Good @ Games (Book Four, The Flirting Games Series)

by Wilkinson, Stella

  At that moment Ellie came into their room and flung her bag on her bed. She watched dispassionately as several school books slid out of it and bounced to the floor, then plopped herself down beside it.

  “Nate says he might take me to the cinema in Bristol on Saturday – do you and Michael want to come?”

  “Maybe; I don’t know. Wouldn’t you rather be alone?”

  Ellie and Nate had been dating for almost a year now, but they still seemed unable to keep their hands off each other. Flora often wondered if they were trying to set some kind of kissing record.

  “And I have no idea what Michael will be doing, since I’ve barely spoken to him in the last couple of days.” Flora tried not to sound too upset, but Ellie picked up on it straight away anyway.

  “Oh dear, you’re in the dumps. I’ve had enough of that from Nate; he’s been moping around like a wet Sunday since term started. I think he’s missing Gabriel.”

  Flora squashed the thought as soon as it came into her head, but she still heard her inner voice saying “I miss Gabriel too!” But Gabriel was gone, and he was never meant to be hers anyway. Plus she now had the gorgeous, younger model, Michael. The Gabriel 2.0.

  Flora conjured up a bright smile for Ellie. “No, I’m fine. I just think maybe Michael might be getting a bit bored with me…”

  Ellie flung her arms around Flora. “That’s just not possible, Flo! You’re like the nicest person I’ve ever met in my life. Michael knows it too. I’m sure he’s just adjusting to a new school and new friends.”

  Flora nodded with a smile. “Yeah, I expect so. I’ll ask him about Saturday anyway.”

  Ellie grinned back at her. “Hey, guess what? My history is so good, now that I’ve got Nate constantly on me about my grade, that Mrs Marsh has asked me to tutor someone else! Can you believe it? Me!”

  “That’s great, Ellie. You get extra credit for that, right? Is it anyone I know?”

  Ellie shook her head. “No, some new girl. Apparently she’s a head case who got kicked out of her last school, but rumour has it she’s gotten a music scholarship, so she must be pretty damn good. As long as she tries, then I don’t really care if she has an attitude; she might even be quite fun. We’ll find out soon enough.”

  Chapter Three

  Bianca was everything Jessica expected and more. She was tall and slim, with perfect long blond hair, perfect skin, perfect nails, and legs that went all the way up to a perfect little pert behind.

  On a second look, Jessica decided that Bianca wasn’t nearly as pretty as she acted like she was, she just had on a lot of makeup.

  Bianca uncurled herself from her bed and formally shook Jessica’s hand. “Hullo, I’m Bianca Standish, this is Prisha Kaur.” She indicated the other girl, who also stood up, like it was ladies’ day at Ascot. Jessica felt like an idiot shaking hands. Surely sixteen-year-old girls didn’t act like that, even if they did go to an overpriced boarding school?

  “So where are you from?” Bianca asked.

  “Southampton.”

  “Oh! Is your father Admiral Chase? I met him once.”

  “No,” Jessica laughed. “My father’s a dental technician. He makes teeth,” she clarified as both girls stared at her blankly.

  Bianca’s eyes narrowed and then looked her up and down. Jessica bet herself that Bianca was mentally calculating the cost of her clothes, trying to decide if dental technician was a respectable trade or not.

  “We hope you’ll be happy here,” Prisha said. “Don’t we, Bianca?” she added pointedly to her friend.

  Bianca gave Jessica a fake smile. “Of course. That’s your bed over there.” She flicked her hand towards the furthest corner and then left the room.

  “Don’t mind her. Her bark’s worse than her bite.” Prisha gave Jessica a weak smile. Jessica raised her eyebrows, clearly not believing that for a second.

  Bianca’s imperious voice floated in through the open door. “Prisha? Are you coming?”

  Prisha looked uncertain for a moment, then slipped out the door after Bianca.

  Jessica shrugged. At least Amy seemed nice, and Eustace; but she really wished she had got into a decent regular school. Now she was going to actually have to live with these snobs.

  Jessica was quiet as she unpacked her clothes. She was normally pretty loud and full of attitude. But now she felt she had to work out a whole new personality for herself. She didn’t want to be attitude-girl any more, but she hated to feel vulnerable. Could she manage to find something in the middle?

  Amy looked at her watch. “We’ve got about half an hour before dinner, if you want to freshen up, and then later I can take you to meet Ellie, if you like. Oh no, hang on, it’s chess club tonight. Ellie is captain of the chess team. Maybe wait until tomorrow… unless you are into chess?”

  Jessica pulled a disgusted face. Of course she wasn’t into chess! That was a super geeks game. Ellie must be yet another clever swot. Jessica sighed; she had hoped at least to make some friends for her time in purgatory, but it looked like she was going to be hanging with the nerds. She had a feeling the mean girls had already rejected her. She took a deep calming breath. That was fine. She didn’t want to be a mean girl any more anyway.

  “Dork days, here I come,” she muttered to herself. “No, that’s fine, thanks,” she said aloud to Amy. “I’ll meet Ellie tomorrow. Is there anything else to do this evening?”

  “Well, it’s a Monday evening, so most people will probably just be doing prep, which is the boarding school version of homework. But there is a games room, or the library if you want to go online, and there’s a movie room, but that’s pretty limited; mainly educational films.”

  “The library sounds fine. I could check my email. So how come we can’t use the Internet anywhere else?” Jessica asked. “I mean I have roaming data even if there is no Wi-Fi.”

  Amy shrugged. “I don’t know how they’ve done it. But it’s totally impossible to get Internet access outside the library. We do have a school Intranet though.”

  “What’s an Intranet?” Jessica had never heard of it.

  “It’s like an internal mini-Internet. It’s got web pages of school-approved stuff, and we have our own internal email system, which you can access anywhere.”

  Jessica pulled another face. “Yeah, I can’t really see myself using that, to be honest. It’s not like I have any friends here.”

  Amy spread her hands. “It’s up to you. I find it useful for checking in with friends in other school houses, getting updates on school clubs and activities, cribbing work from each other, that kind of thing.”

  Jessica nodded. “Yeah, okay, let’s do that after dinner then.”

  Jessica had a quick shower and changed her clothes before dinner. Entering the dining room was absolutely terrifying. The huge hall was filled with noise. Long tables held pupils of every age, some in uniform, some not. Jessica was immensely grateful to have Amy with her; otherwise she might have turned tail and ran.

  “This isn’t everyone.” Amy laughed at Jessica’s expression. “The younger ones eat first, then it’s years four to seven on the late lunch and dinner shift. This is the South Tower table. But you can sit anywhere really. Probably best to start getting to know people here though, as we hang together in the Common Room in the evenings. It’s very unusual to go into the other Common Rooms, though you can, of course.”

  Jessica ate quietly. She was impressed by the food, which was a million miles from the food in her last school, but she supposed they had to spend all the income from the school fees on something, why not on grilled salmon and French beans? She was also very relieved to discover she was allowed fries with it, which made it perfect as far as she was concerned.

  A short while later, Jessica and Amy made their way to the library.

  Amy taught Jessica how to use the Intranet. “There’s an app for your phone, which you’ll need to download in here,” Amy explained.

  “That all seems a bit modern for boarding school,” Je
ssica commented.

  “We’re not totally in the dark ages here, you know! But yes, actually we only got the Intranet this year, so we’re all just learning to use it as well.”

  “Cool. So how does this internal email work?” Jessica looked with some confusion at the list of other users. “Bum face? Forget-me-not? Those obviously aren’t real names. How do you know who’s who?”

  “I dunno. Some people use their real names, those that want to be contacted for something school related, but most of us just tell our friends what our name is, and have avatars, you know?”

  “Oh, right. So who are you? I don’t see an Amy anywhere here.”

  Amy smiled and pointed to the list. “That’s me there, I’m MoonBear. And before you ask, they’re an endangered species of bear, and I care about protecting them.”

  “Fine with me.” Jessica spread her fingers. “So what shall I be?”

  “I’ll leave you to think about it. I need to get back and do some prep. You alright on your own?”

  Jessica had a slight panic that she might not actually be able to find her way back to South Tower on her own, but figured she could always ask someone if she got lost. So she nodded and tried to think of a good email name.

  After a while she typed in “Soubrette”, an opera term which generally meant “a pert, young female character with a light soprano voice”. She felt it summed her up quite well, though she was fairly sure that no one else in the school would have a clue as to its meaning. She shrugged, uncaring of that, and pressed select. Then she opened up the Internet and wrote her parents a short email, telling them about her new room and the people she had met so far. She tried to keep the negativity to a minimum, as she knew how much they wanted her to be happy there, but it was hard. So far she felt like a fish out of water, and she couldn’t see it getting better any time soon.

  She was just pressing send when a box popped up letting her know she had a new internal email.

  Jessica looked at it in confusion. She didn’t know anyone yet and absolutely no one knew the name that she had only just chosen. Maybe it was a generic welcome email? She opened it.

  “Hey, droopy drawers! Move your fat arse up here or it will be a frog in your bed tonight.”

  Jessica stared at the screen for a minute. Had someone seen her in the library, sussed out who she was, and decided to start bullying her already? Were they suggesting she leave Compass Court or she would get a frog in her bed? She looked at the sender name. It said The Eagle, which didn’t mean anything to her.

  She decided the chances of its being directed at her were slim; it was much more likely that the email was meant for someone else and had come to her by accident. She thought about ignoring it. But then the person it was really meant for would not get it and might instead get the horrible frog thing without knowing who or why. She was about to type in a reply politely explaining that she didn’t think she was the intended recipient, but instead she couldn’t resist having a little fun. So she typed:

  “I do not have a fat arse. I have a rather nice bum, thank you very much, and if you put a frog in my bed then you get a horse’s head in yours.”

  Giggling to herself she pressed send.

  Seconds later came a reply. “Oops! Sorry, that was meant to go to Soggybottomboy. His name is right above yours, I must have hit the wrong one. Please ignore!”

  Then, almost straight after, another message:

  “If your bum was that nice I’m pretty sure I would have noticed it. Who are you?”

  “None of your business,” Jessica typed, “But I’m new so I’ll forgive you for not noticing my bottom yet.”

  There was a pause and then another reply.

  “Your login name is something to do with opera, right? Are you that fat kid in the third year who looks like Pavarotti? That would explain the horse’s head reference as well. I bet he’s got mafia links. But if you are him, then I got to tell you dude, your bum is not rather nice, it looks like a pair of watermelons in a sack.”

  Jessica chuckled out loud for a minute. Then she typed, “That’s rich coming from someone called The Eagle. I bet it’s because you have a massive nose and a hunchback.”

  “Have another pie, Pavarotti! It happens to be my nickname, after the song, you know?”

  Jessica tried to think of the song but came up blank so she put, “Unless it’s opera then we fat tenors might not know it.”

  “Look it up later,” the stranger replied.

  So Jessica looked it up. She found hundreds of hits, so copied the most popular.

  “There’s a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

  The Eagle

  He clasps the crag with crooked hands;

  Close to the sun in lonely lands,

  Ring’d with the azure world, he stands.

  The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;

  He watches from his mountain walls,

  And like a thunderbolt he falls.

  So do you have crooked hands?”

  There was a pause, then a reply. “Hmmm, either you are ultra intelligent or you’re in the library right now with Internet access. Which means I can just pop down and see exactly how big your bum is.”

  “You’re not in the library?” Jessica asked. She realised she hadn’t thought about it before, had just assumed that the sender was here somewhere. After all, the room was fairly busy and there were tables in areas she couldn’t see as well.

  “No, I’m in my dorm. I have the Intranet app on my tablet, but no Internet access here. Try searching for That’s why they call me The Eagle.”

  Jessica did a search and found the song straight away. She read the lyrics.

  When I get a girl in my sight line

  She thinks I’m golden and divine.

  She won’t have a clue

  That I’m a predator in the blue.

  I stalk her from above;

  She’ll think she’s falling in love.

  I swoop on my prey with killer speed.

  She doesn’t know that I just want to feed.

  She’s nothing but a meal to me,

  A tasty treat of femininity.

  I want to taste her flesh and eat my fill

  While she adores me and bends to my will.

  For a short time I’ll let her think we can fly together,

  That when Eagles mate it will be forever.

  But Eagles like to be alone

  To roam the skies and skim the foam.

  I’ll leave her torn and broken while I remain regal.

  That’s why they call me The Eagle.

  The song went on for several more verses but Jessica had the gist of it. She typed:

  “I found the song. I’m guessing you’re a bit of a player then?” She had a clear image in her head now. He was obviously a good-looking boy with a big head and a bad reputation.

  He typed back, “I’m really not a player at all. I guess I’ve been through a few girlfriends in the past. But I promise I’m actually a nice guy. My roommates just called me that for a while and it kind of stuck. If anyone else hears it then I don’t usually tell them where it comes from.”

  “Hmm, I’m honoured,” Jessica wrote back, feeling slightly sarcastic as she typed it.

  “So, your turn. What does Soubrette mean?” he asked.

  “Look it up later,” she answered, mimicking his own answer from earlier.

  “I’ll have to come to the library to do that. Shall I come now? I can check out your arse at the same time.”

  “You’re too late. I’m just leaving,” Jessica quickly typed.

  “Shame…” he replied. “Your loss.”

  “Yeah, somehow I don’t think so.” Jessica added a smiley face to soften her words. Then she logged out and fled, just in case The Eagle came looking for her.

  Chapter Four

  After a host of bewildering classes on Tuesday, Jess finally climbed the stairs to the music room. This was, after all, the real reason she had come to Compass Court; to make music with
her voice. She knew she would never be great in any other subject, but she did have a good singing voice; as long as she could pass her exams then she could stay at Compass Court and she could keep preparing for a career in music.

  Reaching the top of the stairs, she could hear a piano being played. She recognised the music straight away; it was Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”. It was being played so beautifully that she just stood in the corridor a full five minutes just to listen.

  Eventually peering through the door, she spotted a boy sat at the piano. He looked every inch the tortured artiste. His overlong hair fell across his face as he played, but his eyes were closed and his head was bent over the piano as if he was coaxing the music from it rather than simply playing it. She half expected the piano to sigh from pleasure as his fingers moved, almost dancing up and down its length. She rather felt like sighing herself.

  “Well, hello, tall dark and handsome,” she thought, taking in his black hair, his tall lean frame, and his features, which were all somehow too large but worked. He had a strong nose and full passionate lips, and when he briefly opened his eyes, she saw they were deep pools of brown.

  She would never have admitted it to anyone in her last school but she did love opera. Her father had been playing classical music in his lab while he worked since before Jess was born and she had grown up hearing the strains of Beethoven, Chopin, Bach and many others, all her life. Opera seemed to be one of those things you either loved or hated, and for Jess, who loved to sing, opera was a secret dream that she harboured. It was either be an opera singer or a pop star, she wasn’t sure which. Probably pop star would be better money, though a much shorter career. Maybe she could do both, she thought as the music filled her.

  She heard the words in her mind, the duet between Don Giovanni and Zerlina, and she hummed quietly as his playing crescendoed around her. Then without thinking she opened her mouth and joined in, singing the soprano part that was, she felt, really too big for her but that she knew so well.