"There are rather serious accusations girls; I am sure you know that. We do not take accusations of bullying lightly and I want you to be certain that these are all facts and not just baseless rumours. Victoria is an exemplary student and the last person to be such a thing."

Mrs Maddox crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap. She looked between the three of us, her eyes darting back and forth as she tried to process the seemingly insane story we had just told her. If I hadn't been the one going through it all, I doubt I would have believed any of it. The story sounded too extreme and outlandish to have been possible – especially as Victoria came across as the perfect student – but I knew better than anyone that it was the truth.

I had told Mrs Maddox the entire story. From the attempted initiation almost two weeks before to the incident in the pool that morning. Katie had been right, she needed to know the truth if I stood any chance in shaking Victoria off my back. Both her and Jo had returned that evening with the work I had missed from being stuck in the infirmary. Mrs Maddox arrived not long after to clear up the miscommunication between her and Mrs Leverton.

No one was quite sure how that had happened, but her being here seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell her the truth.

"I know it sounds insane, and it probably is, but it happened. Ask anyone in the dormitory, they were all there the other night," I said.

"We will investigate these accusations in due course. However, be aware that if their story does not corroborate yours, you will be in serious trouble for spreading lies about another pupil. Do you understand, girls?"

"Yes, Mrs Maddox," we chorused.

"Good."

She nodded toward us and unfolded her legs, pushing herself off the chair. I watched as she swung it around to tuck it under a nearby table before she walked away. Her heels slapped against the wood flooring, echoing through the room and out into the hallway. A person could be nowhere near her but still here her coming.

The early evening sun streamed in through the infirmary window, lighting up a small patch of the floor and the far corner of my bed. A small bird hopped along the window ledge outside, its tweet travelling through the closed glass and breaking the silence. Katie knocked her leg against mine, rocking it from side to side and grinning at me.

I knotted my hands together in my lap and bit down on my lower lip, thinking through what Mrs Maddox had just said. Although I had wanted to tell the truth, her reaction made me think twice about doing so in the future. We all knew that the rest of the fourth years would agree with Victoria since she had some sort of hold over them. The likelihood of any of them agreeing with me felt impossible and if they didn't back-up my story, I'd be in trouble and not Victoria.

"No one is going to back us up, you know that don't you?" I said to Katie, looking up from the blanket.

"Unfortunately. I hate how Victoria has everyone wrapped around her little finger, even the teachers think she's this perfect little angel. You know, she really wants to be head girl and got so annoyed when she found out I had it not her. Hear girl never goes to a fourth year, ever. We need to expose her for the witch she really is."

"Isn't that a bit extreme? Yes, she's bad, but wouldn't ignoring her be better?" Jo suggested.

"When has ignoring someone ever worked? It only boosts their ego and I doubt Victoria's needs boosting any more. Besides, she'll just think she won."

"I don't think aggravating her will help. If anything, it will only make her worse and we already know she'll stop at nothing to get Flick out of the school."

Katie groaned. "I hate it when your right. Why do you have to be the voice of reason?"

"Because if I wasn't, you would have done something stupid by now."

Jo smiled and bumped into Katie's shoulder, almost causing her to topple off the edge of the bed and onto the floor. In the weeks I had been friends with them both, I had discovered that Katie was the more impulsive one with Jo being the reasonable and calm one. Katie joked that Jo had been made her deputy head to stop her from going mad with power and trying to take over the school. It made sense and definitely seemed like something Katie would do.

We decided not to dwell on Victoria any longer and instead I turned my attention to the work they had bought. I grabbed the stack of work from the table and started to make my way through it, starting with History and moving down through to my sewing work. Every now and then, Katie would nudge my leg with her own in an attempt to distract me from my work, but it didn't. She even tried whistling before pulling some string from her pocket and attempting the cat's cradle.

I powered through the History and Mathematics work and skimmed through the words to a new song we had to learn for Music. All that left me with was the embroidery hoop and the sewing work Miss Feldman wanted me to complete. She hadn't grown any warmer to me since our first meeting and I still couldn't place her accent. It seemed familiar somehow, but I just couldn't figure out where she was from.

My first attempt with the embroidery hoop didn't go according to plan. Despite the pattern being imprinted onto the fabric, I still made far more mistakes than correct steps. The collection of flowers and leaves looked more like someone had vomited onto the fabric. Not a pretty sight.

"Do you need a hand?" Katie asked as she watched me undo the stitching.

"That would be amazing. I'm never going to get this."

Katie crawled up the side of the bed and lightly nudged me to one side. She took the hoop off me, settled on the bed beside me and then started to unpick the rest of the stitching until we were left with a pristine hoop and a pile of useless, abandoned thread.

"I'm going to go. I need to return a book to the library before it closes. Don't do anything I wouldn't do," Jo said. She pulled a face at Katie and raised her eyebrows, climbing off the bed. She swung her back onto her shoulder and left the room.

"That was strange," I said.

"Nah, that was just Jo being Jo."

"Why'd she raise her eyebrows at you?"

Katie shrugged and quickly changed the topic to the embroidery hoop and the correct way to follow the pattern. There was something she had been keeping from me and I was determined to find out what it was. Her and Jo had been exchanging strange looks for over a week but neither of them mentioned it. I once caught them having a hushed argument that they quickly changed the topic as soon as they saw me. I didn't like not knowing things.

Katie helped me to muddle through the embroidery until we had something that resembled flowers. I knew it would be unlikely to get any better than that so I simply threw it onto the pile of work and would hand it in when I got the chance. It felt strange to complete classwork in the evening and I hated the idea that I missed my lessons because of something so stupid. Except for being a little shaken up, I felt fine.

Darkness had started to set in just outside, the glow of the moon passing through the window. Miss Jones was still somewhere else in the school and the lights reminded off, Katie and I sitting in darkness with nothing but a small strip of moonlight. It came through the window at just the right angle to illuminate Katie's face as she returned to her cat's cradle.

Her eyebrows were furrowed in concentration, her tongue sticking out the corner of her mouth as she tried to knot the string together. The silvery light from the moon made her dark skin glow and she looked almost angelic. I couldn't help but smile. A strange fluttering sensation appeared in my stomach when I looked at her, but I didn't know it went.

I was just glad she had offered to help me and decided to stay with me when she didn't have to. She looked over at me and smiled. My heart beat a little faster.

"Do you think you can run through my History work with me? We're supposed to have a test tomorrow and I can't remember any of it," she said.

"I can try."

"Great!" She reached into her bag and pulled out sheets of paper, passing them to me. "It's the Greek Philosopher stuff you've been helping me with."

"First question, who is Diogenes?"

"The barrel guy! I remember that one because he owned a barrel but rid himself of personal possessions. A barrel is a possession.

"If you say so."

"That and it was the first question you helped me with. It stuck in my mind for some reason."

"At least we won't have to go over him then. One Philosopher down, plenty more to go."

She handed me a sheet of paper with a list of the topics that were likely to be covered in the test. Most of them referenced the Philosopher's and my knowledge of Greece started there so we didn't need the rest of the sheets of paper. Instead, I asked a series of questions relating to each of them and prompted Katie for the answers. Some of them she wasn't too bad with, but others remained a mystery.

Miss Jones said nothing upon her arrival back to the infirmary and allowed us to continue with our study questions. She pottered around the room, straightening beds that had remained untouched and switching the lights on along with the individual lights beside each bed. I watched her close the curtains, blocking out the moonlight. Katie nudged me in the side to recapture my attention and we finished making our way through the study list.

When we finished, Katie tucked her notes into her bag and leant back against the metal frame of the bed. She rested her hands on top of the blanket and I clenched my hand into a fist to keep from wanting to reach out and grab hold of it. A part of me itched to do it, to feel the same connection I had felt earlier that day when she had run her thumb across my knuckle. I wanted to feel that again.

I don't know what it was, it was something that I couldn't seem to explain, but there was a feeling bubbling up inside of me. A feeling that wanted me to be closer to Katie, to hold her hand and just be close to her. No book could explain what that feeling was, no book could hold the answer as to what I was feeling, but I wished it did. All it did was confuse me beyond belief and I didn't take kindly to being confused, it was not a state I thrived in.

It sort of reminded me of those feelings often detailed in books about love and romance, but it couldn't have been that.

"It will be lights out soon girls," Miss Jones said from the other side of the room.

"Yes, Miss Jones," Katie said.

"Miss Jones?"

"Yes, Felicity?"

"What happened to my school uniform?"

"I took it down to the laundry; it was soaking wet and needs a good wash."

"Ah."

"What?" Katie asked. She looked at me and tilted her head to the side.

"My other dress is in the laundry as well, without that one, I had nothing to wear for school tomorrow."

"Ah." She paused. "I accidentally packed my dresses from last year, one of them should fit. If it does, I can take my name out and stitch yours in instead. You'll have a spare one that way."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I'll dig it out when we get back to the dormitory."

I smiled at her in thanks and we fell back into silence. Miss Jones walked across the room to a grey painted cupboard near the door. She pulled one of the doors open and produced a small, glass thermometer which she turned over in her hand. Miss Jones approached my bed with the thermometer. She placed it in my mouth. and I had to sit there whilst she waited for thirty seconds.

When the time was up, she pulled the thermometer out, checked the temperature and wiped it off using a cloth and hot water from the sink. She declared my temperature to be somewhat normal, albeit a little cold. Mum had said that I was usually on the cold side which led to Michael feeling the need to refer to me as a lizard whenever the opportunity arose. I didn't mention that to Miss Jones.

With any luck, I hoped I would return to my classes the next day as I hated the idea of being cooped up in the infirmary or my dormitory for an entire day. An afternoon had been enough time. Part of me knew that by staying away, even for another few hours, I would be giving Victoria the satisfaction of feeling as though she had frightened me away. She didn't want me at the school and was determined to make my life a living hell until I left. I certainly didn't want to give her the satisfaction of believing that to be true.

"Katie, it's ten minutes until light outs. You should return to your dormitory or you'll be in trouble," Miss Jones said.

"Alright, I'm going, I'm going. I'll be back in the morning with the spare uniform. It should fit, if not I can always take it in or fix whatever may need doing," she said.

"Thank you, you're a lifesaver." I paused. "For both the extra uniform and back at the pool. I don't know what would have happened if you hadn't jumped in after me."

"You're welcome. Now you owe me." She winked and shuffled off the edge of the bed, jumping onto the floor.

I watched as she grabbed her bag from the floor and left the room, muttering a goodbye to Miss Jones. Miss Jones spent five minutes pottering around the room, she even went as far as to warm up another hot water bottle for me as the other one had turned cold hours ago. I didn't feel as though I needed it since I felt rather normal in comparison to before, but I accepted it and tucked it under the blankets beside me.

She left to do lights out in the fourth-year dormitory, so I buried down under the blankets and hugged the water bottle to my chest. My eyes started to close. I still couldn't get that fluttering sensation out of my stomach.

~~~

First Published - June 25, 2020