Lessons at the School by the Sea by Jenny Colgan

Author:Jenny Colgan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-12-24T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Maggie spent the next morning yawning, with dark circles under her eyes. She’d drunk three cups of coffee, but they hadn’t seemed to have any effect; had just made her feel more weird and upside down.

She’d had terrible dreams of computers and spite and David mixed up in it all, and felt herself waking every hour, unable to stop her stomach churning with anxiety. Eventually she’d given up and run herself a bath and taken a book in while waiting for the dawn that came so late, then struggled back to bed to grab a quick ninety-minute nap and now felt like she’d been hit on the head with a solid object.

After breakfast, she’d gone to see Marzia, the ICT head, who had looked into the thread but confirmed what Maggie had already suspected: it could have been done anywhere by anyone, as that was how the site worked. But judging from all the specific details about the play, it was very likely to be someone within the school.

Maggie had been expecting this, but she sighed nevertheless as Marzia took screen grabs of the pages for evidence, checked and tightened the security settings, and deleted all the posts.

“There must be more we can do,” she said.

“Well, you could send it to a forensic lab,” said Marzia. “But it wouldn’t be cheap and I don’t know how much more they could tell you.”

“What about putting CCTV on the library computers?”

They looked at each other.

“Oh my God, has it come to this?” said Marzia.

“I don’t know.” Maggie sighed.

“You look tired,” said Marzia.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Maggie told her.

Then it was time to find Ismé. She wasn’t at breakfast, which made Maggie very anxious indeed. She peered through a crack in the open dorm door, and saw her sitting in her yoga pose in the empty bedroom. She knocked.

“Can I come in?”

Ismé slowly opened her eyes and looked at Maggie coolly.

“Do what you like,” she said.

But she wasn’t fooling Maggie. The girl’s composure was fake; she had red eyes and a slight tremble in her hands. Maggie shut the door behind her.

“We know about the website,” she said. “And don’t worry. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

“But why?” said Ismé, her immaculate facade cracking.

“Jealousy,” said Maggie briskly. “You’re beautiful, you’re cool, you’re smart enough to get a scholarship, and you can act . . . I’m jealous of you, and I’m supposed to be a grown-up.”

Ismé looked genuinely surprised.

“But everyone here is so rich and knows everything and how to get by . . .”

Maggie stared out of the window.

“Nah,” she said. “They’re faking it just as much as anybody else. Posh people are just better at pretending.”

“They all know each other.”

“Yes, well, you knew everyone at your last school. That’s normal.”

“They all go skiing together and to the Caribbean and stuff.”

“Yes, I know. That’s not normal. But it doesn’t make them better than anyone else.”

Ismé blinked.

“It’s strange,” Maggie said. “Let me tell you. I’ve worked with very rich kids and very poor kids.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.