Zosia March was 13 years old when her father enrolled her at the prestigious Holby College, a selective independent girl's boarding school with fees that would make the average wage earner's eyes water. Situated in the vast Berkshire countryside, Holby College produced delightful, principled, courteous and able girls who go on to make a significant contribution to society – or so the prospectus claimed. Guy Self was sold. With no consideration of the disruption to his daughters curriculum and driven only by a selfish desire to relinquish himself of difficult parental responsibility, he managed to smooth talk the admissions officer into giving Zosia a place midway through term.
Her mother had been dead less than a month. Her parents had chosen not to tell their daughter that Anya was even ill rendering the shock of her apparently unexpected death, even greater.
Zosia had been forced to quickly mature over that short time. She'd always been strong willed and intelligent – bilingual before she could properly walk, but she'd taken for granted how Anya had nurtured and sheltered her from the realities of her father's selfish lifestyle. At the time in her life when she needed her father most of all, he chose to remove her from the comfortable stable life she knew and isolate her from literally everything.
Sitting in the back seat of Guy's Jag, the leather sticky against the underside of her knees she fixed an unwavering glare at the back of her father's head as he pulled the car into the long driveway up to the grand 19th century building in which the school was housed. The too-tight black patent leather buckle shoes she'd worn to the funeral service pinched her toes again as they had that day, reminding her all too painfully of the memory no child of her age should have.
The crunch of the gravel under the car tyres as the car crawled towards the building was unbearably loud. She clenched her fists and channelled her anger into the intense frown. She hated her father for this, hated him.
"Almost there Zoshie!" Guy glanced at his daughter's reflection in the rear view mirror and her stony gaze stared back.
Once father and daughter had been welcomed into the dark oak panelled office, the stern headmistress offered tea in fragile bone china teacups. Zosia frowned and shook her head at the proffered saucer, she wanted to make it very clear that it was not her decision to be here and the most natural way for a thirteen year old girl to demonstrate this was passive noncompliance.
Her father and the headmistress shared a knowing glance that suggested Guy had exaggerated her behavioural issues with this woman prior to this informal interview and this further fuelled Zosia's annoyance.
"I'm terribly sorry for your loss Zosia, but here at Holby College we are a matriarchal institution. You will be surrounded by strong female peers and staff and you yourself will come to fit that mould. In the sorry absence of your mother, your life will still have the stamp of feminine influence." The woman spoke with an obvious lack of sincerity, Zosia detected instantly that her falsity meant she could not be trusted.
Guy nodded approvingly, leaning back in the dark oak chair and sipping from the teacup. Zosia was torn between bursting into tears or upturning the tea tray in a fit of rage. This was an insult to her mother's memory. She'd been raised almost single handedly by Anya for twelve years, to suggest she hadn't been successful in already producing a 'strong' female child was one Zosia took great offence to. She didn't need a new female influence, she needed time to properly grieve.
"Now I'm sure you're aware term has already begun here but we've found you a bed in a room with three lovely girls." There she went again, reinforcing her father's line that Zosia was 'lucky', to have this opportunity and should be falling at their feet as a sign of her gratitude.
Zosia's stomach churned at the mention of roommates. The transition from only child with free run of the spacious suburban townhouse to dormitories in a boarding house with three other girls was not one she wished to undertake. At her previous school, she hadn't been popular as such, especially not with the girls. Instead she fell naturally along with the boys in her class, preferring to climb trees than spend her lunch breaks trading catty insults with the other girls. Holby College girls were notoriously shallow and self-important, Zosia doubted she'd make a single friend here.
"I think it's time to say goodbye to your father now Zosia. He's made an excellent choice for you, I can sense you will be very happy here!" Guy extended his arms towards his daughter, turning his cheek so she may kiss it.
Instead Zosia rose slowly to her feet and made towards the door without a word. Turning her back on her selfish father and the hateful woman intent on scrubbing all memory of her mother. She would not become a Holby College girl. She would not be grateful for an opportunity she hadn't gained by her own merit. She would make her father regret leaving her here.
The house system at Holby was typical of English public schools. The houses took their names from influential female heroines; Nightingale, Pankhurst, Curie and Wollstonecraft. The houses competed throughout the year in sports, music and arts. Girls wore a strip of ribbon in their house colour sewn above the Holby crest on the breast pocket of their blazers. Zosia found herself in Pankhurst, the sunny yellow ribbon of the house could not be less suited to her own disposition, and it was offensively bright next to her pasty youthful complexion. The house boasted a long legacy of sporting and musical victories, alumni included Olympic athletes and classically trained musicians. Rather than inspire Zosia, this fact further fuelled her own low sense of self-worth.
The dormitory was atypical. Pokey and dimly lit with a set of bunk beds lining one wall and two single beds in adjacent corners with desks and storage chests in between. It was on the ground floor of a larger red brick boarding house, home to all the lower school girls in Zosia's assigned house. The housemistress carried her luggage and explained meal times and evening curfews in a monotone voice. Not exactly the strong matriarchal character the frightful headmistress had painted a picture of.
Her roommates could not have been less impressed by Zosia's late arrival. They thought they'd lucked out by getting the room with the spare bed and storage space but now their fortunes had changed and they suddenly found themselves lumbered with the unwanted new girl. It was already the talk of the corridor, and far from giving the new girl a warm welcome, they propped the door open so their friends could pass by and surreptitiously catch a look at her.
The bunk beds were already inhabited by Seraphina and Cordelia, the latter of whom had festooned the wall alongside her bunk with an inconceivable number of show jumping and dressage ribbons. The single bed closest to her own belonged to a girl called Flossie who reluctantly cleared all of her belongings from Zosia's bedside cabinet to allow her space to set down her alarm clock. All three hung from the bunk bed posts, sniggering at every item Zosia removed from her case.
Quickly tiring from unpacking, and mostly from her every move being carefully scrutinised, Zosia gave up and curled into a ball on her bed. She reached for the crocheted comforter her Polish grandmother had sent over when she was a baby and tucked the soft corner against her face.
"Oh my god is she crying?" One of the trio burst, prompting giggles from the others.
"What a baby! Why have we been stuck with her?"
Zosia ignored the taunting and slowly blinked back her tears. She hadn't cried much since the death, her father hated her crying and would at most offer her his freshly pressed handkerchief. She was mostly upset because here in this godforsaken place she had no comforting arms to hold her, no quiet sanctity to read or daydream, no garden to roam or even privacy to cry without attracting a crowd.
"Oi you three! Leave her alone."
An unknown voice caused Zosia to roll over and investigate the source. A tall thin girl with long fiery red hair stood in the doorway, she fixed them with an icy glare before kicking away the door stop. She cast her brilliant green eyes at Zosia and with the briefest nod of her head, let the door swing shut.
The trio paled in horror and clambered down from the bunk bed muttering about unfinished prep work, suddenly no longer interested in their cruel game.
Zosia lay back in surprise and pulled the blanket fully over her head to absorb what had just happened. She had expected the taunting to last until well after curfew, now the room was silent but for the scratching of pens and gentle rustle of paper. Silent but heavy, the atmosphere laced with an uneasy apprehension. Who was this mystery girl with the gravitas to shut down bullies with her presence alone? Even with her eyes tightly closed, she could clearly visualise the sharp emerald shade of her eyes.
Life at Holby was something she would have to conquer however the task didn't seem quite so daunting after that fiery red headed beacon of hope.