Drama at Silver Spires by Ann Bryant

straight to the As and ran my finger slowly along until the Bs started. This was unbelievable. It had to be here. So I went back to the start and looked carefully at every single spine until I knew for sure, with big sinking certainty, that there wasn’t a single copy.
    Wandering back to Hazeldean I couldn’t care less whether there was a gang of spooks ready to jump out at me from one of the trees and rip me to pieces. Nothing was going right in my life. Nothing. I went into Hazeldean and saw that the clock said just gone four minutes to nine. Even that didn’t make me speed up. What was a little telling-off? I trudged up the three flights of stairs slowly and heavily with my head down, then paused outside our dorm to look at the notice on the door. I’d put it there myself at the beginning of term…
    Katy the Queen of Style
    Grace the Sportswoman
    Jess the Artist
    Mia the Musician
    Naomi the Wise One
    Georgie the Actress
    Huh! What rubbish. I wasn’t an actress. It ought to say, Georgie the Loser .
    â€œIt’s nearly nine! Where have you been?” Mia asked me the very second I opened the door.
    â€œJust walking round.”
    â€œBut I went out to look for you and you weren’t anywhere.”
    I didn’t answer because the tiniest ray of hope had just popped up from nowhere. Maybe the copy of Little Women from the Hazeldean library had been returned.
    â€œSee you in a sec.”
    â€œYou’ve forgotten your washbag!”
    â€œOh yeah.” I grabbed my washbag and towel and raced off downstairs.
    â€œWhere are you off to, Georgie Henderson? Bed! Now!” Matron was leaning over the banister, and although there wasn’t an actual echo it still felt as though those cross words of hers were bouncing off the walls of the stairwell. Maybe I did care about getting a telling-off, after all, because my skin had gone a bit goosebumpy.
    â€œI’ve left my book in the common room. Please, please, please let me get it, oh kindly Matron!” I did praying hands and tilted my face up with my eyes closed.
    â€œGo on then, and make it snappy!”
    â€œThank you!” I definitely caught a glimmer of a smile on Matron’s face when I opened my eyes, and it cheered me up a bit.
    I went into the common room willing the book to be there. And it was.
    â€œYessss!” I told the empty room, as I hid it under my towel and scrambled off to the bathroom.
    â€œHas your headache gone?” asked Mia when I went back into the dorm a few minutes later. “You seem better all of a sudden.”
    â€œYep!” I replied chirpily, as I quickly got into my jamas and snuggled up in bed. I was aware of the others looking at each other, but no one said anything else.
    We’re allowed to read with our little individual night lights on till nine thirty, then whoever’s on duty comes and checks that all lights are out. My friends didn’t ask me what I was reading, thank goodness, because I didn’t want to have to lie to them and there was no way I was admitting it was Little Women. As soon as Matron had done her lights-out check, I got my key-ring torch and tried it out under the duvet, but it was useless. I couldn’t see a thing and had to wait till I was pretty sure everyone was asleep before switching my night light back on. That was a really frustrating wait, I can tell you. Nobody pounced on me to switch the light off, thank goodness, which meant they were all asleep, and at last I was free to read to my heart’s content. I snuggled into the deepest, most comfortable bit of the bed and buried myself in the book, reading and reading until I couldn’t keep my eyes open any more.
    Good old Katy had proved the great Cara Ravenscroft wrong because Mrs. Chambers was very happy to have help with costumes from a Year Seven student, and Katy couldn’t wait to get started.
    â€œWhat era is Little Women set in, Georgie?” she asked me one