A Girl Called Tegi by Katrina Britt

had borrowed it. Her best dress, and one that she had saved up to buy, was now gracing the shapely form of her younger sister.
    Tegi groaned and grabbed one of her old dresses. As she had expected, the bathwater was lukewarm after Dorothy had hogged it all. I’ll kill her, she told herself desperately.
    Gasping and towelling herself into exhilarating warmth, she thought she heard her father calling. Ignoring him, she reached for dainty undies and dressed herself quickly. Then he was tapping urgently on her door.
    ‘Colin is here. He wants to see you,’ he called.
    ‘That’s all I need.’ Tegi’s eyes were dark fire. Her soft lips tightened. ‘Tell him to get lost !’
    The olive green silk dress had a neat square rather flattering neckline that gave a provocative glimpse of the niche between her firm young bust. Large gold loop ear-rings set off the tailored simplicity and T egi, feeling slightly mollified, clipped on a gold bracelet.
    She was looking for her evening slippers when her father called once again. He was always ready hours before time, and she paused with one of the slippers in her hand while she searched for the other.
    ‘Hurry !’ her father said urgently. ‘Joe will be here soon.’
    Tegi muttered beneath her breath, beginning to see more reasons than one why her mother had refused to go to the dinner. Her father would harass her all the time she was getting ready to hurry.
    She found her other slipper under the bed and wondered how it had got there. But then Dorothy had no respect for other people’s property. It was a wonder that she could find any of her own belongings, swamped as they were by her sister’s.
    Snatching up her evening bag and stole, Tegi ran downstairs to where her father was waiting in the hall. His constant preoccupation with gazing at his watch did not prevent him from giving her a look of appraisal.
    ‘I always said you were the beauty of the family,’ he said. ‘I shall be proud of you tonight.’
    A room had been set aside for them at the hotel with photographs of ace riders from the past looking down on them from the walls. Tegi was pleased now that she had worn the olive green dress and lace stole, for most of the women wore unobtrusive gowns most appropriate for older women. Hers blended in with her surroundings.
    At the long elaborately set table, she was seated next to her father who would, no doubt, be talking shop to the veteran rider on his other side. This left her to the mercy of the person sitting on her right, an elderly man whose face she felt she ought to know but could not place for the life of her.
    He smiled. ‘How lucky I am to be sitting next to the most beautiful girl in the room tonight,’ he said.
    Tegi glanced at him in surprise. She said with perfect aplomb, ‘I take it I’m addressing another of the species whose sideboard positively groans with trophies from the racing game, like my father.’
    He raised a grey brow. ‘I have a few,’ he murmured modestly.
    ‘Do you know many of the people here?’ she asked formally.
    He looked around the room. ‘A few.’
    Tegi laughed, a quiet tinkling laugh, and he arched an eyebrow.
    ‘I was wondering,’ she said. ‘Just trying to figure out if you’re a master of the understatement or just being polite.’
    ‘Probably feeling overwhelmed,’ he commented. His whole attitude hinted at things she could not know about and, feeling out of her depth, she gave her attention to the delicious concoction being placed before her; slices of avocado pear decorated with prawns.
    ‘Cheers,’ she said desperately as she held up the glass of dry sherry by her plate.
    ‘Cheers,’ he answered with the lift of a grey eyebrow which made Tegi wish that she had kept silent.
    Her father was engaged with his companion on his far side, so she looked down the table to observe the other guests and to speculate upon who they were.
    Then she saw him. He was sitting between two of the most depressingly gorgeous girls