Nushka - Thank you! You always leave the best feedback :) And yes, it was my intention. I wanted us all to feel the fear that she was about to be discovered and that the plan would fail. Torturing the characters is no good unless it tortures the readers as well! Don't worry, there's plenty more of Nancy, and soon Chris and Ginny will be introduced. I can't wait to have some female friendship thrown into the story because believe me, Kathleen will be needing some advice from those girls in the future!

I apologise for the lateness, A-levels are insane and it can be quite difficult to write chapters like this one that lead up to other chapters which I am itching to write. My phone notes are full of snippits to use in future chapters. I literally have a 600 word excerpt from a future chapter that I haven't written yet. I think I'm getting a little bit ahead of myself...whoops. But anyway, here is the next chapter. I hope you like it!

'Let observation with extensive view,

Survey mankind, from China to Peru;

Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife,

And watch the busy scenes of crowded life;

Then say how hope and fear, desire and hate,

O'erspread with snares the clouded maze of fate,

Where wav'ring man, betray'd by vent'rous pride

To tread the dreary paths without a guide,

As treach'rous phantoms in the mist delude,

Shuns fancied ills, or chases airy good.'

~ The Vanity of Human Wishes, Samual Johnson (1749)

Chapter thirteen -Paper ammunition

"We've talked about everything from Nolan's inability to play nice with others, to the mystery of your missing sock," Nancy huffed, "so let's get to the good stuff. Tell me, which one of them is it?"

"What do you mean?" Kathleen asked, switching on her lamp to brighten the room bathed in early evening darkness. As soon as class had finished, Kat had sprinted up to her dorm with an armful of rolls which Pitts had helped to liberate from the kitchen. Three hours of undisturbed girl time spent talking, eating, and nail painting had followed. She loved the boys. Truly, she did. But she had missed this so much more than she'd realised.

Nancy rolled her eyes, "you know exactly what I mean- or should I say who? My money's on shoe boy, by the way."

"We're just friends!"

"For now."

Kat laughed and threw a pillow at the disbelieving blonde. "His name is Charlie. Anyway, it's Knox who we should be focusing on."

"Oh, yes! I do hope that my darling cousin will come to her senses," she muttered, laying down beside her best friend. "Chet was over for dinner last night and the arrogance in him is unbelievable! Half of dinner was spent listening to him boast about his athletic ability and sucking up to her parents, the other half was Chris editing everything he said to make it sound decent. Let me tell you, my aunt and uncle thoroughly enjoyed listening to his drunken escapades."

"He didn't!"

"Oh, he did. There was the time he and his gang got locked in his parent's garage during a house party, and in that thirty minutes they managed to trash the place and his father's car. Or last Halloween when he got a pumpkin stuck on his head," she listed off on her fingers, "or the Christmas where he got a concussion jumping from the rooftop into the pool. He hit his head on the pool ladder when he tried to get out-drunk, of course."

"And they're okay with him dating their daughter?" Kat stared, unable to comprehend that parent would be okay with that. Her own family would've asked her if she was taking strong medication like her Uncle Percy had when he tried to propose to a mop one Christmas, or possibly just a love-struck fool. But who was she to judge? Chris sounded like a lovely girl. Perhaps she was just too nice, or Chet was misleadingly charming.

"Apparently so. It probably helps that their parents went to school together." Nancy rolled her eyes, "blind faith ruins nice people."

"Never let me moon over someone like that." She flopped down on her bed with a dramatic sigh, "promise me."

"Promise me the same and we have a deal, Kitty-Kat," she laughed.

A knock on the door sounded, silencing their giggles.

"Who is it? " Called Kat, exchanging a worried glance with Nancy who was edging quietly towards the door to her en-suite.

"Neil and Knox," a familiar voice called back.

"It's open!" She shouted, breathing out with relief.

The door swung open, and a tall shadow appeared as Neil stepped in, followed by Knox quickly closed the door behind him. He took the chair from beneath her desk and sat on it backwards, his arms folded across its back as he studied the mess of pillows, cosmetics and sweet wrappers which littered the floor. Neil cocked an eyebrow at the sight, casting his mind back to clean and tidy space he had seen only a couple of hours earlier.

"Not to interrupt your fun, or anything," Knox said, "but it's time to take you back, Nancy."

"I suppose it is," Nancy sighed, "I'll call you tomorrow."

"Please try not to get caught on your way out." Kathleen grinned as she passed her school coat to Nancy, "I rather like seeing friends."

"I won't! Stop panicking you fuss pot, and find my other shoe."

"I've got it!" Neil called, retrieving the missing heel from under the bed. He threw it to Nancy, who caught it deftly before snapping the buckles securely around her ankles. She straightened the coat, hugged Kat, and then followed the two boys out - hood up, as promised - shamelessly leaving Kathleen to clean up the mess.

All in all, it had been a fantastic evening.

xxxx

Friday morning was rather subdued. The group were in the library, squashed onto one table for six. Neil and Meeks had put extra chairs on the two ends, and luckily, they were all working on the same chemistry essay which minimised the number of books taking up the already limited space. Cameron had long ago devised the most efficient method; two copies of each relevant textbook was needed, and one copy was shared between four. This way, everyone could see and they wouldn't be working in chaos. The dorms would have been more practical, but Hager had announced at breakfast that they would be closed all morning for room checks, meaning the common room would be a busy.

"Ugh!" Pitts groaned, massaging his temples, "please can someone explain Avogadro's law again? I don't understand a word of this gibberish." He glared at the offending textbook.

"Sure. Let me finish this sentence and I'll be done," Neil offered. He scribbled down a few more lines before throwing down his pen in triumph and turning his attention to the rather distressed Gerard Pitts. "Avogadro's law states that equal volumes of all gases have equal numbers of molecules at the same temperature and pressure," he explained, "so if you want to work out the volumes, you replace the coefficients in the equation with volumes, since volume is equal to the number of molecules. From this you get a ratio. That ratio is what you apply to the measurements. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, thanks," Pitts nodded distractedly as he focused on his next paragraph.

Kat was finishing her conclusion when she felt something hit her on the nose. She flinched, but looking down she could see nothing, so she continued to write her last sentence. A few moments later, she pushed away her completed essay and stretched out her cramping hands. Suddenly, a flash caught her peripheral vision.

Looking up, she saw Knox shaking with repressed laughter. She frowned. But before she could ask what was so funny, she was hit square on the cheek. Blinking in surprise, she turned and saw Charlie smirking at her. His head tilted in a gesture towards Neil. Still slightly confused, Kathleen glanced between Neil, who was whispering to Todd about what she assumed was the essay, and the dangerous expression on Charlie's face. Then she saw it, a small paper ball bouncing off the side of Neil's glasses.

Oh.

She looked back at Charlie, who now had a small mountain of tiny, paper balls in front of him.

"Bored," he mouthed, reading her questioning look. Kathleen rolled her eyes and picked some bits of paper out of her hair, which had obviously been thrown at her and gotten stuck. But instead of leaving them, she picked one up and chucked it at Charlie.

It hit him square in the forehead.

Spluttering sounded to left, and she turned to see Meeks staring at Charlie's agape mouth and struggling to compose himself. Taking revenge, Charlie launched a small barrage of fire in Meeks' direction, but managed to hit Todd 's gasp caught Neil's attention, who retaliated but ended up attacking Cameron. Soon, it was a full-scale war waged in near silence as they desperately choked down yells of indignation, shrieks, and laughter. Nothing was worth catching the attention of the librarian, Mr Smythe, a grumpy, old man who appreciated silence and order in the library. And also a man who appeared to hate anybody under the age of forty-five.

As predicted - and dreaded - he came barrelling down the aisle of general science books hissing for silence.

The boys sprang into action, Meeks and Pitts began to shove books back onto the shelves, Neil pocketed the pens, and Cameron gathered the essays up with sour expression on his face. Kathleen and Todd were pulled up by Charlie while Knox counted down from seven.

"Six seconds," Knox muttered, his eyes trained on the incoming storm of Mr Smythe's infamous wrath.

"Go!" Neil whispered and suddenly Kathleen and Todd were led around the corner into the biology section, and then through the back of the economics aisle. The group were moving through the maze of shelves with speed. Their footsteps were quick and light as they moved through the well-practiced route; except for the two newbies who bumbled along behind with the guidance of the others.

All of a sudden, they came to a stop. Todd fell into Neil who smirked at the blush staining his cheeks. Gently, Neil silenced his garbled apologies with a hand over laid over Todd's mouth. "Wait," he mouthed, pointing to the gap in the shelves which the group had stopped behind.

Curious, Kat rolled onto her tip toes and peered through. On the other side, she spotted Mr Smythe stomping back to his desk, muttering curses directed at 'those vexatious miscreants'.

Once he collapsed back into the desk chair with a flask of tea, the teens moved quietly out of the library. Their feet left the worn red carpet and hit the flagstone corridor floor. The ancient door slammed shut with such a sense of finality that it set them off on another round of laughter. Cameron was stood to one side complaining about lost merits and possible losses of library privileges again, but Kat could've sworn that she saw his mouth twitch.

Pulling themselves together, the group began turning out their pockets and clearing out any paper ammunition that were still nestled in hair, ties, and even down shirts. Soon the floor was littered with the unlikely catalyst of the whole escapade. Decorum was emerging as Neil handed pens and essays back to the rightful owners, but this delicate sense of normality was soon disrupted by a small boy.

He ran up to them with flushed cheeks and folded note in his right hand.

"Miss Murray!" He squeaked, handing her the note, "Mr Nolan asked me to find you and hand deliver this."

"Oh, thank you..."

"Lawrence. Timothy Lawrence," he informed her with pride, his cheeks stretched into one of the brightest smiles that she had ever seen.

"Thank you, Timothy," she amended, opening the note.

"What does it say?" Asked Todd as he moved to peer over her shoulder.

"Nolan wants to see me immediately, and I'm expected to attend dinner at the Noel's on Sunday," she replied, her eyes never leaving the curt and curling script which filled the short note.

"And he needed an eleven-year-old slave to let you know," scoffed Charlie.

"I'm twelve!" Timothy piped up indignantly.

"Shouldn't you be in class? Lower school students don't have free periods," Cameron intervened.

Timothy nodded, "I have mathematics, but I was taking the register to the office when Mr Nolan requested an errand."

"Well, you found her, "Cameron said, "get back to class."

"It's fine, Cameron," Kat turned so that only Timothy could see her and rolled her eyes with exaggeration. The act made the smaller boy laugh. "I'm sure he was just about to leave before you said that."

"I was," Timothy agreed with a smug look as Cameron glared at him. The tension between the uptight red-head and the smug young boy elicited amused chuckles from the others. Timothy broke the eye contact and looked back at Kathleen. "Goodbye, Miss Murray," he waved at her before heading back, presumably to his mathematics lesson.

"Did you just fight with a kid five years younger than you?" Asked Pitts in disbelief.

"Did Nolan really send a twelve-year-old all over the school like a damn messenger pigeon?" Muttered Charlie.

"I think so," Kathleen said slowly, "in answer to both."

"The Noels?" Knox leaned back against the wall with an air of feigned nonchalance.

"I assume it's at Nancy's request. I'll ask for a plus one invitation when I call her tonight," she smiled, " but I'd better get to his office. The note said immediately."

"We'll probably be in the common room until room checks are over," Neil said, "see you later."

She waved goodbye as she darted off to her grandfather's office, wondering what on earth needed her immediate attention at ten o'clock on a Friday morning.