St. Mallory's Forever!

44 ABBY: I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date.

I apologise for the lack of posting around here recently, but, well, you know what parents are like. They get you back home in their clutches and it's all, "Why are you on the computer instead of being sociable? Abby dear, we've missed you so much! Come down and talk to us!" — and so on and so forth.

By the end of half an hour I had a headache, but when it's your darling parents, what can you do?

The dinner was worth it, though. We went out to my absolute favourite Italian restaurant and ate ourselves sick. Well, I did anyway. What's more, when your mouth is full of pizza you're excused from answering questions about "That nice girl Teresa," as they call Don Pedro.

I mean, my parents have got her so totally wrong, I can't even begin to explain. And when I innocently referred to her as "the Don" they looked horrified, saying they thought she was Spanish, not Italian, and how could the Mafia possibly infiltrate a respectable establishment like St. Mallory's? Would Buckingham Palace be next for this apparent take-over by organised crime?

And then there was him.

Reminder here that by him I don't mean him as in Tim Morrigan, or even him as in the Bursar. I mean... him.

We didn't talk much for the first twenty minutes (no chance, with the parents going at it ten to the dozen, but eventually he asked me, "Is it weird, being at an all-girls' school?"

Needless to say he's at a co-ed day school. Independent, of course — his parents (my aunt and uncle, obviously, as he's my cousin x-times-removed) are about as snobbish as they get. All food and clothing must be organic and fair-trade, and the more expensive the better. Not that I'm against fair trade, but being lectured on it by a woman wearing too much perfume with a ridiculous accent always puts me in a bad mood, and I'm inclined to hate it for about three days solid afterwards. I was so glad they weren't with us.

"We hang out with the boys from the partner school as well," I told him, adding with a mischievous grin, "It's not a convent."

He hasn't seen me in a couple of years, but we've kept in touch on Facebook and I guess easy conversations like this are his forté. Certainly, Mum looks pleased that we're talking, and so she's thoughtfully struck up a discussion about plumbing with Dad. Something to do with the new bathroom suite Dad installed in a moment of DIY madness while I was away. The toilet hasn't flushed properly since.

I was more than happy to have my cousin all to myself, though I would have been happier if he wasn't asking about the boys from Linbury Court. Did we have to talk about school?

Apparently I had mentioned Linbury Court in our Facebook banter. That's when it occurred to me he had probably seen the posts from Tim, even though he had never mentioned them. Maybe that was why he was so inquisitive now. I decided to set the record straight right away.

"There's one guy Tim, though, he's a proper creep." I lowered my voice at this point and he had to lean closer to hear me. (Eeee! Oh, to not be related to him...)

"Tim? Is that the same guy you were... Last year?"

Sugar, as we say at St. Mallory's in lieu of a well known and far more appropriate expression. Obviously he'd seen that on Facebook too.

"Yeah, well, we were sort of going out at one point." I tried not to blush, because discussing relationships with a guy two years older than you isn't fun — they look at you like you're a baby, playing dress-up or something.

Which we probably are. I mean, it's not as if fourteen-year-old relationships actually last, is it? I mean, relationships between fourteen year olds. Obviously a fourteen year old relationship can be considered to have lasted.