Back at Malory Towers

2. Before dinner

"Emily! Emily, wake up! We're here!" Jaqueline said shaking the sleeping girl as the train slowed down.

"Wha..?" Emily asked blinking the sleep out her eyes.

"Come on, we're at the platform."

"Oh."

Emily groggy stood up and look put the window to a station outside. One step closer to Malory Towers! Emily thought in excitement.

She grabbed her night case from the racks above the seats and followed Jaqueline off the train. Rosa, Patricia and other other new girls seemed to have already left the compartment and Emily spotted them with Miss Potts on the platform.

Once all the girls where there, Miss Potts led them and the other North Tower girls through the station to one of the coaches parked out side.

"Come one, let's push through, then we can get good seats at the back." Jaqueline said elbowing a girl in front of her out the way.

"Excuse me Jaqueline Pirse no pushing, thank you! You can wait with me here until everybody has gotten on board." Said Miss Potts sternly.

"Miss Potts, that's not fair!" Jaqueline wined back but Miss Potts did not reply and Emily was pushed up the stairs by the girls behinds her wanting to get on as soon as possible.

Emily took a seat at around the middle of the coach and soon the one beside her was filled with an athletic looking girl with messy ginger hair.

"Hello." She said cheerfully, "I'm Becca, are you one of the new girls in first form?"

"Yes, I'm Emily. Are you the same Becca who wanted her tennis shoes back from a Jaqueline?"

"Yes." Becca replied slightly confused until she realised that Jaqueline had volunteered to sit with the new girls on the train for a laugh and Jaqueline loved to make her opinion known about things. "Do you think she brought them to school this term?"

"Sorry, I don't know," Emily replied with a shake of her head, "She said they probably wouldn't fit you anymore and you should have bought another pair in the hols."

"Oh, I did. I was just testing her to see if we could be friends again. But I guess not."

Emily made an 'oh' sound and decided it would be considered rude and nosy to ask why they weren't friends anymore.

"Oh you have got to look out the window in a few minutes. There you get your first view of Malory Towers. It is marvellous! It looks exactly like a casel in a fairy tale book, with the sun and the sea in the background." Becca suddenly said as the coach drew out the station.

Emily and Becca continue to talk to each other until it was time to have the first look at Malory Towers.

"Look! Look! Here." Becca and half the other girls on the coach said to their neighbour as the view out the window suddenly showed the wonderful Malory Towers. Their school, and home, for however many terms they had left there.

For girls in their last term at the school the view was bitter sweet, seeing as this would be their last trip to the school. Emily felt so lucky she was only just starting at the school and had an amazing amount of time left to enjoy here. She knew she would just love it at Malory Towers.

After a few more minutes the coach pulled into the school drive way and stopped.

"All right girls, rows at a time. Zoey, Mary, off you go." Miss Potts said standing up by the driver, pointing at the first row of seats, right at the front.

Soon everyone was off the coach and Emily was surprised at all the noise and busyness of girls and their parents, cars and bags.

She stood frozen looking out at the crowd.

"Come on Emily. I'll take you to matron." Said Becca with a smile, "Then I'll show you the dorm. We're so lucky, north tower dorms look over the sea!"

"Ok." Emily gave a wobbly grin and followed Becca through the school to North Tower's matron.

"Hallo girls." Said a plump woman in a starched white apron. She had dark brown hair but most had now turned white and her face was wrinkled. "Have you got your health certificates?"

"Hallo Matron, I'm back again." Said Becca skipping in.

"Ah Becca, you and Jaqueline are the ones who have given me most of these grey hairs, now, health certificate?"

"Here you go Matron." Said Becca pulling out an envelope from her night case.

"And you?" Matron turned to Emily, "Ah you must be one of the new girls."

"Yes, I'm Emily. My mother sent my health certificate over the post, h-have you got it?"

"Yes thank you. Your in the same dorm as Becca. She'll show you where it is."

"Thank you." Emily said turning around.

"Bye Matron, we'll see you next time one of us is ill!" Becca called as she walked out just behind Emily.

Emily followed Becca throw the corridors, they picked up Rosa along the way who was looking very shy and lost.

"Come on, we'll take you to the dorm first since we've already been to matron. You can give her your health certificate afterwards." Said Becca.

"Ok."

Becca led Emily and Rosa to the dorm and opened the door. Emily gazed inside, it was a long room with eight beds, four along each blue painted wall. The beds were metal with thin white sheets and then a colourful eiderdown on each. There was a bed-side table with a little door on next to each bed and a chest of three deep draws. At the end on the room next to a big window on the back wall were two big wardrobes.

"Wow, this room is wizard!" Said Emily slowly walking across the wooden floor.

Becca and the only other girl in the room gave a little laugh each then Becca plopped her night case on one of the beds.

"Take a bed Emily, Rosa, they'll go quickly." Said Becca.

Emily took a bed next to Becca on the left wall and Rosa asked the girl on the other side if she could have the one next to her.

"I'm Lillian, my cousin in new this term too, have you met her yet?" Said the other girl. She was short like Rosa with long wavy blonde hair and bright green eyes, Emily could see then even from across the room!

Eventually all the other girls entered through the door. Jaqueline, Patricia, Eva and the other new girl, Lillian's cousin, Sherry.

"Come on, we should unpack our night case's before the dinner gong rings, we won't have enough time afterwards."

"Do we got strate to bed after dinner, then?" Asked Emily pulling out the silky, purple top to her pyjamas her mother had bought especially for school since her old ones were getting holes in.

"Yeah, only with about five minutes in between. It's so unfortunate."

"Yes." Said Eva loudly with her nose in the air from the other side of Emily's bed, "I don't know how they expect us to go to bed so early."

Becca smothered a laugh and quietly said to Emily that Eva always falls asleep immediately after the light switches off.

Suddenly there was a distant bell that rang out.

Jaqueline dropped her lacrosse stick onto her bed.

"That's the dinner bell, we better get going." She said and the girls all ran down the stairs to the dinning hall.