Maximus let out a genuine laugh. “You boys don’t have to share a room anymore if you don’t want to. This is a mansion. Hell, you can have two rooms each if you want!”
Ainsley gave a whoop of delight.
Caught up in the excitement, Pippin yelled, “Turnoff!”
Joel and Evan fell quiet. All of a sudden, the anger between them melted away. They blinked at each other across the silence.
“Oh,” said Evan after a moment. “Right. Yeah. I guess we’re just so used to sharing. . .”
“Well, yeah,” Joel agreed. “We’ve always shared a room. But now we don’t have to.” He mustered a smile.
“Good,” said Evan, mirroring his brother’s expression. “Great.”
“Yeah. Great.”
They fell into another silence. Neither one moved.
Maximus laughed again. “Well?” he prompted. “What’s the holdup? Go choose your new rooms.”
“Okay.” Evan picked up his rucksack from the leftmost bed. “You can have this room, if you want,” he told Joel. “I’ll. . . um. . . choose a different one.”
“Yeah, sure,” Joel said hoarsely. “Thanks, Evan. I’ll. . .” he hesitated. “I’ll be sure to enjoy it.”
With that settled, Maximus, Ainsley, and Pippin disappeared down the dingy upstairs corridor. Before following, Evan paused beneath the strip of sunlight lancing in through the grubby French doors. He offered his hand for Joel to shake.
“See you around,” he said.
“Yeah,” Joel replied, shaking his brother’s hand. “See you around.”
MAGGIE RACED THROUGH the orchard, hugging her school books to her chest. She ran along the pathway as it snaked through the apple trees, dodging the last of the season’s fallen apples as she headed for the old grey stone building beyond the boundary walls.
Ahead, a domed annex marked the entrance to the school, an outer corridor which formed a tunnel into the imposing gothic-era building. The stately school never ceased to impress Maggie—despite the fact she’d seen it every day of her life for the past seven years. Even on weekends she had a clear view of the building from the window of her dorm room in the boarding house on the other side of the orchard.
By the time she reached the annex, Maggie was breathless and chilled from the cool October air. She scuttled through the passageway, her footsteps echoing off the domed mosaic ceiling. Flinging open the stained glass doors at the far end, she hurried into the school’s main corridor.
It was quiet. Way too quiet. The first bell had already gone and everyone was in class. Meaning that Maggie would have to do the walk of shame into homeroom and have Mr Fitzpatrick yell at her in front of everyone. Again.
Thanks a bunch for waking me, Isla, she thought with a grimace.
Didn’t Isla know that the point of having a roommate was to eradicate the need for an alarm clock?
FitzP is going to kill me, Maggie thought, shuddering as she pictured Mr Fitzpatrick’s face turning purple and veiny like it always did when he was mad.
“Maggie Ellmes,” rasped a voice from across the corridor. It was swiftly followed by the familiar clip-clop of high heeled shoes.
Maggie’s stomach lurched. Joyless, she thought.
“Morning, Ms Joy,” she said aloud. She turned to face her opponent and attempted to dazzle her with a bright smile.
Ms Joy glowered back, her beady eyes magnified behind rectangular spectacles and her black hair scraped into a tight bun.
Maggie touched her own messy bun, trying to subtly fix a few of the wayward dark blonde strands with her index finger. Joyless was big on presentation.
“You’re late,” Ms Joy snapped. “Sign in.” She thrust a clipboard on top of the grade eleven books piled in Maggie’s arms.
Maggie groaned inwardly. Signing in meant that her attendance record for that morning would read as an absence. Which meant consequences. Which meant, in layman’s terms, after-school detention.
She exhaled in despair. “But. . . I’m not that late, am I?”
She glanced up at the huge clock that was suspended from the ceiling above the main entrance. Yeesh. I guess I am that late.
Joyless tapped her long red fingernail on the clipboard and let out a squawk of disapproval.
“But. . .” Maggie began feebly.
Joyless’s narrow eyes widened behind her thick lenses and her expression hardened to steel.
Sighing sadly, Maggie shifted the weight of her books to one arm. She wearily took the pen from the clipboard and tagged her name onto the end of a sizeable list of Joyless’s victims, then awkwardly nudged the clipboard back towards her.
Joyless raised her pointy chin and double checked the signature, looking down her nose at the sign-in sheet.
“Let this be a lesson to you,” she chided. “Maybe next time you’ll arrive to school on time.”
Maggie sighed again.
Right, she thought grudgingly. Like that’s ever going to happen.
MAGGIE SLIPPED INTO homeroom and closed the door behind her with a quiet click. The students were already in their seats, but talking casually amongst themselves while they waited for their absent teacher.
No FitzP, Maggie realised. If only Joyless hadn’t busted her, she would have been home free. She dropped irritably into the first empty desk closest to the door—a desk usually reserved for the one person whose chronic lateness exceeded even Maggie’s: Joel Tomlins.
Today, though, Joel was nowhere in sight and the desk was Maggie’s. She craned her neck to look back into the classroom to where her friends were huddled in the back row, whispering between one another with Isla in the centre.
Maggie thumped her desk, trying to catch her roommate’s attention. Isla glanced over and waved a greeting. Her long black hair fell in a sleek braid over her thin shoulder as she sat at her desk with impeccably straight posture.
“Why didn’t you wake me?” Maggie mouthed over the heads of the rows of students between them.
“Student Council meeting,” Isla mouthed back. “Early. New Boy.” Her coffee-brown eyes twinkled.
Maggie quickly scanned the room. She noted the usual gathering of her homeroom classmates. No new boy, though.
She frowned and held up her palms to Isla.
“The grade below,” Isla clarified soundlessly. “Miss Price’s class.”
A few of the other girls in the back row erupted into fits of giggles just as Mr Fitzpatrick burst breathlessly into the classroom. He swung his briefcase onto the oak teacher’s desk at the front of the class and wiped beads of sweat from his brow. His shirt and tie looked a little askew and his thinning copper hair was stuck flat to his forehead.
“Good morning,” he greeted the class distractedly.
The voices simmered and focus shifted to Mr Fitzpatrick as he shuffled through a mound of papers on his desk in search of the elusive register. After he’d unearthed it from a pile of paperwork and elastic bands, he began reading the names aloud to an echo of unenthusiastic responses.
“Maggie Ellmes,” he called without looking up.
“Here,” she grumbled.
Damn Joyless, she thought bitterly, bristling at the injustice. This is totally unfair. Even Mr Fitzpatrick is later than me.
Mr Fitzpatrick continued with the roll call. When he reached Joel Tomlins, the classroom door swung open and, right on cue, Joel appeared. At seventeen, he was tall and broad. His medium brown hair was rumpled, as if he’d just rolled out of bed. His shirt was unbuttoned at the top, and his tie was fastened around the collar with just a loose knot. The last few inches of a candy bar—presumably his breakfast—were clenched between his teeth, while one hand supported the nearly empty backpack that was slung over his shoulder. His other hand casually rested on the doorframe as he surveyed the room.
His stare landed on Maggie, and he frowned. He took one more bite of the candy bar before tossing the rest of it into the wastepaper basket.
“You’re in my seat,” he said to her, raisi
ng an eyebrow.
“So?” Maggie laced her fingers together on the desktop. “You don’t own it. Go sit somewhere else.”
Mr Fitzpatrick paused his roll call to cast a formidable glare at Joel. “There’s an empty seat over there, Mr Tomlins,” he said, gesturing to a desk on the other side of the room.
After a bated moment, Joel let out a heavy sigh and manoeuvred his way through the room towards the desk by the window. He muttered something under his breath as he dropped his backpack to the floor and sank into the empty seat.
Maggie flinched and sat up a little straighter. What had Joel just said?
He’d better not be putting a spell on me, she thought crossly, sneaking a glance at him.
The autumn sunlight was streaking through the trees beyond the window, casting rainbows across Joel’s hair.
Is he hexing me right now? she wondered. He’d better not be hexing me.
The Tomlins boys were witches, after all. Their father, too. Okay, so there wasn’t any proof, but it was common knowledge. They didn’t try to hide it or deny it, either. Not that they could ever cover up the fact that all the Tomlins boys made the wind stir and the tree branches tremble whenever they were near. Or the conspicuous detail that they all had strange lavender coloured eyes which seemed to darken to black intermittently.
But, Maggie reasoned with herself, they’d been in class together for the past seven years, and he hadn’t put a spell on her yet—not to her knowledge, anyway.
She shivered and stole one last peek at him.
A light breeze from the open window tousled his already rumpled hair, toying with the strands. His violet gaze was on Mr Fitzpatrick now as the teacher resumed calling the register.
“Charlie Wells?”
“Yo, FitzP,” Charlie returned from the back of the room. A basketball was sitting on top of his desk and he was resting his chin on it as though contemplating a nap. Beefed-up with muscles and sporting a buzz cut, Charlie lazily fist-pumped the air.
“And Isla Williams?” Mr Fitzpatrick concluded.
“Present,” Isla sang out sweetly.
Mr Fitzpatrick closed the register book just as the bell rang to signal the end of homeroom. Chairs scraped and chatter resumed. While her classmates swarmed around her, pushing towards the doorway to get out, Maggie remained at her desk, waiting for Isla and the others.
As Joel passed by, he placed his hand on the desk possessively. A warning, she knew.
Maggie flicked his fingers away.
He withdrew his hand and scowled. “Who said you could touch me?”
“Oh, get over yourself, Joel,” she groused. “It’s just a seat. And P.S., I wouldn’t touch you if you were the last guy on earth.” She folded her arms across her chest and feigned a retching motion.
Joel rolled his eyes, then turned and made his way out of the classroom with Charlie and a few other guys in tow.
Finally Maggie rose to her feet as Isla approached, flanked by Blonde Lauren and Hilary.
“I think Joel Tomlins put a spell on me,” Maggie grumbled, running her fingertips across her face to check for warts and boils.
Blonde Lauren’s powder blue eyes widened. “For real?”
Even Hilary’s perfected hipster mask of perpetual boredom wavered slightly.
Maggie nodded sadly.
“Of course he didn’t put a spell on you,” Isla chided with a musical giggle. She flipped her dark silken braid to reveal a baby pink button over her heart that read Vote Isla Williams for Homecoming Queen! in bedazzled letters. There was no question that everyone would vote for her, though. She won it every year.
The girls left the classroom in a convoy, venturing into the bustling corridor.
“Science,” Isla said with a groan as she linked her arm through Maggie’s. “Then Maths.”
Maggie’s shoulders slumped. “Mondays suck. And Joyless made me sign her Victims List.”
Blonde Lauren and Hilary gave a chorus of commiserative noises.
“Aw,” Isla sympathised with a pretty pout. “She caught you, huh?”
“Yes, and it’s totally unjust!” Maggie declared. “If FitzP didn’t care, then why should she? Because she’s a sadist, that’s why.”
The trio of girls nodded their heads in solidarity as they strolled towards the Science block.
Hilary rolled her eyes behind her oversized geek-chic glasses. “Joyless thrives off forcing her bourgeois conformist conceptions down the throats of freethinkers. Her sole purpose in life is to brainwash the heretic masses.”
“Exactly!” Maggie agreed—at least, she assumed she agreed. Some of Hilary’s lingo was lost on her. “Joyless hates my free thoughts so she’s trying to brainwash me! Maybe Student Council could do something about it?” she suggested, looking hopefully to Isla. “You know, clear my name?” She brightened a little at the thought.
Isla smiled vaguely, clearly having no intention of acting on the request. Instead, she wiggled her finely shaped eyebrows and said, “I know what will cheer you up.”
Maggie’s shoulders sagged. “What?” she grumbled.
“Well,” Isla began, glancing between the girls, “don’t quote me on this, but I’m pretty certain we’ve got third period with New Guy! He’s super smart and apparently he’s skipped a grade for some of his classes.”
Maggie folded her arms. “Wow,” she remarked dryly.
“Wait til you see him,” Blonde Lauren gushed.
Maggie remained deadpan. “Does anyone know New Guy’s name?”
“Kaden,” Blonde Lauren answered dreamily.
“Kaden Fallows,” Isla purred, not to be outdone.
“Is he really that big of a deal?” Maggie asked as they followed the flow of people towards the Chemistry lab.
“Yes,” all three girls replied in unison.
Maggie’s eyes widened when she noticed that even Hilary had cracked a coy smile. Hilary—the same girl who normally took pride in ridiculing any form of boy talk, deeming it a step backwards for feminism.
“Hil,” Maggie gasped. “You, too?”
Hilary mustered a non-committal shrug. “He’s okay, I guess. If you’re into that metro urbanite kind of thing.”
“He’s perfect,” Isla declared, her warm brown eyes gleaming. “You have to see him, Maggie. You’ll die.”
THE BELL RANG loudly at three o’clock. While the other students swarmed the mosaic-tiled corridor heading out into what was left of the alluring October sunlight, Maggie was hauling herself in the opposite direction. The direction of doom and misery.
With a heavy sigh, she opened the door to Ms Joy’s classroom—or, more accurately, her Dungeon of Joylessness—and stepped inside.
Ms Joy was at her post at the teacher’s desk in the front of the room, where she could keep a beady eye on the rows of single desks lined up before her. A number of Joyless’s victims were already occupying several of the desks, one of whom was—
Joel Tomlins, Maggie realised. Ugh.
He barely glanced up at her as she slumped into her seat on the opposite side of the room.
As it happened, she hadn’t always disliked Joel. And she didn’t totally dislike him now, truth be told. But they travelled in different circles, and Joel’s circle was. . . meh, Maggie decided. Jocks and cheerleaders.
I could be a cheerleader, if I wanted to, she thought, tapping her pencil on her chin as she stared into space. I mean, how hard could it be?
She extended a leg beneath the desk, envisioning a high kick.
Joyless cleared her throat and glowered.
Right, Maggie noted. No moving of any kind.
With a resigned sigh, she turned her attention to her notebook and pretended to concentrate on an imaginary assignment.
Doodling, she thought back to when she had first arrived at Blackheath. She’d been ten years old. Up until then, she’d lived with her grandparents in the city. But they were old—seriously old, Maggie reflected—and they weren’t able to care for her anymore.
Her mother had been living in France and her father had been acutely AWOL, so her grandparents had set up a trust fund to put her through school. That’s how she’d ended up in Blackheath High’s boarding house. And it wasn’t so bad, either. She and Isla had been roommates for three years straight now, and it was like having a sister. A family.
Although every holiday, when Isla went home to visit her real family, Maggie found herself alone again.
She glanced across the room at Joel. He was spinning a pen between his fingers, staring out the window at the autumn leaves tumbling in the breeze.
There had been a time when she and Joel had actually been friends—well, sort of. Forced together by circumstance as the only kids their age left in Blackheath over the summer, they’d formed a kind of alliance. Having Joel around throughout those months had made being alone a little more bearable. But then they’d grown up, and grown apart. Needless to say, things were different now. Summers were different now.
Suddenly, as if hearing her thoughts, Joel glanced over at her. Maggie quickly looked away.
Better not make eye contact, she decided prudently, still wary from their encounter earlier that day. I wouldn’t want him to put a spell on me. Or would I?
She paused, gazing thoughtfully between Ms Joy and Joel. A mischievous smile formed on her coral-pink lips.
Hastily scanning the classroom to ensure that she wasn’t being watched by any of Joyless’s Victims, who were presently either working on assignments or else just pretending to work on assignments, Maggie formulated an escape plan. Okay, so it would be risky, and Tomlins definitely wouldn’t like it. However, she decided it was worth the risk regardless.
Sorry, Joel, but a Victim’s got to do what a Victim’s got to do. . .
With that, Maggie threw her pen across the room. It hit the blackboard behind Ms Joy’s desk and fell to the floor with a clatter.
Ms Joy jumped, startled. Her hawkish eyes shot up from her paperwork.
“Hey!” Maggie exclaimed, staring pointedly at Joel.
Joel, who like everyone else in the room had glanced up to see what the ruckus was all about, frowned in confusion.