Chapter Eighteen.

On Monday evening, just as Min was reaching over to switch off her bedside light and plunge Iris dorm into darkness, she voiced the question that everyone else had been thinking about all evening: 'Do you think Niffy got on OK at school today?'

'Dunno,' Gina and Amy replied together.

'No one else has heard from her then?'

'No,' they answered together again.

'Well . . . we'll just have to wait and see,' Min said, and then, with a click, it was dark.

Gina closed her eyes, but after a few minutes she opened them again and listened to the sounds around her.

Amy was rustling about in her bed, pulling the duvet tightly around her and snuggling down into her favourite sleeping position. Min was quiet as a mouse, as usual, but outside in the brightly lit corridor Gina could hear the older girls, who didn't have to be in bed yet, coming and going, making the stiff hinges of the fire doors creak.

Like most of the other boarders, Gina had got used to the sounds of the boarding house and could usually fall asleep quickly, tuning them out. But tonight her mind seemed to be restlessly turning from one subject to the next and she had the feeling that it wasn't going to be so easy to sleep.

She thought about her little brother. In a few days' time it would be Menzie's birthday, and although she'd bought him a present, wrapped and parcelled it up and sent it to the States in plenty of time, she wasn't going to be there. This was the first birthday of her brother's that she had ever missed. That made her think of the day he'd come home from the hospital, in her stepdad's arms so that her mother could swoop down, scoop Gina up and soothe her p.r.i.c.kling jealousy with the words: 'Congratulations, Gina! You're a sister. You're a beautiful big sister and your baby brother is going to love you.'

It didn't matter that her mum and her three Californian school friends would be coming over to Scotland to see her soon; Gina could suddenly feel tears forming behind her eyes, but she quickly squeezed them away, not wanting anyone to hear her cry. And that was when Dermot came into her mind, without her even asking him to . . . or so it seemed.

They hadn't even fallen out over Scarlett, whoever she was. They'd fallen out over Charlie the idiot Fotheringham and his stupid, stupid, nasty little remarks. Well, fine. Dermot was probably with Scarlett now, and it was just as well that Gina had untangled herself from him as quickly as possible. Two fat tears fell silently from the corners of her eyes, slid down the sides of her face and landed on the scratchy white cotton of the boarding-house pillowcase.

When she finally fell asleep, Gina tossed and turned, troubled by vivid dreams of a techno-coloured California, then found herself wide awake in the silent darkness.

The winking red numbers of her alarm clock showed that it was 1.56 a.m. Despite the dark, Gina could just make out Min quietly getting up and heading out of the room, pulling the door shut noiselessly behind her. Five minutes later and Min still hadn't come back in. After fifteen minutes Gina was beginning to worry. Was Min sleepwalking? She put on her dressing gown and slippers and decided to go and investigate.

First of all Gina checked the bathroom, but there was no one in there. Then it occurred to her that there was only one place in the boarding house where Min was truly comfortable and at home; one place where she liked to spend the majority of her waking hours: the study. If Min was sleepwalking, then she would definitely sleepwalk all the way down there.

As quietly as she could, Gina hurried down the stairs and along the silent corridors. As she approached the large double doors, she saw a sliver of light underneath them, but still, she made her way in quietly.

A single small lamp had been switched on over one of the computer desks; the only sound was the quiet tippity-tap of fast typing. Gina could see her friend's dark head bent over one of the computer keyboards. But Min was so busy typing, she hadn't even heard her come into the room.

So Gina began to walk towards her desk. She didn't mean to give Min a fright, but Min was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn't notice Gina until she was hovering right behind her.

'Hi,' Gina said quietly.

'Aaargh!' Min gave a small shriek in response.

'So is this the secret of your amazing new biology grades?'

'Oh no!' was Min's response. 'You saw!' She scrambled with her mouse to close down the file she had been working on.

Gina had only meant that she'd caught Min studying in the middle of the night, but now that Min was acting all guilty and as if she'd seen something secret, out of burning curiosity she had to play along.

'So how long's this been going on?' she asked without the slightest idea what she was talking about.

'A few weeks . . .' Min confessed, blushing furiously. 'Well, about five weeks. We've not met yet, but his emails are lovely and they've really helped me so much.'

Gina was so surprised by this revelation she could hardly form her next question. His emails are lovely . . . What was Min talking about?

'Who is he?' she asked, astonished.

'He's this nice guy I think he's a student. He knows loads and loads about biology and, more importantly, he's into NLP and he's giving me info on techniques to overcome my squeamishness.'

'What's NLP?' Gina was crouching down beside her friend now, amazed to see her looking so alert and excited at two in the morning.

'Neuro-linguistic programming,' came the answer.

'OK, never mind that. Tell me about the guy?' Gina asked.

'Well, he calls himself Gecko and I call myself Raven we've not even done real names yet.'

'Min, this is scaring me,' Gina confessed. 'Internet chat rooms, cyber dates . . . I take it you know how many weirdos are out there?'

'Don't be silly! We're just email-pals, the way people used to have pen-pals. But he seems so nice. I'd really like to meet him in person.'

'Min' Gina sounded very serious 'if you arrange to meet this guy, you have to do it in a very public place and at least one of us has to come with you. It's the Internet, Min!' she warned her. 'There are a lot of strange people online.'

'Gina!' Min laughed. 'He's a science geek. We got chatting through an online science club.'

'Min, promise me . . .' Gina warned.

'I'll promise you if you'll promise me not to tell Amy anything about this,' Min countered.

'Why not? She'll be happy for you.'

'No! She'll tease me she'll go on about my geeky Gecko boyfriend, and it's not like that!' Min insisted. 'We're just science buddies, chatting about exam problems and my anxieties about dissected frogs.'

'Well, OK,' Gina agreed, only because she knew Min was totally right. If Amy knew anything about this, she'd be like a dog with a bone.

'Why do you have to email him in the middle of the night though?' she wondered.

'It's the only time I can be sure of getting online at the same time as him,' Min answered.

'But what about sleep?'

'Oh . . . we only do this two or three times a week.'

'Two or three times a week?' Gina was astonished. 'Min, you must be exhausted!'

Min looked up at her with a confidential smile. 'I find that the back row of Miss Ballantyne's history cla.s.s is the ideal place for a catch-up snooze.'

'Come on,' Gina instructed. 'Call the science club meeting to an end and let's get to bed.'

It didn't escape her notice that Min's email ended with a lot of 'x's. This was all a very interesting development and Gina had no idea how she was going to keep it a secret.

Chapter Nineteen.

Mrs MacDuff, the biology teacher, was walking towards Min's seat with a curious look on her face.

'Asimina,' she began, placing Min's homework sheets down on the table, 'this is excellent work. Unbelievably good.'

There was slightly too much stress on the unbelievably for Gina's liking.

'I'm working really hard, Mrs MacDuff,' Min replied. 'I'm really trying to make progress.'

'So no one else is helping you?' the teacher wanted to know. 'There's no one else's hand in this homework?'

'No, not at all.' Min looked up and met Mrs MacDuff's gaze.

'Hmmm . . .' was all the teacher said before returning to her desk.

Was Gina imagining it or did she see some hint of a confused blush creeping over Min's cheeks? Her eyes were cast down now and she was fiddling with her hair.

All last year, biology had been a problem for Min. But as the teacher had noticed, something had definitely changed. Gina now knew about the Internet friend who was helping Min out and she actually wished she didn't. Was geeky Gecko helping Min with her feelings about biology? Or helping her with her actual homework? Was Min cheating? And was any of this even Gina's business?

Gina wondered if she should speak to Amy if Amy wasn't too busy hanging out with Rosie, of course; but then Gina caught sight of the cla.s.sroom clock and felt a fresh pang of gloom.

Menzie would be waking up on the morning of his ninth birthday right now and she didn't even know what he had planned for the rest of the day. Would he be splashing about in the pool with a gaggle of friends? At some point he would definitely be blowing out candles on one of the fabulous chocolate cakes her mom always had specially made by the neighbourhood French patisserie.

When she was at school, Gina tried not to think of her family going about their daily lives without her. It was too sad to imagine them carrying on, not knowing her new friends or the day-to-day details of her new life.

They'd never seen her dorm, except in the photos she'd emailed home; they'd never met Mrs Knebworth or Amy, Niffy and Min, or . . . Dermot. There he was again, popping unbidden into her head, quickly she tried to press some sort of mental delete b.u.t.ton to get rid of him.

She'd decided to phone Menzie just as soon as she could get to the boarding-house payphone. She wanted to speak to him and wish him happy birthday as early as she could. At 4 p.m. it would be 8 a.m. in LA; if she hurried, she could still catch him before he went to school.

As soon as her last lesson had finished, Gina rushed back to the boarding house, dumped her things and dialled her long internationally coded home number.

It rang and rang and rang out. Finally she hung up and tried her mother's mobile, knowing they'd only be able to speak for a moment or two because the credit on her phone card would be used up so quickly.

'Lorelei Winkelmann,' her mother answered in her most businesslike tone.

'Hi, Mom, it's me! I just wanted to wish Menzie happy birthday.'

'Oh, baby, hi!' came the faint voice way down the other end of the line. 'I'm sorry, I've just dropped him off at breakfast club. I have a really early meeting today. I'll tell him you called. He'll be out of school at four, so try him at home then. Baby, I have to go,' her mother added. 'Is everything OK?'

'Yeah . . . love you,' Gina answered quickly, because there just wasn't time to talk about how nothing felt OK now. She'd have to wait for eight whole hours before she could speak to her brother. It felt terrible! She'd have to ask Mrs Knebworth for special permission to stay up late enough. But what would her mom understand about any of this anyway? Busy, busy Mom and her early meeting.

'Love you too,' her mother answered cheerfully.

Click. Then the line was dead.

Gina replaced the receiver, feeling a hard lump of sadness in her throat. She was homesick. That's how homesickness came in unexpected tidal waves that washed over you and made you wish and wish that like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz you could click your heels three times and find yourself in your own back yard, surrounded by the people who loved you best.

It was hard to be so far away from them. But the feeling would pa.s.s, Gina knew this. It was like a dizzy spell: you had to close your eyes and breathe deeply for a few minutes and it would pa.s.s. So she was startled when the phone began to ring loudly, the sound rattling around the little telephone cubicle.

She picked up the receiver and gave a husky 'h.e.l.lo?'

'h.e.l.lo, could I speak to Gina Peterson please?'

There was no mistaking the warm male voice. It was Dermot.

Gina was caught off guard and wasn't sure what to say next. She was so stunned, she didn't even know if she could say anything. For a moment she thought she'd pretend to be someone else and get out of the phone call.

'Gina?' she began shakily, trying to disguise her voice and intending to say, Could you call back later?

'Gina?' Dermot repeated. 'It's you, isn't it?'

'Erm . . . yes,' she answered awkwardly.

'Were you trying to pretend it wasn't? I don't blame you,' he went on, before she had to make any stupid excuses for herself. 'I'm not exactly a catch, am I? Boring boy who works in cafe and rudely storms off when you want to be nice to him.'

He gave something of a gulp at the end of this and Gina suspected he was just as nervous as she was.

'I do occasionally make jokes though,' he added. 'That's my redeeming feature. Jokes though they are usually bad ones.'

'They're not,' Gina was quick to protest. 'I quite like your jokes.'

'Quite? You quite like them?' Dermot asked. 'I think I'd better hang up now there's no way you're going to come out with me, is there?'

But Gina could hear the warmth in his voice . . . and she was unwinding, relaxing, basking in that warmth as if it was a ray of sunshine beaming out of the receiver at her.

He was going to ask her out again! If she was really, really lucky. They were going to have another chance at being together.

'I might,' she told him, teasing a little herself now, 'if you asked me on the right kind of date.'

'Oh no! No! Don't say that. The pressure!' Dermot joked. 'I can't take the pressure. I'm sweating here.'

'Well,' Gina broke in, thinking that maybe she could make this easier for him, 'you know that exhibition at the Modern Art Gallery . . . and the cakes?'

'Oh yes no forgetting the cakes.'

'Well, maybe we could do that? On Sunday? And I'll try and come in and see you on Sat.u.r.day afternoon . . . if that's OK?'

Suddenly she remembered him telling her coldly to just forget it. 'You're sure you want to do this?' she asked him quickly, because she didn't think she could cope with being told no by him again.

'Yeah, I'm sure,' he said. 'I'm really sorry about that last time. I was just wound up. I didn't mean it.'

'Sure.' Gina let him off. 'So Sat.u.r.day at the cafe . . . if I can make it, and Sunday, say two-thirty? At the gallery?'