutes later we were down in the basement, trying to find Antonia’s cases amongst the piles and piles of cases and bags and trunks. It didn’t take us long, because her luggage all had gold edging that made it stand out, but it was still quite difficult getting her trunk out from underneath the pile of other bags and cases. When she finally managed to open the lid and pull out the dress, I gasped with amazement.
“It’s so similar to the one I tried on!” I squeaked.
“Yes. Now you see why I deed not want you to buy that one.”
I nodded slowly, feeling a tingling excitement welling up inside me.
“You will be bellissima!” said Antonia, beaming. “Very beautiful!”
“Oh thank you, Antonia!” And I hoped she understood from my eyes that I didn’t just mean thank you for the compliment, or even thank you for the dress, but just thank you for making everything right for me.
It was quarter to five when we four started to get ready for the party, because Sasha said she absolutely couldn’t wait for Emily and Bryony to get back – she wanted to start immediately.
“It weell take such a long time?” asked Antonia, lau
ghing.
“Yes, because I want to do Emily’s hair as soon as she gets back, and that will take ages. You see, I’m determined that Emerald dorm will be the best dressed in Forest Ash. And we will!” she added, sticking her chin in the air.
I breathed a sigh of relief that I’d got my gorgeous dress to wear, and to make things even better, lovely Antonia had told everyone that it was my dress and we’d been down to the storeroom to get it from my bag. When we were on our own in the bathroom washing our hair later, I told her how kind she was to have said that, but explained that I didn’t want her to feel that she had to tell lies to protect me. She wrinkled her nose and said, “Now what do you Engleesh people say? Eet ees a white-coloured lie, I theenk?”
I laughed. “A white lie. Yes, that’s right.”
“And anyway, I want to geev you the dress, because you look much better than me, wearing eet.”
“No, you can’t give it to me, Antonia!” I said, feeling shocked, because it was more than my mum would give me even for my birthday or Christmas.
“You want to make me unhappy again?” she asked, tipping her head to one side and pursing her lips dramatically.
“But what would your parents say?”
“They said I must do eet eef eet makes me happy.” Antonia shrugged. “Simple, no?”
“You mean you’ve already asked them?”
“Yes. After we deed the shopping treep. I phoned to tell Mamma that I had learned about Engleesh money and Engleesh sizes. And I also told her I have one dress too many and she was very happy that I give eet to my friend who I theenk has no dresses because her eyes are frightened when there ees talk of dresses and parties.”
“Oh, Antonia!” I hugged her tight and felt another twinge of guilt as a memory of how she’d studied all the price tags came to the front of my mind.
Antonia clapped her hands delightedly. “So now the dress ees yours and that means there are no more lies of any colour to tell!”
I laughed as I piled my hair into a towel turban to dry it.
It was five thirty when Emily and Bryony got back from abseiling. They crashed into the dorm and launched into loads of funny and scary stories, all about what an amazing time they’d had. It sounded brilliant and I persuaded Antonia to come with me the next time there was a trip.
“Right, you’ve got to get ready!” announced Sasha, the moment they stopped to draw breath.
“What, already?” said Bryony, looking at her watch. “It’ll take me precisely one minute to get ready, because I’m not going to wash my hair and this is what I’m wearing.” She pulled a pair of black trousers out of her bottom drawer, followed by a light blue vest top with This Is Me written in dark blue lettering across it, and threw them on her bed. “Plus those earrings I showed you.”
I just stood there, my mouth hanging open.
“What’s wrong?” said Bryony. “I don’t like dressing up and that’s all there is to it!”
I quickly shut my mouth and broke into a big smile. “There’s nothing wrong. I think you’ll look fantastic. I was going to wear black trousers myself, but Antonia persuaded me to put on a dress.”
“Show them!” ordered Izzy. “Nicole’s going to look so beautiful,” she added.
I held the dress against me and felt a second’s guilt for not admitting that Antonia had given it to me, but then I remembered how Antonia had stressed that there were no lies of any colour being told, and I made myself let go of the guilt.
While Bryony and Emily were getting ready, I kept thinking about that moment when Bryony had chucked the trousers and top onto her bed, and I felt like breaking out into giggles. If only she’d done that two weeks ago, I needn’t have gone through all the agony I’d been through. But of course, thinking back, Bryony and Emily had never really been in on any of the conversations that had taken place about the party. It had always just been the four of us in the dorm whenever we’d discussed what we were going to wear.
Emily put on a pair of dark green trousers with wide bottoms, and a pale green and white fitted cotton shirt. “I don’t like dressing up either,” she said, “and I told my mum I wasn’t going to be seen dead in a dress, so she made me buy these trousers, which aren’t so bad I suppose.”
“You look fantastic!” I told her. And I really meant it. She’d refused to wear any jewellery, but her hair hung in a wonderful sleek style down to her shoulders, because she’d let Sasha attack it with the hair straighteners and all sorts of glossy products.
“Bit of a change from my usual scruffy self, I must admit!” she said, looking at herself in the mirror, and I could tell from her eyes that she was quite pleased with the end result.
I was also pleased with the way I looked. In fact, that wasn’t true. I was actually over the moon. Izzy had styled my hair and I wore it loose, almost down to my waist, with a few thin plaits at the front, which kept it off my face. Antonia and I discovered we had the same size feet and she’d lent me some shoes, and also some matching earrings and a necklace in thin strandy silver.
Sasha and Izzy both looked wonderful in their outfits, and as for Antonia, well I know I’m biased, but she really did take first prize out of us six. It wasn’t that her clothes were designer clothes, it was just the way she looked in them. Even Bryony, who isn’t interested in fashion one little bit, stared at Antonia for ages, and finally said, “Well if you don’t get the Year Seven Oscar for best-dressed person, I’ll eat my hat!”
And then we all had to try and explain to Antonia what Bryony meant.
The party was wonderful. The older girls had made the common room look so amazing, with silver spiral decorations hanging everywhere, and hoops that they’d rolled round with tinfoil, and balloons with silver writing. A crisp white tablecloth covered the table and fell down to the floor on all sides. It was covered with scattered hearts and O-for-Oscar shapes. The lights had been turned right down with the dimmer switch, and there were beautiful candles everywhere, and little tea lights on the table amongst the sparkles and the yummy food. The senior students had made an incredible finger buffet, with loads and loads of different scrummy things to eat, and they’d mixed delicious fizzy fruit juices in big glass jugs.
The loud music pulsed through the room, and when I looked around at everyone I felt a warm safe feeling that I was where I was supposed to be. We danced and played games and had quizzes about celebrities, and we talked and talked as we ate and drank to our heart’s content. Mrs. Pridham and Matron joined in with the dancing and the quizzes, but Miss Stevenson seemed shyer and stood by herself quite a lot of the time. Antonia and I spent the entire evening glued to each other’s sides, and when she won the Year Seven award for best-dressed person, I was the proudest and happiest person in the room.
“I’m so relieved you two made friends just in time,” said Emily, “or the rest of us wouldn’t have had half such a good time, worrying about you both.”
“Have you been worrying about us?” I asked, with another twinge of guilt.
“Course we have! We’ve spent ages asking each other what to do, and talking to Miss Stevenson about it.”
“You talked to Miss Stevenson?” I squeaked.
“She was the one who brought it up,” said Bryony, “because she was worrying too, you see, but she told us it was best not to interfere.”
“She said she thought you were both too nice not to make friends soon, and we agreed,” said Izzy.
“We were really surprised that Miss Stevenson was so easy to talk to,” added Sasha, “because she doesn’t smile much or anything, but she told us she was quite shy.”
“Yes, she even told us she wasn’t looking forward to the party very much because she didn’t have any posh clothes,” said Bryony. “But I assured her that no way would I be wearing posh clothes, and that cheered her up a bit.”
So Miss Stevenson had been nervous about the party too! “I’d never have guessed that Miss Stevenson was shy until this evening,” I said, thinking how much I was learnin
g today.
“Yes, very shy,” said Antonia, nodding. “I can see that.”
And yet again I realized how observant Antonia was, which got me wondering what else she’d observed. Had she seen the way I blushed whenever there was any mention of parents? She knew now that I came from a poor background, but I didn’t think she had any idea just how very different our families were. In fact I reckoned that if you got every girl in this school and lined them up side by side according to how rich their parents were, I’d be standing on one end of the line and Antonia would be at the other end, with people like Suki.
I kept on telling myself that I was stupid getting scared by thoughts like this. But what if we were just too different to be amiche? Now I’d found out what a lovely person Antonia was, I couldn’t bear there being any risk at all of losing her.
Chapter Ten
The day after the party I woke up with a lovely sunny feeling and only one little cloud spoiling it. I just couldn’t shake away my anxiety that Antonia didn’t know the whole truth about me. The problem would be when we got picked up to go home for half-term. Perhaps she’d see our old car and all the paint cans in the back and it would seem so far from what she was used to that she might change her mind about me. And then there’d be the whole week apart from each other. That could distance us even more. I couldn’t bear these thoughts. A part of me knew they were stupid, and that Antonia would never be so shallow, but another part was getting all churned up.
After breakfast Antonia wanted to phone her parents, so I decided to phone Mum at the same time.
It felt great telling her about my new best friend, and as I talked I gradually stopped worrying about the differences between Antonia and me, although when the words “best friend” first popped out of my mouth it gave me a bit of a jolt, because in actual fact, Antonia and I had never discussed whether or not we were best friends and she might not feel as I did about that. All she’d said was amiche – friends. I loved that word, and I thought I was quite good at pronouncing it now.
