Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 57623 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 288(@200wpm)___ 230(@250wpm)___ 192(@300wpm)
“Yeah? How am I spoiled? Who do you think spoiled me? You think Jane spoils me!? Did you see what she did with that fucking birch thing!?”
Another snowball is whipped from the outcrop. This one just barely misses Laura. Maybe that’s an accident. Maybe it isn’t.
Laura doesn’t answer that question, because Laura is clearly trying to work out how to get up to Storm as quickly as possible.
But Storm has spent much of her life on hilly ground with a ferocious younger brother, and she knows how to pick a spot to defend. There’s a steep drop in front of her, not easily climbed, and then to the side there is a more shallow incline, but to run around to it, Laura will expend a great deal of effort and probably still not catch her tormentor.
“I’m not spoiled!” Storm shouts, throwing another snowball. Laura sidesteps it.
“Come down from there, or I promise you will regret this.”
“I won’t! Because you’ll have to tell Miss Strict that I threw a snowball at you, and that won’t sound that bad and you’ll seem like a grumpy mean lady, because that’s what you are!”
Laura hesitates, and Storm knows that her plan is working. Lines have to be drawn with these people. She doesn’t mind Laura, but she cannot stand the way the woman seems to be trying to get her in more trouble, when in truth she is already in more trouble than she’s ever been in, in her entire life.
“Stop trying to turn the one person who is nice to me against me,” she adds. “Or next time, it won’t be snowballs.”
That’s a threat that cannot be allowed to stand. Laura bounds up the side of the hillock, but Storm anticipated that, of course. She does not intend to be caught out here.
She has a plastic sled with her and she runs like hell before diving onto it and skimming down the mountain toward the chateau at a speed nobody could hope to follow on foot, putting real distance between her and the angry soldier.
Jane is relaxing in her little mountain cottage when a sharp rapping at the door rouses her from her book.
“Come in!” She calls out.
Laura walks in the door. She looks pissed. That is the first thing Jane notices. She’s never seen Laura look actually properly angry before, but she certainly looks absolutely furious now.
She is also soaked and bloodied just beneath her nose. She has tried to wipe it away, but something has clearly caused a recent nosebleed.
Jane is on her feet in an instant.
“What happened to you?”
“Your brat happened to me,” Laura says.
“My brat?”
“Storm. She laid in wait for me and she pelted me with an arsenal of snowballs before sledding away before I could catch her. It is not funny!”
Laura adds the last part of the sentence as Jane’s lips start to quirk ever so slightly into what might be considered a smile.
“She is disrespectful, she is disruptive, and she is unappreciative of the opportunities she is being given. This is one of the finest institutions in the world. And she is practically…” Laura pauses searching for the word in English. “Feral.”
“Are you hurt?” Jane changes the subject slightly. “Come and warm up.”
“No, I’m not hurt. One schoolgirl with a snowball cannot hurt me,” Laura says, her pride clearly wounded. She turns her head away, and there is a mark on her face, a scrape of some kind under her eye as if she might have slipped while attempting to give chase.
“I think that might bruise,” Jane says, frowning slightly. “Let’s put some ice on it.”
“I don’t want ice. I want you to do your job and get that girl under control.”
Jane is not used to such robust feedback. Yes, Storm can be difficult, but she is not usually bad. But Laura is clearly upset, and on that level she is very concerned. Silence draws out between them as Jane attempts to formulate something to say that will not make things worse.
“I’m sorry,” Laura says after a moment. “You are very good at your job. That girl. She is under my skin. I do not usually have to interact with the students so much, and they are usually pleasant.”
“This isn’t acceptable,” Jane says. “She will not get away with this. I promise you that. She is not allowed off the grounds, and she is obviously not allowed to assault faculty, even with snowballs.”
“She will pretend to be innocent with you, you know that, don’t you. She’s a terror.”
“Terrors must be faced,” Jane says wisely. “And she cannot have gone far. It is almost lunchtime.”
Lunchtime is indeed Storm’s downfall. No sooner does she enter the dining room than one of the prefects hands her a note.
She bites her lower lip as she reads the note.
My office. Now. — SJ.