Although they’d all expected it to happen, no students had been pulled out of school by their parents that day. This fact only made the sense of dread worse. They were all waiting for something horrible to happen.
‘What do you think he’s doing?’ Carter asked. ‘If he’s really planning to take half the school, why did he just pull one student out and then no more?’
‘Perhaps it was a warning,’ Nicole said.
‘It’s his way of telling Isabelle he’s serious – and he’s giving them a chance to give him what he wants,’ Rachel said. ‘Like blackmail.’
‘He’s wasting his time. They’ll never do that.’ Allie pushed the food around her plate with a desultory fork.
‘Especially since they barely seem to have noticed Caroline is gone at all,’ Zoe said.
Looking up at her, Allie noticed Jules watching them from a nearby table. She was sitting with Katie and a few other friends, as she had the night before. Her eyes looked hurt, and when she caught Allie’s gaze she quickly looked away.
Allie wondered how Carter had explained what was going on. Why he wasn’t sitting with her at meals any more. With all that had happened in the last few days, the two of them must barely be seeing each other at all.
‘So there’s no Night School training tonight…’ Looking across the table at Sylvain, Carter didn’t appear to notice his girlfriend’s expression. He was too focused on the project at hand.
Sylvain seemed to get what Carter was implying – he sat up straighter, his gaze fixed on Carter’s.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And the weather is clear.’
Some sort of agreement was being made between the two of them.
‘What’s going on?’ Zoe asked.
A knowing smile tugged at Nicole’s full lips. ‘I think the boys are plotting.’
Sylvain and Carter grinned. Allie wasn’t sure she liked this new alliance.
‘OK. Here’s the thing,’ Carter said. ‘We’ve been waiting for the teachers to come back so we can find out what’s going on. Sylvain and I have been thinking it’s time to go to them. And find out for ourselves.’
‘What? We’re going to go and find them?’ Zoe’s face brightened at the idea.
‘We’re going,’ Sylvain said, ‘to talk to Eloise.’
‘Maybe this isn’t such a great idea,’ Allie said.
Perched on a bench in the Night School girls’ dressing room, she loosened a knot in the laces on her trainers. ‘It kind of feels like we’re pushing our luck.’
‘You think?’ Rachel’s sarcastic voice emerged from a borrowed, thermal top she was struggling to pull over her head. ‘Just a little bit?’
‘We will be fine.’ Nicole pulled on thick, black leggings and reached for her socks. Allie had to admire her cool composure – nothing seemed to intimidate her. ‘We will do nothing but look.’
The utilitarian room was painted plain white; the only decoration the shiny brass hooks that lined the walls, each one with a name painted above it in glossy black, and the black clothes beneath. Floor-to-ceiling mirrors lined one wall, making the room seem bigger than it was. It was a familiar place by now to Allie – but she knew Rachel, in all her years at Cimmeria, had never seen it before, because it was Night School only.
When the boys first told them about their idea, they’d all reacted with enthusiasm. If it gave them the chance to find out more about what was really going on, it was worth taking all the chances.
It was only now that they were in the middle of it that Allie’s doubt gene kicked in.
They knew that by bringing Rachel into the section of the school reserved solely for the group’s secret activities, and dressing her in someone else’s Night School gear, they were breaking several of the school’s inviolable Rules.
‘How can you be so calm about this?’ Allie asked Nicole. ‘Aren’t you worried about getting expelled?’
‘I am sorry but if one of the teachers says to me, “You broke The Rules,” I will say to them, “Well, where the hell is Eloise? Where the hell is Jo? Where is Ruth?”’ Nicole’s French accent grew thicker when she was angry. ‘Where were you when the school fell apart? And I think that will be the end of that conversation.’
Allie had to admit she had a point. The whole situation was so intensely wrong, what did The Rules matter any more? Was anyone keeping score?
As they talked, Zoe stood in one corner of the dressing room, clad fully in her black Night School gear and kickboxing the air, chirping with each move, like a small, angry crow.
Allie worried about bringing her, too. She was fast and smart but… so young. So small.
Before she could think it through, though, Rachel distracted her.
‘This doesn’t fit.’ She stood in front of a mirror, eyeing herself dubiously; the pilfered top ended in the middle of her midriff, revealing a few inches of latte-coloured skin. ‘I’m too tall.’
‘Jules is tall like you,’ Nicole said, pulling her long hair back into a ponytail. ‘Try hers.’