Frozen Charlotte (22 page)

“Which one, then?” he asked.

“I’m not playing.” She tried to sound stern, but couldn’t. They’d been playing this game ever since they’d started walking to and from school together
last autumn, betting on which lift would arrive at the entrance level first.

“Come on. I’m going with … number three.” He pointed his finger at the nearest lift. Sure enough, there was a sudden whirring sound from behind the closed doors and the little red floor indicator set above them began to count down the floors from twenty-five.

“Nah,” she gave in. “It’s almost four o’clock. You know what that means…” She held up her hands in triumph as the indicator lurched to a halt at seventeen.

“Mrs Johnson. Foiled again by the blue-rinse brigade.”

Grey slumped dramatically over the centre console, dropping his bag on the floor. Every day at 4pm, little Mrs Johnson emerged from her apartment on the seventeenth floor to walk her poodle around the garden. The fact that dogs were allowed in neither the garden nor the actual apartments had never stopped her.

“Two. It’ll be lift number two.”

A moment later, lift number two pinged and the doors clattered open. Grey snatched his bag up from the floor and pouted at her.

“Next time, Whedon.”

“You just hate losing. Admit it.” She laughed as she pressed the buttons for their respective floors, and was still shaking her head at him when the lift stopped to let her out at the thirteenth.

“You want me to wait for you later?” Izzy pressed one hand against the side of the door to stop it closing.

Grey shook his head. “Nah. Go on over without me. My beloved mother’s actually home so I’d better make nice.”

“No party tonight? What’s she going to do with herself?” Grey’s mother had an incredibly successful party-planning business, but it meant that she spent most of her time going up and down the country overseeing the lavish events she’d organized. Grey didn’t exactly say it out loud, but Izzy always got the feeling he resented all the travelling and the time she spent away from home.

“Probably try to organize
me
.” Grey sighed. “I’ll see you over there.”

“Tigs’ll sulk if she thinks you aren’t coming…”

“Tigs will always find
something
to sulk about. I’m way down the list.” He suddenly focused on
a point just above Izzy’s shoulder, and she turned around to follow his gaze. On the wall opposite, the floor indicator for lift number three whizzed through thirteen and on down to the lobby. Grey shook his head sadly and bit his lip. “Mrs Johnson…” he said sorrowfully as Izzy stood back, letting the doors slide shut.

“Where’s Grey?” These were the very first words out of Tigs’s mouth when she opened the door and found Izzy standing on the other side. Alone. She blinked out at the landing, obviously expecting him to appear out of thin air.

“He said he’d come later.” Izzy tried not to sound offended. “We’re not joined at the hip.”

“Whatever.” Tigs quickly lost interest and flung the door wide open for Izzy to step through. “You’re sure he’s coming, though. Right?”

“Why don’t you call him and ask
him
?” Izzy really was trying. She was.

“God, no. I’m not
calling
him. Besides, you usually know where he is. What’s with you two, anyway?”

“Exactly the same as last time you asked me.

“Exactly the same as last time you asked me. Nothing.”

“Like I said, whatever.” Tigs held up a hand and kicked the door shut again.

In Izzy’s apartment, the door would have slammed, shaking the whole floor. In the Price apartment, however, things worked a little differently. Their front door swung silently on its hinges, slowing down until the latch met the doorframe with a discreet, but solid, click. On the other side, the floor to ceiling windows of the living room took in the whole of the London skyline from thirty-something storeys up, the glass towers of the City glittering in the evening sun. On the vast red velvet sofa that dominated the room, Izzy could see Juliet and Mia, while Kara and Dom sat on the floor on the other side of the glass coffee table. There were, somewhat surprisingly, folders and notebooks open on the table.

“You actually
meant
‘study party’, then?” Izzy jerked her head towards the revision notes.

Tigs looked blank, then laughed. “As if. It’s in case the Paternal puts in an appearance.”

“Your mum’s not home?”

“She’s on retreat.”

“Is she OK?”

“The Maternal? Please. She treats that place like a hotel.” Tigs breezed past Izzy and into the kitchen, pulling open the door to a fridge that was taller than either of them. “She’ll be fine as soon as they dry her out. No. Wait.” She slammed the fridge shut again and leaned back against the door, thoughtfully tapping the top of the drink she’d just pulled out. “They don’t dry you out when it’s pills, do they? What
do
they do? Shake you?” She stared into the middle distance, then shrugged. “Anyway, speaking of pills…”

There was a series of rapid knocks on the door. Tigs rolled her eyes. “It’s open!”

“It’s so not…” Grey’s voice was muffled by the heavy wood and Tigs almost fell over herself in her rush to get to the door. It was either incredibly sweet or really pathetic – Izzy couldn’t quite decide which.

However, Grey wasn’t alone on the landing, which meant that Noah was treated to the full force of Tigs’s best smile, as Grey breezed past her and threw himself down into an enormous
armchair covered with a shimmering silvery fabric. In his torn jeans and his beaten-up Converse, he should have looked totally out of place, but there was something about him that said he
belonged
. It was easy for him, for Tigs … for all of them. All of them except for Izzy, anyway – and maybe Noah – and she felt almost jealous. Even Kara seemed to fit in here – she and Tigs had started school on the same day and as far as Izzy could tell, they’d been friends ever since. Well. Perhaps ‘friends’ was too strong a word for it, but there was definitely something there. Something that Izzy wasn’t sure she’d ever have with Tigs, or with the others. Thinking about it like that, maybe Grey
was
the odd one out. ‘Odd’ being the operative word.

“Right. So. School’s out. Monster exams coming up … anyone else had ‘the speech’ yet?” Grey glanced around the room.

“Back in December,” chorused Dom and Mia.

Grey blinked at them. “Your mum doesn’t muck about, does she?”

“No.”

“‘I’m not worried about you disappointing me.’” Grey’s impersonation of his mother was uncanny
– even down to the way he moved his hands as he spoke, his fingers fluttering from side to side. “‘I’m worried about you disappointing
yourself
.’ It’s like there’s a book they get this stuff from.”

“Exams, though.” Squeezed into the middle of the sofa, Juliet looked a lot younger than everyone else, her eyes wide and earnest behind the thick frames of her glasses. “They’re a big deal. I mean, if we don’t do well in these…”

“Spare me.” Grey’s voice had an edge to it. “I got all this earlier.”

“Maybe they’re right. That’s all I’m saying. We should take this stuff seriously.” She was twirling her long pendant necklace around her finger, the way she always did when she was nervous. It was a red glass bead, stretched into a teardrop the size of her thumb. Juliet never took it off. At school she wore it over her collar and tucked underneath her tie, and no matter how many times the teachers had threatened to confiscate it, they never had.

“Fine. But does everybody have to keep going
on
about it? Like that’s going to help! It’s not like we’ve never sat exams before, is it? We’re Clerkenwell students. That’s what we do.”

“Not like these, though…”

“Juliet? Do me a favour? Stop talking, yeah?”

Their exchange had soured the mood in the room, taking it from celebratory to tense in less than a minute. Grey had said what the rest of them were already thinking, and Juliet had come a little too close to voicing everything that they were afraid of. They were Clerkenwell students, Grey’d been right about that. Their parents were successful. Their school was successful. They had no choice but to follow suit. Failure, at anything, was not an option.

It was Tigs who broke the silence. She was standing in the doorway, holding a small white paper bag. “As I was saying. I might be able to help with the whole … revision thing.” She rummaged in the bag and pulled out a stack of white oblong packets, tossing them to each of the group in turn.

The box rattled slightly as it landed in Izzy’s hands. It was made of thick, glossy cardboard, embossed with the words
FokusPro
in heavy bold lettering. Nothing else. Inside were three silver blister-strips of tablets, glittering as they caught the light. They felt cold to the touch as she shook them
into her hand, almost as though they were sucking the heat from her skin.

“You can thank me on results day,” said Tigs smugly. “They’re the new thing in the States. All the college kids are taking them for finals.”

“A study drug?” Noah stared at the box resting on his palm. “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Won’t we get in trouble?”

“It’s fine. I swear. They’re just a bunch of vitamins and supplements or something. They’re meant to help you work for longer, remember stuff better. All that. And it’s not like anyone’s going to
know
, is it?”

“Where’d you get them?” Izzy poked a hole in one of the blisters with her nail and popped out a tablet. It was bright yellow, stamped with a small circle. It smelled awful – like something rotten. She frowned at it, then glanced at the others. No one else seemed to be bothered.

“Internet. Obviously.”

“The internet?”

“It’s
fine
! I used the Maternal’s account. She gets all her stuff from this pharmacy. Noxapharm or something.”

“Well, that fills me with confidence…” Izzy couldn’t tear her eyes away from the pill in her hand. Something about it felt … off. Like that smell. Nothing good could smell like that, surely?

“Oh, come on. It’s called ‘Fokus
Pro
’. They wouldn’t be allowed to call it that unless it had been tested and everything. It’s literally just a bunch of algae and stuff. That’s all it does. Helps you concentrate.” Tigs scrunched up the paper bag and lobbed it across the room. “I mean, what’s the worst that can happen, right?”