Chapter One

“Just a few more weeks. That’s all – a few more weeks and then we’re done.” “Until September.” “Whatever.” “And, you know, aren’t you forget- ting something? Like exams, maybe?” Everyone else groaned, despite Grey’s grin. Nobody needed (or wanted) to be reminded about the exams. The Clerkenwell School took exam re- sults very seriously indeed. Almost as seriously as their parents did. The bell signalling the last of the afternoon’s classes rang, and Izzy hauled herself up from the small grass square that passed for the Clerken- well’s courtyard, dusting down her school skirt and scooping her bag on to her shoulder. All around the court- yard, students started towards their re- spective classrooms, watched from the doorways by the school prefects. Not that anyone was in much of a hurry – it was the last real day of term. When the bell rang at 3:30pm, that was it. Study leave – and then exams, yes, okbut Izzy wasn’t going to think about that until she had to. Which was hor- ribly soon. If she was honest, she thought, hitching the strap of her bag further over her shirt, it was probably about three weeks ago. Mia and Dom had had their revision timetables all drawn up and printed out by half term. “Tiger mother,” they’d said in unison when Noah had sniggered at the neat charts marked up in the twins’ diaries – everyone knew how pushy she was when it came to school. Not that Noah had much to worry about. He was probably the only one of the whole group who stood a chance of getting anywhere near a top grade.

There was a reason he was at Clerken- well, after all, and unlike most of them it wasn’t his family’s money. Izzy slipped into her seat in the English classroom just ahead of Kara and Grey. Kara kept her head down – she was the one person in the whole class who looked unhappy about the end of term. It didn’t exactly take anius to know why, either. Poor Kara. She was so afraid of being on the out- side that she’d rather be the butt of Tigs’s jokes than risk being forgotten. You could see it in her face. Even after all the time she and Tigs had known each other, she was still afraid of being shut out. All she wanted was to be part of this mythical ‘inner circle’ that had Tigs at its centre. Izzy had said as much to Grey, not all that long ago, as they’d waited for the lifts in the lobby of the Barbican’s Lauderdale Tower where they both lived. Grey had shrugged and said, “You know what else has an inner circle? Hell.” “You’re telling me Antigone Price is...

TPC

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