Free Murder Most Unladylike: A Wells and Wong Mystery by Robin Stevens Page A

the second time you have knocked over a classmate this week. Go and get changed back into your school things, and if I ever catch you doing something like this again I shall send you to Miss Griffin. Lavinia, play on. Hazel, go !’
    It was not really a punishment, or at least not one as bad as Miss Hopkins would usually have given out, but it still stung. Cheeks burning, I turned and marched off towards the pavilion. I felt swollen up with anger. I couldn’t see why Lavinia wasn’t being punished as well. She had fought back, after all. And she had been so horrid about Daisy! It was not true that Daisy was only friends with me because I was from Hong Kong. She was not like that at all, I told myself. But all the same, there was a bit of me that was worried. Could it really be true?
    I changed back into my school things, my heart rocketing about inside my chest like a dynamo. My ankle was aching again, but I ignored it. I had hardly finished pulling my socks on, though, when the door of the changing-room banged open. I crouched down, thinking that it might be Miss Hopkins. But the person who stuck their head through a row of pinafores and grinned at me was not Miss Hopkins at all, but Daisy.
    Her golden hair was stiff with mud and there was mud on one of her cheeks too. As she burrowed through the clothes and wiggled her way out onto the bench opposite me, she left quite a lot of mud behind her, but she didn’t seem to mind.
    ‘Wotcher, Watson!’ said Daisy. ‘I’ve come to join you, even though you were rude to Miss Hopkins. I thought this would be a good opportunity to hold a Detective Society meeting.’
    There was Daisy, adoring Miss Hopkins again. I decided to ignore it. ‘What did you do to get out of Games?’ I asked.
    ‘I told Hopkins I had the curse and she let me go.’ Daisy said this without a blush, as though it was the easiest thing in the world. Perhaps it was; for her.
    ‘Daisy,’ I said. ‘Do you know what Lavinia said to me?’
    ‘No,’ said Daisy. ‘What awful lies has she been telling this time?’
    ‘She said . . . that you were only friends with me because I come from Hong Kong.’
    There was a pause. ‘What utter tosh,’ said Daisy. ‘As you know perfectly well, I’m only friends with you because you were so persistent about it that I couldn’t refuse.’
    ‘ Daisy! ’ I said.
    ‘All right. That’s nonsense. I’m friends with you because you are the cleverest person in this whole school.’
    I blushed. It was one of the nicest things she had ever said to me.
    ‘Apart, of course, from me.’
    Daisy couldn’t bear not having the last word. ‘Well, now that we’ve cleared that up, can we get on to the real business? We won’t have another opportunity like this all day. Ready, Watson?’
    ‘Ready,’ I said, pulling my casebook out of my bag and trying to put my mind to Detective Society business.
    ‘Excellent,’ said Daisy. ‘Now, we’ve already made some really important discoveries, but before we go any further we need to talk about suspects. We’re agreed that we’ve narrowed our suspect list down to four: Miss Parker, Miss Tennyson, Miss Lappet and The One. The others all have good alibis – and although in books they might have done it by constructing a dastardly longrange missile out of a trombone, three plant pots and the Gym vaulting horse, in real life that sort of thing does seem beyond the bounds of possibility.’
    I nodded. Daisy was right.
    ‘So, the top of our list is Miss Tennyson,’ I said. ‘She wanted the Deputy job. She was down at school for Lit. Soc, but that finished at five twenty. We saw her by the Gym half an hour later, but we have no idea where she was in between those times. And what about today’s English lesson!’
    ‘Wasn’t that a sight?’ agreed Daisy. ‘She certainly behaved guiltily.’
    ‘And then there’s Miss Parker. We know that she lied about her alibi. She was at school when Kitty saw her just after socs finished,