'Hang on!' Jason called out and began to follow her down. 'I think it's funny! I think it's very sweet of you.'

This just made Amy speed up to get away from him.

Now she was blinking tears away, head down, hands balled into fists, not wanting him to see how upset she was because of him.

'Amy!' he called out after her. 'I'm sorry about today. I'm busy all afternoon with the match and I don't have a late pa.s.s from school. I couldn't get out today.'

'You're out!' she stormed at him. 'Couldn't we have had a coffee? Just for an hour this morning?'

'Well, yeah,' he answered. 'But I didn't think you'd want to do that. I wanted to take you on a proper date and show you the kind of fantastic time you showed me in Glasgow.'

This stopped Amy in her tracks. A fantastic time in Glasgow? So he still remembered it as a fantastic time? 'Where have you been since then?' She turned and stormed at him: 'No phone calls? No emails? You couldn't even send me a flaming text. Unless I contact you first, you never think of me for a second!'

'I do,' Jason told her, and his face seemed to cloud over. 'I've been . . . tied up.'

'Yeah, tied up! Like you're tied up today! If it's so fantastic when we get together, why don't you want to get together more?'

He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder.

'Stop it,' he urged. 'You're here now, I'm here. Do you want to come and buy some rugby boots with me? Then, I don't know . . . We could get an ice cream.'

An ice cream? Did he think he was her uncle or something?

'An ice cream?' she blurted out in dismay.

'Yeah, I love ice cream,' Jason said with his most persuasive smile.

To her surprise, she found herself laughing, and then they were laughing together. To her further surprise, Jason caught hold of her hand and kissed it, as if he were some debonair prince or an old-fashioned film star.

She felt the brush of his upper lip against her fingers so intensely it was as if time had slowed down for those few seconds. Then they walked hand in hand to the sports shop. Afterwards, Jason bought them both a ninety-nine cone from a van by the gardens alongside Prince's Street. Then, still hand in hand, they walked all the way back to St Lennox, where Amy had to say goodbye because Jason had a rugby match. He promised he absolutely one hundred per cent guaranteed that he would call and they would arrange to do something together next weekend.

Only when he was well and truly out of sight did Amy think to glance at her wrist watch. It quite clearly showed that the time was 1.15! Mince! How had it got to 1.15? She was supposed to have signed in at the boarding house fifteen minutes ago, and worse, much worse, she knew that Gina and Min would already be there. But what would they have told the Neb?

Chapter Twelve.

As Amy sprinted up Bute Gardens towards the boarding house the amount of running around she'd done this morning was going to kill her she tried to listen to the garbled messages on her mobile. Yes, her mobile! The one she'd forgotten to turn back on after her little tantrum up on The Mound.

An increasingly frantic Gina and then Min had raged at her voicemail: 'That's it, we're going back. We can't hang about hoping you'll call or we'll somehow b.u.mp into you. We're taking the bus. We'll get off at the usual stop and walk back very slowly. Hopefully we'll meet you on the way.'

Well, that had been quite nice of them, Amy had to admit. She was going to have to think of an excuse though. She tried to remember all the advice Niffy a totally expert liar had ever given her. Keep it simple. Keep it casual. Never over-elaborate. Just go for the obvious. Expect to be believed! That had been her mantra. Expect to be believed.

Amy opened the door of the boarding house and saw at once that lunch was over. She might as well go straight into the Neb's sitting room and see if the dragon was there she wanted to get this over with as soon as possible. She knew she was in real danger of being gated next weekend. Burning at the forefront of her mind was the devastating possibility of missing her date with Jason.

'Mrs Knebworth?' she said meekly, poking her head round the sitting-room door.

The housemistress was ensconced in her favourite armchair with her feet up, her reading gla.s.ses perched on the end of her nose and one of the Sat.u.r.day newspapers spread out on her lap. Hearing her name, she swivelled her steel-blue eyes in Amy's direction, then narrowed them at the sight of her.

'You are forty-five minutes late,' her tirade began, 'and you very obviously did not meet up with your friends as you promised me you would. This is completely unacceptable, Amy. I will not have girls roaming about Edinburgh on their own. It is against the house rules-'

'Mrs Knebworth,' Amy interrupted before the terrible words 'you are gated' could be issued. She knew that once they had been said, they could never ever be taken back. The Neb would never tolerate any challenge to her authority. She would rather gate the innocent by mistake than retract a gating. 'I am so, so sorry,' Amy began, because nothing less than full-on grovelling was going to get her out of this. 'The uniform shop didn't have any skirts in my size, so they sent me over to the branch right on the other side of town . . .' Amy was straining her memory . . . where was that other shop again?

'And did they have the skirt?' Mrs Knebworth had now put down the paper and was peering at Amy over the top of her gla.s.ses, her eyebrows raised.

'No . . .' Amy had to say that, because otherwise, why didn't she have a shopping bag with her? 'They sold the last two in my size ten minutes before I got there,' she managed.

This was too elaborate, she realized at once Niffy would have thought of something better. Much more simple and clever. She was tangling herself up in knots.

'I tried to meet up with Gina and Min, but . . .' Amy went on, moving away from the skirt. But what? She couldn't do a mobile-flat-battery story because that could be checked; and she couldn't say she'd entered both her friends' numbers incorrectly because that wasn't likely . . . 'But the signal was really weak out there.'

'How curious weak signal in Morningside, and all those mobile phone users out there.' Mrs Knebworth made a tut-tutting sound.

'So then I decided to come straight back and there wasn't a bus for ages.'

'You should have taken a taxi,' Mrs Knebworth commanded. Her gaze was still fixed on Amy.

Amy had no idea whether she was succeeding here or not. Did Mrs Knebworth believe a word she was saying?

'If I'd seen a taxi all the time I was waiting at the bus stop, I'd have taken it,' she said meekly.

'Oh, the bus service is frightful as soon as you're out of the city centre,' the housemistress agreed; to Amy's surprise she looked almost sympathetic.

And that's when Amy remembered that the Neb didn't drive and had ranted about terrible local bus services in the past.

'I couldn't believe it,' she hazarded. 'I was just waiting and waiting and waiting. According to the timetable there should have been a bus every twelve minutes.'

'Oh, I know,' Mrs Knebworth agreed. 'It's absolutely ridiculous. And like you say, no taxis ever pa.s.s that way, so you're stuck.'

'Totally.' Amy nodded vigorously.

'Well . . .' Mrs Knebworth looked at Amy searchingly, as if making one last attempt to sniff out a rat. 'These things happen,' she said finally.

Just as soon as she could get out of Mrs K's sight, Amy hurried off in search of Gina and Min. She found them in the Upper Fifth sitting room.

'Did you see him?' was Gina's first question as soon as Amy came in.

'Yeah!' And despite the tension of the last thirty minutes, just thinking about her mini-date with Jason brought an unmistakably dreamy expression to Amy's face. Much to the amus.e.m.e.nt of her friends.

'Oh boy, oh boy! So how did it go?' Gina was desperate to know.

But their conversation was interrupted by a knock at the sitting-room door and Amy's friend Rosie from the year below poked her head round.

'Hi, Amy!' Rosie enthused. 'Can I come in? I saw you going in here and I'm just desperate to know how it went. Did you see him? What did he say? Are you guys going on a date soon?'

As she came into the room, firing questions at Amy, Gina felt her irritation growing. She just didn't like this girl knowing even more about her friend than she did. And it certainly didn't escape her notice that Rosie was wearing exactly the same jeans and an almost identical top as Amy. How could Amy stand it?

'It was great!' Amy gushed. 'We're definitely going to meet up next weekend.'

'Oh, you are smitten,' Min giggled. 'He's even made you forget that we're going to Niffy's next weekend!'

'Nooooooooooooooooooo!'

Chapter Thirteen.

The Friday evening train journey from Edinburgh to Berwick-upon-Tweed wasn't a long one, but as they approached their destination, the weather grew worse and worse. The cloud and gloom deepened, then fierce rain began to lash against the train windows.

'Remind me again why we are going to spend the weekend in the countryside?' Amy said, looking out at the current view of jagged black rocks and swirling sea. 'There's absolutely nothing to do out there.'

'We're going to see Niffy,' Min reminded her. 'She'll keep us entertained!'

'You're just in a grump about your Jason date,' Gina told her.

'Hmmmph.' Amy continued to stare out of the window. She'd already tried to reschedule the date for the following weekend, but Jason wasn't sure if he was playing rugby or not.

'What about Sunday?' she had asked on the phone, trying to keep the pleading tone out of her voice.

'Yeah . . . we'll see. I'll call you,' was all she'd got out of him.

When Gina saw how upset Amy was about Jason, she tried to feel glad that she and Dermot were now so over. He hadn't called or tried to contact her once since that day in the cafe. Just as well, Gina told herself. He's probably with Scarlett now! And good luck to them. She tried hard to ignore the sharp little jab of pain this thought caused her.

Scarlett. Scarlett . . . Whoever Scarlett was, Gina couldn't stop herself from imagining how gorgeous and witty and bright and bubbly she must be compared to her. Ha. Maybe Gina would centre her one-act play around the mysterious Scarlett, and maybe she'd come to a horrible end . . .

'So are you really prepared for Niffy's home?' Min asked her, and although Gina nodded, Min nevertheless began to tell her once again about the horrors of Blacklough.

It was dark and still raining when the train pulled into Berwick-upon-Tweed station.

Amy hauled her overnight bag down from the luggage rack with the words: 'Here we are! Brace yourself for the full country-house weekend experience.' Then she rolled her eyes at Gina just to underline that it might not be quite what she was expecting.

But after Min's latest warnings, Gina felt very well prepared she felt over-prepared; in fact she wished she'd been spared a few of the more grisly details: the horrible food, the arguing parents, the huge dogs that hung their heavy heads in your lap and drooled on you at dinner time. Min was particularly anxious about the dogs.

'Still,' Amy said as they headed towards the door, 'we get to see Nif for a whole weekend; we get to find out how she's really getting on. It's worth putting up with the rest of it for that . . . nearly.' Niffy was already on the platform, waving at them and shouting, 'Hi! Over here!'

Once she'd hugged them all h.e.l.lo, she took both Min's and Gina's bags and began to head out to the car park.

The filthiest SUV Gina had ever set eyes on was it actually white under all that mud? was waiting for them in the car park. Mr Nairn-Ba.s.sett, in a flat tweed cap and green anorak, was perched behind the steering wheel.

'h.e.l.lo, girls!' he barked out at them as Niffy opened the door. 'There's plenty of room in the back just push the dogs out of the way.'

As soon as she heard this instruction, Min shrank back.

Niffy stuck her head in the door and yelled, 'Doughal! Macduff! Back!' And with a clatter and scamper of legs and paws, the two huge black hounds jumped over into the boot s.p.a.ce, leaving a hairy, smelly blanket spread across the back seat for the girls to sit on.

Gina slid a pointy-booted toe carefully into the car and lowered her designer-jean-clad derriere onto the seat.

'Told you we should have dressed down,' Amy whispered to her.

But even if Gina had been warned she'd be travelling in a car like this, there was nothing in her wardrobe that would have been suitable. Even gardening at the boarding house was a problem, because Gina didn't have 'old clothes'; she just didn't do scruffy. Unlike Niffy, who was scrambling into the front pa.s.senger seat in her usual outfit of dirty black jodhpurs, a black woollen jumper that seemed to be unravelling at the sleeves and her trusty leather riding boots, caked in mud.

It was a thirty-minute journey along wet and twisty roads before the rickety Range Rover was finally b.u.mping its way up the potholed drive to Blacklough Hall.

Gina looked out of the car window, but in the dark she could only make out the size of the place; none of the detail was visible. However, as they approached it, she saw that there was a proper grand entrance to the front door, with stone steps and bal.u.s.trades. However, Mr N-B drove them straight past and round to the car park at the back of the house. The car came to a halt and the dogs and then their bags were unloaded. A small back door opened and Mrs N-B appeared.

'Girls! Good trip? Lovely to see you!' she trilled. 'So very nice of you to come and visit!'

Gina found herself being ushered into a warm and cheerful kitchen which smelled of boiling potatoes and damp dog. Like both Amy and Min, she caught herself peering a little too closely at Mrs N-B to try and gauge whether she looked any better or any worse than when they'd last seen her in the summer.

Mrs N-B looked thin, but then she always looked thin. Her tweedy skirt and pink cardigan skimmed a very slight frame. There was a pink and white scarf tied over her head, and with a wave of shock Gina registered that this was how she was disguising her lack of hair.

Niffy had warned them in an email that her mother was getting 'a bit thin on top' as a result of the chemotherapy. 'She's skinny too, but don't be fooled,' Niffy had written. 'She's as tough as old boots.'

The girls were urged to 'dump' their bags upstairs, 'freshen up' and head for the dining room.

'But don't you want some help, Mrs Nairn-Ba.s.sett?' Min protested.

'No, no,' she insisted. 'Everything is under control.'

Gina had been told to expect 'stately home in distress', but still, the dining room was something of a shock. It was a dark, dark room with navy-blue walls, large ancestral portraits, an enormous wooden table, highly polished with at a glance about eighteen dining chairs around it.

This was all the sort of thing that Gina had expected, but the first surprise was the cold. Opening the door to the dining room reminded her of opening the door to her fridge back home: it brought a blast of icy air. Two electric heaters had been plugged in on either side of the room, but they didn't appear to have been switched on yet; maybe that would only happen when they were sitting down.

Six places had already been set, huddled together at one end of the table, and a there was a soup tureen on the sideboard. Well, Gina guessed it was a tureen, but she couldn't be sure as it was wrapped in a piece of stripy blanket, probably to keep it warm.

Once they'd taken their seats and been served, Gina got her next surprise. The soup was disgusting! There was no other word for it. She had loaded up her spoon for the first mouthful and had to concentrate hard not to gag it back out again.

'Mmm, oxtail,' Mr N-B had murmured approvingly. 'Is that legal again now? I thought we weren't allowed to eat spine with all that CJD nonsense.'

If Gina had wanted to gag before, now she wanted to hurl.

With a clatter, Min suddenly dropped her spoon. There was a look of terror on her face, which Niffy immediately understood.

'Doughal!' she called out, sticking her head under the table to investigate. 'Come here. Leave Min alone.'

Gina now realized that this meant it was Macduff 's great hairy head that she had on her lap. But she didn't want him to move; she suspected that dogs this size were rarely vicious, and anyway, with his breath on her leg and his big hot weight on her thigh, this might be the only chance she got to feel warm.

'You're not having any?' Mr N-B asked his wife sharply.

Mrs N-B had a tall gla.s.s in front of her something greeny orange and kind of frothy.