“Hey, you,” I hear him say, and I turn away as they kiss. I don’t know why I suddenly feel so much like a spare part.
He’s got a girlfriend. She’s gorgeous—she has these dark, glossy curls and shining brown eyes that beam at him as she strokes a strand of hair off his forehead and kisses him again.
“Excuse me, please!”
Startled, I move aside as people push past. I hastily make room, and Henry reaches for his case. His eyes are fixed on the girl, and I can’t hear what he’s saying. Maybe because of the airport noise, or maybe it’s the roaring in my head.
Suddenly, I grasp that I’m in Edinburgh. Totally alone, nobody came with me. And nobody’s here to meet me, like Henry’s girlfriend. Not even my dad has the faintest clue that I’m in his homecountry to look for him. My fingers tighten on the handle of my suitcase. What am I even doing here?
I don’t want to bother Henry and his girlfriend, but it feels kind of wrong to just walk on and look for the bus the way I’d been planning. As I glance uncertainly at them, Henry turns to me. He smiles this warm, open smile that I should read nothing into. “Grace, this is Emma.” He tows her by the hand as he walks toward me. “She’s here on a year abroad with us.”
“Hi, Emma, how nice to meet you.” Grace is beaming, and I don’t know what’s happening as she gives me a hug. “Welcome!”
I’m caught a bit off guard. “Thanks.”
“How do you two know each other?” she asks, with no suspicion in her voice.
“We met in Frankfurt—we were both seriously late for the flight.” Henry shrugs. “I really thought I was going to miss my connection.”
“I’m glad it all worked out.” Grace turns to me. “Are you coming on the bus, Emma?”
I hesitate. “Yes, I... I was planning to.”
She grabs one of my suitcases. “Great. I’ll take this one, yeah? I pestered Mr.Burgess into letting me come and surprise Henry. The bus is really only meant for boarders.” I frown, but Grace carries on. “I’m a day girl—I stay with my parents in Ebrington.”
“That’s the nearest town,” Henry explains. “Most of the local kids go to school in Edinburgh, but a lucky few get a scholarship to Dunbridge.”
I follow them. I’m not normally the kind to get easily into conversation with new people, but Henry and Grace don’t makeme feel like a stranger. Maybe all the stuff that Mum always said was true—that going to Dunbridge means growing up with loads of brothers and sisters, being part of a community. It wasn’t like that at the Heinrich Heine, where, no matter how often the head talked about it, I never really felt that way and I don’t think any of my friends did either. It was nothing more than a school. A place where you battled through the week, tried to keep your head down and not attract attention. Being the new kid there must be rough. I can’t imagine that you’d ever meet such nice, genuine people as Henry and Grace right away.
Without their help, I’d definitely have got lost. I follow them down the endless bus platform outside the airport, and my heart skips a beat when I see my first double-deckers. OK, so they’re pink and blue, not red, the way I imagined them, but all the same, they’re an unmistakable sign that this isn’t Frankfurt. The Dunbridge Academy bus is a small dark coach with the school logo on the side in white. I could easily have missed it.
“Coming?” Henry asks, and I pause. Grace chats to the driver as he stashes our cases in the luggage locker, then climbs aboard.
“Do we have to pay?” I ask quietly.
Henry seems puzzled, then laughs. “No, Emma,” he says, taking my wrist. “You’re with the school, so just hop on.”
“Oh, right,” I mumble, setting one foot on the step. The front rows are almost all full. Henry’s saying hi to people, waving. Pupils seem to come to this school from all over the world. Most of them look exhausted, like they’ve had just as long a journey as Henry. I smile at them as we make our way to the back.
“Anyone who comes into the airport can let the school know in advance that they need picking up,” Henry says.
“Oh... I don’t think—”
“It’s fine,” he interrupts. “There’s plenty of room.”
Grace gestures invitingly toward the back row, where we can all sit together. Weirdly, she doesn’t seem fazed, but I bet she’d rather be alone with Henry in a double seat. He’s been away with his parents, and they haven’t seen each other for weeks. They must have loads to catch up on. But instead, the minute we set off, they start pointing here and there, showing me the road to Edinburgh and the way to the sea. It’s about a half-hour drive to the school, which is outside the city, and at first, everywhere looks very gray. Then we leave the outskirts and drive through green hills. Up here, it’s easy to forget how close we are to Edinburgh. There’s not much to see apart from fields, woods, and a few lakes.
After we’ve driven a long way down a narrow country lane in the middle of nowhere, Henry turns to me. “Round the next bend, up there on the hill, you can get the first glimpse of the school.” It must be so familiar to him, but he still sounds a bit excited. “It’s like coming home, every time,” he murmurs, turning back to the window. Grace nods with a smile.
We reach the hilltop and turn the corner. The road ahead of us winds through the valley along a river that snakes away to the sea. And then I see it. The former monastery, with the big church in the middle, surrounded by a dark wall. The jumble of rooftops and pointed spires, reaching up into the blue sky. Thesun is glittering on the smooth surface of a small lake, and in the background, I can make out the roofs of the next village.
“Wow,” I breathe.
“I know, right?” Henry glances over his shoulder at me. How dare he have such green eyes? “Welcome home, Emma from Germany.”
4
Henry
