Grace

Chapter 14

Monday passed much the same as it had seven days ago with the exception of me not concussing myself on the stern of a boat. Mostly I spent the rowing hour after class going up and down the river on a scull without falling in unlike the rest of the girls I was with. It wasn't an elite rowing session, the Eights did that in block groups, but just a normal sport session. We had elite after this.

Mostly what I did for this lesson was help people out of the water and laugh as they fell in if it was particularly spectacular. It took a while for Karen to fall in but when she did I stopped to talk to her for a bit.

"Where was everyone on Saturday? Onion wasn't happy."

"What?" she asked.

"Oh, Coach's nickname," I waved off.

"Riiiiight. Ok. There was this mass detention for most of the girls in my house. We kept being late to lessons all last week. When the headmaster asked why Amy, she's in B block, told him straight up it's because we can't wear watches and so what did he expect."

"Good on her," I said. "I was nearly late to literature today because of it."

"I was nearly late to my third school. Div master as not happy I can tell you that."

"Are they going to do anything about it?"

"It was discussed in chambers today. Apparently there's going to be an announcement in prayers."

"Good."

"Bennett, Karen, this isn't a hen meting," Coach called. "Get too."

We set off rowing again and fifteen minutes later the guys came down, the girls got off the river and Eights training began and I was able to meet the other half of the girls on my team. They were all tall, Amazonian figures, with faces that were pretty leaning towards or surpassing beautiful. Tiffany, Zara, Millicent and Kate. They all had summer tans from holidays abroad, Zara had sun bleached hair I later learned from a week in the Sahara, Tiffany was the prime minister's daughter, Millicent went to finishing school in Switzerland over the holiday and actually enjoyed it and Millicent was the daughter of a viscount. Karen had connections to the Greek royals, Narinda's parents were the richest people in India and Sally's father was engaged to one of the Swedish princesses, before that he'd been married to one of the richest women in the world.

I'd gone to state school. Something they all found supremely shocking.

"Seriously?" Sally asked.

I nodded. Was now a good time to tell them that I'd practically taught myself everything I knew apart from music? Probably not.

"You don't look like a state schooler," she said.

"And what is a state school person supposed to look like?" I asked hotly.

She stopped stretching and opened and closed her mouth a few times.

"Grace, we're going for a run. Want to come?" Harry asked and pulled me away from the conversation at a run.

I fell in step with him without protest because I wanted to get away from that conversation as much as he wanted to get me away from it. We ran two abreast, but when Harry put me between himself and Ben there was barely any difference in the width of the line. I felt tiny next to them, but more in place. I hated it that people seemed to find it amazing that I was here just because I'd gone to state school. It was typical that the girls were more bothered about it than the guys. It went with the catty nature of a lot of girls. That trait was one of the reasons I'd not bothered with friends at Park. Not only had I not had time, but I didn't want the hassle of conversations about make-up, clothes, diets and subtle hostility that a lot of the girls there had treated each other with. Especially in the performing arts department. Quite frankly it was probably better for my mental health to not have friends amongst them with how many arguments, fall outs and fights there were.