‘Ashleigh, please, be kind! Whatever reason Remy had for not wanting or feeling able to take the exam is neither here nor there, not now it’s all over. We don’t need to make today any harder for her.’
Ashleigh stared at Nancy, who had got the wrong end of the stick, confused them. ‘But I’m not—’
‘Not sorry?’ Remy stared at her, eyes blazing. ‘Well, you should be!’
‘Okay, Ashleigh, that’s enough!’ Nancy shouted, and Ashleigh felt her insides shrink, not only at the rare occurrence of Nancy raising her voice, but also because it was starting to dawn on her what Remy had done.
Ashleigh stared at her, mouth slightly open, her chest heaving.
Remy gripped her hand. ‘Come on. Mum will be here any minute.’
Nancy took her seat behind her desk and smiled at her. ‘Try and remember, Remy, that these things only feel important at the time. But trust me, in a few weeks, a few months, a few years, you will barely think about it.’
Ashleigh nodded, hardly trusting herself to speak, as Remy led her from the room. They walked hand in hand. She felt like the condemned as they made their way to the pick-up spot in the car park where their mother, Ruthie, liked to collect them, knowing she’d be where she said she would be, arriving like clockwork, reliable. Unlike her, who couldn’t even make it on to a minibus to take a stupid exam.
Remy let out a long, loud breath, suggesting she had been holding it in.
‘Why?’ Ashleigh managed, feeling perilously close to tears. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Because I don’t care!’ Her sister laughed. ‘I don’t care about going to St. Jude’s, and you do, and I don’t want you to be upset over something so daft. It doesn’t matter to me, none of it, and I know it matters to you.’
‘Did you put my name on the paper?’ She tried to get the facts straight in her mind, to catch up.
‘Of course.’
‘I don’t know what to say!’ She shook her head, her confusion genuine.
‘Don’t say anything! It’s done! I did it for you. I love you, Ash.’
‘I ... I love you, but ...’ This was a whole other level of subterfuge she had not banked on.
‘No buts. It’s all over!’ Remy smiled at her.
‘Did you pass, would you say? Do you think you got the scholarship?’
‘Of course, it was easy-peasy pips, all of it.’ Her sister spoke with conviction.
‘Supposing ... supposing someone asks me questions about it!’ It was starting to feel horribly complicated and deceitful.
‘They won’t! There’s only me, William and Rukmal who took it, and they’re none the wiser. No one knows. No one questioned it. It doesn’t matter!’
‘Iknow, and it matters to me.’ Ashleigh hated how worry over the exam was now replaced by worry over her sister’s actions. What if they got caught? Were they criminals now?
‘We need to forget about it and, as far as the whole wide world is concerned, you took the exam and I didn’t, and that’s the end of it. And now we just wait and see.’
‘I still don’t really understand why, Remy ...’
‘It’s done, Ash! No one will ever know, and that’s all that matters!’ She sounded certain, and Ashleigh envied her confidence.
‘You might get into trouble with Mum and Dad for not going to sit the exam even though you did! I think we might go to prison!’ Her heart raced.
Remy pulled a face. ‘We are not going to prison! You don’t go to prison for things like that, you go to prison for robbing banks and setting fire to things!’
‘I’m scared.’
‘Don’t be. I did it for you, and I know that if it was something important to me, you would have done the same.’
‘I would.’ The words easy to say, yet she was unsure if they were just that – words.
