Magic at Silver Spires Read online

  About This Book

  Secrets, hopes and dreams… School friends are for ever!

  Being Italian, it was really hard for me coming to a boarding school in England. But now I love it – I can’t imagine being anywhere else!

  Then just when I was really settling in, something terrible happened – and now Papà doesn’t want me to stay at Silver Spires any more! If he makes me go to school in Italy, I won’t see my friends again. I have to change his mind – but how?

  Per le mie care amiche, Alex Hiller e Carolyn Bruce

  Contents

  About This Book

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Antonia’s Favourite Recipes

  Sneak Preview of Success at Silver Spires

  About the Author

  Want to know more about the Silver Spires girls?

  Collect the whole School Friends series

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  “Don’t let me see it!” squealed Emily, covering her eyes dramatically.

  “Oh sorry!” I said, quickly whipping the mask I’d almost finished painting away from my face, and hiding it behind my back.

  Maybe this was another English thing I didn’t know about. Perhaps there’s a – what do you call it? – yes, a superstition that it’s bad luck to wear a mask inside a building or something.

  My best friend, Nicole, quickly reassured me. “Don’t worry, Antonia,” she said. “It’s just that Emily likes surprises.”

  Across the room I could see Mr. Cary, the art teacher, shaking his head at Emily as though she was mad. But his eyes were twinkling.

  “It’ll be tons more fun when it comes to the Italian evening if we haven’t seen each other’s masks before,” Emily added.

  I agreed with Emily really, and that was why we six friends had been quite secretive when we’d been making and decorating our masks so far. But I just hadn’t been able to resist showing mine off, which was stupid of me when I already know how exciting it is to see a mass of masks and have no idea whose faces are behind them. I can so clearly remember the thrill I felt when I set eyes on all the thousands of people dressed up in their masks at the Carnevale I went to with my family last February. The word “carnevale” is Italian for “carnival”. And for Italian people like me, the one that takes place in Venice is the best one, not only in Italy, but in the whole world. Mamma and Papà and my two brothers and I had what I think you would call “the time of our lives” when we were there last year.

  It feels so strange thinking about it now, here in the art room at Silver Spires Boarding School for Girls. Of course, I had absolutely no idea back then that I’d be coming to a school in England in September.

  “Why don’t we each just show our mask to our best friend so that they can check it’s all right?” suggested sensible Sasha.

  The rest of us thought that was a brilliant idea, except for Emily, who had nowhere near finished hers. But all the same, we went off in pairs with our masks into different corners of the art room.

  “Hey, that’s brilliant!” Nicole said when she saw mine properly.

  Her eyes were all shiny and I could tell she really liked it, which was a big relief, as I was the one who came up with the idea of making masks in the first place. It all started when we came back to school after the spring half-term holiday, and Mrs. Pridham, our housemistress, announced that Forest Ash boarding house (which is where we live and is definitely the best boarding house, by the way) was to have an Italian evening during this half of term. I know she chose Italy because that’s my home country, and I feel very – how do you say it? – yes, very touched.

  “I’d like you to take a leading part in helping to organize the evening, Antonia,” were Mrs. Pridham’s exact words, spoken with her usual bright smile. “I need to pick your brains for ideas.”

  Then we’d both laughed, because I’d wrinkled my nose in disgust at the thought of her picking my brains. I’d never heard that expression before. There’s still so much English for me to learn, but at least now I can understand most things and I can usually manage to say whatever I want to say.

  As it happened, I was bursting with ideas, because we love parties and festivals and carnivals in Italy, especially in my own family. Mio papà – sorry, my dad – owns a restaurant. He employs two chefs to do all the cooking there. Papà is a very well-known TV chef in Italy, so he doesn’t have much time to cook at our lovely Ristorante Alessandro himself. He only does it on special occasions – usually when we’re celebrating a birthday in our family or something like that, and then we decorate the whole restaurant and often dress up in fancy dress, and play Italian folk music, so the atmosphere is brillante – sorry, brilliant!

  When I first came here last September at the beginning of Year Seven, if ever my mind slipped off into thoughts about my family and our lovely house in Milan, I would feel so homesick it was almost unbearable. But then Nicole and I became best best friends and that changed everything for me. I didn’t feel alone any more. The other four girls in the dormitory – Izzy, Sasha, Emily and Bryony – had been very friendly and kind to me, but Nicole just hadn’t seemed to like me at first. It all turned out to be a great big misunderstanding, thank goodness, and from the moment we got it all sorted out I felt like a new person. A person who could cope with all the differences between my old life in Italy at a day school and my new life in England at a boarding school.

  When I came back after Christmas I realized I truly loved Silver Spires. Nicole taught me the expression It’s like a home from home, and that’s a good way of explaining how I feel now.

  Nicole was touching the braid that I’d stuck on my mask around the holes for the eyes. Then her fingers moved to the part on one side that I’d painted gold. The paint was all dry because I’d done that bit first. “How did you get it to look like real gold, Antonia?” she asked me, frowning.

  “By using many layers of paint,” I told her.

  “Lots of layers,” she corrected me.

  “Lots of layers,” I repeated, feeling grateful, as I always do, that I’ve got someone to help me get better and better at English. I could hardly speak it at all last September, because Mamma and my grandparents on Mamma’s side are all Italian, and Papà is half-Italian. His mum is English, so he speaks both languages, but we only ever speak Italian at home.

  “Anyway, show me your mask, Nicole,” I said, feeling excited as a sudden picture of the whole of Forest Ash wearing masks at the Italian evening flashed through my head.

  “It’s quite boring compared to yours,” she said, quietly.

  But it wasn’t. For a start, her mask covered more of her face than mine did and it was in the shape of a cat’s face, with whiskers and everything.

  “It’s totally fab!” I said. Then we both burst out laughing, because I’d only just learned that word and I was so proud of it I couldn’t stop using it. “Fab, fab, fab!”

  “That’s the tenth time today!” Nicole said, giving me one of her teacher looks. “Sei pazza!” she added.

  That means “You’re crazy!” in Italian. Nicole wants me to teach her as many words as possible in Italian, and she’s a very fast learner because she’s so clever – definitely the cleverest in our group of friends.

  “Right, everybody!” said Mr. Cary. “Looks like you’ve had a good lunchtime session. But let’s have a bit of a clear-up, yes? The bell for afternoon school will be going in a minute.”

  He was ri
ght. And we all had to rush around tidying everything away, because the first lesson of the afternoon was PE and it’s quite a way from the art room to the netball courts, and we all needed to get changed.

  As we hurried off, with our school bags hanging from our shoulders and bashing against our hips, we changed the subject from the Italian evening to the bike ride that was coming up. It was Izzy who started it off.

  “I can’t wait till Sunday,” she said. “It’s going to be so cool going on an outing all together.”

  “Aren’t we lucky that we’ve got two things to look forward to in this half of term!” said Sasha, who’s Izzy’s best friend. Then she pulled a face. “Well actually I’m not totally over the moon about the bike ride, to be honest. I mean, I used to go out on my bike quite a lot when I was younger, but I haven’t done it for ages, and I can’t imagine I’ll be fit enough.”

  “You’ll be fine,” said Izzy. “Mrs. Mellor said we’d be stopping roughly every half hour for a break, remember.”

  “Yes, they’re called ‘pit stops’, those breaks,” said Bryony, who is definitely the fittest and the most adventurous of us all. She and Emily are best friends because they both love to live outside. Oh, that’s not very good English. Let me think… Yes, they both love the outdoor life – that’s better. In fact, Emily’s family have got a farm in Ireland, so she’s used to being outside most of the time. She told us we were very honoured to have her with us in the art room at lunchtime, when she really wished she was gardening in her special patch of land behind the school kitchens where she’s starting to grow vegetables. We all knew that was true but not one of us took offence, because Emily didn’t mean it horribly. She just speaks her mind and we’re used to it.

  “I’m looking forward to the lunch on Sunday,” I told the others. “I’ve never had a picnic indoors before!”

  “I know!” squeaked Emily. “It’s in a barn, isn’t it? With hay bales to sit on!”

  “I think it’s the parents of a Year Nine girl from Beech House who own the barn,” said Bryony. “Mrs. Truman said it’s huge, which is lucky ’cos she also said there are about thirty of us who’ve signed up for the bike ride!”

  “What’s that?” came Mrs. Truman’s voice as we went into the changing room to get ready for netball. “What did Mrs. Truman say?” she added in a pretending-to-be-strict voice.

  “We were just talking about the bike ride,” Sasha explained. “Are there about thirty of us going on it?”

  “That’s right! And mainly Year Sevens like you lot, so you’ll need to be fit!” Mrs. Truman was hurrying us all up. “Get a move on now, girls!”

  Get a move on. That sounds really funny to me. Like I said, I’ve still got a lot of English to learn!

  After lessons finished for the afternoon, Nicole and I went back to Forest Ash to get our bikes from the outhouse behind it. Sasha and Izzy decided to come with us, but Bryony went off with Emily to work in her garden.

  “I wish we could go off the premises,” said Izzy. “I really want a proper practice, not just a ride around the Silver Spires grounds.”

  “It’s quite a long distance if we go up the main lane and down all the side paths, though,” Nicole pointed out. “And round the tennis courts and everywhere.”

  I knew I’d be perfectly happy to ride around the grounds here – I love every centimetre of it. “And the grounds are so beautiful,” I added.

  “I know. It’s just that I really wanted to have a chance to get used to riding with traffic – and obviously there’s none of that here,” said Izzy.

  “Mrs. Truman said she’d organized a route that hardly touches main roads for Sunday,” said Sasha.

  But I agreed with Izzy about the traffic. I’m used to riding a bike because I’ve done it on holiday at our little house in the mountains ever since I was about four, but that’s a really quiet place with hardly any traffic. Also, I have to remember to ride on the left-hand side of the road when I am in England.

  “It must have seemed a bit weird putting your bike on the plane!” Nicole said to me, as we got our helmets on.

  I nodded as I remembered how I felt when we picked it up from the special collection point in the airport. A part of me was really excited of course, but there was still a little part of me feeling sad, because this would be the first time I would be on a bike ride without my family.

  In the end, the four of us rode round the Silver Spires grounds about three times and it was great fun. We didn’t want to run anyone down so we couldn’t go fast, because after school there are always loads of people milling about, either on their way to clubs or just…what’s the phrase? Oh yes, just hanging out. I like saying that!

  “What else is happening on the Italian evening, Antonia?” said Sasha, as we put our bikes away and went over to Emily’s garden so the six of us could all go to supper together.

  “Well, Nicole, Matron and I are going to perform a little play in Italian,” I said. “We’re going to mime a lot, and at the end we’ll see if anyone could understand what it was about!”

  Nicole’s eyes widened with worry. “Only don’t tell anyone about it yet, because I might be rubbish and then we’ll have to abandon it.”

  “You won’t be rubbish!” I promised her.

  “No, of course you won’t,” said Izzy. “You’re the only one from our dorm who’d ever actually be capable of doing a play in a foreign language, you know – apart from Antonia, obviously!” Then she laughed. “I can’t wait to hear Matron speaking Italian. I mean, I’ve only ever heard her say things like hello and bye-bye, but she makes every word sound so dramatic, doesn’t she?”

  I couldn’t help giggling, and Nicole laughed too, because Izzy was right. Matron loves learning Italian from me. In fact, she and Nicole have a kind of competition between themselves to see who can learn the most, and Matron’s actually quite far behind Nicole, but her accent makes up for it. She puts her heart into every word. So at least everyone will be looking at Matron and not me when we come to do the play on the actual evening.

  “What’s so funny?” came Emily’s voice from the other side of the tall hedge.

  But by the time we’d all gone through the gate into the garden, she’d forgotten about her question. “Look! The first row of potatoes is now in!” she announced proudly.

  “And I’ve got it on record!” said Bryony, tapping her camera.

  “What, you’ve taken a picture of the bare soil?” asked Sasha, looking puzzled.

  “It’s not bare soil!” said Emily. “It’s soil with potatoes in it!”

  She was staring at the ground with eager eyes as though she was waiting for the potato shoots to come pushing through at that very moment, and Bryony quickly took a picture of her just like that. Then when the rest of us started laughing, we found ourselves being photographed too.

  Emily rolled her eyes. “Please excuse my friend, you lot. She’s gone a bit camera mad!”

  We helped Emily put her tools away in the outhouse, because it was time to set off for the dining hall, and on the way we had bets on what might be for supper. This is our latest craze. We only ever bet with sweets but it’s still great if you happen to guess right and you can keep the whole handful.

  “Pizza!” said Nicole. “That’s my guess!”

  “Yuk, hope not,” said Emily.

  That gave me a bit of a jolt because Mrs. Pridham had asked me to plan the food for the Italian evening and I’d already suggested pizza as the main dish. I’ve got some ideas for toppings from my dad and Mrs. Pridham is really happy because lots of Forest Ash girls are helping, and as we’re following Papà’s recipes the food will be genuinely Italian.

  “I thought you liked pizza, Em?” I said.

  Immediately she broke into a smile. “Oh, I do, and I know I’ll love your pizza, Toni, because it’ll have all sorts of exciting ingredients. But the ones here are always plain boring cheese and tomato.”

  I was relieved that I didn’t have to worry about my pizza toppi
ngs, but there was something that she’d just said that had given me a bit of a surprise, and it seemed I wasn’t the only one.

  “What did you just call Antonia, Ems?” asked Nicole.

  “Toni! Nice name, eh?” grinned Emily. “Don’t know why no one’s thought of it before.”

  “It’s only nice if Antonia thinks so,” said Nicole, who’s always so thoughtful.

  “It’s what my dad calls me, actually,” I said. I didn’t add that I’d felt a moment of homesickness at the sound of it. I nodded slowly. “Yes…I like it.”

  “Hey, cool!” said Emily, rushing off ahead of us all and leaping into the air. “I thought of it. Good old me!” But then she came racing back a moment later. “Okay, lay your bets everyone. Nicole reckons it’s pizza. I say spag bol.”

  “I think chicken Kiev,” I quickly added. And while the others made their guesses and kept changing their minds, a picture grew in my mind of Papà in his restaurant with his tall chef’s hat and his crisp white apron that somehow manages to stay nearly clean even after three hours in a hot steamy kitchen. I could just see him moving smoothly but very quickly from the cooker to the serving hatch and from the chopping board to the sink, working away without ever stopping for a second, his deep strong voice calling out urgent instructions to the other two chefs. Everyone is a little bit afraid of Papà. And that includes me. Well, I’m not exactly afraid, it’s just that he seems to make all the decisions in our house. For example, it was his idea that I should come here to Silver Spires.

  When he and Mamma said they had something to discuss with me after lunch one Sunday last spring, I remember how my stomach went into – what do you call it? – yes, knots. Paolo and Ricardo had gone down the road to my grandparents’ house and I was planning on joining them, but Papà was looking at me with such a serious expression that I knew this was going to be something very important, and I felt scared.

  “Toni,” he began, tipping his head to one side. “Mamma and I have made a decision about your education. These days it is important to be able to speak English. It is the most widely spoken language in the world and opens many doors in another important world – the world of business.”