Secrets at St Jude's: New Girl by Carmen Reid Page A

down, with the parting shot: ‘I’m glad you’re benefiting from some extra tuition at the boarding house, but I think it’s best if everyone works at their own pace.’
    He looked directly at Min as he said this, and there was no mistaking Penny Boswell-Hackett’s mean snigger. Gina went back to her seat with her cheeks burning.
    ‘Sorry,’ Min whispered to her.
    Gina blinked hard to contain the rising tears.
    Several seats along, there was another girl who was also trying not to cry. She was blowing her nose, wiping at her face with her tissue and sniffing hard.
    Gina remembered that her name was Jenny and wondered if any of her friends knew anything about her.
    ‘Jenny Scott?’ Amy asked when Gina met her in one of the corridors during the lunch break. ‘She’s all over the place – sneaking out to the loos to sob, coming back to class with a red face. I don’t know what it is. Not even 117
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    Giselle, her best friend, knows. Hope it’s something really juicy though – we haven’t had a scandal for ages.
    Maybe she’s pregnant!’ Amy tried to look excited, but as they were talking about a girl who still wore two pigtails, woolly knee socks and shoes with buckles, this hardly seemed likely.
    ‘Maybe someone’s died,’ Gina suggested.
    ‘Maybe her cat,’ said Amy unsympathetically.
    ‘Oh look, it’s the little boarding-house cheat. I wouldn’t bother copying Amy’s homework because she’s not good at anything, are you, Amy?’
    ‘Well, apart from spending Daddy’s money,’ added a second voice.
    Neither Gina nor Amy needed to turn round to see who was behind these horrible remarks.
    ‘Get knotted, Penny,’ Amy snarled.
    ‘Oh, I’m sorry, am I in your way? I’m just signing up for the Year Four debating contest. Is that why you’re here too? Oh no, I forgot, you’re not good at debating, are you? It’s not the kind of thing you’d learn at home. They still use their fists to settle every argument in Glasgow, don’t they?’
    Penny scrawled her name on the notice and then, with Louisa in tow, disappeared off down the corridor.
    Amy turned her attention to the sheet of paper 118
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    on the notice board, which Penny had just signed.
    ‘ Debaters wanted ,’ she read out. ‘ All girls interested in the Year Four debating contest planned for the end of term, please sign up before Friday . . . Well’ – Amy reached for the pen dangling from the board by a long string – ‘let’s see what the loathsome cow thinks about this.’
    ‘Are you sure?’ Gina asked as Amy wrote her name right underneath Penny’s.
    ‘Oh yes, I’m sure. How hard can it be to argue with a sour-faced snob you can’t stand?’
    ‘ You did what?! ’ Niffy was appalled by Amy’s debating contest news.
    She, Amy, Gina and two other boarders were all cosily eating toast and drinking mugs of tea in the Year Four sitting room that evening. (Gina understood tea now: people in Britain had to drink it all the time to stay warm. The sun never shone here, and when it did, it was pallid and weak, just like the tea.) Min was half-heartedly playing the shabby-looking piano.
    ‘Is there anything you’re not good at?’ Gina had asked as Min struck up.
    ‘ Mais . . . oui! ’ Min had replied.
    ‘Let me just get this straight: you’ve signed up with 119
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    Penny Boswell-Hackett for the Year Four debating competition? Are you out of your mind?’ Niffy was so het up, she spluttered tea onto her chair. ‘Balls,’
    she added, uselessly wiping at the stain with her hand.
    ‘Well, how hard can it be?’ Amy protested. ‘You’ll all help me to write a good speech. Anyway – Penny? She couldn’t kick her own arse!’
    ‘ How hard can it be?! ’ Niffy’s voice was raised. ‘Amy!
    Hello! We’re talking about Penny! Penny’s