“Sophie Smith!”
She jumped. “Yes? Sorry, I mean,Oui?”
Someone behind her laughed. She looked at the board. It had become quite full of new vocabulary since she had started staring out of the window. Mademoiselle Deguignet asked her a question. From the tone of her voice, it sounded like it wasn’t the first time she’d asked it. Marianne turned around and mouthed something: the answer, most likely, but despite Marianne’s best efforts Sophie could not work out what she was saying.
At that moment, Mrs. Hingley, the school secretary, entered the room. She was at her most officious, her dumpy frame outlined by a too-tight sweater and skirt, her mean little mouth made to seem even smaller and meaner by her shocking pink lipstick. She had a short conversation with Mademoiselle Deguignet, stared at Sophie with scarcely disguised suspicion, then stomped out again.
“It seems you are required in the headmistress’s office, Sophie.” Theassistantelooked surprised.
Sophie heard her chair scrape far too loudly as she stood up. Mademoiselle Deguignet winced and the laughter broke out again. This must have to do with the sweater. How she wished she had looked for one in Lost and Found before breakfast! She’d had no time since then — and now she had to face Mrs. Sharman again. Sophie left the classroom and walked as slowly as possible toward the office. She felt sick.
“Sophie!” She turned to see Delphine running toward her.
“What are you doing?”
“I told Mademoiselle Deguignet I needed to go to the loo …” Delphine pulled off her sweater and handed it to Sophie. “Quick. Swap! Mrs. Sharman will have a fit if she sees you in that old thing again.”
Gratefully, Sophie pulled off her sweater and handed it to Delphine, who knotted it around her shoulders: It made her look chic and hid the worst of the holes.
“Bonne chance,” her friend whispered.
Sophie knocked on the secretary’s door. Her pulse was racing and she knew her cheeks were red. She licked her lips nervously and put her head around the door when she was told to enter. Mrs. Hingley’s Jack Russell terrier, in his basket under the desk, started to growl.
Mrs. Hingley directed Sophie into Mrs. Sharman’s office with a grumpy nod.
The headmistress was checking figures on a spreadsheet. Her glasses rested halfway down her nose. Without looking up, she said, “I’ve just called your guardian, but she’s not at any of the numbers we have in your file. Do you happen to know where she might be?”
Sophie stood in the middle of the office. She was quite a long way from the desk, but felt it would be inappropriate to advance any farther. WherewasRosemary, exactly? She had a feeling March was the month she went to Majorca to play bridge.
Mrs. Sharman sighed and looked up. “What exactly did you do today, Sophie?” she asked.
“Er …” Sophie began.
Mrs. Sharman frowned. “When you took the visitor into the playground? Did you say something to her?”
“I told her she couldn’t smoke,” Sophie said.
Mrs. Sharman shook her head. “Anything else?”
Sophie pulled at the sleeve of Delphine’s sweater. Much softer than hers. Probably cashmere. “I don’t think so.”
“Unbelievable,” Mrs. Sharman said under her breath. She stood up. “Well, whatever you did, our extremelywealthyvisitor from Saint Petersburg is convinced thatyou” — and here she shot Sophie a look of utter disbelief — “would be able to persuade her friends to send their daughters here. Apparently, her friends are very wealthy, too.” Mrs. Sharman took off her glasses. “She asked a lot of questions about you; she seemed to be interested — pleased, even! — to know just how poor you are!” Mrs. Sharman shook her head as if nonplussed. “I began to wonder if she hadn’t understood what I was saying! However, against my better judgment, I am going to send you on the trip to Saint Petersburg, Sophie Smith.”
Sophie stood very still, not daring to breathe. Had she heard correctly? She balled her fists and dug her fingers into her palms.
“Of course,” Mrs. Sharman went on, “I think the woman is quite wrong — which is why I will also send Marianne and Delphine.Theyare the sort of girls who show the benefit of a New Bloomsbury College education!”
On the way back to French, Sophie allowed herself several footsteps to savor the thought that, for the first and only time in her life, something wonderful and magical had happened. Then she sighed.
There was just one problem. A big one.
Rosemary.
Sophie was right to be pessimistic. The paperwork for the trip came back in a large brown envelope with one of Rosemary’s scrawled notes paper-clipped to the top:No can do. Much too expensive.In another pen, she had added,Away for most of school holiday. Best get yourself invited to a friend’s.
Sophie stuffed the envelope into her bedside drawer, then lay on her bed and stared at the leaden sky. She could understand Rosemary not wanting to spend the money: She knew there wasn’t much of it around for Sophie, and the little there was had been earmarked for school fees. Rosemary was keen on Sophie’s “education” largely because it meant they had to spend very little time together.
It was hard not to think about how different things could have been if … No. She wouldn’t allow herself to think about her father. Nothing would bring him back.
