The Lost Twin

by Sophie Cleverly

  I looked at Ariadne, who was still clutching at the side of her head. The rain swept more trickles of crimson blood down her face.

  “Fine,” I said. “It’s done.”

  I reached down and helped Ariadne up. She staggered and put all of her weight on my arm. I clutched the diary in one hand, and we made our way carefully back across the roof, as the wind lashed our hair across our faces. Penny didn’t even move as we walked past her.

  “Are you all right?” I asked Ariadne again.

  “Oh, perfectly fine,” she replied. But seconds later her eyes rolled back into her head and her legs went from under her. I lifted her up and carried her through the window hatch.

  At the bottom of the stairs, a crowd of girls had gathered, all talking excitedly. Their eyes went wide as they took in the sight of me and Ariadne, now swaying on her feet, both soaking wet and one of us bleeding.

  Nadia stood there with her hands on her hips. “What were you doing up there?” she demanded. “Where’s Penny?”

  “Go and see for yourself,” I replied impatiently.

  “I’m not going up there in this weather!”

  The other girls nodded in agreement. “We’d catch our death!” Ethel snapped.

  I didn’t have time for this. “Look, I need to get Ariadne to the nurse! Can you please move?”

  “For goodness’ sake …” started Nadia, as I pushed past her. Ariadne moaned and stumbled along with me. The crowd parted.

  “I’ll help you,” said a small, shy-looking girl, as she pulled Ariadne’s other arm over her shoulder.

  “Thanks, Dot,” murmured Ariadne.

  I let Dot lead the way along the corridor and down a small stairwell where there was a door with a discreet red cross painted on it. She knocked gingerly and when there was no answer I banged on it with all my strength.

  “What on earth?” said the nurse, appearing from behind the door. “What’s all this racket?” She had her dark brown hair pulled back in a bun, and thankfully a friendly face. She wore a pocket watch and a name badge that read ‘Nurse Gladys’.

  “My friend … fell down the stairs,” I lied. “She hit her head.”

  Nurse Gladys thought quickly. “Let’s get her lying down. What’s your name, dear?”

  “Ariad … ne … ’m perfectly … ’s all right,” said Ariadne. Her speech was getting more slurred. We helped her up on to the metal bed. There were two more identical beds in the large room, along with a sink, a desk covered in first-aid paraphernalia and a giant metal medicine cabinet with a hefty padlock. The whole place smelled of disinfectant.

  “Goodness, you’re soaking wet!” said the nurse.

  “We just came in from outside. But Ariadne forgot something and tried to run back for it. She slipped on the stairs.” The lies were coming easier to me now.

  “Looks like she has concussion.” Nurse Gladys got a wet cloth and started dabbing at the cut on Ariadne’s head, making her wince. “Did she hit something sharp when she fell?”

  “Um … the corner of the skirting board, maybe?” I replied.

  She nodded thoughtfully. “Let me get this cut cleaned up, dears. Then she’s going to need a lot of bed rest.”

  I sat down on a metal chair next to Dot. “Ariadne’s a nice girl,” she said, sniffing. “She stopped me getting hit by the ball three times in hockey.”

  “Calm down,” said Nurse Gladys. She wrung out her cloth and then reached for some cotton wool. “She’ll be right as rain in no time.”

  Dot sniffed again. I gave her a reassuring smile and took her hand. “You’re right. Ariadne’s a good friend,” I whispered. She squeezed my hand back.

  We stayed there for about ten more minutes as the nurse saw to Ariadne and gave her something to make her sleep. “You girls get back to your rooms. You can come and see your friend again tomorrow. I’ll write this down in the accident book.”

  Reluctantly, we left the nurse’s room. I prayed that Penny had been keeping up her end of the bargain since we left her on the roof.

  Back by the dorms, the crowd still hadn’t dispersed. The other girls were standing around talking, all thoughts of dinner apparently forgotten. I darted into our room and hid the diary at the bottom of the wardrobe, not wanting to risk it until I knew if Penny’s offer was genuine, and I hoped it would dry out quickly. Then I went back outside and joined the crowd.

  A booming voice called out over the rabble, “What’s the meaning of this? You should all be in the dining hall!”

  Miss Fox. Just what I needed.

  There was a great flurry of “sorry, Miss!” as everyone flowed towards the stairs. Miss Fox was standing there with her hands on her hips.

  “You, Miss Grey,” she said, pointing at me. “Have you been up to something?”

  “No, Miss,” I said. “Ariadne fell down the stairs so Dot and I took her to the nurse.”

  “Hmmph.” She ran her gaze over my bedraggled state and looked skeptical, and for a moment I was terrified that she’d demand the truth. But she only said, “Dining hall, now. And no more trouble.”

  I shook my head no, but of course there was going to be more trouble to come. I was going to have to admit to what Scarlet had done to Miss Finch’s piano, and face the consequences.

  As if to remind me, Penny appeared, absolutely soaked through – even more so than myself.

  “Miss Winchester, you look like a drowned rat!” said Miss Fox. “Go and get changed. You too, Miss Grey! You can’t come to dinner looking like that.”

  I glanced over at Penny as we walked back to our rooms. She made a gesture at me – opening and closing her hands. A book. A diary.

  A simple reminder that she could send my world crashing down at any moment.

  t was strange sleeping in room thirteen without Ariadne. It reminded me of when I went to live with Aunt Phoebe, the first time I’d ever spent a night without Scarlet. I shivered in my sheets and tears welled in my eyes.

  Dinner was no less awful, especially since I had cleaning duties with Penny to look forward to. She kept to the other side of the room, though, and didn’t say a word. Nor would she look me in the eye.

  Things seemed brighter the next day, even with the impending doom of owning up to Scarlet’s misdemeanour hanging over my head.

  I visited Ariadne in the nurse’s room. She was propped up on pillows and had a white bandage wrapped around her forehead, but her eyes were bright.

  “Are you going to do it?” she whispered. “Own up to the piano smashing?”

  I nodded. “Of course. I have to.”

  I spent all of ballet worrying what Miss Finch would say when she found out. Every time she praised my dancing, I felt a jolt of anxiety.

  I silently cursed my reflection in the mirror. In my head, Scarlet stuck her tongue out at me.

  I was shaking by the time I got to the Fox’s office. I wondered if she would even believe me. And as for how I was going to explain how I knew anything about it …

  I knocked softly on the dark wooden door. Seconds later it swung open and I found myself looking up at the Fox’s unpleasant face.

  “Yes?” she said impatiently, staring over my head.

  “I need to confess to something,” I said.

  “Aha!” she said triumphantly. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? A wicked miscreant like yourself …”

  “Not me.” I shook my head. “Someone else.”

  Miss Fox raised her eyebrows and stepped to one side. “In,” she said.

  I sat down on the chair, thankful I wasn’t being punished just yet.

  “Right.” She had shut the door behind us and was now standing over me. “Pray tell me what someone has done.”

  “It’s about the … unfortunate incident with Miss Finch’s piano.”

  Miss Fox straightened up. “I recall it. Miss Winchester was duly punished.”

  “But it wasn’t Penny, Miss. It was my sister.” I lowered my voice for that last part, despite the closed door. “She got ang
ry with Penny and tried to frame her …”

  “Preposterous!” Miss Fox slammed her hand down on her desk, and the surrounding dogs wobbled. “How could you possibly know this? You weren’t even attending the school then.”

  Thankfully I’d been up half the night working on my responses, so I knew what to say next.

  “Scarlet wrote a confession.” I pulled the sheet of paper from my pocket. Not a diary page, but a brand-new confession, carefully crumpled. “I found it in our room and … I thought that if I came clean and told you, Penny might leave me alone.”

  Miss Fox looked dubious, but she held out her hand. “Show me.”

  To the untrained eye, my handwriting was very similar to Scarlet’s and I’d tried to make the confession seem as much like my sister’s work as possible. I’d described her fierce rivalry with Penny, her desire to be the only one in the limelight. I’d written it as though she was proud of herself and took all the credit. Exactly what Miss Fox would expect.

  “Stupid girl,” said Miss Fox, shaking her head as she folded the paper up and put it away in a desk drawer. “This is exactly the sort of reckless nonsense that child would get up to.” She gazed down at her Chihuahua pen holder, absent-mindedly tapping a nail on its snout. “If only I hadn’t already punished Miss Winchester for this. And told her parents …” Suddenly she looked up at me sharply. “Not a word about this to anyone, you hear?”

  I stood up. “But is Penny going to be allowed to join the ballet class again? Will you have to kick me out?”

  Miss Fox just waved towards the door. “Get out,” she said. “You can both do your dancing. I’ll tell the Winchesters their precious daughter is innocent after all. Perhaps they’ll make a grateful donation to the school.”

  I felt like collapsing to the floor with relief, but I still worried about what would happen when Miss Finch found out. I’d already come close to losing Ariadne, I didn’t want to lose the only other person who seemed to like me. I’d seen the way she sat at her piano, that peculiar sadness that surrounded her as she played. She must have been really hurt by what had happened to the previous one.

  I hovered at the edge of the office. “I’m … glad I told the truth,” I said.

  Miss Fox glared at me. “I can always change my mind and give you another caning,” she snapped. “And if this will sort things out – I don’t want to hear another word from you or Miss Winchester – I’ll let you both off your punishment. Constantly checking up on you is a waste of my time. Do you understand, Scarlet?”

  “Right, right, yes, Miss,” I said.

  I darted out of the door, leant back against the wall and caught my breath. I had done it. I had fooled the Fox and kept my end of the deal with Penny.

  Now I could only pray that she would keep hers.

  That evening as I sat alone in my room, I heard knocking outside in the corridor. I peered out – a younger girl had been sent to summon Penny from her room, no doubt to go and see Miss Fox.

  Penny caught my eye as she headed for the stairs, then glanced away. I think she knew, or at least hoped, that I’d done what I’d promised.

  I lay back on my bed and read Dracula, a book which I had found hidden beneath Aunt Phoebe’s bookshelves (she’d decided it was ‘too racy’). Scarlet had always wanted to see the film with Bela Lugosi, but even the poster had been enough to frighten me.

  I was so engrossed in my reading that I jumped when there was a knock on the door. I was hoping it might be Ariadne, released from the nurse’s room.

  It was Penny. She fixed me with a defiant look. “You did it,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “I didn’t think you would.”

  I just stared at her. She stared back at me, and then walked away.

  “You’re welcome?” I called after her.

  She turned to me, halfway to her room. “I’ll keep my word. Just stay away from me, you hear?”

  “Gladly,” I muttered.

  Ariadne returned the next day. Her head was still bruised and bandaged, but she seemed to be her old self again. “We’ve foiled Penny’s fiendish plan!” she whispered to me at lunchtime. “Now we can solve everything!” She was so excited that she flicked her forkful of tinned ham across the table.

  I sighed. “If only it were that simple. We still have no idea where to look next.” I took a sip of my too-hot tea and accidentally knocked over the milk jug. Clara and Josephine jumped and then gave me angry stares. It wasn’t long before the giggles and whispers started up, and I was almost relieved to see Penny instigating them. As long as she wasn’t revealing my secrets, she could say whatever she liked.

  A while later, Ariadne and I were walking to our arithmetic lesson, when we turned a corner and met Miss Finch. She was wearing a long-sleeved blue dress instead of her usual ballet attire. She paused and then said, “Miss Grey, I’ve just spoken with Miss Fox.”

  If there was ever a moment to gulp, this was it. “You did?” I said quietly.

  She gestured towards a little alcove in the corridor beside one of the tall glass windows. Ariadne gave me a fretful glance, but I waved her to carry on. I didn’t want her to be late.

  Miss Finch lowered her voice to just within my hearing. “She said … she said you admitted to smashing my piano.” She paused. “Well, we both know that can’t be true. Was it Scarlet?”

  I exhaled and looked down at the floor. “It’s true … she did it.”

  Miss Finch’s eyes widened, but she said nothing.

  “She was angry. Penny was bullying her, and she wanted to get revenge by framing her. I know it’s no excuse. I’m sorry …”

  The ballet teacher’s eyes slipped off me, almost as if I had faded into the background. “I can’t believe she would do such a thing,” she finally said. I had never heard her sound so sad.

  “I’m sorry, Miss,” I repeated. “I’m sorry I have to apologise for her. I’m sorry for this whole situation. For everything.” I sniffed hard to hold back the tears.

  Miss Finch tapped me lightly on my shoulder. “It’s not your fault,” she said quietly, with sincerity.

  I gave a weak smile.

  Miss Finch looked frail as she stood there, leaning against the long window. “I can’t believe it,” she said again. “And Penny … wrongly accused. Goodness, I feel awful.”

  “Don’t feel bad on Penny’s behalf, Miss. She’s done plenty wrong. Just not what you thought.”

  I almost told her about what Penny had done on the roof, then, but I dreaded to think that someone might be listening. “I need to get to class,” I said.

  She pushed herself up from the window and on to both feet, wincing a little as she did so. But as I turned to leave, she called after me, “Scarlet?”

  I turned. It was surprising how quickly I could react to that name these days.

  “I’ll find a way to help you.”

  I wasn’t sure if anyone could help me now.

  very time I walked past the door to Penny’s room that weekend, she was in there practising and humming music. I decided to do some ballet practice too. Ariadne watched and clapped every time I did anything, even when I fell over after slipping on a sock.

  As I was practising my fouetté en tournant for the hundredth time, Penny appeared in our doorway. I lost my balance and she clapped sarcastically. “You’ll fit right in at the sideshow,” she said. “I’ve heard they’re auditioning for a new dancing freak.”

  So she truly was back to her old self. “You’ve had your victory, Penny. Just enjoy it and leave me alone.”

  “I haven’t forgotten any of it. I want to make sure you know that.” She wrinkled her freckled nose.

  To my surprise, Ariadne spoke up. “Of course we know that. I’ve got a bandage around my head to remind me, haven’t I?”

  I looked at her, open-mouthed.

  Penny froze for a moment, but then her mouth twisted into a grim smile. “Have fun,” she said flatly.

  I picked up my shoe and tried to throw i
t at her, but she pulled the door shut in front of her just in time.

  The next ballet lesson, Penny was welcomed back. “You all know Penelope Winchester,” said Miss Finch, gesturing at her. “It seems she was wrongly banned from attending class.” This caused quite a commotion, and our teacher waved her hands to quiet everyone down. “Let’s keep the past in the past, shall we? I hope you’ll be on your best behaviour from now on, Miss Winchester.”

  “Yes, Miss,” she replied.

  Penny was true to her word, and I was able to practise in peace. It was strangely liberating and I felt that I danced my best that day. Even Nadia seemed in a better mood than usual.

  When the bell rang and after everyone else had filed out, Miss Finch called me over. She was playing a soft, mournful tune on the piano, almost like a funeral march.

  “Do you like this piano?” I asked, as I approached.

  “Oh yes,” she said. “It’s not quite the same as my last one, but … it’s close enough.” She carried on playing. “It still sings.”

  I smiled at that. “You wanted to speak to me?”

  “Yes. In fact, it’s about this very piano. I had it tuned at the weekend, and it turned up something rather interesting.”

  She bent over and picked up a floral carpet bag from the floor. After rummaging inside of it, she made an ‘ah’ sound and pulled something out.

  Paper. Oh goodness, is that what I think it is?

  I made a suitably blank expression, hoping to conceal my inner turmoil.

  She held the pages out. “I think these might be for you.”

  Gingerly, I took them and opened them up. It was Scarlet’s writing for sure. But how …?

  Wait. We hadn’t checked the last pages for a clue, had we? After all the mayhem up on the roof it hadn’t occurred to me to do so. Whatever Scarlet’s clue had been, I’d missed it, and now Miss Finch had the pages. I could have kicked myself for being so stupid.

  “They were hidden inside the lid. As soon as the tuning man gave them to me, I thought of Scarlet, after what you’d told me about her smashing the old piano.”