Free Sex and Stravinsky by Barbara Trapido

cattle breeding and horse riding and they don’t understand where she gets it from – and also, they’re all about thirty centimetres taller than Lola. At the end of the last book, when she was newly arrived in London, Lola had just met this boy called Sergei, who is also at the ballet school, and he was really kind and helpful to her and it turned out they were in the same digs, but he’s got a past life in Russia that he never talks about.
    Zoe only discovered the Lola books about six months ago and they’ve made her long to do ballet even more, but Caroline thinks it’s just because she wants the pink satin shoes and the pink angora crossover cardigan and the leg warmers. Zoe has read the first two books in the series about five times each and she’s also sneaked in another ballet book right at the top of the hat box, because it’s very flat and she could do it once Caroline had finished putting in all the clothes and toiletries, et cetera. It’s called Ballet Class and it teaches you about all the ballet positions and exercises and warm-ups to practise by yourself.
    ‘Do you still read those babyish books?’ Sadie is saying, just as if Zoe’s new Lola book was Postman Pat or something, so she sighs and puts it away and pretends to fall asleep.
    School trips are always in a coach, even though ever since last year they could have got to Paris on the Eurostar. But no. It’s got to be the sick-making coach that takes all day. Coach, coach, ferry, coach. Then it’s all those hours through France on the motorway that mostly looks just like England, except with more crashed cars by the side of the road and the hoardings are in French. Then comes the moment she’s been dreading, when they finally end up exhausted in this tarmac playground at the French school, where the exchange kids are waiting for them along with their mums and dads. That’s except for Zoe’s.
    Because the Tall Merry Fellow is nowhere, although his mother and his sister are there and both of them reek of cigarettes. Neither of them smiles at her and they’re not very talky – well not to her, anyway. The mum is gaunt and creased-looking and her face is kind of putty-coloured, like cigarette smoke has got into all her wrinkles. She seems really angry and crosspatch, while Véronique is sneery and smug-looking, with spiked-up hair, and she’s wearing her navy school cardigan with no shirt under it and with the top three buttons undone to show her Wonderbra cleavage. And she does this stroppy-looking, no-blink eye contact with Zoe, which is really disconcerting, so that you don’t know where to look.
    ‘ Viens !’ says Maman. ‘ Vite, vite !’ And she’s striding towards her car like she’s got a train to catch.
    She gestures that Zoe should put her things in the back. She and Véronique get into the front, so Zoe clambers hurriedly into the back alongside the beautiful hat box, and with her backpack on her lap. She’s noticed Véronique staring hard at the hat box with all its German luggage labels, and she gives Zoe this horrible look.
    Both of them start lighting up cigarettes in the car, which makes Zoe reach for the second of her freezer-bags and ensure the top is open, at the ready. She’s only sicked up once so far, and that was on the ferry. Right now, she’s not sure whether Caroline has given her the phrase for ‘Please stop the car, I feel sick’, but she feels too sick to pause and look sideways in the backpack to check and anyway she’s feeling much too shy to speak.
    Oh, please God, she’s thinking desperately, let me think of something else. Don’t let me think about puke. Anything but puke. Je m’appelle Zoe. Je n’aime pas le, le, le livre . No, that’s not right. Je n’aime pas – Oh, please, please don’t start thinking about liver. Do not. Think about the Tall Merry Fellow. Like where is he? Maybe he was feeling shy as well? Maybe he’s feeling really embarrassed about having a girl for his exchange,