Page 56 of Meet Me Under the Mistletoe
“Stop pissing about and give her a shake!” said someone else.
“Drip water on her face,” whispered another.
They were not going to leave her alone. And how many people were in her bedroom anyway?
Nory opened one eye. “If the castle isn’t on fire, you can all fuck off,” she grumbled.
“She never was a morning person,” said Pippa.
“It’s not morning!” Nory exclaimed. “And if you’re trying to wake me up, why are you all whispering?”
“Because we know you’re a miserable cow when you first wake up,” said Jenna.
Nory laughed into her duvet. “All right, what do you want?” She pulled her head slightly out of the duvet and opened the other eye. Ameerah was perched on her bed while Pippa andJenna stood beside her; they were all three still in their pajamas, grinning.
“It’s a full moon,” said Ameerah, close to her face.
“Why do I need to know this?”
“It’s a full moon... and it’s snowing,” said Pippa.
Nory was suddenly alert. She kicked the duvet off and sat up, scratching her head.
“No!” she said, grinning.
“Yes!” said Ameerah, jumping up off the bed.
Nory looked at her three friends and suddenly it was like she was a kid again.
“Snowball Croquet!” she yelled, punching the air as she scrabbled out of bed and joined the others in jumping about the room.
“The boys are already down there, come on!” Jenna yipped excitedly.
“Wait, how did you get in here?”
“We picked the lock, silly,” said Ameerah.
“Braddon-Hartmead skills,” Pippa winked.
Learning to pick locks had been a rite of passage at school; the whole place was locked down after lights-out and the only way to move about the quiet halls once the housemistress and master had retired to their quarters was to be an expert at breaking and entering.
Four sets of woolly socked feet careered down the staircases. Nobody got dressed; Snowball Croquet was always played in pajamas. They slipped and slid their way—laughing hysterically—along the polished floors to the boot room at the back of the castle. It was like they were sixteen again, sneaking through the darkened corridors of Braddon-Hartmead. The big moon smiled at them through every window as they ran.
In the boot room, they forced their bed-socked feet into Wellington boots and shrugged on heavy winter coats, not caring whose was whose. Ameerah pulled the door open, and the cold night burst in to greet them.
It was freezing and dark, but that didn’t put them off. The moon was disappearing and reappearing behind the clouds, and the snow was drifting down like white rose petals being scattered from above. They made their way—boots crunching on the frosty grass—across to a gate hidden in the wall at the far end of the ornamental garden, which served as a shortcut to the farthest field of Braddon-Hartmead School.
The grounds closest to the school were set up with CCTV and motion-sensitive floodlights—much like a high-class prison—but this far from the main buildings there was no such security. These fields were only ever used for cross-country running and scavenger hunts; neither of which would be happening at one o’clock in the morning in below-freezing temperatures unless the school had employed a particularly sadistic PE teacher in the interim.
Nory held the phone torch while Jenna unlatched the gate, and they stumbled, giggling like schoolgirls, onto the far field. Jeremy handed them each a tumbler of pale-yellow snowball, while Guy knocked the croquet hoops into the ground with a stubby mallet. Nory noticed a plentiful supply of Advocaat and lemonade bottles leaned up against the wall and was relieved to see they were taking it seriously. She took a sip of the thick, custardy liquid and smiled, her spirits warm despite the cold.
“Where’s Dev?” Nory asked, looking around the dark field. Someone hadborrowedthe hurricane lamps from the dining room and set them at the edges of the makeshift court. Theflames danced on top of the pillar candles, making strange patterns on the ground.
“He gets up at sunrise to do yoga and meditation, he’s not into late-night sports,” Ameerah replied.
“Fair enough.” Nory wished she was the kind of person who began the day with healthy life-affirming pursuits, but she wasn’t. “Guy, where’s Camille?”
Guy looked up from smacking a hoop. “She’s making the most of not having to get up in the night with the kids. To be honest, she was glad to be rid of me. I think she likes having the four-poster to herself.”
