EJ

Chapter 5: roommates

Our other two roommates had arrived. Greetings and introductions all round.

One of the girls was rather plain, with red hair, a freckled round face and vacant eyes. "I'm Doreen. Call me Dory."

Really? Are you sure?

The other girl was small, pretty and shapely. She looked frightened and her eyes were soft and moist. "My name is Minette, usually called Minnie."

I don't think I've ever known anybody so appropriately named. She was a perfect little mouse.

Neither of the new arrivals seemed predisposed to chat, so Eva and I went back to our unpacking accompanied by plenty of banter.

A bell rang. "I guess that's dinner. Let's scoot."

There were girls milling around in the corridor outside the closed dining room door. Two staff members were there. A tall dark-skinned woman on one side and a shorter, thick set woman standing near the door. Indeed, the latter was thick set all the way down; she looked like a refrigerator. She spoke, "Girls, line up along this wall in your dorm groups, numbers one to eight."

There was a lot of shuffling and confused movement. "Hurry up, girls."

Then, "Fuck this bullshit, let's just get in there and eat. I'm starving."

The Fridge walked along the line and grabbed the objector by the shoulder, "That's a pity, cos you won't be eating tonight." She literally threw the girl across the corridor to the tall woman who took hold of her and half dragged, half carried her down to a door, opened it, shoved the girl in and closed and locked the door.

We could hear the girl's muffled yells. I felt Eva tense next to me so I grabbed her arm and pulled her against me. I kept hold of her arm until I heard her quietly let out a long breath. She murmured, "Thanks, Jodes."

We were given our class timetables as we entered the dining room.

The food was excellent.

The senior students arrived the next day, but they were housed in the other wing so we didn't mix with them much.

I got through the first few days 'undiscovered'. Minnie and Dory were no problem, they kept very much to themselves and I could easily avoid them when using the bathroom or toilet and when changing. Eva was a totally different story. She had no sense of modesty either as regards herself or others.

She was going to catch me out. It was inevitable. I was trying desperately to think what I could do when abruptly Eva started 'respecting my privacy'. I quickly realised that she had become aware of my excessive modesty and had backed right off. It made things a lot easier for me.

Eva and I were rapidly becoming good friends. We now shared all our classes (Eva had changed one of her subjects to join me in music) and we were hardly ever apart.

She was, as I expected, a brilliant all-round sportsperson. The best at every sport we tried.

It was no big surprise that I became Miss Hewson's favourite. She allowed me access to the music room a couple of times a week during free periods. Of course, Eva came with me and we had great fun.