Free A Royal Match by Connell O'Tyne Page B

are dotted about the school.
    After I’d knocked back my pills and my headache had subsided, Sister Regina gave me another one of her little hugs and said I may as well miss the morning classes and rest until lunch break. I think she was feeling a bit bored so together we read the copy of
Teen Vogue
that I’d brought back from LA, and she said how none of the models could touch me for looks and poise.
    The nuns all love the word ‘poise.’ Maybe because it is one of the few things they were able to hang on to when they gave up everything – like make-up and cool shoes – when they took their vows. Still, it was very sweet of her to say (even if it wasn’t true).
    She said she found it perplexing that any girl would want a job like that – standing about all day having her picture taken.
    Actually, she’s probably right. I don’t suppose it would be nice being a model, apart from the money side of it, of course, although apparently lots of models make virtually nothing – just like actresses in LA. Also, I bet you’d always be worried about people saying mean things about your weight, or saying your nose was too big. Though according to Star they airbrush out all your nasty bits – and Kate Moss might be the size of a house, for all we knew.
    I eventually left Sister Regina just before the bell rang for lunch, and took a detour via the pet shed so I could have a quick cuddle with Arabesque. I always felt a bit disloyal going to visit Arabesque, because I knew Star would rather my affections lay with Hilda and Brian. But the truth is, I much prefer cuddly rabbits to rats and snakes.
    I did check on Hilda, though, who was running along on her little rat wheel in her usual demented fashion. But, honestly, how excited can you get about a rat? Star goes on and on about how intelligent rats are, and I’m sure she’s right, but I wasn’t really looking for witty repartee from a pet, so I moved swiftly on to the rabbit area where Arabesque was softly sleeping. See, that’s what so sweet about rabbits – they do everything so softly.
    At least I thought he was asleep, until I took him out and held him to me. Instead of his lovely, warm, little body wriggling against me, he was all cold and stiff.
    I gasped and put him straight back in the cage, and ran to the canteen, bumping into everyone and knocking overtrays in my search for Georgina.
    ‘Georgina,’ I panted when I finally found her. ‘You have to come. It’s Arabesque!’
    Honey glared at me. ‘You are so dead, Calypso. I’ve told Poppy what you did. She’s going kill you.’
    Poppy is Honey’s older sister and, if anything, even meaner than Honey. She’s stunning-looking and always appears in the social pages under the name of The Honourable Poppy O’Hare – although she always makes a massive fuss over how she told the journalists she didn’t want them to use her title. Yeah right, whatever. The boys at Eades went potty for her, but as Star reminded me, it’s probably not her personality that they were going potty over.
    But I didn’t care. I had to tell Georgina about Arabesque; that was all that mattered.
    Georgina said, ‘Just chill out, will you, Honey?’ but she didn’t look up at me; she just moved some peas around her plate dismally. I could tell that a decision had been made regarding my standing in the group. I was definitely out. Honey had won. Last night when she’d told me that she thought Honey was overreacting, I’d more or less taken a kind of cold comfort from her words. I’d told myself that although she’d have to stand by Honey because, after all, they’d been friends forever, at least she’d criticised Honey and acknowledged that her behaviour was out of order.
    But now as I looked around the group I’d naïvely imagined I’d become part of, I saw how stupid I’d been. MaybeGeorgina did sort of like me. Maybe she’d decided I wasn’t really that bad, but at the end of the day Honey was of her world and scored ten