St. Mallory's Forever!

11. HELEN: A Little Privacy In This Crazy World

I already posted today, I know, but I thought the fact that Mum finally turned up with that laptop she promised me deserved a post of its own. Okay, so it's second hand, and as slow as a snail walking backwards on treacle, but at least I have one now.

Oh, and at lunchtime I actually managed to talk to Abby without feeling like a bug on the bottom of her shoe, so I guess that's a newsflash as well.

But hey, I can now write posts from my room, do homework from my room, send emails from my room – fine, cubie, whatever the thing's called – instead of from the computer rooms with a teacher looking over my shoulder the whole time. Most of the good websites are blocked, of course, although someone dropped me a hint that they're unblocked at a certain time of evening or at weekends, but at least it's a link with the real world outside.

And when most of your posts are rants about people in this school, it's probably a good thing to be able to do it in private.

Like that guy outside the music room. I know I haven't really explained it, but that's coz there's nothing to explain. Possibly.

The thing is, he wanted to talk to Mum and it was urgent. That was obvious. But why? I asked Xuan (pronounced shin - last reminder!) if she'd noticed, but apparently she hadn't. Too busy paying attention to the lesson.

So maybe I'm getting het up about nothing. The thing is, where I come from if you see a strange man peering through a school window he's probably some perv on the run from the police. That's just the way it is in London.

Yet I'm sure Abby saw him too. She looked like she did anyway, but obviously it didn't bother her. Maybe I should ask her. He might just be the caretaker, or the groundsman, or he performs some strange role exclusive to boarding schools that I don't know about.

Or maybe he's just an eccentric kind of guy that hangs around girls' schools and is totally harmless. Or is that a contradiction in terms?

He could be on drugs, I suppose. If they have drugs out here in the sticks, that is. Hard to imagine, but they might. Or maybe everyone's on drugs here, and the school is just a front for some big criminal enterprise mass-producing some sort of illegal substance or other.

Or maybe...

Hey! Stop looking at me like that!