“Worse,” Ariadne replied. “It’s … it’s Muriel Witherspoon.”
Scarlet and I looked at each other, and then asked in unison, “Who?”
“Muriel Witherspoon,” she repeated.
Whoever this person was, Ariadne seemed terrified of her.
“She was the bully from my old school,” Ariadne explained. “The really awful one. The one who ran the secret club in the shed that I burned down.”
“Oh …” I looked around, remembering the story of Ariadne’s past and how she had happened to come to Rookwood. I wondered if this girl was someone I’d already seen. “Are you sure it’s the same person? Why would she be here?”
“I heard the name,” Ariadne said desperately. “How many Muriel Witherspoons can there be? Oh, this is a disaster!”
“It’ll be all right,” I said. “We’ll protect you. We won’t let her pick on you again.”
But Ariadne didn’t look reassured. She shuffled her feet about on the hall floor. “But we’re sharing a room! You won’t be there at night. What if she’s nasty to me then?”
“I’ll give her a good punching the next morning,” Scarlet offered.
I shot my twin a look. “No punching, Scarlet. We’ll just … we’ll tell her not to. We’ll tell the teachers. We’ll do something.”
“I’ll go and look for her,” my twin said suddenly.
“Scarlet, don’t!” Ariadne tried to hold her back, but Scarlet was already striding down the line towards the Ws. Ariadne gave me a panicked look, and then we both set off after her.
Madame Zelda was at that part of the line, checking through the names. Scarlet lurked behind her, obviously hoping to overhear. I noticed that Josephine Wilcox didn’t seem to have come back to school – which was probably no surprise, given that Miss Fox had pushed her out of a window last year.
Madame Zelda had just handed a timetable to a fourth year named Harriet Wilson, so this Muriel had to be nearby. When Ariadne froze, I knew she must have seen her. She spun round and looked the other way.
“Which one?” I whispered.
“The one with the felt cap and the blonde curls,” she said out of the side of her mouth.
I tried to have a look without being too obvious, but Scarlet was already ruining that because she was standing by the line and clearly staring at everyone. I soon saw who Ariadne was talking about – near to Harriet.
I had to admit that, at first glance, this girl didn’t look like a terrible bully. She didn’t have a permanent sneer like Penny’s. In fact her eyes were glued to the floor, as though she was trying to make herself as small as possible.
“Muriel … Witherspoon?” Madame Zelda said, the name unfamiliar on her tongue.
The girl nodded. Ariadne squeezed my hand.
“Here you go.” Madame Zelda gave her the little sheaf of papers. “Now, you’ll be in room fifteen, with Ariadne Flitworth.” She moved on to the next girl, revealing Muriel’s stunned expression.
I turned back. “She looks almost as shocked as you did,” I said. “But she didn’t faint.”
Ariadne gripped the back of the seat she was leaning on. “She’s probably just waiting so she can humiliate me in front of everyone.”
I felt a tap on my shoulder – it was Scarlet. “I don’t want to worry you …” she said, “but Muriel Witherspoon’s coming this way.”
I turned round to see where Scarlet was pointing. I thought Ariadne was about to start hyperventilating.
“Oh no,” she said quietly. “Oh no, oh no, oh—”
But she didn’t get a final oh in because Muriel had appeared beside us. She tipped her hat back away from her face and looked down. “Ariadne?”
Ariadne appeared to be trying to sink into the floor, but eventually she looked up. “Hello, Muriel,” she said softly.
There was a tense moment, like a little bubble of silence in the middle of the hall chaos, then Muriel spoke again. “It’s good to see you.” She paused. “Look, I’m really sorry about all that bother at our old school. I hope we can put it behind us. I’ve turned over a new leaf.”
“Oh,” Ariadne said, but I could tell by the tone of her voice that she wasn’t the slightest bit convinced. “Well. That’s good. Very nice.”
“I’ll see you in our room,” Muriel said with a small smile. She nodded at Scarlet and me and then walked away.
“Well, that didn’t seem so bad,” I said.
“So bad?” Ariadne shook her head. “She’s just pretending. She has to be. She was so horrible, Ivy! You wouldn’t believe it.”
Scarlet shrugged. “I know how horrible some people can be – we’ve met Penny. And Miss Fox. And—”
“All right,” Ariadne replied, “I get the idea. But she’s as bad as all of them. Worse!”
I wasn’t sure I could believe that, especially not since the Muriel I’d seen in front of me had just been so polite. We had to reassure Ariadne somehow, or she was never going to stop worrying about it. “Don’t panic,” I told her. “Perhaps you just need to give her a chance? She might really have changed.”
Ariadne said nothing, just bit her lip and blinked at me.
“And if she hasn’t …” Scarlet said, “then she’ll be sorry.”
“Scarlet …” I warned.
“What? I didn’t say I’d hit her this time …”
Finally, the time came for Mrs Knight to send us all to our rooms to get unpacked. The first lessons wouldn’t be starting until after lunch, according to the timetable.
“All these maps and timetables would certainly have been useful to help me find my way around when I had to pretend to be you,” I muttered to Scarlet as we climbed the stairs, lugging all the bags.
“I had mine,” Ariadne said. “I think Miss Fox just didn’t give them to you.”
“Well, at least Mrs Knight is more organised,” I said.
“And less murderous,” added Scarlet.
Ariadne came to a halt at the top of the stairs, as if her feet had just stopped working. A bunch of other girls pushed round her, with a draught of angry mumbling.
“I don’t want to go in there,” she said, staring down the hallway.
“It’ll be fine.” Scarlet squeezed her arm. “Just leave the door open. You can come back to our room if she’s awful.”
“All right,” Ariadne sighed. “Thank you.”
Scarlet and I trudged down the corridor together and dropped Ariadne’s suitcases off at her door.
“Wish me luck,” she said, pulling a face.
“Luck,” Scarlet said.
Ariadne took a deep breath and went inside.
When we didn’t hear any shouting or screaming, we assumed things were all right. I truly hoped for Ariadne’s sake that this Muriel girl really had turned over a new leaf.
We headed for room thirteen, and stopped outside