'Do I look new, then?' asked Rebecca in surprise.

  'Brand new,' he replied, with a smile. 'So does the uniform.'

  Rebecca made her way back down the train, feeling slightly more cheerful. For a few moments she had been made to feel as though she had joined a rather nice club, and one that had been going for a long time.

  The door of her compartment was open and there was a large girl in there, standing over the other two, hanging on to the luggage rack with one hand and waving some sheets of paper in the other. The girl had brown plaits and a red, rather boyish face, and she was wearing the school uniform, without a cape.

  'Honestly, Tish, I'm not asking you to read them this very minute – just put them in your bag –'

  Rebecca decided to take her cape off, too. She rolled it up and climbed up on to the seat to put it on the luggage rack, at the same time taking a good squint at the top sheet of paper.

  'My Dog' – a poem by Roberta Jones it said at the top.

  'For the last time, Robert,' Tish said wearily, 'there is no point in putting them in my bag, as I haven't the slightest intention of reading them –'

  'Daddy says they're the best poems I've ever written –'

  'That's not saying much!' observed Sue Murdoch.

  'And they deserve to go in the school magazine,' carried on Roberta, who really seemed to have a thick skin. 'In fact, he says they're a lot better than some of the things he's seen in the Journal.'

  Rebecca settled back in her seat, rather enjoying this. So this was the Roberta Jones they had been trying to escape from! She could see their point of view.

  'Look, Robert, I'll be holding a magazine meeting in the next couple of days and calling in all contributions. I'll read the poems then, along with the other stuff people have done in the holidays, and if we all agree with Daddy, they'll be chosen.'

  'Of course, if we don't agree with Daddy,' said Sue, 'they won't.' So saying, she got up and took Roberta's elbow and pointedly escorted her out into the corridor.

  'You'd better go – we're looking after a new girl – think she's got a headache,' she whispered loudly, and gave the big girl a push. "Bye!' Then she slid the door firmly shut and threw herself down on her seat and laughed, looking across at Rebecca. 'Hope you didn't mind my saying that!'

  'No,' replied Rebecca. But she was staring at Tish, almost eaten up with curiosity. She had hardly been able to believe her ears.

  'Are you the Editor of The Trebizon Journal?' she asked.

  The huge grin that was never long absent from Tish's face came back. She and Sue moved along to be opposite Rebecca.

  'Good heavens, no!'

  'Tish is the Magazine Officer for Juniper,' explained Sue. 'Mainly because she's good at English and very fair and nobody argues with her. It's like being an editor, only on a minor scale. At the start of term, she takes in all the contributions from the House and sifts through them, and asks people's opinions. Then there's another meeting and the best ones are passed round and we all vote –'

  'And then two or three are chosen,' explained Tish, 'and the best of the lot has a gold star put on it, which means it's bound to go into the Journal. All the Houses do the same. It saves the Editor a lot of work, and makes it all democratic as well.'

  'Who is the Editor?' asked Rebecca.

  'A girl called Elizabeth Exton, way off in Upper Sixth.'

  'Elizabeth – ' exclaimed Rebecca. 'But her father –'

  There was a moment's silence then, and the two friends looked at one another. They seemed almost embarrassed.

  'You know about that then?'

  'Well, yes. There was something about it in the Newsletter that was sent to us, with the school prospectus and all that stuff.'

  'We think it looks pretty bad,' said Tish. 'And it's almost as bad as it looks! It wasn't that Freddie Exton attached any conditions when he offered to bale out the magazine. It's just that the cheque came through at the end of last term, just before the girls who were going to be in the Upper Sixth this year held their meeting to elect the new Editor.'

  'They all knew how much Elizabeth wanted it,' said Sue, carrying on the story, 'and they just voted her in. They probably felt they couldn't do anything else. After all, without her father, there wouldn't be a Journal any more, or not as we know it, and now it can carry on for years.'

  'But some of us thought she should have declined, all the same,' said Tish. 'Audrey Maxwell would make a much better Editor.'

  'It was a proper election, though,' said Sue, 'and they didn't have to vote for her. They must think she'll be pretty good.'

  'She'd better be. It's the Golden Jubilee this term – a special issue. A lot of people will be looking at it.'

  Rebecca now realized the full significance of Elizabeth Exton's big black bag. She realized she wasn't an artist, after all.

  'I've met her,' she said. 'I think she's been working on it all over the holidays. I saw her down in the Buffet Car. She was showing someone some work, some beautiful drawings.'

  'She must be keen,' frowned Tish, slightly perplexed, 'if she's been meeting some of the Seniors in the holidays and getting things together even before term starts. It goes to press early in the term, but the Editor doesn't usually collect stuff in till we all get back to school, the way I said.'

  'I heard her say she'd met some super people.' 'I expect she has.' Tish wrinkled up her nose, unable to see any significance in that. 'She met the Queen once.'

  They fell silent. Rebecca realized that, briefly, she had dropped her defences and had quite enjoyed talking to these two.

  'Nice to talk to you,' said Tish then, as though reading her thoughts. 'You're the dead opposite of Roberta Jones and one or two others, who are so full of themselves they can never stop talking.'

  'She seems to like herself,' murmured Rebecca.

  'I suppose somebody has to,' laughed Tish, and added shrewdly, 'Do you do any writing yourself, poems or anything?'

  Rebecca went pink to the roots of her fair hair. 'Of course not,' she said quickly. 'Not really. I just like reading, that's all.'

  She got up and got her cape down and found her paperback in the pocket. She felt like being quiet now and settled down with her book while the others returned to their seats and began to chat.

  Ishbel Anderson was quite a character, Rebecca decided, and she liked her. But she wanted to get to Trebizon now, and get it over with.

  THREE

  REBECCA'S POEM

  The train pulled in to Trebizon Station at three o'clock in the afternoon. All the girls coming to school on the train from London had eaten a good lunch, some in relays in the Buffet Car and others, like Rebecca, a packed lunch. Now they spilled out on the platform in a crisp display of dark jumpers and blue skirts as porters unloaded dozens of suitcases and trunks from the luggage van on to station trolleys.

  'Stick with us,' said Tish, steering Rebecca along the crowded platform. She and Sue were laden with their disorganized mess of carrier bags and hockey sticks and the violin case. Rebecca wore her denim bag slung over her shoulder and clutched her hockey stick and rolled up cape.

  The dull September morning in London had turned into a warm, sunny afternoon here in the west country.

  'Are you all right?' asked Miss Morgan, looking like a shepherd with the flock of First Years around her, as Rebecca went by. Rebecca nodded.

  'Fill the front coach up first!' someone shouted.

  'Let's try and grab a front seat,' said Tish, 'then you can get a really good view. Ever seen the place?'

  'No, only pictures.'

  To make room, the younger girls had to sit three to a seat and Rebecca rather liked being sandwiched between Tish and Sue in the first seat, right by the door. Tish seemed to be very popular.

  'Hi, Tish!'

  'Where were you on the train?'

  'You promised to send me a card from France, you rotten thing.!'

  'Who's your friend?' asked a plump girl.

  'Rebecca Mason,' Tish replied to this question. 'She's going to be in II Alpha with us. Rebecca – this is Sally Elphinstone.'

  'Hallo,' said Rebecca shyly. She somehow felt that nothing was too bad while Tish was looking after her. It was a warm, secure feeling – while it lasted.

  'Hi! Otherwise known as Elf,' giggled the girl Sally. 'And this is Margot. Margot Lawrence.'

  A black girl. Nice. Fun-looking. Probably Elf's best friend. Rebecca dimly remembered seeing them together on the train.

  'She'll be in our dormy, too, won't she Tish?' said the Margot. 'Wasn't there something about us getting someone new in Second Year?'

  'You're right, Margot,' said Tish in a matter-of-fact way. 'Hear that, Rebecca?'

  'Mmmm,' replied Rebecca, trying not to look pleased or pathetic.

  All the luggage loaded on, the double doors shut, the coach climbed steeply up the main street of the old stone-built town of Trebizon, with two more coaches behind. The sun slanted along the pavements and Rebecca noticed children with buckets and spades. This was the tag end of the holiday season and there were several beaches close to the town.

  At the top of the town the coach turned left, down a winding road lined with small hotels, most of them set well back in gardens. At the edge of the road there were rhododendron bushes and, every so often, a small palm tree. The coach turned again, out into open country, and there –

  'Trebizon Bay!' exclaimed Rebecca. 'Is that it?'

  'Yes, that's it. Not bad, is it?'

  Through the front window of the coach, Rebecca could see directly down across the fields to a huge bay, fringed with golden sand, the blue sea sparkling and dancing in the sunshine. Not bad? It was beautiful.

  'And there's the school,' said Sue, pointing.

  Rebecca glimpsed a mixture of white stone buildings and red brick, in amongst tall trees, set in many acres of parkland that ran down to the coast on the west side of Trebizon Bay. In the heart of the cluster of buildings, rising even above the trees, there was a tall tower with a clock, its hands caught brightly in the sun.

  Shortly afterwards, the coach turned in through wrought iron entrance gates. White lettering on a large blue board beside the entrance said: TREBIZON SCHOOL. Another sign said: SPEED LIMIT 10 M.P.H. The drive was half a mile long and several times the convoy of coaches had to pull into the side, trees and bushes whispering against the windows, to let cars past, coming from the direction of the school.

  'Chaos!' said Tish. 'It's always like this on the first day.'

  The coach pulled up in front of the school's main building, a magnificent stone manor house of fine proportions, built for a local nobleman in the eighteenth century. It had a sweeping, gravelled forecourt so large that there was ample room for all.

  The girls poured out of the coaches, milling around the parked cars and greeting friends who had been brought to school by road.

  'Where are the coaches going off to now?' asked Rebecca.

  'Round the back to unload all the luggage,' said Tish, but she was staring at a red mini that was pulling up nearby. Someone in it was waving to her. 'The school staff sort out all the trunks and cases and get them round to the various Houses. It's quite an operation, but with a bit of luck they all get to the right places in time for us to unpack before we have tea.'

  'Tish!' cried a joyful voice.

  A girl tumbled out of the red mini, parked incongruously beside a huge Rolls-Royce, and came rushing over. She had long black hair tied back, brown eyes and a very tanned skin. She flung her arms round Tish.

  'Mara!' said Tish. 'How was Athens? Mara – this is Rebecca Mason, she's going to be in our Year. Rebecca – Mara Leonodis.'

  'Hallo.'

  'Hallo, Rebeccal' But the girl, who was Greek, had eyes only for Ishbel Anderson and Susan Murdoch. 'Tish – Sue – I've got it! I've got the machine!'

  The other two shrieked and dropped their things on to the gravel.

  'You haven't!'

  'I promised, yes? Come quickly and see, it's in the boot. Soon Anestis will carry it in for us –'

  All three of them rushed to the small red car, leaving Rebecca standing there wondering what the excitement was about. Suddenly, dwarfed in the shadow of the big school, of which she had only seen a small part so far, she felt lonely and frightened.

  'Rebecca?'

  Miss Morgan came striding over, followed by her large party of younger girls. They were lined up in pairs, carrying their hand luggage and their brand new hockey sticks, their blue capes folded over their arms.

  'Walk with me,' the Junior House Mistress said kindly. 'I'm taking all you new girls to Juniper. Matron and her staff are waiting to meet you all, and they'll show you what's what.'

  Rebecca fell into step beside Miss Morgan. Going up a long, low flight of stone steps to the main doors of the school, she glanced back and saw that the others were still by the red car, crowding round a large cardboard carton that stood on the ground. They had forgotten all about her.

  'We'll cut through the old school,' said Miss Morgan, pushing back the large doors; and they all trooped into a magnificent entrance hall.

  Coming into the cool building out of the sunshine, Rebecca shivered. The floor was of polished wood and the high ceilings were ornately moulded. The staircase was very grand, with oil-painted murals by an eighteenth-century artist rising up the side. She felt overwhelmed. Just because Tish and Sue had been nice to her – it didn't mean a thing. She was new and she had no friends and now she was actually here, it was terrifying.

  Miss Morgan led them along a corridor and then out through a small glass door at the back of the building.

  'These are the quadrangle gardens, and that's Juniper House opposite, where you are all going to be living from now on.'

  'Going to be living,' thought Rebecca. She felt trapped.

  They were in big square gardens, laid to lawn, but criss-crossed with flagstoned paths and dotted with flower beds. There were buildings all around the square: the main house, from which they had emerged, then to one side a converted stable block with the tall clock tower, added as a folly in Victorian times; to the other side a modern block in white stone which housed the school dining and assembly halls, with art rooms and science laboratories on the upper floors.

  And directly opposite them, across the gardens forming the fourth side of the square, was Juniper House. It was a perfectly pleasant modern red brick building, that blended in well with the others, but to Rebecca's eyes it suddenly looked like a prison.

  They crossed the gardens and entered Juniper House through open french doors at the far end of a long terrace. Matron and Miss Morgan took the main party up the east staircase to the First Year dormitories. They were beginning to chatter excitedly. Rebecca found herself abandoned to Mary, a young Assistant Matron, who took her the entire length of the ground floor and then up the west staircase.

  'You're the only new Second Year,' said Mary. 'First, I'll show you your dormitory. You're in number six.'

  Number six turned out to be a big room on the second floor, with primrose walls and big windows that faced due south, so that the sun dappled the counterpanes on the beds. There were eight beds in all, spaced well apart, in separate cubicles; each cubicle had its own chest of drawers, bedside locker and small hanging cupboard.

  'You're here in the corner,' said Mary.

  Rebecca put her bag and cape and hockey stick down on top of her chest of drawers, which was a pale pink. Although her bed was right underneath a large window, she still had the strange sensation of walls closing in on her.

  'Have a wash, if you like,' said Mary. 'There'll be other girls coming up in a minute. You can meet them, then – if you like – I'll show you around Juniper, so you know the layout. Your trunk will be up here in about half an hour and you'll have plenty of time to unpack before tea.'

  Rebecca's mind took little of this in. A strange whispering sound beyond the open window had caught her attention. She crossed to the window and looked out. What was it she could hear, coming from somewhere beyond those trees?

  'Trebizon Bay!' she thought, catching a glimpse of sand and blue sea between the trees. The sound she could hear was the breaking of waves on the sea shore, for the back of Juniper House was less than two hundred yards from the most westerly corner of that huge, beautiful bay she had seen from the coach.

  At the same time she heard voices: girls coming up west staircase.

  'Please – may I just run down and look at the sea?'

  The surprised look on Mary's face made Rebecca realize that she had betrayed something of her desperate impulse to escape.

  'What I mean is,' said Rebecca, more calmly, 'I'm dying to stretch my legs after being cooped up in that train for hours.'

  'Of course,' Mary nodded. In fact she had a lot of work to do. 'And the bay's lovely. Off you go then. Come back in half an hour, so you can unpack your trunk before tea.'

  'Thanks!'

  Rebecca snatched up her denim bag and flew out of the door at this end of the dormitory, just as she heard a clamour of voices outside the door at the opposite end. Dodged them! She couldn't bear the thought of being surrounded by them all, looking at her, asking questions. That could come later.

  She came down the back stairs and let herself out of a backdoor. A coach was just turning out of the yard and some men were sorting through a stack of suitcases and trunks, all clearly labelled, and loading them on two land-rovers. Rebecca slipped past them and along a path that led downhill through the trees. There was the sea, beckoning her on.

  She emerged from the trees and realized that she was fenced in from the sand dunes beyond by iron palings. Then she saw a small gate, open, with a sign on it: TREBIZON SCHOOL – PRIVATE. Joyfully she ran through the gate and up to the top of the nearest sand dune. She was free – she was back in the outside world! There was the bay spread before her, with deck chairs, and ice cream wrappers blowing about and a sprinkling of holiday-makers.

  She ran down the other side of the dune and left her bag and socks and shoes at the bottom. Then she sprinted across the hard, golden sand barefoot, past a game of beach cricket, to the far distant sea. Her hair streamed out in the breeze and, because she loved running, she felt exhilarated. She paddled at the water's edge, squeezing wet sand through her toes and letting the salt water run over them. Enviously she watched some surfers. After some time, she walked slowly back across the sands to where she had left her things.

 

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