The walk from my dad’s gate cottage to the school was shorter than I anticipated, and I followed the other students through the large grand doors and into the cool hall.
A few girls stared at me as they went past and one accidently brushed my bag, tossing her apology over her shoulder as though it didn’t matter.
“New here?” A voice asked coming up alongside me. It was female and I turned to look at its owner. A tall girl with long flowing blonde locks and that cascaded over her fitted blazer. She had a black patent bag over her shoulder and red gloss on her lips.
“Yes, I’m…”
She forced her hand into mine.
“I’m Pen,” she interrupted. “Head girl and I know a newbie when I see one. Mr Creswell’s office?”
I nodded, trying not to let myself get overwhelmed.
“Yes, please. I don’t want to make you late for registration.”
She waved her hand at me.
“Of course not,” she mouthed ‘bye’ at a group of girls behind her and linked her arm through mine, guiding me amongst the sea of faces until we came up to a large wooden door.
There were a row of seats on the outside of it and a boy was sitting on them. He stood up when we approached and his eyes travelled over me slowly, sizing me up piece by piece. His dark hair curled slightly, and his sharp amber eyes were equal parts mesmerising and beautiful.
There was no denying his handsomeness and I felt somewhat disappointed in the fact that he probably knew it and that almost always ended in arrogance.
“Ru, this is…” Pen looked at me expectantly.
“Oh! Sorry! I’m Ally,” I said holding my hand out. Neither of them took it.
“Short for Alethia?” ‘Ru’ asked in his posh drawl.
“No, no. Just Ally.”
The way he looked at me made me shrink back within myself and I wished that he’d just disappear and leave Pen and I alone.
The headmaster’s door opened, and an older man appeared. He eyed me over in one swift move and smiled.
“Ally Hughes?” he asked.
I nodded.
“You must be Mr Creswell?”
He smiled proudly, happy to have his name precede him.
“I am indeed,” he answered. “Your father has said all good things about you. We here at Atherton School are sorry to hear about your mother and wish to offer you all the support you need.”
He turned to Pen and Ru.
“These here are our Head boy and Head girl. They’ll assist you in these early days as much as you need. Isn’t that right Penelope and Rupert?”
They both nodded and Pen fixed me with her smile.
“Of course. I can just see we’ll get along really well. Why don’t you come and find me in the dining hall at lunch time and we’ll eat together, then I’ll explain everything to you.” She looked at her watch. “I have a class presentation in five minutes. See you later?”
I opened my mouth to speak, but before I could, she’d pranced off, leaving Rupert and I with Mr Creswell.
“Right,” he sighed, slightly bemused by her sudden disappearance. “Rupert, could you show Miss Hughes here to her form class with Mrs Bews?”
He said his goodbyes and once his door closed behind him, Rupert pulled himself away from the wall and gestured out to the hall in front of me.
“Ladies first,” he said.
We walked together in silence for a moment until he stopped and turned to me.
“My parents went skiing in Courchevel last winter with a family of Hughes’. Might that have been yours?”
I cringed at his words. It couldn’t have been further from the truth. I’d never even had a U.K holiday before, let alone abroad. I went to shake my head, but he carried on walking.
“It was an adult trip that you probably weren’t privy too. Not to worry. James! Yes!” he shook hands with another handsome boy that rushed passed us before he turned back to me.
“One thing you’ll figure out about this school is that its cliché. If you’re old money, you tend to stick with your own kind…”
What about if you have no money? I thought as we walked along, I’d never felt more of a fraud than I did walking along Atherton school hall. In every direction I looked, the students oozed wealth. It was in their voices, in their bags and accessories and suddenly, all determination and excitement to fit in faded.
I knew already that I wouldn’t belong. The minute they found out my father was the school groundsman; I would be below anyone’s radar.
I thought of my friends back in London and how easy it had been to be in their company. How effortless being a part of their group was. No one back in my school had been anywhere near money like this. There were no airs and graces and no pretending to have what you didn’t. Material things hadn’t mattered and as we neared the classroom, I had an overwhelming gush of nerves.
My form class was set at the back of a large ornate corridor and as Rupert guided me in, a couple dozen eyes settled on me and I felt my cheeks burn red as the heavy door closed behind us.
Our teacher, Mrs Bews, stopped mid-sentence and watched as I approached her desk. She had a pleasant grandmother look about her with thick grey hair tied back in a bun and loose tendrils spiralling downwards.
She nodded at Ru who patted my shoulder somewhat affectionately and wandered off to find a seat. Great. Thanks.
“And you must be Miss Hughes,” she beamed fondly. “Class, I’m sure you’ll all make Ally here feel very welcome. Her family have a lot of history with this school and her father is well known within these walls.”
I cringed at her words, hoping that no one would connect the dots, but a rather large boy at the front tilted his head at me and squinted.
“As in Hughes the Gardener?” he asked, and all eyes fixed on me waiting for an answer. I glanced over at Mrs Bews and she nodded encouragingly. If only it were that simple.
“Um… yes,” I answered, wanting to sound more certain and surer than the squeak that came out and I inwardly cursed heat I could still feel on my cheeks. “The Estate Groundsman.”
I scanned the room quickly as a few people laughed and I was almost sure I heard a scoff somewhere at the back.
“Same difference, right?” someone quipped, and I wanted the ground to open and swallow me whole. In their world it might have been nothing. A man in their garden was little more than hired help to them.
“Now, Now!” Mrs Bews said sternly, and I was grateful for her support. “That’s not the welcome I was expecting!” She turned to me and rested a hand on my back. “Find a seat dear and we’ll get you up to speed.”
I thanked her and made my way through the rows towards the back, picking an empty seat next to the only person I knew. The Head boy, Rupert.
Our eyes met and the disappointment in his made my stomach sink. I tried to offer a smile, but he furrowed his brow and looked away.
Had he thought I’d lied about my family? About the skiing trip with his parents? It had simply been a misunderstanding and before I was able to say his name and explain, class started, and Mrs Bews’ voice radiated through the room. I made a mental note to rectify things once the lesson ended. The last thing I wanted to do on my first day of school was to make enemies. Especially with the Head boy.
Chapter 5
The opportunity to corner Ru never came and after being shown to my next lesson by a pompous idiot who saw me as nothing more than an inconvenience, I was grateful for the bell to ring for lunch.
The morning so far had been a tough one and for the most part I was looking forward to meeting up with Pen and having someone friendly to talk to. I’d craved human company ever since I’d stepped foot in the school, and I realised just how easy it was to feel alone even when surround by dozens of people.
The dining hall was nothing like the one in London. Here, it was steeped in history with ornate coving around the ceiling and paintings adorning the walls. The windows were beautiful and stain-glassed and the wooden be
nches we had to sit at wouldn’t have been out of place in Harry Potter. Despite my odd morning, I found Atherton School simply mesmerising.
I joined the queue for lunch and took my steaming plate of Pasta and salad towards the tables, scanning the room for Pen. I found her, sitting towards the back with a handful of people. Her golden locks still looked just as pristine as they did this morning and her red lips still as vibrant. I heard her waft of laughter float over to me from where I stood and the other girls in her company giggled in unison. Head Girl. She looked as though life and everything in it came easy to her and although we were wearing the same uniform, the way it fitted her made mine seem frumpy.
I weaved through the tables towards her, stopping short when I suddenly realised that the beach ball guy, whose friends had yelled ’Harry’ to him was sitting amongst her ‘group’. Yes, I was certain it was him. Same curled locks, and same smile. Only this time it wasn’t at me. It was at her. Could he have been her boyfriend? Just another thing to add to how great it must have been to be Pen.
Part of me screamed to find somewhere else to sit. This group, I was starting to realise, were way out of my depth, but I remembered her telling me to find her at lunch. It would have been bad form to just disappear. That was the perfect way to make enemies and right now, I needed all the friends I could get.
I readjusted the tray in my hands and pushed forwards, arriving at their table just as she was telling them about her father’s lake-side cottage.
“Well, we could get a group of us together and…oh!” she stopped when she saw me hovering awkwardly beside the table and her eyes skimmed over me. A brief skim, but enough to make me feel a little uncomfortable.
“Sorry, you don’t have to stop your conversation,” I said quickly, and I looked at the empty space beside her. “You said to come and find you at lunch. I hope that’s still okay?”
She followed my gaze to the space and frowned, pushing her designer bag into it.
“Sorry hun, this seat’s taken,” she said with false sweetness and her words took me by surprise and suddenly I could feel the overbearing weight of my bag hanging in the crook of my arm and the tray in my hands.
“Oh…right…” I looked over to the other spaces, noticing one beside beachball guy. He gave me a one-sided smile and his face looked as though he was about to offer it to me, but Pen tilted her head into my view.
“Sorry, that one’s taken too.”
There was that heat in my cheeks again as it dawned on me what was happening. She was pushing me out. It was her way of saying ‘You just can’t sit with us’ and it stung to high hell.
I took a step backwards, tripping slightly on someone else’s bag, causing me to almost drop my tray of food.
Everyone on the table laughed, all of them apart from the guy I’d seen earlier. He looked at me awkwardly and I wasn’t sure if it was pity I saw on his face or embarrassment for me, either way, I wasn’t going to wait and find out. The humiliation I already felt standing there with my stupid tray of food while people smirked at me was more than enough.
Without another word, I turned and left the dining hall, taking my food with me much to the surprise of a few girls that I hurried past and I didn’t stop until I was on the back steps. I didn’t really care if food wasn’t allowed out there. It was my first day and so far, it was starting to go downhill fast.
I tried to flick back through my memory banks as I ate outside alone. Trying to work out if I’d misunderstood Pen’s request to find her at lunch. Had she been joking? Had I heard it correctly. Yes, I was sure I did. Positive. Which made it all the more confusing. What had happened in that short space of time and turned Pen from a sweet Head girl eager to help, into a grade A monumental bitch?
I’d almost finished all my lunch when a shadow appeared beside me.
“You know, rumour has it that forty years ago, the cook killed one of the students and used their body for the Bolognese sauce.”
I looked up as the owner of the voice lowered themselves down beside me.
It was a girl with smooth chocolate skin and a mop of stunning dark curls surrounding her head. She smiled at me and raised her eyebrows.
“Is it true?” I asked, putting my fork back slowly onto the plate.
She laughed easily.
“Well, who knows? But I for one stay well away. There’s just something icky about it.” She paused as a group of boys bounced down the stairs beside us before she stuck her hand out towards me. “I’m Petrece. But everyone here calls me Tre.”
I took her outstretched hand and shook it.
“Well Tre, I’m Ally. Just Ally and I kind of get the feeling that the longer you sit with me, the more likely you are to catch whatever disease I’ve been labelled with. I don’t want to cramp your style.”
She batted my comment away with her other arm and put her bag down on the floor.
“Pen?” she asked, and I nodded.
“So, her reputation precedes her?”
Tre laughed.
“She’s a piece of work, alright. But I wouldn’t let her get to you and I certainly wouldn’t let her make you sit out here and eat on your own.” She looked at the time on her snazzy smart watch. The only time I’d seen one in person was when one of the Johnson brothers had tried to sell me a stolen one.
“So, tell me about you,” Tre continued turning to me. “I was in class when Mrs Bews mentioned your dad is Mr Hughes? Am I right?”
I nodded reluctantly.
“Great. You heard that?”
“Hey, it’s not the end of the world. There are other people here on scholarships too.”
I looked at her and watched as she pushed her curls away from her face.
“Are you on a scholarship?” I asked.
She turned away sheepishly.
“Well, no. Not me, but there are enough here to not feel isolated. Maybe tomorrow I’ll introduce you to some.”
I wanted to tell her that I might not be back tomorrow. I wasn’t the type to run away when things got tough but falling at the first hurdle a few hours in had taken the wind from my sails.
I put the tray with my mostly eaten pasta down beside me and stretched my legs out, catching sight of three guys walking briskly across the courtyard.
Tre followed my gaze.
“Ah, Cresties,” she sighed knowingly.
“Cresties?” I studied them further, recognising one of them to be Rupert, the head boy who’d shown me to our form room earlier in the morning and the other was Harry. Pen’s Harry. The one I’d briefly connected with on Atherton beach who later sat at the table and watched from the side-lines as I was mercilessly humiliated. I hated him already.
The other boy, however, I didn’t recognise. But he walked with an air of ease in his step and the way he wore his uniform oozed coolness.
Harry turned to look at me, our eyes meeting despite the distance between us. He looked shocked at first to see me. Even more so when his eyes rested on my tray and then all too soon he disappeared with the others behind a set of heavy doors.
I turned to Tre.
“What are Cresties?” I repeated.
She gestured for me to get up and follow her with my tray and we fell into a steady walk back to the dining hall.
“It’s a club,” she answered eventually. “No one really knows what goes on in there, but I’ve heard some say it’s dark. Apparently, years ago one of the members died at a meet up.”
I looked back over my shoulder towards the door the boys had gone through, intrigue and mystery consuming me.
“I saw Rupert and Harry go in there…” I started and Tre gave me a look, taking my arm and guiding me to the side of the hall.
“Listen,” she said, her voice a rushed hush. She looked at either side of us before she continued. “I’ve heard an awful lot of shit about why you’re here. People are speculating, but I don’t care about any of that. I just think it’s important for you to know that in order to get by in this place, there are a
few rules you should adhere to.”
“Rules?” I soured at the tone of her voice and the direction her approach had taken. “I don’t need rules.”
She laughed lightly and let go of me.
“Fine. But we’ll see how far you get without them.” Her smart watch started beeping and she took a deep breath. “Okay, I have to meet up with the dance class before fourth lesson so I’m going to make this quick. You’ll do better than the last girl if you sail way under the radar and keep your head down. Even more so if you stay out of Pen’s way. She’s poison and if you cross her, she’ll use her status to bring you down and lastly… don’t go near the Crest Club boys. They’re addictive and handsome and all the things that girls love, but they won’t have your best interests at heart. They seem to be a newbies downfall.”
I nodded, realising I was holding my breath.
“Rupert, Harry and Sebastian are the club’s current leaders whose fathers graced this very same building and were leaders of the very same club. They’re dangerous.”
“Tre?”
A girl to the side of us called her name and we both turned to look. She had her smooth brown hair tied up in a bun and she was looking at us expectantly.
Tre turned back to me.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” she whispered. “I have to go. Catch you later?”
I nodded and she gave me a little wave before she walked off. I gripped hold of the tray tightly in my hand, running over the things she’d said. Harry and Rupert were dangerous? Surely it was nonsense. Who would allow a dangerous juvenile to become Head Boy? And the other boy now had a name. Sebastian. Maybe Seb for short? Either way, it suited his fuck-boy image.
I put my tray back in the Dining room after a moment of quiet contemplation, thankful that Pen and her group had now dispersed. Even the thought of my earlier humiliation made my stomach churn and as I made my way back to my form room, I caught sight of Harry and who I assumed was Rupert hurrying through the corridor and ducking into the boys toilets.
Diamond - A British Academy Rich Boy Bully Romance (Atherton School Crest Club Book 1) Page 3
