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

entire family is made up of lawyers. Her dad’s a judge, her uncle’s a sheriff, her mum’s a barrister, her big sister’s at Edinburgh University doing – guess what – law!
    Penny was born to debate. She probably has to make the case for how her eggs are going to be cooked at breakfast every morning. Her parents will be coaching her. They’ll want to see her wipe the floor with her opposition. You’ll be demolished!’
    Amy was not looking quite so confident now, and Min’s piano playing had slowed so she could listen in to this.
    ‘What’s the topic?’ Min wanted to know. ‘What are you debating?’
    ‘I don’t know yet,’ Amy answered. ‘But you’ll help me, won’t you? Anyway, it’s a home crowd – no one 120
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    likes Penny. It’ll be fine . . .’ She looked from face to face, willing them to support her.
    There was a pause long enough for Gina – who knew nothing about debating contests but could, according to Mrs Parker, write a decent essay – to feel that she had to step in with a bit of Californian ‘can do’
    attitude. ‘You’re right,’ she insisted. ‘Someone has to stand up to that brat. We’ll train you, Amy. We’ll make sure you win.’
    ‘Or at least don’t look like a totally useless, utter tit,’
    Niffy added, without quite so much optimism.
    Way after dark, way after lights out, Niffy and Amy sat on the wide top rung of the fire escape outside the dorm window, wrapped in their dressing gowns: Amy in pink silk with dainty matching slippers, Niffy in a bobbly blue tartan thing inherited from her brother.
    Her slippers, like many Nairn-Bassett household items, had embroidered crests, but far too many holes.
    ‘What are you doing out there?’ Min called to them more than once. ‘You better not be smoking, or I’m going to tell the Neb, I really am. Haven’t you heard of lung cancer? Heart attacks? Pulmonary obstructive disease? Emphysema?’
    This just made Niffy and Amy giggle because they 121
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    were sharing a perfumed cigarette bought for 60p from a Year Four who kept her Silk Cut hidden in an empty bottle of baby powder.
    From the fire escape they could see the Neb’s bedroom window on the ground floor. The light clicked on behind pulled curtains and Amy breathed in sharply and tried to flatten herself against the railing.
    ‘Don’t worry,’ Niffy said calmly. ‘She can’t see us.’
    ‘How do you know?’
    ‘I’ve seen her open the curtains and look out before, but she’s not spotted me yet.’
    ‘How often are you out here?’ Amy asked.
    ‘Oh . . . once in a while.’
    Amy thought she could detect a tinge of sadness in these words. She didn’t like to think of Niffy being out here on her own, worrying about something.
    ‘Is everything OK with you?’ she wondered.
    ‘Yup, everything’s fine.’ Niffy let smoke puff out of her nostrils.
    ‘Everything OK at home?’
    ‘No!’ Niffy gave a smoky laugh. ‘It’s never OK at home. You know perfectly well they’re always fighting about money – how to make the hundreds of thousands needed to keep Blacklough from falling to bits. But meanwhile they phone, they email, they even 122
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    send postcards telling me that everything’s fine.’
    Making her voice even plummier, she added, ‘That’s the Nairn-Bassett way.’
    ‘They should just sell that dump, buy somewhere much smaller, have a great stash in the bank and be happy,’ Amy informed her.
    ‘Ha! Haven’t I explained it to you? Blacklough has been in my mother’s family for five generations!’
    ‘Oh, who cares!’ Amy said pithily. ‘We had rickets in my family for three generations. No one seems to miss them now they’ve gone!’
    Niffy shot her a look which made it plain that family stately homes and malnutrition weren’t exactly the same thing.
    ‘They’ll