Standing around a flower bed was not the ideal spot, but clearly Mel the self-styled boarding-house resident s.e.xpert couldn't wait to tell the three girls, each armed with a garden implement, all her news.

'Where've you been?' Amy wondered.

'At my delicious dentist's,' Mel giggled back.

'The dentist? What, Mr Rotherham?' Amy asked with a frown.

The man who scaled the boarding-house teeth and fitted the boarding-house braces was an excellent orthodontist but not exactly someone even Mel was likely to have a crush on. Mind you, there was no accounting for her taste. Last term she'd had a boyfriend called Bryan, and according to those who had seen him and reported back, he'd not had much in the looks department either.

'Pudgy, balding Mr Rotherham?' Amy had to ask.

'No, not Rotherham,' Mel told her with a dismissive wave. 'I go to a different surgery. Private. The guy responsible for the all-new Mel smile is gorgeous. But anyway' she came closer and her voice dropped to confessional tones 'I have a new man, and the most important thing you need to know about my summer is that I finally, thank G.o.d, lost . . . Do I need to spell it out?'

Well, no, she didn't.

All three sets of eyes were fixed on her expectantly. Mel was not exactly the kind of girl who held back with details, especially if those details were squishy.

But 'Phew, got that over with,' was all she said. 'I will be happy to fill you in, but at the right time and in the right place.'

This meant she had to be bribed in some way or other. She wasn't blatant enough to ask for money, but she might require a new lip gloss, a contraband cigarette or two. In fact, details as juicy as this might even require a half bottle of her favourite wine.

Amy scowled and carried on hoeing. The last thing she wanted to hear about was yet another happy couple. Anyway, she'd still barely forgiven Mel for having the nerve to snog Jason at a party last term, when she'd known perfectly well how Amy felt about him.

But there in the distance, coming out of the boarding house, was the one girl who might be able to help: Amy's brand-new best friend, Rosie.

'Hi!' she called out cheerily as she approached the group. 'Mrs K wanted me to warn you that she's coming out in a mo to inspect your handiwork.'

This provoked a round of universal groaning.

'Right, I'm off,' Mel told them, and turned towards the front door.

'As long as the Neb's not coming out to give us a hoeing demonstration,' Amy said. 'I do not want to see those monster bazookas boogie, not right in front of my nose.'

This reference to the Neb's ample cleavage made everyone giggle, and eyes were all fixed on the bouncing bazookas as the housemistress strode purposefully towards their patch.

'So what's going on here? Standing about gossiping like a bunch of old ladies! Get to work!' Picking up a spade for herself, Mrs Knebworth joined in, asking, 'What's the hot topic of conversation in Iris dorm this evening?'

'Halloween,' Gina said promptly, so they wouldn't have to stand around, guiltily silent.

'Oh yes, Halloween . . .' The Neb raised her eyebrows at Gina. 'Something of an American celebration, isn't it?'

'We should have a party!' Gina suggested. 'Something at the boarding house . . . something different!'

'A party?'

'We've had boarding-house parties before,' Amy pointed out. 'A DJ, some jugs of juice, low-alcohol lager and a handful of carefully selected nice young gentlemen.'

'Well, we have' the Neb was now vigorously turning earth over, bending down grubbing among the roots of the weeds 'but I'm never in any great hurry to repeat them. Things go awry . . .'

'But otherwise there won't be anything to look forward to until the Christmas Ball, and it's only September! More than three months to go!' Amy complained.

'We could carve pumpkins and serve blackcurrant juice and blue spaghetti and have fancy dress and prizes for the best costumes and it could be so much fun!' Gina went on enthusiastically, suddenly feeling quite desperate that the boarding house should have a party and a proper understanding of Halloween. Maybe she could even get her mom to send over Halloween paper cups and plates and pumpkin-carving stencils. You would be able to get pumpkins over here, wouldn't you?

'OK.' The Neb stood up straight and surveyed the work that had been done on the flower bed. 'Not looking too bad. You've definitely done your bit, girls. I'll have Year Four out here tomorrow evening it's all coming along quite well.'

'The party?' Amy prompted her.

'Hmmm . . . What do you think, Min?' Mrs K's eyes travelled towards the quietest, most anti-social member of the dorm, maybe hoping Min would shake her head and the matter would be over.

'Well . . .' Min looked up and shrugged her shoulders. 'I think it might be fun.'

'See!' Gina and Amy both chorused together.

Once the housemistress had bustled back to the boarding house, issuing instructions about tidying away the tools, Rosie took Amy aside and insisted: 'I've got to talk to you about something . . . right away.'

Amy smiled because she realized all at once that Rosie was perfect. Rosie didn't have a boyfriend, Rosie had a long, long-standing crush on some boy who didn't even seem to know who she was, and Rosie was desperate to be her friend. So Rosie would listen . . . Rosie would definitely care . . . Rosie would maybe even have some advice for her about Jason.

Chapter Eight.

Min, Amy and Gina set off from the boarding house early the following Sat.u.r.day morning. It was a very important day: Min and Amy were going to try out for the Scottish junior hockey squad and, even more importantly, Niffy was coming up to Edinburgh for the trials as well.

Gina was coming along too: it was going to be the first time the four friends had got together since July, the end of Year Four.

'Niffy is OK, isn't she?' Min asked Amy anxiously as they reached the stop for the bus that would take them over to the sports ground at Meadowbank.

'Yeah,' said Amy, who had received an email from her the day before, 'but her mum's gone back into hospital, so Niff 's coming up on her own by train for this.'

Both Min and Gina looked shocked at the news. Niffy's mother was not well she'd been diagnosed with leukaemia, a blood cancer. But Mrs N-B (as they called her) continued to cheerfully insist to both her friends and her family that it was 'the least serious type of cancer'; and anyway, 'they've caught it jolly early'. She was the type of woman who couldn't stand being ill and certainly wouldn't allow anyone to make a fuss.

'I don't know much about it,' Amy added. 'I don't know if it's anything unexpected or not. She's gone in for chemotherapy maybe it's routine, just a normal part of the whole thing . . .' She tailed off because it was all too horrible to think about.

Once the girls arrived at Meadowbank, it didn't take long for them to find Niffy amongst the seventy or so hopeful hockey players already there.

She was rangy and seriously tall, with a luxurious head of brown, curly hair bundled into a messy ponytail so that she could get on with the serious business of playing hockey. Niffy wasn't shy, so at the first sight of her dorm friends, she threw up her long arms and shrieked: 'There you are!' at the top of her voice.

'Hi!'

Ignoring the curious stares all around them, Min, Amy and Gina all ran over and took turns to kiss and hug her.

'I can't believe it's been so long!'

'Look at you! You're all so brown and beautiful!' Niffy was astonished.

'Should I take that as a compliment?' Min had to ask.

'Yes!'

'Look at you!' Amy interrupted. 'You're even taller!'

'I know, it's getting embarra.s.sing.' Niffy waved her arms about in front of her long frame. 'You should see the size of Finn.' This was a reference to her older brother. 'He's already six foot four, and my dad says he's not allowed to drink any more milk because he's going to turn into a freak.'

The dorm girls already knew that Mr N-B was the kind of totally tactless parent who really would say something just like that.

'How are you?' Amy asked next, still holding onto Niffy's arm: she was so pleased to see her friend again it was hard to let go.

'I'm fine.' Niffy shot her a big smile. 'Really top form. And look at you, diamond-earring girl! You look gorgeous!'

'But what about your mum, Niffy? How is she doing?' Min asked sympathetically. 'What has she gone back into hospital for?'

'Just routine treatment,' Niffy replied. 'We're all very calm about it. She's just being amazing with all this boring stuff.'

'Boring?' Gina asked.

'Really boring.' Niffy rolled her eyes for effect. 'That's what she keeps telling me anyway. She's still in a total tizz that I'm not back at St Jude's says I'm nuts to be going to Mill Park High. But, you know, I just wanted to make sure she's really OK . . . before I come back.'

There was just a tiny little something about the way Niffy said this, some little hint of a choke to her voice, and her friends could immediately tell that underneath the smiles and the shrugs, the 'boring' and the jokes, of course, deep down, Niffy was scared.

'But you're still going to come down to Blacklough and see me on the long weekend?' she asked.

'Of course!' all three friends a.s.sured her.

'C'mon!' she rallied them. 'You need to dump your bags and get ready!'

'I'll head up to the spectator stand,' Gina told them, but as she turned on her heel, she almost crashed straight into Penny Bosworth-Hackett.

'Oh! h.e.l.lo,' Penny said coldly, taking all four of them in. 'A little dorm reunion, is it? I'd better not interrupt.'

She turned to go, but Niffy couldn't resist saying: 'Oh, get over yourself, Penny. If you get into this team, then we're all going to have to play on the same side for a change.'

'If you get in,' Penny snapped as she swivelled on her studded boot and stomped off.

'Just as lovely as ever then.' Niffy looked at Amy, knowing just how much she and Penny had always hated each other.

'Oh yeah!' Amy agreed. 'Let's try and smack her right across the shins if we get the chance.'

'But what if she does get in?' Niffy wondered. 'It'll be the first time she's ever played on my team!'

Niffy had every right to be confident that she would be selected. Her hockey, just like her lacrosse and her tennis and any other sport she'd ever taken up was incredibly good.

'Is there anyone here from your new school?' Min ventured.

This made Niffy cackle with laughter. 'No!' she answered. 'If there was a junior Scottish chip-eating team though, they'd be fighting to join.'

This comment startled Amy. She'd been born and brought up in the East End of Glasgow, and had lived there until the age of eleven, when she'd been sent to St Jude's. A lot of the friends she'd had in primary school weren't exactly sporty, but they were as hard as nails if that was the kind of school Niffy was at now, she wouldn't be finding it easy to fit in.

Among the crowd of girls at Meadowbank today to try out for the under-seventeen team, a practised observer could spot that while not every girl was from a private school, they were definitely in the majority. How would the observer tell? There was just something about the long flicky hairstyles, the posher voices, the expensive uniform tracksuits and woollen jumpers.

The girls too could tell their own kind at a glance. It was a tribal thing: each could recognize her own.

Gina sat in the third row of the stand and watched. Several coaches with clipboards blew their whistles, calling the girls to line up and divide into groups.

'We're going to play you in teams,' one of them began to explain. 'Those of you happiest in attack stand to the left, those of you who like to defend to the right please. Now, hands up, goalies you are going to be trialled by the two captains of last year's under-eighteens.

'OK, play your best the girls who are likely to really impress us are the ones who play as a team and who save goals and score goals,' she finished.

After a quick selection process, there was another shrill blast of the whistle and the first two teams headed over to the pitch closest to Gina. At first she couldn't spot anyone she knew in either of them, but then Niffy was called on to play.

Brimful of confidence, her short skirt and hair flying, she began by charging up, then down the field, determined to get her share of the action. If you want action, you've got to be action was just one of Niffy's on-field mottos.

To Niffy's delight, Penny was then called as centre forward on the opposing team.

'Just like old times then,' Niffy warned her cheerfully as soon as she was within earshot.

The girls fought each other for the ball. Up and down the pitch they went, other players trailing in their wake. Then, as Gina watched from the stands, she saw Penny break away with the ball; then, horror! she had scored!

'Excellent! Nice goal,' the coach enthused. With a blast of her whistle she signalled for some subst.i.tutes to come onto the pitch, and out came Min.

Before Niffy could even register how pleased she was to see her old team-mate back, Penny had charged in, tackled Min and pa.s.sed the ball on to another forward.

'b.u.marama!' was Niffy's furious response to this. She shot off, hard on Penny's heels, but it was no good the ball was pa.s.sed back to Penny, and within seconds she had deftly scored again!

The coach blew her whistle and, to Gina and Niffy's dismay, Min was taken off.

'You only get one chance to impress out here!' Penny sneered.

Now Gina could see Amy's blonde head bobbing towards the pitch. Ha! she couldn't help thinking. That would show Penny! Niffy and Amy both working against her.

But to Amy's obvious astonishment, she was put in Penny's team!

'I'm not playing with you, I'm playing for a place on the team!' Penny snapped at her.

'Yeah, I think that's kind of obvious,' Amy snapped straight back.

'Just make sure you keep out of my way,' Penny warned.

The whistle blew and Gina couldn't take her eyes off the match. What would happen now? she wondered.

Penny and Niffy seemed to be fighting it out at every turn. A spectator could almost have forgotten there were twenty other players on the pitch, eager for a share of the play.

Now Niffy had the ball. Finally! Gina thought, a smile spreading across her face as she watched her friend sprint along at full speed, the ball totally under control at the tip of her stick. Finally she was going to get a chance to prove herself!

But no! One of the defenders rushed forward, took the ball from her and fired it up the pitch, where it found Amy.