Jessa stretched out the cramp from her fingers. 6:12am said the clock. Still plenty of time. And Physics wasn’t until third period, so theoretically, finishing at break time was still an option. But then Maggie would know Jessa had lied about having completed all her homework during the holidays. 6:13am. She rubbed her eyes.

A gentle knock at the door took Jessa’s attention away from her books. It opened, and Audrey peered in, looking perfectly awake and irritatingly well-rested.

“Jessa? Are you okay? I saw your light on.”

“I’m fine,” Jessa shrugged.

“Then why are you up so ea—” Audrey noticed the papers on Jessa’s desk and stopped herself. “Oh, that’s why. You’re cramming homework. Of course. Didn’t you just have two weeks off?”

“Yes. What’s your point?”

“Typical. Well, good luck with that. I’m going to the gym. Have a good day at school. Maybe they’ll teach you time management skills this year.”

Jessa clenched her jaw and made a face behind Audrey’s back as she left the room. Audrey had probably never finished homework so late. Everything Jessa had ever heard about her sister made it seem like she was some genius child prodigy. Their parents still had all Audrey’s report cards from school, full of words that Jessa couldn’t even imagine appearing on hers. Excelled. Applied. Partakes. Achievement.

More wrong answers. Jessa worked through the questions in her textbook one by one, knowing they weren’t right. But she was running out of time, and she figured it was better to hand in something incorrect than blank paper. She briefly entertained the idea of pretending to have left her homework at home, but decided against it. She knew she’d inevitably leave her homework at home for real sometime soon, and wouldn’t be able to get away with that excuse too many times.

Jessa washed away the grime from her face but still couldn’t shake the annoying interaction with her sister from her mind. She leaned closer to the mirror and prodded her skin. Audrey’s pores were so much smaller. And Audrey’s skin didn’t have red blotches.

Jessa opened the cabinet and inspected Audrey’s bottles of beauty concoctions. Cleansing milk, cleansing oil, cleansing lotion. No wonder Audrey always looked so… clean. Jessa grabbed a little green tube labelled ‘Pore Refining Mask’ and squeezed a small glob onto the tip of her finger. It was cold and smelled like dirt. She grimaced and washed the goop from her hand but decided to try the cleansing milk, the most seemingly inoffensive of the strange aqueous substances.

She pulled back her wavy, untamed hair and looked into the dark, unstriking eyes of her reflection and wondered if she’d ever be as delicate and sleek as her older sister.

#

Jessa, Maggie, and Flynn settled back into their tutor room. Maggie, who had clearly arrived at school considerably early, happily munched away on the rest of her Marmite toast from the cafeteria while poring over a textbook that Jessa didn’t recognise.

“What are you reading? Is that a French book? Did we have homework that—”

“Jessa, chill out, it’s not a set text,” Maggie rolled her eyes.

“What is it, then?”

“It’s the third-year French textbook. Madame Bellerose let me borrow a copy.”

“And you’re just reading it, for fun?”

“Over the holiday I used it as a reference for our French homework. But now I’m reading it for pleasure, yes. Oh, and speaking of homework, did you bring all your assignments?”

“Yes,” Jessa yawned.

As the rest of the class slowly filtered in, the topic on everybody’s lips was Cecily Graves and whether she would return. Rumour had it she’d enrolled in some kind of special intensive education programme in order to catch up with the Winsbury curriculum. A different rumour had it that she’d spent the holiday in Costa Rica. The latter seemed more likely, but evidently nobody in the class had actually heard from Cecily during the break, not even Eli or Gray.

Mr Fletcher entered the room cheerfully and immediately started checking names on his tablet, newly adorned with a green suede cover that Jessa knew to have been one of his Christmas gifts from Audrey.

“Welcome back, guys and girls!” he smiled. “I trust you all had a great break, and I hope you’re ready to get back to work. The first semester at Winsbury was something of an introduction to student life here, so hopefully you feel warmed up and ready to delve into your studies even deeper.”

Everyone looked up upon hearing the click of the doorknob fidgeting in its socket. The teacher paused.

In walked Cecily Graves, dressed in an uncharacteristically simple outfit of plain black trousers and a smart sweater. An obvious tension clenched the room as she entered, her eyes down as she hurried to the back of the class to an empty seat.

“I’m glad you could join us, Cecily,” said Mr Fletcher.

The students exchanged unsubtle whispers.

Mr Fletcher briskly brought the attention back to himself. “Shush, quiet, please. Where were we? Oh yes, I have some announcements for you! We’re going on the history trip to the National Parapsychological Museum this Saturday. Don’t forget! You need to meet in the school foyer at 9 am, do not be late!

Secondly, you’ve had some time to ‘shop’ your extracurriculars, but from this point, you’re all required to be a member of at least one extracurricular activity. I know many of you have been attending a club already, and that’s great, but those of you who haven’t chosen one yet, you have until the end of next week to make a choice and officially sign up through your online accounts.”

Jessa zoned out while the teacher continued with more announcements and tuned back in just in time to hear him say “chat amongst yourselves.”

“What do you think happened to her?” Jessa quickly whispered to Maggie.

“It’s not the time to talk about that,” Maggie replied. “You should focus on school stuff. I mean, what club are you going to join?”

“Urgh.”

“Come on, you have to pick one!”

“I don’t know,” she whined back. “I’m not good at any of these things.”

“Don’t be silly, of course you are.” Maggie leaned in closer. “Let’s look at the list. All right, what about something musical? You love music.”

“Yeah but I don’t play an instrument.”

“What about your guitar?”

“I’m not nearly good enough.”

“Okay, then how about choir?”

“Nah.”

“You could join WriteSoc with me,” said Flynn.

“I’m not into creative writing, though. What other clubs are you in, Flynn?”

“Just WriteSoc and Coding Club. I might join Chess Club, too.”

“You could pick something at random,” Maggie suggested. “Then just see how it goes. You can always change your mind next term. What about Community 1? You’d get to do all sorts of interesting things, and it would be great to help other people.”

“Yeah but they have meetings at the weekend,” Jessa shook her head. “It’s okay, I’ll pick something eventually. I still have some time.”

“And how are you three getting on today?” Mr Fletcher approached and crouched slightly to lean on their desk. “Feeling good about the new semester?”

“Yes, sir!” Maggie nodded.

“You know you don’t have to call me sir, right?”

“I know. It’s just a habit. In my house, we grew up calling older people ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’.”

“Ouch, how old do you think I am?” he joked.

“I didn’t mean it like that!” Maggie replied.

“It’s okay, I’m yanking your chain,” he chuckled. “But hey, would you three mind coming back here at break time?”

“Are we in trouble?” Maggie asked quickly.

“Do you have any reason to be in trouble?” he asked playfully, with a raised-eyebrow glance to Jessa.

Jessa smiled sweetly. “Of course not,” she said, “…sir.”

“Well played, Baxter. But no, I just want to chat to you about something.”

#

“Hi guys, come on in.”

Flynn made sure the door was closed behind them.

“Pull up some chairs,” he gestured, then opened his desk drawer and took out a plate on which were four large muffins, “help yourself.”

“What’s going on?” asked Jessa. “What do you want to talk to us about?”

“Cecily,” he said. “She was issued a formal warning after her dismissal at the end of last term. I know there was talk around here of her suspension being an extended holiday, but I promise you that wasn’t the case. It’s a real black mark on her school record now, and in conjunction with some previous misdemeanours—”

“Like pushing Flynn into the Christmas tree?!” Jessa sprayed muffin crumbs as she spoke.

“Like a few things, the details of which are not important right now,” he corrected. Jessa rolled her eyes. “My point is that she’s on very thin ice, and she’s aware of it.”

“So if she keeps it up, she’ll get expelled?” Maggie asked.

“In short, yes. Ultimately, the Board decided that, for now, it’s more beneficial for Cecily to be in school than under a suspension, which is why she’s back today. But she’s been warned.”

“But Mr Fletcher,” said Flynn, “what does this have to do with us?”

“Well, I know the three of you have had a few incidents with Cecily—”

“She started it!” Jessa interrupted.

Mr Fletcher held up his hands. “I need you to rise above it. Some people can’t help looking for a fight. But it’s important not to engage those people and bring yourself into a violent situation. Just remember that not everyone is exactly how they portray themselves. Quite often, there’s more that they’re hiding, and acting out is their way of distancing themselves from deeper problems.”

“What?” said Jessa. “Are you trying to tell us we should feel sorry for her?”

“No, I’m not trying to tell you how to feel. I’m just reminding you to look beyond the surface. But now I have work to do, so get out,” he jokingly shooed them from the room.

They retired to the beanbag chairs on the second-floor landing before double physics.

“What does he mean by ‘deeper problems’?” Jessa wondered aloud, wriggling deeper into the beans. “I mean, she’s rich, beautiful, and has everything she could ever want.”

“Well, we know there’s one thing she doesn’t have,” Maggie replied. “Real friends. I know I’d go crazy if I didn’t have friends.”

“I just don’t get what he meant,” said Jessa.

“If Mr Fletcher wanted us to know something, he would have told us,” Flynn said, matter-of-factly. “All we need to know is there’s something we don’t know.”