“Taylor! No bouncing! How many times do I have to tell you?” shouts Miss Carter. The last bit is clearly not a question, as she doesn’t wait for a response, but continues: “This is netball. We do not bounce in netball!”

“Sorry, Miss Carter!” Taylor yells, shoving her hair back. Her face is corrugated into one enormous frown, her dark brows pulled down so far that I can barely see her eyes.

“You’re in England now,” Miss Carter says, rather unnecessarily, as I feel Taylor is all too aware of which country she’s in.

“Sharon Persaud bounces in netball,” I mutter to Taylor in an attempt to cheer her up. Like me, Sharon Persaud has a well-developed chestal area, but unlike me, Sharon has clearly not bothered to work out that she needs to wear a minimizer and a sports bra to stop her boobs swinging around like a pair of oranges being juggled by a blind person. The effect actually adds to Sharon’s general scariness on the sports pitch—not only has she apparently taken out at least one girl’s front teeth with her terrifying lavender hockey stick, but as she plows toward you, her boobs look like extra weapons, bouncing violently in all directions.

Taylor doesn’t even snigger at my joke. She takes team sports incredibly seriously. Which I don’t, not in the same way. I spent years and years doing gymnastics, which is really competitive, of course, but although technically you’re on a team, when it counts it’s just you and you alone out there on the bars or on the mat. I preferred it like that: being dependent on no one but myself, and trying to better my own best performance. It’s funny, because Taylor is actually more of a loner than I am. But she loves team sports, which is why she’s trying so hard to excel at netball. Even though, because she’s used to basketball, she keeps trying to bounce the ball.  .  .  .

“Right, net practice!” Miss Carter blows her whistle. “Blue team, stretches; red team, practice shots! Five minutes each team and then change over. Off you go, girls!”

Taylor and I, wearing blue tabards over our T-shirts and gym skirts, run over to the side of the netball court where the rest of the blue team is heading for stretches.

“Front splits?” Taylor suggests. We sit down facing each other on the cold tarmac, our legs wide. I put my feet against the inside of her thighs and we clasp each other’s forearms. I lean back, pulling her toward me.

“Nose to the ground,” I chant, “nose to the ground  .  .  .”

“Ow!” Taylor says as I pull her forward, straighter and straighter.

“You’re lucky I’m not sitting on your back,” I say. “Ricky, my gym coach, used to come around and do that. Honestly, sometimes I thought something was going to split, he weighed so much.”

“Scarlett! Taylor!” a familiar voice cries faintly.

Taylor pulls on my arms so I’m sitting upright again.

“Guess who?” she whispers. “It’s the neediest girl in the world!”

“Be nice, okay?” I turn my head to watch through the net surrounding the court as Lizzie runs toward us across the grass of the hockey pitches. “All we do is bully her and make her do things she doesn’t want to do.”

“Yeah, well, she’s like a Lab my aunt used to have. My cousins were really mean to that dog, they’d kick it and tease it and pull its ears, and it still ran after them, wagging its tail. ’Cause it would rather have negative attention than none at all,” Taylor says cynically.

“Could you be any more depressing?”

“Plumgotexpelled!” Lizzie cries. “Plumgotexpelled!”

She crashes into the netting and hangs there, holding on to it with both hands, panting like—well, the Labrador Taylor was just talking about. To be honest, it’d be a fair comparison.

“Ijustheard! Venetiatextedme! Plumgotexpelled!” she gasps.

“Because of the YouTube clip?” Taylor asks.

Lizzie nods, winded. People in the smart set are finally letting her in enough and giving her real gossip, which she is obviously salivating over. This is not good. Still, I have to pretend I’m not bothered by this.

“Well, even St. Tabby’s wouldn’t exactly be keen on one of its pupils being filmed doing drugs,” I say.

“That’s not all!” Lizzie’s recovered some breath, enough to allow her to space her words out a bit more. “It was Nadia! Nadia put that clip on YouTube!”

Taylor and I look at each other. I can see that she’s processing this information as fast as I am, and coming to the same conclusion.

“It can’t be a coincidence,” Taylor says.

I shake my head.

“What can’t?” Lizzie asks eagerly. But when we don’t answer, she rushes on: “I can’t believe Nadia did that to Plum! It’s like they’re at war now! I mean, they were best friends! But Nadia told Venetia it was her who did it! Isn’t it unbelievable ?”

A whistle blows practically in my ear.

“What’s going on over here?” Miss Carter bellows—again, not really a question. “I said stretch, not gossip! Lizzie Livermore, stop distracting Taylor and Scarlett right now or I’ll make you jog round the hockey pitches!”

Lizzie falls away from the netting immediately, eyes and mouth so wide with horror at the thought of jogging that everyone bursts out laughing. Miss Carter blows her whistle again.

“Switch over, girls! Blues shoot, reds stretch! And Taylor—”

“No bouncing!” the entire courtful of girls shouts back.

“You know what this means,” Taylor says as we walk back to school after netball practice.

“Nadia used us,” I say. “She got us to wipe that video from Plum’s phone and then she put up the video she had of Plum.”

“No question,” Taylor says. “They must have been in this Mexican standoff.”

“Mexican standoff?”

“It’s like you’re each holding a gun on each other, so neither of you wants to shoot ’cause then the other one would too.”

“Why is that Mexican?” I’m as bemused by Taylor’s American expressions as she is by our English ones.

“No idea. But anyway, that’s probably what happened.”

I nod. “That explains why Plum didn’t show that video to anyone. I never quite believed that she wouldn’t have sent it to a few people. So I guess Nadia couldn’t show anyone the clip of Plum doing drugs—not until you deleted Plum’s clip.”

Taylor looks at me. “You pissed at Nadia?”

I think it over.

“Well, yeah, because it feels shitty to be used,” I say. “And besides, if you’d been caught going through Plum’s bag, you’d have been in real trouble.”

“Ha! As if I would have gotten caught!” Taylor says cockily.

“But honestly,” I admit, “Plum has always been an absolute cow to me. I can’t be too upset that she’s got her comeuppance.”

Plum is an awful person. And she’s only got what she deserved. I mean, there’s no one in that clip making her do drugs, or say that diets are for poor people.  .  .  .

“So, what? It’s rough justice?” Taylor asks.

“I suppose so,” I say doubtfully. “But it’s still not right. No wonder Nadia laughed like a drain when she’d answered all my questions. She got what she wanted, and she didn’t have anything that useful to tell us in return. And she sort of lied to us when she didn’t tell us why she really wanted us to delete that clip of her throwing up.”

Taylor cracks a grin.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “I wiped it off Plum’s phone. But I sent it to mine. We’ve got the dirt on Nadia anytime we want.”

I gawp at her.

“That’s awful!” I say.

“But brilliant,” Taylor says complacently. “I am an evil genius.”

In her triumph, she automatically bounces the netball she’s carrying, and immediately looks appalled.

“Some evil genius,” I tease, “you can’t even play netball properly!”

Then I duck as Taylor makes a grab for me, uttering dire threats about bouncing my head off the nearest wall. Out of the corner of my eye, I spot someone, and as Taylor makes another grab at me, I throw myself into a showy and completely unnecessary dive roll, lunging far enough away that I don’t kick Taylor in the face as I fly into it. I land on the grassy verge and roll easily. I’m on my feet again in a couple of seconds, and as I come up Taylor’s saying, sounding very indignant:

“Jeez, Scarlett! I was just messing. I wasn’t going to hurt you or anything.”

Then she sees Jase, and realizes why I was showing off. He’s standing underneath a group of elm trees, a wheel barrow and a broom propped a little way away, enough to suggest that he saw us approaching and walked out to meet us.

“Nice escape,” he says to me, his eyes glimmering. “I was wondering if you needed any help.”

I giggle. Ugh, it’s the kind of giggle I only do with boys, and I hate it. I never sound this coy or pathetic with girls.

“No, she’s not as scary as she looks,” I reply.

“Yes, I am,” Taylor says indignantly.

Jase laughs.

“I wouldn’t like to get in a fight with you,” he says to Taylor, which completely wins her over.

“Jase, this is Taylor,” I say, and then wonder if I shouldn’t have done that the other way around. Does it sound like Jase is more important to me than Taylor?

“Hey,” she says, blushing only very slightly. “Um, we met before, in the maze.”

I wish Taylor hadn’t mentioned that, because when Jase found us in the maze, Lizzie was sobbing and we were standing over her, harshly interrogating her about the anonymous “It wasn’t your fault” note, which turned out to be from conniving Nadia.

I try to nudge Taylor to get her to shut up about it, but the tips of her ears have gone pink, so it looks like she’s realized it for herself.

“That was ages ago,” I say brightly, trying to gloss over it.

Ugh. I start to fiddle with my hair, out of nerves, and realize to my horror that I put it in bunches today, which, as always, have gone curly from the damp weather. It’s an old habit from gymnastics, because if you’re doing forward or backward rolls, a ponytail on the middle of your head will bump on the ground and dig into you, whereas bunches never get in the way of anything. But bunches—particularly curly ones—make me look thirteen years old. Plus, I’m not wearing any makeup and I’m in a white T-shirt, brown gym skirt, and pale blue tabard over the top. It’s the ugliest outfit you ever saw.

I hope Jase remembers how I looked on our date.

Behind us, I can hear the stream of netball players giggling and whispering as they trail past down the path that leads back to the changing rooms. I don’t really blame them—I’d be doing the same thing. We barely see any men around here at all, apart from poor Mr. Theobald, the maths teacher, who for many and various reasons doesn’t count as a man in any meaningful way. Jase Barnes is like catnip to a lot of very bored and frustrated cats.

And I’m the girl he stops when she’s coming back from netball practice. I wish I felt more deserving, and less guilty. There’s so much about me he doesn’t know. If he found out everything, would he still look at me like he’s about to push Taylor aside and kiss me?

“Your dad’s the gardener here, right?” Taylor asks politely.

Jase grins, his white teeth flashing.

“Yeah—my dad and his dad before him. I’m following in their footsteps, you might say. Got my gap year now, so I’m sweeping leaves and saving up to travel. Then I start at agricultural college next year.”

“Oh, cool,” Taylor says enthusiastically.

While I really like it that Taylor seems to approve of Jase, I’m all too aware that Miss Carter won’t—no way I’d be allowed to talk to a boy during school hours, even if he is working here. And Miss Carter can’t be far behind us on the path.  .  .  .

“We should get going,” I say, pulling a face. “Our PE teacher’s really strict.”

Although this is nothing but the truth, saying that I have to go seems to prompt Jase into more than just making conversation.

“So, I was wondering  .  .  . what are you doing later?” he asks, looking straight through me.

I’ve been doing so well being cool, and now I dig my nails into my palms to remind me not to gush with excitement. I didn’t think I’d see Jase till Friday, half-term—we’ve texted a couple of times and sort of agreed to meet up then—and here he is asking to get together with me today. He must be really keen to see me. My whole body floods with warmth at the thought, even though it probably shouldn’t.

“After school?”

“Yeah,” Jase says, shifting on his feet and lowering his gaze, as if he doesn’t care one way or the other what I say. But I know he does. “You free?”

I actually manage to be cool enough to turn to Taylor and look at her inquiringly, like I’m asking her if I’m free or not. She quickly grasps what I’m doing and says, “We haven’t got anything planned.”

I look back at Jase.

“Okay then, I’m free,” I say casually, though my palms are slick with sweat.

“Great.” His face lights up. “Want to go for a walk around the lake?”

“It’s out of bounds,” I say warily. “There’s a gate, it’s always kept locked—”

Jase grins and pats his pocket. “I’ve got the key,” he says. “I thought we could have a bit of, you know, time on our own.  .  .  .”

Oh my God, I can’t believe he said that at all, let alone in front of Taylor. I guess it’s clear that he and I aren’t just going to have a talk about the weather. I must be blushing madly by now.

And I don’t want to say no.

“I would like to see the lake,” I manage, as if that’s the only reason I’m accepting his invitation. “I haven’t been there since I was little.”

God, this is so embarrassing. It’s like I’m admitting that I want to be alone with him so we can kiss again. Forget looking him in the eye—my head’s ducked so far down now that I can barely see him at all. I know I said that I didn’t think I should hang out with him too much until Dan’s death is resolved, and I mean that one hundred percent. But the trouble is—that’s when I’m not with him. When he’s standing in front of me, asking me out, all my good resolutions melt like I did in his arms the other night.

“Meet me at four by the gate?” he suggests.

“Um, yeah.” I’m torn between giving him a huge smile and dissolving into the ground with utter embarrassment.

I’m more than relieved when I feel Taylor grabbing the back of my tabard and pulling me away—just in time, as Miss Carter’s voice can be heard on the path behind us, telling the girls carrying the net of balls to hurry up and look lively.

“Ohmigod, you have a secret date with a superhot boy!” Taylor mutters.

“I know,” I mutter back. I’m determined not to look over my shoulder to get a last glimpse of him, much as I’m dying to. “I can’t believe he saw me in this stupid tabard.”

Taylor grimaces.

“I know, gross.  .  .  . But hey, he was probably looking at your legs anyway.” She nudges me. “That forward roll you did, he probably saw your panties as well.”

“Don’t say panties! It’s weird and creepy. Say knickers.” I’m blushing all over. I hadn’t thought of Jase seeing my big brown gym knickers (part of the very old-fashioned PE uniform) when I did the forward roll. I was just overcome with a mad desire to show off.

“Jase saw your knickers! Jase saw your knickers!” Taylor chants, till I can’t bear it anymore and scream terrible curses at her, chasing her all the way back to the changing rooms, which at least lets off some of the head of steam that’s building up inside me at the thought of seeing Jase this afternoon by the lake.

That’s not the only head of steam that’s been building up, though. Because I haven’t told Taylor about the letter I sent to Mrs. McAndrew yesterday. I didn’t know if she would think it was a good idea, but that’s not why I didn’t tell her.

It’s more clear now than ever that I’m leaning on Taylor way too much. She did all the hard work of getting Plum’s phone and sorting out that video clip. She even thought of sending the incriminating evidence back to herself, which is probably why she makes a good partner. Taylor’s always right there, more than eager to help, and maybe, lucky as I am to have a friend like her, I’m coming to rely on her so much that I can’t do anything on my own.

I know Taylor’s motives are only the best: she wants to be a PI, so this is great practice. She’s bored to death here at Wakefield Hall, and helping me is a great adventure. And, now that we’ve become close, she wants me to solve the mystery of Dan’s death for my own sake.

But I never asked Taylor to help me. She saw there was some secret I was trying to unravel, barged right in, and, I must admit, saved me from a fate worse than death—being busted by my terrifying form teacher when I was totally out of bounds. Still, I never chose to have her as a partner: she just started acting like one. And more and more, I’m worried that because she’s so good at it, because she may well be better than me, I’m not proving to myself that, if Taylor wasn’t around, I could handle this on my own.

Could I even have got this far without her? I don’t know. And that’s a very scary thought, because if I don’t know, what does that say about me? Doesn’t it mean that I’m not as clever and strong and brave as I think I am, or want to be? If we really are all on our own in the end, then I have to fight my own battles, don’t I? The really important ones, at least.

Right now, I think that the more I, and only I, am responsible for finding out who killed Dan and why, the more I’ll feel that I’ve earned the right to move on and put it all behind me. And moving on from Dan’s death is the single most important thing in my life.

I can’t consult with Taylor on every single thing. She’s so strong and confident, she could take everything over without even meaning to. This is my investigation, my fight, and I need to take control.

But I know she won’t see it that way.