Grace

Chapter 18

Now that I was awake enough to look around, I inspected Ben's room. His bed was under the circular window which opened by turning it in its frame, to the right of the bed was the desk over which there were shelves filled with books and folders. Next to it were his wardrobes and drawers. On the left hand wall and stretching towards the door was first of all a bench type storage area which he seemed to use as a beside table and then there was a bookcase which he'd filled with baskets and boxes to put stuff in. Everything was suspiciously neat and not just for a teenage boy, but a teenage anybody. There wasn't a speck of dust anywhere, not a food wrapper or sweet that had fallen to the floor...

Nothing. It was spotless.

"Grace, come on! I want to get some warm clothes!" Ben called and banged on the door.

"Yeah, yeah," I said and began to get dressed.

As I dressed I caught sight of the pictures on the notice board that was over the head of his bed. It was filled with pictures of him and his dad or friends from school. They were put up there in neat rows.

"Oh man," I said.

"Grace!"

"Coming. Sheesh."

I gathered my pyjamas up and tugged a brush through my hair as I pulled the door open.

"What happened to your head?" I asked Ben.

He had a bruise on his right temple.

"A book fell off the shelves onto my head as I was sleeping."

"What was it? A hard back copy of War and Peace?"

"Honestly, knowing Simeon that's a possibility. If not it's about King Arthur. Can I go in now?"

"Yeah, sure. See you in a few."

*     *     *     *

It might have been the middle of October, but as Ben and I walked to Master MacLachlan's house, I thought it might have been the middle of December. I was in three layers and had hat, gloves and scarf on and I was still cold. Beside me, Ben had his hands stuffed deep down into his coat pockets even though he was as wrapped up as I was.

"I wish I was in Australia," Ben muttered. "He even said he'd pay for a tutor for me so that I could go with him."

"Then why didn't you?" I asked.

"Because I would have had to put up with the press. Now I'm sort of wishing I'd opted to put up with them."

"And miss out on my company?" I joked.

"Yeah, you've got a point there," he said. "Would have been bummed to miss the first year of girls at Eton. You know, every other house has had people in detention for pranks. I think we're worrying the Clarkes."

"What, they think we're lulling them into a false sense of security?"

He chuckled. "Something like that maybe. That or we're really a boring house. Certainly the least troublesome."

"I like to think of us as – Car!" I yelped and pulled Ben back from the road just as a car zoomed by at about a hundred miles and hour.

"You ok?" James asked. He'd yelled car at the same time as I had and had quickly come running over. He'd been a little way behind us.

"Yeah. Fine," Ben said.

"You, Grace?" James asked.

I nodded. "Yeah. Idiot driver."