Julia jumps up and does the walk, and Becca actually does fall off the fountain-edge, and they scream so loud with laughter that the security guard comes over to frown at them. Holly tells him Becca has epilepsy and if he throws her out he’ll be discriminating against the disabled, and he drifts off again, still frowning over his shoulder but without a lot of conviction.
Finally the giggles ebb. They look at each other, still grinning, amazed at themselves, shaken by their own daring.
‘Now that was original,’ Julia tells Selena. ‘You have to admit. And, let’s face it, kind of scary.’
‘Exactly,’ Selena says. ‘Do you want to keep on being able to do that? Or do you want to go back to almost wetting yourself if Andrew Moore even notices you exist?’
The heliumy woman is finishing up ‘All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth’. In the second before ‘Santa Baby’ kicks in, Holly catches a flash of another song, just half a brushstroke of it somewhere far away, maybe outside the Court:
Julia sighs and holds out her hand for Becca’s gingerbread thing. She says, ‘If you think I’m sliding down a bedsheet out our window like some chick in a shit movie, you are so very fucking wrong.’
‘I don’t,’ Selena says. ‘You heard what Hol’s dad said. The front windows aren’t alarmed.’
Becca does it. The others were taking for granted it would be Holly or Selena, in case the nurse notices the key gone missing; Holly is the best liar, and no one ever thinks Selena’s done anything wrong, while Julia is always one of the first people teachers think of, even for things that would never occur to her. When Becca says, ‘I want to do it,’ they’re taken aback. They try to convince her – Selena gently, Holly delicately, Julia bluntly – that this is a bad idea and she should leave it to the experts, but she digs her heels in and points out that she’s even less likely to be suspected than Selena, given that she genuinely never has done anything worse than sharing homework and everyone thinks she’s a huge goody-goody lick-arse, and that might as well be useful for once. In the end the others understand that she’s not budging.
They coach her, after lights-out. ‘You need to be sick enough that she keeps you in her office for a while,’ Julia says, ‘but not sick enough that she sends you back here. What you want is something she’ll want to keep an eye on.’
‘But not too much of an eye,’ Selena says. ‘You don’t want her hovering.’
‘Exactly,’ says Julia. ‘Maybe you think you’re going to puke, but you’re not sure. And you think probably you’ll be fine if you just lie still for a while.’
They’ve left their curtains open. Outside it’s below freezing, frost patterning the edges of the windowpane, the sky a thin sheet of ice laid over the stars. The shot of cold air hits Becca like it’s been fired straight through the glass from the huge outside, wild and magic, pungent with foxes and juniper.
Holly says, ‘But don’t act like you want to puke. That looks fake. Act like you
‘Are you sure about this?’ Selena asks. She’s propped up on one elbow, trying to see Becca’s face.
‘If you’re not,’ Holly says, ‘no probs. Just say it now.’
Becca says, ‘I’m doing it. Stop asking me.’
Julia catches a glance and the tip of a smile from Selena:
The next day, lying on the too-narrow bed in the nurse’s office, listening to the nurse hum Michael Bublé as she does paperwork at her desk, Becca feels the wild cold of the key strike deep into her palm, and smells running vixens and berries and icy stars.
Before lights-out they lay out their clothes on their beds and start getting dressed. Layers of tops – outside the window, the night sky is clear and frozen; sweatshirts; heavy jeans; pyjamas to go over it all, until the moment comes. They fold their coats away under their beds, so they won’t need to rattle hangers or squeak wardrobe doors. They line up their Uggs by the door so they won’t have to fumble.
Now that it’s turning real, it feels like a game, some geeky role-playing thing where someone will give them fake swords and they’ll have to run around smacking imaginary orcs. Julia is singing ‘Bad Romance’, cocking a hip and whirling a jumper by one sleeve like a stripper; Holly joins in with a pair of leggings on her head, Selena whips her hair in circles. They feel stupid, and they’re turning giddy to dodge that.
‘Is this OK?’ Becca asks, spreading her arms.
The other three stop singing and look at her: dark-blue jeans and dark-blue hoodie, the hoodie stuffed spherical with layers and the hood strings pulled so tight only the tip of her nose shows. They start to laugh.
‘What?’ Becca demands.
