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where you can be undisturbed."
    "Like by the tennis courts?" He was referring to the other day, when he had found her skipping lunch.
    "That’s one place. A lot of nicer places are out-of-bounds." She didn’t mention that she frequented these nearly as much, but being caught with nothing but a book was a pretty minor offence. Cigarettes or alcohol, more usual reasons for breaching the bounds, were the serious sins.
    It was getting late, and the bell sounded for prep. "You’d better go," he said. "Thank you for coming."

    * * *

    If she had struggled to concentrate in classes, her mind was absolutely whirling now. This was going to be the least productive prep ever. And then it was going to be completely frustrating at supper having Charlotte and Margery grill her in front of everyone.
    Charlotte nudged her elbow. "Where have you been?!" she had written at the top of her exercise book.
    Laura glanced around the room to see where Miss Quayle was. The new Biology teacher was supervising early prep that evening and she took her duties rather zealously. She wasn’t as bad as the Axe but she was planting herself firmly on the wrong side of the popularity fence among the girls, compared to Miss Wingrove and Mr Rydell who had landed on the good side. She was already getting called The Quail as well.
    "Wait until tonight," she wrote back. "Supper too un-private." Was that even a word? Once Charlotte had read it, Laura quickly erased it.
    Margery looked at them from across the table. She was hopeless at reading upside down. "Tonight," Charlotte mouthed at her. Margery frowned. "TONIGHT" Charlotte mouthed more obviously, then quickly bent her head down as Laura nudged to warn her that Miss Quayle was approaching.
    Supper passed quite quickly and being forced to talk about other things was helpful. After the meal and by the time they had got back to the house for prep, Laura had quite gathered her thoughts. Nothing had really happened, when she had had time to think about it. The turmoil was all in her mind, and she wasn’t willing to share that with the others. Yet. But they would enjoy the incident with The Axe.

    * * *

    "So?!" Charlotte was bouncing on her bed in anticipation. "What have you been up to this afternoon? Getting into accidents and rushing off. But that’s not it. It’s the cagey look on your face. Spill everything."
    "It really isn’t much to be honest," Laura said. She related the incident with The Axe, which they drank up avidly. Laura was a good storyteller, and conjured up an image of the furious Geography teacher very vividly.
    "I can’t believe Mr Rydell came to your rescue like that! How amazing. And how wonderful, if it means open warfare between the two of them. She must hate him already given she lost so many pupils from Geography to German," Charlotte said.
    "But what about after History?" Margery asked. "You still haven’t explained that."
    "Mr Rydell just wanted to check I was ok. It was nothing, really."
    "NOTHING?!" The other two practically turned on Laura physically. "You absolutely cannot say that the most fascinating teacher to ever enter these hallowed halls rescuing you from The Axe and then requesting your personal presence is 'nothing'."
    "I wouldn’t described them as hallowed," said Laura, trying to change the subject.
    "Well what did he say?" Margery asked.
    Laura gave a brief account, much more concise than her report of the accident. "Honestly it was very mundane. He was just shocked how nasty she is, I think. Who wouldn’t be?"
    Charlotte rolled her eyes and went back out to the bathroom for something she had forgotten.
    Margery looked at her rather anxiously. "You know that he looks at you sometimes," she said.
    Laura’s stomach lurched over but she didn’t respond. Margery was strange when it came to observation. She was frustratingly obtuse about everything most of the time even if it was right before her nose. Then once in a while she would notice something - really subtle