Beswitched by Kate Saunders Read Free Book Online Page A

toothpaste tasted of chalk), splash her face with water and drag a comb through her stupid new hairstyle.
    “Why didn’t you stick up for me?” she demanded, when they were back in the bedroom. “You must’ve seen her pushing me!”
    Pogo briskly pulled her gymslip (which was what they called the boxy black pinafores) over her head. “We ought to have warned you—that’s Consuela Carver.”
    “The one we tried to make bald,” Dulcie added.
    “Yes, and if she’d heard you calling her a cow, she’d have got you into no end of trouble.”
    “What could she do to me?”
    “She says such mean things,” said Dulcie, trying to dress herself and help Flora at the same time. “And she finds ways to spoil your work.”
    “Why don’t you just tell one of the teachers?”
    Dulcie was shocked. “You can’t do that!”
    “Why not?”
    “Because,” Pogo said firmly, “they’ll think you’re a beastly sneak.”
    “A sneak?”
    “You know—a telltale.”
    Flora was impatient. “So you just let that cow push you around? Oh, all right! I won’t use that word. But what’s her problem, anyway?”
    “Me,” said Pete, scrabbling at the buttons on her inky white blouse. “I accidentally whacked her on the bottom with my hockey stick last term, and she wouldn’t believe it was an accident—oh, BLOW! My top button’s come off!”
    “In this bedroom, we’ve made a vow of ‘All for one and one for all!’—like the Three Musketeers,” Pogo said. “If the Carver is Pete’s foe, she’s our foe. Now that you’re one of us, you must avoid the Carver as much as possible. Also her guards and toadies—Mary Denby, Gladys Pyecroft, Wendy Elliot—”
    “This is ridiculous!” snapped Flora. “If the teachers refuse to do anything about the dreadful bullying problem here, you should complain to your parents!”
    For some reason, the others seemed to think this was silly.
    “Crikey, no!” said Pogo. “I’d only get a lecture about standing up for myself.”
    “So would I,” Pete said, looking at Flora rather scornfully. “And I’d jolly well deserve it—imagine writing to your people to tell them you’re a coward!”
    “Pete, come on,” Pogo said. “There isn’t time to fiddle with your button—just hoist up your tie—we don’t want to start Flora off with a pony for being late!”
    Pogo was a sensible little thing, Flora thought; far sharper than Pete, though Pete was convinced she was the leader in this bedroom. It was Pogo who led them all down to breakfast. They joined the crowd of girls in identical black gymslips,trooping along the corridor and down the big staircase—all spookily quiet, except for a few sleepy whispers.
    What time was it, anyway? Practically dawn. Flora had a second of intense longing for the mornings she had at home, in the twenty-first century. She could almost smell her passionflower shower gel, and Dad’s coffee, and almond croissants warmed in the microwave. There was a smell of food here, but it was like boiled blankets.
    “I nearly forgot,” Pogo muttered, “breakfast is in French.”
    “It’s—what?”
    “Shh! We’re supposed to keep quiet till after Peepy’s said the prayer. And then we have to speak in French.”
    “Why?”
    “Never mind why!” They were approaching the dining hall, and Pogo lowered her voice. “It’s simply one of the rules.”
    “Well, it’s a silly rule,” Flora said. “What’s the point, when we all speak perfectly good English?”
    “Shhhh!” hissed Pogo and Dulcie.
    As they entered the dining room, all the girls became eerily silent—Flora had never known an entire school could be this quiet. It wasn’t natural. And making them speak French—that was child abuse.
    The hall was big and drafty, like a church. Hundreds of girls stood in silent lines at the four long tables. The breakfast now smelled of wet socks. At one end of the hall was a raised table, where the teachers stood, also in silence. The headmistress