The Spin by Rebecca Lisle

Author:Rebecca Lisle [Rebecca Lisle]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Published: 2012-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

24

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Stormy sat down on his grand bed and waited.

He heard the dinner gong sound, followed by a rush of feet thundering along the corridor. Now what was he supposed to do? Someone hammered on the door and a boy put his head round.

‘Hiya! Grubs up! Come along with me. I’m Tom.’

‘Thanks!’

Perhaps they weren’t all so bad, Stormy thought, jumping off his bed. Food! The dining room! He was going to be inside that wonderful place he’d glimpsed so many times through the swing doors.

The narrow corridor was crammed with students flooding towards the dining room, stampeding down the stairway. ‘Come on!’ Tom pulled him in and they were carried along in the current.

Students craned to get a look at this new boy. Stormy wished that he were different, taller, stronger, better-looking, smarter . . . anything other than the weedy orphan skivvy he was. The tangle of bodies rushing along was so rough that twice he nearly fell when someone else’s leg got tangled in his.

‘Watch it!’

‘Clumsy!’

‘New boy!’

He just couldn’t seem to get out of their way and finally he did trip and come tumbling down the remaining steps of the big staircase, landing up beneath the glass-eyed glare of a brown bear head.

Everyone laughed. He tried to laugh too, but he didn’t think it was funny.

When he got up, Tom had vanished.

Nervously he followed the others as they streamed through a doorway and into the great dining room. This time he was part of it, not peering through a crack in the door like a lizard. He belonged in it.

It was just as he’d hoped it would be; just as grand, with long covered tables, gilt chairs, black-suited waiters like statues against the wall. Bright lanterns shone from the walls and candles adorned the tables.

‘You’re up there!’ a girl said, pulling at his arm. ‘You’re on the top table.’

The top table. This was on a stage, set at a right angle to the room, and it boasted elegant silver candlesticks, crystal glass and a white cloth hanging to the floor.

‘It’s only ’cos he’s so rich,’ someone whispered. ‘He’s nothing to write home about as far as I can see.’

‘He’s taken Tarik’s place!’

‘Can you imagine having to eat with a skivvy?’

So they all knew where he had come from. There was no hiding that. Stormy grew hotter and hotter.

‘Hi, I’m Bella,’ a dark girl said, pushing him towards the front. ‘Ignore them,’ she added. ‘Some will hate you because of what you once were, others will hate you for having more money than them and some won’t know or care, so just brazen it out.’

She pushed him up three steps to the top table and plonked him in a seat. He checked the place card in front of his plate; there was his name in gold letters. On his right, Araminta; on his left, Hector Grant. Boom bang boom went his troubled heart.

‘Chin up!’ Bella called as she slid away into the crush of bodies.

The Director and Araminta came in and a hush fell over the room.

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