If the presentation hadn't been important before, it became my priority from that Sunday onwards.

Every second I had went into going over my notes, making sure they made sense and trying to find ways to appeal to the judges. That ended up being a lot harder than first thought. Tests were easy to judge they had a coherent structure and a set of answers that a presentation didn't have. I could answer test questions, even form a somewhat structured essay that hit the rubric it would be marked against. The likelihood of hitting every mark for a presentation would be impossible unless I knew just what the judges were looking for.

Katie and Jo had dug out some old score sheets from previous years, helping me to sort through and form a list of just what made the presentations stand out from the others. The winning topics varied from project to project and each had been chosen for different reasons. There wasn't a formula for winning the presentations and it seemed to just be the luck of the draw and whatever appealed to the teachers on the day. I didn't think a presentation on Roman leaders really fitted the bill for being that much of an interesting topic.

"Someone won with a presentation on the Greeks before and they didn't have half the knowledge you do. Having an interest in the topic really helps," Katie said as we climbed the stairs two weeks after my meeting with Mrs Maddox.

"But standing there and reading out facts hardly seems interesting," I said.

"You'd be surprised. People have won with less than that."

"What's less than just talking through facts?"

"Handing a sheet to the judges and walking away," Jo said. Katie snorted, quickly clamping her hand over her mouth to stifle her giggling. I raised an eyebrow at her.

"She's not joking. Someone did that."

"Did they win?"

"Not at all, but it was funny."

We climbed the rest of the main staircase and walked down the hall, walking up through the dark spiralled staircase that led to my dormitory. I opened the door and walked the length of the room to my own bed as quickly as possible, avoiding eye contact with everyone. Since they had all turned on me and gone along with Victoria's lies, I hadn't felt the need to try and form any sort of friendship with them. Even Emma, who had been the only one willing to talk to me, had gone along with it.

I dropped my bag onto my bed and crouched in front of my trunk, rooting around and pulling out the book that Katie had requested. She had thrown herself down onto my bed, her legs hanging over the edge. Jo had simply perched on the edge; she didn't think Katie's actions were appropriate. After throwing the book onto the bed, I continued to rummage through the trunk until I found the bag of toffees that I kept hidden.

Katie took the book and flicked through the pages. I watched her chew on her thumbnail and rock her legs back and forth as she looked through it. The sunlight streamed through the open window and hit her at just the right time, lighting up her skin and hair. My stomach fluttered and I quickly popped a toffee into my mouth to try and distract myself from the feelings. The longer I tried to ignore them, the stronger they seemed to become until every time I looked at Katie made my heart and stomach flutter.

"Is this a library book or one of yours?" Katie asked as she flicked through it.

"Mine. An old school-teacher gave it to me before Christmas as a goodbye present," I said, chewing on the toffee.

"I thought so, it's full of little notes in the margins."

"Oh, sorry. I do that."

"I don't mind, I can see inside your brain a little more. Find out just what makes you tick." She lightly tapped my forehead and I frowned.

"My granddad does the same thing; he underlines important things and passages he likes. Granted, he does it in novels and not history books," Jo added.

"It's all part of my charm." I grinned.

I offered them both one of the toffees from the bag, screwed it up and dumped it in the bin. It was so full that all I had to do was tuck it under some tissues and no one would be any the wiser to the contraband I had hidden in my trunk. Unfortunately, the toffees signalled the end of my contraband, unless Michael sent me some more, but I doubted that would happen. The notebook would have cost him too much.

Katie had hidden her contraband behind the skirting board in their room which had become dislodged and opened a small hole. It was perfect for storing something that wasn't supposed to be found and that included the pile of sweets she had bought from the village. We didn't have a hiding place like that. I checked. Instead, I had to keep whatever contraband I had buried in my trunk and hope no one saw it. I wasn't sure if any of the other fourth years had any, and I hadn't cared to ask.

From across the room, I could see Victoria looking at me with a slight smirk on her face, but I tried my best to ignore her. I had done my best to keep away from her since my meeting with Mrs Maddox, but she made it rather hard when she always had that look on her face. For days I had been wanting to slap that look off her face, but I couldn't risk getting into any more trouble. Then again, at least it would have been for something I had done and not because of a story invented by Victoria and backed up by the rest of my year.

I sat on the bed beside Katie, pulling some Prep out of my bag and flicking through it to decide what I wanted to work on first. The door to the dormitory swung open and I looked up, thinking it was one of the other girls returning to the dormitory. Mrs Maddox walked in with Miss Jones close behind her, neither of them looked very happy but for some reason, it seemed to make Victoria happy and anything that pleased her was bad news as far as I was concerned.

Mrs Maddox walked down the hall and stood in front of my bed; Miss Jones stood behind her, looking a little uncomfortable. I didn't blame her. I felt uncomfortable too, but because I was being stared at.

"This isn't strange at all," I muttered, dropping my schoolwork onto my bed.

"We need to search your things, Felicity," Miss Jones said.

"Why?"

"We have reasons to believe you have contraband hidden amongst your things," Mrs Maddox said.

"I don't."

"Regardless, we need to check."

"Go right ahead, I have nothing to hide."

I shrugged and climbed off my bed, watching Katie and Jo do the same. We walked to the window and stood directly in front of it. Mrs Maddox took a step forward and opened my trunk to look through it. Despite knowing I had nothing to hide, anxiety rose in my chest and I fought to keep my hands from shaking and the thought of them finding something other than rubbish at the bottom of my trunk. Most of it was books or abandoned pieces of paper, nothing of interest.

Miss Jones walked to the side of my bed and started to pull back the blankets and pillows. She searched inside the pillowcases and under blankets, even going as far as to lift the mattress and search underneath but came up with nothing. Luckily, I had moved my diary from the mattress to my trunk, so it looked like a usual book. Not that there was anything incriminating in my diary, I rarely used it.

Mrs Maddox continued to go through my trunk, pulling out my books and flicking through them. Pretty much everything inside it ended up on the floor and I realised just how much junk I owned. I made a mental note to sort through it and throw out any paper I didn't need. She pulled out the empty box that had contained the bracelet, opened it and placed it to one side. I watched her pick up a second, slightly bigger box.

"I understand you received the bracelet from Katie, but what is the purpose of this one?" she asked.

"It's where I keep the crown jewels, I stole them," I muttered under my breath.

"What was that?"

"Nothing. I don't have anything to hide so go ahead and open it."

Mrs Maddox said nothing but opened the box. "It's a medal."

"A war medal Dad gave to me, my brother got one as well."

"Everything seems to be in order. Whoever saw you with contraband must have been mistaken." Mrs Maddox turned to the rest of the girls. "False accusations will result in punishment for the accuser. I do not want to hear any more talk of contraband."

Mrs Maddox turned on her heel and left the room, leaving my things scattered across the floor and my bed in a mess. Victoria watched her go, she seemed on the verge of speaking but decided to hold her tongue and watch her go. I looked at her and raised an eyebrow, fighting the smirk that I wanted to show her. Although Mrs Maddox seemed convinced of my guilt on the other offences, at least I had proved her wrong this time.

The other girls watched as I started to pick everything up, throwing it haphazardly into my trunk and putting the medal into my nightstand drawer. After a while, Katie walked away from the window and helped me set my bed to rights, putting the pillows back and smoothing out the blanket. When we were done, the sun had almost set, and the sky was painted a pale purple with the fading sunlight.

"Nice try, Victoria," I said as I finished straightening my bed.

"How on earth do you keep getting away with it? I know you had contraband in here, I saw it! Not only that, but I have made two physical assault accusations and you're still here! What are you holding over them to keep getting away with it? You're like a worm."

"Why don't you just leave it Victoria? This has gone on long enough," Katie said.

"Not until she's out of here! She has no place in this school and the sooner you and everyone else realises that the better."

"You sound like a stuck record. I had as much right to be here as you do, if not more because I earned my place here. You had it handed to you on a silver platter whilst I worked for those exam results, I worked for my time here. Your dad is the only reason I haven't been expelled yet; he wants me to stay here."

"That's a lie." Her voice was low, not dissimilar to that of a growl. I exchanged a look with Katie and resisted the temptation to take a step back. Something told me I had struck a nerve.

Victoria looked at me, her eyes narrowed towards me, sending daggers without saying a word. She took a step forward and kept her eyes narrowed. Her fists were clenched by her side and behind me, Katie gripped onto my arm for reassurance. I didn't think Victoria would do anything physical, not in front of so many people and in a way that would have been unexplainable no matter how many times she tried to weasel her way out of it. She was sly, underhanded and nothing more.

"I want you gone. I will do whatever it takes to make sure you don't make it to the end of the year."

"You can say it all you want, you can do whatever you want, I'm not going anywhere." I paused. "Unless you want to make this interesting."

"How so?"

"A little competition. If I beat you on the project presentations, you give up this little vendetta of yours and find something new to occupy your time. If you win, then I won't come back next year."

"Do you swear by it?"

"I do."

"Flick, what are you doing?" Katie hissed.

"Fine. We'll let the projects decide."

With that Victoria flipped her hair over her shoulder and stalked from the room, Dorothy and Louise scrambled off their beds to catch her. The door slammed shut behind them and the room fell silent with no one daring to even breath too loudly. Katie dragged me over to the window where Jo stood with her mouth half open and her eyes wide. Neither of them looked all that impressed with my actions.

"What was that? What if you lose?"

"Then I lose. It'll be fine, I promise."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I just am."

Even though I would never admit, I had just made a terrible mistake.

~~~

First Published - August 2nd, 2020