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Scarlet and Ivy – The Lost Twin
“Scarlet Grey!” she said, in an accusatory tone.
“Yes, Miss?” I responded, trying to hide the fear in my voice.
“That’s Madame Lovelace to you, insolent girl!” She pronounced it Loveless. “Why aren’t you at your desk?”
“I-I fancied a change of scenery?”
I heard snickers from behind me.
Madame Lovelace glared. “And you,” she said. “Who are you?”
Hang on a minute. Who was she talking to? I turned around and saw Ariadne standing just behind me, looking sheepish.
“Um,” said Ariadne. “I’m new.”
Madame Lovelace gave an exaggerated sigh. “Both of you, sit down,” she said, jabbing her finger in the direction of two unoccupied desks in the first row.
Relieved, I hurried to the nearest one and sat down.
“Now, girls,” said the teacher, slapping at her dusty dress. “Open your desks and take out your pens, please. Today we shall be studying the Battle of Waterloo.”
The lid of my desk was woodworm-speckled and decorated with a little brass number four, plus many years of idle scratches. I lifted it up. It smelt of ink and paper inside, and a familiar floral scent that went straight to my heart.
Scarlet. It was the rose perfume that she’d worn for the past few years after getting a bottle of it for Christmas.
I glanced around the class to see if anyone else had noticed the smell, but the other students looked half asleep. Madame Lovelace began to dictate lines about Napoleon and the Duke of Wellington.
Ariadne put her hand up. “My great-great-granddaddy fought against Napoleon,” she said.
“Very nice, dear,” said Madame Lovelace, looking displeased at the interruption.
I peered into the desk. There was a book in the bottom, with The History of Great Britain written in dull, heavy letters on the cover. I took it out.
“Now,” said Madame Lovelace, “turn to page fifty-three for a list of the important historical figures involved in the battle. Make a note of these, as you will need to remember them.” She punctuated every sentence with occasional coughs.
I heard Penny giggle quietly behind me.
I opened up the book and the smell of Scarlet’s perfume hit me so strongly I almost choked. It was as though she’d poured it all over the pages. I looked at Ariadne. Even she was wrinkling her mousey nose, so I slammed the cover shut.
“Miss Grey!” shouted Madame Lovelace.
“Yes?”
“Yes Madame. Do you have a problem with your book?”
“No, Madame.”
“Then kindly stop abusing it and pay attention!”
For the rest of the lesson I tried to ignore the perfume, but it felt like it was seeping into my mind. Why would Scarlet have brought her precious bottle into class?
At ten o’clock the bell rang and everyone began to filter out of the room. I had to think of a reason to stay behind.
“Madame Lovelace?” I asked.
She peered up at me over her thick-rimmed glasses. “Yes, Miss Grey?”
“May I clean the blackboard for you?”
Madame Lovelace looked like I’d just offered to spit in her tea. “Are you up to something, girl?” she said, the corners of her eyes wrinkling as she frowned. “The Scarlet Grey I know wouldn’t have cleaned my blackboard without the threat of the cane.”
Oh no! She might tell Miss Fox and then … No. Stay calm. My mind scrambled for something to say.
“I’m turning over a new leaf.” I swallowed and tried again. “I shouldn’t have been insolent earlier. I thought I should make up for it.”
I half expected Madame Lovelace to stand up, point her bony finger at me and shriek that I was an imposter. Scarlet never made apologies for herself. I was always the one who had to do the apologising.
But it didn’t happen. Instead, she just blinked at me a few times and then said, “Very well. Just make sure you clap the rubbers out afterwards. I do hate chalk dust.” She gave a small cough again, and I wasn’t sure whether or not she was illustrating her point. “You can have a house point for that.”
I nodded, although I had no idea what a house point was, or what I did with one.
I watched her shuffle out of the room, and then lifted the heavy desk lid. Underneath where the book had lain were several old sheets of paper and a green exercise book, all of which smelt like a rose garden. And underneath that I spotted the catch. A little metal thing in the bottom. I lifted it, and it opened a smaller hole. Inside it was an ink well, some dusty old pen nibs and – folded into a tiny square – a piece of paper.
I snatched it out quickly and immediately my eyes were drawn to the first word …
her.
Her? The last line from Scarlet’s diary reappeared in my mind. Someone needs to know the truth about … her.
The question was – who was she?
I know you can do this, Ivy. I believe in you.
Your sister,
Scarlet x
P.S. This is the final straw.
I wiped a tear from my cheek. I’d spent a good deal of my life alternately being infuriated by Scarlet or trailing after her like a lost puppy, but now I missed her more than anything.
I folded the paper neatly and hid it in my dress pocket. I sat staring into Scarlet’s rose-scented desk, the silence of the empty classroom flowing around me. But then I noticed the ticking of the clock and realised that it was only two minutes until my next lesson.
I glanced up at the blackboard. It was still completely covered with names and dates! I picked up a dusty board rubber from Madame Lovelace’s desk and scrubbed it as hard as I could. Chalk filled my nose and I suppressed the urge to sneeze. It was useless. I’d wiped the whole thing and it had just turned from writing to a white cloud, no black in sight. It would have to do. Madame wouldn’t expect Scarlet to do a decent job of it, anyway.
I hurried out of the classroom and heard someone call out to me.
“Scarlet!”
I spun around to see Ariadne leaning up against the wall.
“Have you been there the whole time?” I said, baffled.
“I was waiting for you,” she said, staring at her shoes.
Oops. I hoped she hadn’t seen me looking in the desk. “Oh …”
“What were you doing in there?” she asked.
I ran a hand through my hair. “I didn’t want to get on Madame Lovelace’s bad side already, so I cleaned the blackboard for her.”
Ariadne looked confused and then panicked. “It must be time for home economics! It’s in W3, right? The third room in the west wing?”
“Of course,” I said. “Perhaps you should lead the way, so that you remember how to get there.”
Ariadne nodded and then set off in what I hoped was the right direction, her little leather satchel bobbing up and down on her back. I followed behind, keeping my hand curled tightly around the diary page in my pocket.
The rest of the morning was a blur. I tried to act indifferently in my lessons, even when they were fascinating, like the stuff about Isaac Newton and gravity, or fun, like making Victoria sponges in home economics. I spent lunch ignoring the looks that Penny tried to give me. By the afternoon I felt exhausted from the effort of being Scarlet, and couldn’t remember what I’d been doing most of the time. All I could think of was the letter in the diary.
And then it came to the last class of the day. Sport.
Miss Fox lined us all up in the hall and we stood there blinking in the low sunlight spilling through the windows.
“Now, girls,” she said sharply, “as it’s the beginning of term, you must pick which exercise to partake in. You may choose between swimming, horse riding, hockey, lacrosse and ballet. However, if you are lacking in any particular talent –” she looked one of the larger students up and down like she was a cow at a market – “I recommend you take part in one of the team sports. I’m sure we can find a place for you somewhere in the field.”
The girl hung her head even lower than it had been before. I shuffled uncomfortably, tugging at the hem of my uniform. I was glad not to be the focus of Miss Fox’s attention for once.
“Write your names on the sign-up sheets and join your classes,” said Miss Fox.
I thought immediately of my soft pink ballet shoes wrapped in tissue. I hadn’t danced since Scarlet died. But even if I felt hesitant about starting again, there was no choice. Scarlet would have picked ballet.
So I headed straight for the corner where a group of slim, elegant girls had already gathered. But before I could get there, Miss Fox had grabbed my arm.
“I presume you’ll be choosing ballet, Miss Grey?” she hissed in my ear.
I looked up at her, wide-eyed. “Yes, I’m good at ballet, Miss,” I said. “I’ve had lessons for years.”
Miss Fox gave me a nod, accompanied by a murderous stare, but before she could say anything else another teacher appeared next to us – a tall, strong-looking woman with bobbed hair – and started talking loudly about a shortage of hockey sticks.
I glanced over at the hockey corner. A group of nervous-looking girls stood there, and I was surprised to see Ariadne among them. She shrugged hopefully and I waved back. I couldn’t imagine poor Ariadne lasting through five minutes of hockey but it seemed Miss Fox had struck a nerve.
I joined the ballet girls. It took me a few seconds to remind myself to write Scarlet, not Ivy. I pulled out my fountain pen and signed my name with a flourish. I prayed that no-one was paying close enough attention to notice that I wrote with my left hand, not my right.
When I looked up, the other ballet girls were all staring in my direction.
“Scarlet,” said one of them. She had dark skin and big wide eyes, like a deer’s. It wasn’t a greeting, or a question, just a statement.
“Hello?” I said guardedly.
The other girls giggled and turned aside, whispering to each other. Several of them had already pulled their hair into tight buns, giving their faces a strange, sharp quality.
“Is this everyone?” I heard a voice say behind me.
I turned around to see a woman who looked so young that had she not been out of uniform I wouldn’t have been sure if she was a pupil or a teacher. She was wearing a black leotard with a long white satin skirt and a matching headband. Her hair was red, not a wiry copper like Penny’s but a lovely soft colour, almost blonde.
“Yes, Miss Finch,” said the deer-eyed girl.
“Nearly the same as last year, then. You girls go and get changed, and then meet me in the studio.” She smiled at me warmly. That was a relief, at least.
I trekked back up to my room to get my ballet clothes. As I stretched my pink tights over my legs, I felt like I was secretly becoming myself again.
The ballet studio was one of the few locations I remembered from the map that Miss Fox had given me, in the school’s basement. Winding stairs led down to it, and I could feel the air getting colder as I descended.
The studio itself was lit with gas lamps rather than the modern electric lights I had seen dotted elsewhere in the school. It had wooden floorboards and a mirrored wall, with a barre running all the way around it. I winced as I caught sight of my flickering reflection. With my hair tied up I somehow looked even more like Scarlet.
Most of the others were warming up at the barre, doing familiar stretches. I stayed at the far end of the room, hoping to avoid anyone’s attention.
I laced on my toe shoes, then began copying the rest of them. It felt good to be doing something I understood. If only I didn’t have to look at my own face quite so much. I tried to do my exercises facing away from the mirror.
A chiming note rang out around the room. Miss Finch was sitting at a shiny black grand piano in the corner. It looked new and expensive. “I’m glad to see everyone’s remembered their warm-up,” she said. “You’re going to need it. I apologise for the temperature of the studio, but unfortunately the heating isn’t wonderful down here.”
Some of the other dancers were rubbing their arms, and I had goose bumps rising already.
“Anyway,” she continued, “please carry on with your exercises at the barre.”
As everyone began to practice their pliés and tendus, Miss Finch sighed and shuffled her sheet music half-heartedly. A moment later she slipped out through a door at the back of the room.
“Centre work now, girls,” she said when she reappeared. We all moved into the middle of the room and began our exercises there. She walked between us, occasionally correcting arm and leg positions.
I was out of practice. My muscles ached as I stretched them, my joints clicked. At least I remembered the moves well enough.
Miss Finch instructed us to move on to adagio, where she led us through different steps. I watched closely as she tried to demonstrate, and I noticed that although she was quick and graceful, her right leg seemed to be trailing. When she walked she had a limp, as if it pained her.
The room was getting warmer the more we danced in the glow of the gas lamps. The sound of our shoes shuffling on the floorboards was relaxing, especially now that the others were too busy concentrating to whisper about me. Well, about Scarlet.
Finally we came to allegro
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