Scarlet and Ivy – The Lost Twin. Sophie Cleverly
the middle sat an oak desk and a somewhat lost-looking secretary. She was shuffling papers in what I thought was an attempt to look busier than she actually was.
Miss Fox approached the desk and leant on it with both hands.
“Good afternoon, madam,” the secretary said quietly, as Miss Fox’s shadow fell across her.
“Some would say so,” replied Miss Fox, glowering. “I have a child here. Scarlet Grey.” I started to correct her, but she waved an uncaring hand in my face and carried on speaking. “She will begin attending classes tomorrow. Sign her in on the register, please.”
Miss Fox must have been the only person who could pronounce the word ‘please’ like it actually meant ‘RIGHT NOW’.
“D-do you want me to escort her to her room, madam?” asked the secretary.
Miss Fox blinked. “No, I am going to take her to my office to … fill her in. Get her signed up.”
She strode away towards the corridor and I hurried after her. I risked a backward glance at the secretary, who stared at me with wide eyes.
We went past rows of doors, each with a little window revealing the class studying inside. The girls were sat in rows, silent and serious. I was used to a quiet school, but in here there was an air of … wrongness. Like it was too quiet, somehow.
The only sounds were our footsteps and the ever-present jangling from Miss Fox’s pockets. When we reached her office, she pulled out a silver key from one of them and unlocked the door.
The room was dimly lit and smelt of old books. There was a single desk with a couple of high-backed chairs and some tall shelves. That was pretty normal, but that wasn’t all there was.
The walls were covered in dogs.
Big dogs, small dogs, strange foreign dogs – their blank sepia faces stared down from faded photographs, each in a brown frame. In one corner of the room there was a stuffed beagle in a glass case, its droopy ears and patchy fur serving to make it look even more depressed than beagles do when they’re alive.
The most bizarre sight was a dachshund, stretched out in front of the small window at the back of the office. It appeared to be being used as a draught excluder.
Strange, I thought, that someone with a name like Fox would like dogs so much.
“Stuffed dogs, Miss?” I wondered aloud.
“Can’t stand the things. I like to see them dead,” replied Miss Fox.
She pointed a long finger at a nearby chair until I got the hint and sat down on it.
“Now, Scarlet—”
“Ivy,” I corrected automatically.
She loomed over me like an angry black cloud. “I think you have misunderstood, Miss Grey. Did you not read my letter?”
Her letter? “I-I thought it was from the headmaster.”
She shook her head. “Mr Bartholomew has taken a leave of absence, and I am in charge while he’s away. Now, answer the question. Did you read it?”
“Yes. It said I was to take a place at the school … my sister’s place.”
Miss Fox walked around me and sat down in the leather chair that accompanied her desk. “Precisely. You will replace her.”
Something in the way she said it made me pause. “What do you mean, replace her, Miss?”
“I mean what I say,” she said. “You will replace her. You will become her.”
“Silence!” she shouted, slamming her fist down on her desk like an auctioneer’s gavel. “Scarlet’s place needs to be filled, and it is fortuitous that we have someone to fill it. We shall not have the good name of Rookwood School tarnished by unfortunate circumstances. We’ve put the absence before summer down to a bout of influenza, which you, Scarlet,” she looked at me pointedly, “have recovered from well.”
I was lost, reeling, and the room span around me. Perhaps this was a nightmare, and in reality I was in a tormented sleep back at my aunt’s house.
“But …” I protested. “You didn’t accept me for the scholarship! Only Scarlet passed the entrance exam.” I had never forgiven myself for that. I’d been up all of the previous night fretting about it, and I was sure I hadn’t studied enough.
“That is irrelevant, child. The fees are already paid. You will take your sister’s place for the sake of the greater good. From now on, you are Scarlet. Ivy might not have passed the entrance exam, but you did.”
I wanted to shout at her, but my lips were quivering and my breathing was shallow and panicked. “P-please, why do I have to do this?”
She held out a finger to silence me, the tip of her nail long and sharp.
“It does not concern you. These are adult matters, and we shall deal with them as we see fit. You don’t want to trouble the other pupils with this, do you?” She leant back and looked away from me.
“D-does my father know about this, Miss?” If everyone at the school was clueless, I hoped there was a chance that Father had been deceived as well.
My hopes were shattered when she replied, “Of course he does. We have his full permission. He understands that it’s the best way. Now,” she continued, “we’ve kept your room for you. Breakfast is at seven thirty.” She started tapping her fountain pen, and talking in a flat voice as though she were reading from an invisible blackboard. “Lessons start at nine.” Tap. “The matron’s office is at the end of our corridor.” Tap. “No loitering in the hallways.” Tap tap. “Lights out at nine o’clock …”
I should have been listening to the rules, but I couldn’t help being distracted by the items on Miss Fox’s desk – a lamp, a telephone, an inkwell, an ivory paperweight, a chequebook, a small golden pill-box and – oh no – a stuffed Chihuahua with a mouth full of pens.
“Pay attention, girl!”
My eyes darted back up. “Yes, Miss Fox,” I replied.
Miss Fox gave an exasperated sigh. “Here, take this –” she handed me a map and a list of the school rules. “Remember, you are Scarlet now. There is no more Ivy.”
She got up from the chair quickly, and waved at me to follow her.
It’s quite a thing to be told that you don’t exist any more. It took me a moment to stand, my legs were shaking so much.
I felt like one of the sad dogs on Miss Fox’s walls. Their glassy gazes penetrated my back as I walked out of the office, trying to leave Ivy Grey behind.
I trailed after Miss Fox, along the corridors and up some dark, claustrophobic stairs to the first floor. The walls were lined with regimental rows of little green doors with numbers pinned on. We stopped at one bearing the number thirteen. Of course, Scarlet’s favourite number. She laughed in the face of bad luck.
Miss Fox unlocked the door, thrust the labelled key back into the depths of her dress and left me standing in the corridor with nothing but a “get changed, girl” over her shoulder. The door was left swinging uncertainly on its hinges, and I peered inside with trepidation.
The dorm room was not unlike our bedroom at home, with two iron