Free A Royal Match by Connell O'Tyne

destroy girls in the past.
    When we were in Year Nine, a girl from Year Seven called Josephine annoyed Honey by being disrespectful towards her. I don’t even know what she said, but Honey mounted a relentless campaign against her and pretty soon Josephine was crying herself to sleep every night. By the end of term she was self-mutilating – cutting herself with blades from the art room. The school tried to get her parents to visit her more to reassure her, but they refused, saying Josephine would just have to deal with the problem, which even the meanest teacher in the school would agree was really mean. Eventually the school suggested to herparents that Josephine might not be suited to boarding school life.
    Honey went around the school with a big grin on her face for weeks after that. I was pretty sure I didn’t have the guts to self-mutilate, being as grossed out by blood as I am, but I was definitely going to be crying myself to sleep.
    It wasn’t long before Honey came screaming back into the room, shrieking at the top of her voice, ‘You are so dead, bitch!’
    Then she grabbed the letter from Freddie and tore it into about a million pieces. OK, maybe not a million – but only because she didn’t get the chance. Georgina managed to grab it from her, so she only managed to tear it in half.
    Arabella, Star and Clementine pulled her off me, because by then she had grabbed my head and started pulling my hair out, while spitting obscenities into my face and telling me about the various painful ways I was going to be murdered.
    A crowd of girls was gathering outside in the corridor, trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on. I was rubbing my head and trying to gather my thoughts together, when Misty came in and started barking. Shortly after that, Miss Cribbe came in with her knitting and threw everyone out of the room, apart from Star, Georgina and me.
    Misty squatted as if about to wee, and Miss Cribbe shooed her out too and went bright red. If Misty hadn’t done that, I am pretty sure we would have been in big trouble.
    My mobile started ringing, but Miss Cribbe took it from me before I could answer it, saying that it was time for lights out – even though it was only nine-thirty and lights out was officially meant to be ten! None of us argued, though.
    I couldn’t get to sleep that night.
    ‘Are you awake?’ Georgina asked me after the lights had been out for a while.
    My head was still hurting from Honey pulling my hair and I could still feel the sting of the slap on my cheek. Georgina was Honey’s best friend and I couldn’t help being a bit scared of what she might say or do. So I didn’t say anything.
    Georgina went on. ‘Personally, I think Honey is overreacting, darling.’
    Her words seemed to echo in my head. I thought of all the benchmark moments of the term – how she’d called me darling, stood up for me, given me her duvet when Misty weed on mine. Then I recalled all the other benchmark moments of my time at Saint Augustine’s and the way Georgina and Honey had isolated me so terribly and made me feel like the school freak.
    Star was muttering in her sleep.
    ‘Darling?’ Georgina repeated.
    I suppose I took it as a good sign that at least she was still deigning to call me darling.
    ‘I didn’t ask him to write to me,’ I explained. ‘It’s not my fault. Can’t you make Honey see that?’
    ‘Arabella told me about the whole duelling thing you had with him.’
    ‘But I didn’t ask him to write!’ I repeated.
    For a long time she didn’t say anything and I was left hanging by a thread, afraid of being back in the freak seat again.
    ‘Honey has a lot of issues,’ she said, after what seemed like half an hour – I’d almost fallen asleep. ‘Seriously … a lot of issues.’
    Hello
, like I hadn’t noticed! The insane bitch had just tried to murder me. ‘Oh, I didn’t know,’ I replied softly.
    ‘Yaah, there’s all sorts of stuff going on between her mum and her latest