More Flirting Games (The Flirting Series - Young Adult) by Stella Wilkinson

conversation with Leo. He looked around the
room and saw that only Rose remained. Both Rose and Leo were favorite pupils of
his.
    “Ok you
two, I’m going to lunch, but can I trust you to lock up the art studio when you
leave?”
    “Of course,
Sir.” Leo assured him exchanging a quick grin with Rose. She nodded in
agreement.
    “Great,
just make sure the door shuts properly behind you, then no-one can get in until
I get back.”
    As soon as
Grimey left the room, Leo closed the door firmly behind him. It locked shut
with a click that could be opened easily from the inside but required a key
from the outside.
    Rose jumped
up to put her arms around Leo but instead he took her hand and led her to the
stairs to the second floor.
    “I’ve got
something to show you.”
    The art
studio was housed in a tall Victorian building built in the grounds of the
school as the Dower House to Compass Court from the days when it was a stately
home. The basement was now given over to pottery and housed a large kiln. On
the ground floor, where the ceiling was particularly high and the windows were
tall and let in a lot of light, the school had created a proper art studio. The
second floor was given over to textiles, reams of material and sewing machines
filled the three rooms.
    Rose
assumed Leo was heading for the second floor but as they reached the top of the
stairs he stopped at a wall covered in wooden paneling. Rose watched as he took
a tiny key from his pocket and inserted it into a keyhole she had never noticed
before. A door swung open in the wood and revealed a narrow staircase. Rose
gasped with surprise and looked at Leo for an explanation.
    “It goes up
to the attic. Grimey sent me up here in my second year to dig out some extra
supplies. He keeps the key in his desk and I lifted it earlier today in the
hope I could show it to you. I think hardly anyone knows it’s here.”
    “Wow.” Rose
was excited with anticipation to see what was up there. “Then lead on, Macduff!”
    She
followed him up stopped when they were suddenly standing at the top of the
stairs in complete darkness.
    “Hang on a
sec.” She heard Leo moving around and then striking a match. He lit an old oil
lamp that stood on a side table, next to a huge overstuffed red velvet sofa.
    Rose gazed
in wonder around the attic room now that it was dimly lit. It was built right
into the eaves and wooden joists crossing above them. There were trunks full of
clothes, baskets of plastic fruit that must have once been used for still life
painting and a folding changing screen with a Japanese design that she supposed
still life models must have used for undressing.
    “This is
amazing!” She sat down on the sofa, and was enveloped in a cloud of dust as she
sank into it. Coughing and laughing, she struck a reclining pose.
    “Planning
to paint me nude were you?” She joked.
    “You can
laugh,” he said with a grin, “but you haven’t seen what I found when I explored
a bit!” He walked over to the farthest wall that was still in near darkness and
began to flick through a bunch of old oil paintings that were stacked in the
corner.
    “Here we
are, brace yourself.” He held out a small canvas.
    She took it
curiously. “Oh my stars! Is that who I think it is?” She grimaced at the
painting, which showed a young woman in old-fashioned underwear posing just as
Rose had on the very same sofa.
    “Yup, our
scary headmistress in her heyday.”
    “No way! Do
you think Grimey painted this? I wonder if they were involved? She must be
crazy to have left it lying where anyone could find it.”
    “I suppose
they forgot it was here, it must be years old, and also no-one else seems to
know about this place, maybe it was their secret love nest.” He said.
    “And now it
can be ours.” Rose held her arms out to him and he went into them pushing her
back on the sofa.

Chapter Eight
     
    In the middle of January the whole of Year Six got
together to discuss the end of term play. It