“No!” I yelped as the headmaster reaches for the phone. “Music. I’ll do music.”
“Excellent choice,” he beams. “I think you’ll love the music department here. We have some of the top teachers in the country.”
He turns to his computer and taps a few keys. A moment later, the printer on the other side of the room whirls into life and spits out a piece of paper. Headmaster Pilkington fetches it and passes it to me.
“I took the liberty of preparing your timetable when your father told me your choices,” he says. “Those are your classes. You’ll note that you have plenty of free periods. Do not take that as an opportunity to slack off. We set our standards high here and I expect to see you spending plenty of time in the library working on your assignments. Now I’ve arranged for the Head Girl of House Navarre to give you a tour of the facilities so you know where you need to be before your first class.” He presses a button on an intercom. “Please tell Nicola Navarre to come in.”
A moment later the door opens, and a perfectly pretty girl walks in. Her hair is styled pristinely, with subtle streaks of blue and green breaking up her natural auburn. Her makeup is flawless, that natural kind of look which accentuates her features without looking like she is wearing any makeup. A badge pinned to her jumper announces her Head Girl status.
“Nicola. Prompt as always. Excellent. Please show Ivy around and make sure she knows where she needs to be for each of her classes.”
“Of course, Headmaster Pilkington. Hi, Ivy. It’s good to meet you.” She smiles, but there is no warmth to it. Great. I had an enemy already, and I hadn’t even done anything. I wonder if she is an heir to one of the other houses? Or just a distant cousin or something? “If you can follow me?”
I pick up my rucksack and follow her to the door.
“Miss Archaic?” I turn back as Headmaster Pilkington says my name. He stands up and offers his hand out to me. “Welcome to the King Academy family and as a woman in your position, do know my allegiance falls heavily on the Archaic house. Come to me for anything.”
I had no choice but to make nice and shake his hand. It is like holding on to a wet fish, his palm all sticky, his grip limp.
“So what are you doing?” Nicola asks after we leave the Headmaster’s office.
“Music, politics, and business, apparently,” I sighed, showing her my timetable.
“It’s not so bad,” she says. “You’ve got Mr Ronson for politics and he’s great. And you’re with me for business, so if you need to see my notes on the classes you’ve missed, you’re more than welcome to them.”
“Really?” Pardon me if I don’t believe you.
“Sure.” Nicola sighed. “Look, none of us were happy when we heard an Archaic was coming to the school. We had no idea you existed and if I’m honest, we are all waiting for the day when your family dies out. But regardless of the history between our families, the one thing we all learn when we come to this school is that we need to work together if we’re going to continue to run this town. Obviously, you missed all the history classes which went over what happened when the four houses fought each other for dominance. Nobody wants to return to that, especially not the poor people like us that actually live in this town and need the main houses not to be at war. I’m just a descendant, like super thinned out from Navarre blood, but shit, we protect our own. Now, it’s unlikely the rivalries between the families will ever fully disappear, but if we can maintain the truce, there’s no limit to what we can achieve together.” She sighs again. “Besides, my dad would kill me if he heard I missed out on an opportunity to suck up to Solomon’s daughter.”
“Well, you’re honest,” I laugh. “I’ll give you that, Nicola.”
She rolls her eyes. “Nikki, please. The only person who calls me Nicola is Pilkington.”
“Okay… Nikki.”
The Navarre Head Girl takes me all over the school, filling me in on all the gossip I need to know while she takes me from one department to the next. There is no way I am going to remember where everything is, so in the end, I give up trying to memorise the routes to my classes and focus on mining Nikki for information. This is a whole new world and information is clearly power. The more I can find out about the people I’m dealing with, the sooner I will be able to figure out a way to escape and go back to my old life. Or at least avoid the worst of the school.
“And that’s pretty much it,” Nikki announces as we go through a pair of doors which take us into a hallway lined with lockers. “That door down there leads to the sixth form common room. Forget what Pilkington says about spending all your spare time in the library–this is where we all hang out between lessons. This whole area is reserved for A level students and you’ll end up being grateful for the opportunity to escape from the plebs in lower school. There are a few lockers left, so find one without a padlock and claim it as yours. You’ll need to bring your own padlock or you can buy one from the office.”
“Okay.” That explains why there is one in the side pocket of my rucksack.
“Now-” Whatever it is Nikki is about to say is interrupted by the sound of jeering coming from the common room.
“What’s going on?” I ask, unsure of what to do.
“Oh, that’ll be Milly getting her daily dose of medicine,” Nikki tells me. I’m stunned by how matter of fact she sounds. “She thinks she’s all that because her brother’s the football captain and heir to the Knight house, so every now and then we make sure to bring her back down to earth. You’d think she has to know by now she’s nothing special.”
“Milly?” The girl who’d been kind to me when I first arrived. “No way.”
Dumping my bag, I raced down the corridor and burst into the common room without even thinking about it. I’m shocked to see three girls surrounding Milly, pushing her between them, chanting “Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” as she cries out for them to stop.
“Hey!” I yell, running into the middle of the group and putting my arm around Milly. They stop instantly, which I didn’t expect. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Oh. It’s the new girl,” sneered one of the bullies. “Don’t poke your nose into other people’s business if you know what’s good for you. You’ve got a lot to learn about what it takes to survive at King Academy. Let this be your first lesson–turn round, walk out that door and don’t look back.”
“I don’t think so.” I shake my head and push up my sleeves, ready for action. I see a Head Girl badge on her jumper, right under the House name Archaic.
“I think you’ll find that belongs to me,” I say, pointing to the badge.
The girl is beautiful in a plastic, oh-so-not-real-under-her-skin way. The sneer she gives me makes her look ugly though. Dammit, I don’t want the badge, but I want them to leave Milly alone. “Oh yeah? Come take it, bitch.”
“Fine.” I shrug my shoulders then launch myself at the girl before she can brace herself. There is an audible gasp from everyone else in the room as I punch her straight in the face, knocking her to the floor. I jump on top of her, giving her no chance to get up as I slap her hard and wrap my hand around her throat.