Plan B

Chapter Eight

After spending twenty minutes on Brookie's treadmill and then missing all of her free time when Rico popped up with Bernard in tow to help her clean up her room, Fran gave supper a miss in case Kevin and Simon were lying in wait for her and locked herself into her room until check in.

Fortunately, the entire lower sixth was missing because Mr Carson had assumed that the rebuilding of the room on the roof was an intra-year prank and had told the lot of them to pull together and bring everything in.  Fran gathered from Tristan that the majority were still chasing after Kevin's clothes in an autumnal gale.

"I want to know which genius came up with the idea for that," he said wistfully.  "He'll probably be suspended, but it'll be worth it.  Absolutely brilliant.  Just brilliant."

Joey cornered her on the way out.

"It's you, isn't it?" he demanded, shoving her into the wall.  "Kevin said it was you.  If you don't own up, I'm going to tell Carson."

Arthur bopped Joey over the head with the check in board as he passed.  "Prep, Collins, or I'll put you on boot room duty for the rest of term."

Joey shot Arthur a poisonous look as the head boy disappeared into Carson's office.

"I didn't do it," Fran said firmly, trying to push Joey off her.  "I spent the entire afternoon playing Mario Kart with Piers.  Besides, do I look capable of moving cupboards and beds?"

Joey's expression turned ugly, but Fran was saved by Arthur re-emerging from Carson's office.

"If you two have a problem, sort it out the traditional way on an air-top table game," he snapped.  "Now go and work or I'll put you in house detention."

House detention must have been bad, because Joey dropped Fran like a hot brick and vanished up the stairs before Fran could blink.

"You too, Grey," Arthur said tersely.  "I'm not going to make exceptions because you're on our floor.  I've already saved your skin once today."

Fran considered complaining that Arthur was evil, but his expression told her it was best not to try.  She reluctantly headed back to her room.

She didn't sleep well that night.  After tossing and turning for several hours, she finally dozed off, but that was when the nightmares started.  She'd been having them ever since she'd begun to be stalked.  Hooded men followed her around in her dreams, leering around corners at her and blocking her in dark alleyways.  Then she was back at the mall, on the occasion when she'd been cornered in the dressing room at H&M only half dressed, but this time, she didn't manage to escape by climbing up out of the cubicle and crawling along the thin partitions, jarring her legs when she jumped down and streaking out of the shop in her underwear and a shirt.  This time, one of the men grabbed hold of her, slamming her against the back of the cubicle so hard that the structure shook and she saw stars, and he held something up and—

Fran jerked awake, covered in a sheen of sweat.  Her chest was heaving as if she'd just run a marathon.  As she ran a quivering hand through her hair, she suddenly realised that she was extremely cold and uncomfortable.

Did I fall out of bed or something?  She looked around her and reached out a hand.  It collided painfully with a wooden panel.

Wait... this isn't my room.....

Panic set in.  Where am I?  What happened?  Did they somehow find out—

Something warm nudged her leg.  There was a sloshing sound, followed by a curse.  Scalding liquid splashed onto one of Fran's bare arms, but before she could react, a phone light shone in her face.