September 2006
I glance in the mirror at my white blouse, my blue and red school tie, my grey skirt. I like it. At least I can do what I want with my hair. I don't want to put it up, but I want something in it, so I look different. I find a blue hairband with a bow and place it on my head. Now I look unique, a little younger than my twelve years. I smile in the mirror before going down to breakfast. 'Morning,' I call to my parents as I enter the room. The sunlight streams into the light, airy kitchen and everything is peaceful. I stand beside the wooden table where Mummy is sitting.
'Someone's cheerful this morning,' Mummy smiles as she looks up from her newspaper. 'You ready to start your first day at Park Vale?'
'More than ready!' I grab a piece of toast.
'You'll want more than that before your first day at school,' Mum says. 'Come on, Emma. You had your first kill last week.'
'I know, Mum, but what has that got to do with anything?'
'People will notice if you start acting strangely. We can't afford to lose you, Emma,' Mum sits down at the table with us. 'At least have some cereal, yeah?' I nod and go to get a bowl. Mummy starts preparing my lunch for me. I am a little picky about what I eat, but I'll try the school dinners at some point.
'Thanks, Mummy,' I say.
'That's all right, Emma.' She joins us again, and I finish my breakfast. I grab my lunchbox and place it in my rucksack.
Mum walks to me to school that day. Mummy walked me to school last time, and it was so embarrassing- she wanted to kiss me goodbye at the school gates. While I love Mummy, I don't want to display it in front of fellow students on my first day at school. People expect me to be cool and not rely on my parents.
Well, I'm not cool, but I do want to make friends. It will be difficult as I am joining in the middle of September in year eight. People formed friendship groups last year, and I doubt they will want me to be part of their group. Well, I'll at least try talking to people. When we reach the school gates, Mum hugs me goodbye, and I enter the school.
When I go to the office, I find the headmaster, Mr Blakeman, there. 'Ah, here we are. Hello, Emma.'
'Hello, Mr Blakeman. I'm here to collect my timetable.'
'Of course,' Mr Blakeman passes it to me. He also gives me a key for my locker and a map for the school. 'I hope you settle in well.'
'Thank you, sir.' Finally, I get a locker!
When the headmaster leaves me, I find that my first lesson in history. Hooray! I locate my locker and put in some of my belongings before heading off to my class. Like in Deffry Vale, we are learning about the Tudors and can do a project on what we want about them. At least I started the project I was doing at my last school, so I have a head's start. A lot of the students are moaning about it, but I don't see a problem. I already have an idea about what I want to do, and the Doctor agreed to help me a while ago. I will be performing 'Catherine Howard's Fate' by Blackmore's Night if the teacher allows me. It will also allow me to wear the Tudor dress that the Doctor gave me, so I feel more in character. I will have to ask Mr Blakeman if I can do that. I will go to see him another day about it.
At lunchtime, though, I get a huge surprise. I am sitting on my own, reading a biography on Katheryn Howard, when I find a whole chapter dedicated to her mistress. That's strange; I don't remember Katheryn Howard having a mistress. Who was she?
My name crops up again. How is Emma Smith-White the queen's mistress? I will do more research, so I think my project choice will shift. That isn't a bad idea. I'm not the best of singers, but I'm also not the worst. So, I will change my subject to Katheryn Howard and her mistress. Hopefully, I will find something on them.
I continue reading but pull a notebook out so I can take notes. Where else has my name appeared? This Emma Smith-White involved herself with Henry's first five wives before becoming queen. She appeared in 1509, but how old was she? Her childhood, her parents, hardly anyone knows anything.
As it is coming to the end of the day, I continue thinking about how I want to go home. The school was fun and all, but in history, it felt like I knew more than the teacher. I didn't even make any friends. At least Mum and Mummy are coming to pick me up.
When I walk out of school, Mum and Mummy are waiting outside of Mummy's car. I walk over to greet them when someone decides to talk to me. 'You're the new girl, Emma Smith-White, right?'
'That's right,' I turn to her. 'What's your name?' I am stunned for a moment by her brunette turning blonde hair, brown eyes and her warm smile. She is wearing the school uniform, but her tie is shorter than mine. She is also wearing grey tights. She has a yellow scrunchie in her hair.
'I'm Katherine Aragon. I'm in your history.'
'Right, that's great. What's the chance of the two of us being in the same history class?'
'I'm in all of your classes, but your language class and one of our options. You are doing French from what my girlfriend and her cousin tell me.'
'That's right.'
'And you also have sewing with Kitty and Jane?'
'I believe so, yes.'
'I also do sewing class, but at a different time. I do mine with Anne and Anna. Anyway, I'm getting off-topic. Do you want to work with us on our history project?'
'Yeah, sounds great.'
'I'll see you tomorrow, you can come round to mine, and we can sort out what colour you will wear.'
'What do you mean by colour?'
'I'll explain tomorrow. See you later!' Katherine is off, and I watch her leave the school grounds.
I go to Mum and Mummy, and they hug me. 'How was school?' Mummy asks as we climb into the car.
'It was okay. I made a new friend. Her name's Katherine, and she's in most of my classes.'
While we are in the car, I realise something. I had a friend named Catalina Aragon. Is she the same person?
When we get home, I am about to go to the attic and talk to Mr Smith, Mum and Mummy's new supercomputer, when Katherine walks onto the driveway. 'Hey, Emma,' I grin.
'Hi,' she grins back. 'I know I said you could come over to my place tomorrow, but do you fancy coming round today as well?'
'Are you sure?'
'Absolutely.' Mummy locks the car.
'Mum, Mummy, can I go, please?'
'Of course, Emma, if you're back for tea,' Mum says.
'As long as Mummy isn't cooking again.'
'Hey,' Mummy says. 'My cooking may be terrible, but that doesn't make me a bad mum, does it?'
'No, it doesn't.' Katherine takes me over to her house, and we go up to her room. It is almost all yellow, but the walls are cream instead. She has a yellow dreamcatcher hanging from her ceiling, yellow covers on her bed and a white vanity.
'This is my room,' Katherine smiles as she opens her wardrobe, revealing almost entirely yellow clothes. 'Right, as I wear yellow, we'll have to find another colour for you. What is your favourite colour?'
'I quite like blue and turquoise.'
'That's great; that will be your colour.' Right, I wasn't expecting that. 'I'll need to take your bag as red is Anna's colour, but we can go to town and buy you a blue one.'
'I don't have any money on me.'
'Consider this a friendship gift from all five of us.'
'Okay,' I nod. 'But who are the other four?'
'There is my girlfriend, Annie, Jane, Anna and Katheryn. Let's go. You need to be back for tea, so it will be better if we go now.'
When we get into town, we start looking at blue bags I can use for school. I find a rucksack I like, but Katherine says that she doesn't want me to have it. 'Rucksacks make you seem uncool, which is the opposite of what you are now. Why not go for a messenger bag instead?' She holds out a deep blue one with black straps, but I'm not so sure of it.
'Let's keep looking.' Then, I find a light blue messenger bag with a rainbow strap. This bag is more my style, but what space does it have inside? I take a quick look and find several pockets, somewhere I can put my water bottle and everything I need for school. It will even carry one or two of my biographies. I guess the time I used to take four or five biographies into school is over. I tell this to Katherine, and she laughs.
As we walk back through town, we find four other people. One of them has long brown hair tied up in space buns and sparkling brown eyes. She is wearing a green dress and a sparkly black cardigan. Her elbow is resting on another girl who has dark skin, brown hair and is wearing a black tank top and dark red shorts. She is also wearing sparkly black high heels to make herself seem taller. Walking beside the teenager dressed in red is another girl, but she has blonde hair and hazel eyes. She is wearing a knee-length white dress, black leggings and a black cardigan. It's September, so why are two of them wearing cardigans? It is the last person walking, no, dancing, by the teenager in green, that catches my attention. She is wearing a pink tank top over a black cotton jumper, a flowing pink skirt and black tights. She is wearing pink sneakers. She tied her blonde hair in a high ponytail with a light pink velvet scrunchie. 'Ah, here we are,' Katherine smiles. 'Emma, let me introduce you to Anne, my girlfriend,' Anne, the teenager wearing the green dress, shakes my hand, smiling.
'Hi, Emma, it's great to see you again!'
'Again? Have we met before?'
'No, sorry, I just like saying that,' Anne chuckles, a little nervous.
'Moving on, the one in white is Jane, the one in red is Anna, and the one in pink is Katheryn.'
'But you can call me Kitty,' Kitty says. 'I can tell we're going to be great friends.' Kitty loops her arm around mine, and the other teenagers start talking to me like we always were best friends.
'Katherine-'
'Everyone calls me Catalina. I don't know why I introduced myself as Katherine.'
'Catalina, then. I had friends that had the same names as you five. I knew them when I was in nursery and up until year 3 when I had to leave.' My new friends stop.
'Emma as in, Emma Smith-White?' Anne asks. I nod, and they squeal. 'We did meet before! We met at nursery!'
'Oh, my God!' I breathe. 'How is this happening?' We all laugh and head back home.
As we head back, I ask Catalina whether her parents will be worried about her whereabouts. 'My parents work until late now,' she says. 'While they earn a lot of money, they work long hours to give me the best life possible. I don't see them much, but it doesn't matter now I have you. We'll see you tomorrow, yeah?'
'Sounds great,' I nod before turning and walking back to the house. 'Hang on, all of my stuff is still at your place.'
'I'll return your things tomorrow, don't worry, Emma.'
When I got to school the next morning, Catalina was waiting for me at my locker. I was wearing my blue messenger bag and a blue jacket that has a rainbow print. 'Hi, Emma, that jacket is so cute! I love it!'
'Thanks, Catalina.' We go through my stuff, and I sort out what can stay in my locker and what I'll need for the day. Kitty joins us and begins talking to me about the history homework we have. I tell Kitty I already am obsessed with the six wives of Henry VIII, and the wives seem more interesting than the king himself.
'I have to agree with that,' Kitty grins. 'The women behind the throne are always interesting characters. Watch out kings; the queens are on their way!'
When we are in history, we learn we must work in groups of six for our homework project. We must split the workload equally. 'I want to work on Catalina of Aragon and Anne Boleyn,' Catalina and Anne say.
'They were in a relationship, from what I heard, and it will be awesome to have two Tudor queens to champion the LGBT cause,' Anne says.
'Try all six,' I say. 'All of the six wives either had a mistress or was in a relationship with a woman.'
'Prove it; we already said Aragon and Boleyn. Cleves.'
'She dated Margaret Douglas for a while. That was only during her time as queen. She didn't pursue the relationship afterwards. Both Anna and Margaret left the relationship on a happy note before separating.'
'Jane Seymour,' Jane says.
'She dated her stepdaughter, Mary, for a while. They both loved each other, and Mary mourned Jane for the rest of her life.'
'Poor Mary.'
'What about Katheryn Howard?' Kitty demands.
'Katheryn Howard had a relationship with Emma Smith-White, who went with her first to Syon Abbey, then the Tower of London. She must have been traumatised after watching Katheryn's execution.' Even as I say that I can imagine Emma's trauma, her turning away as the axe falls, no, I will not think about that now.
'Shall we work together on two wives?' Kitty asks.
'Sure, which ones shall we do?'
'Katheryn Howard and Emma Smith-White?'
'Let's do it!' Jane and Anna decide to do Jane Seymour and Anna of Cleves separately. Then I have an idea.
'Instead of us all working individually or in pairs on our chosen queen, why don't we do something to combine them? Something interesting that will make people want to learn more about them.'
'I agree,' Anne says. 'It's one thing learning about the wives in history books when our- their lives, are reduced to a few sentences or a page or so. It's so annoying!'
'So, what shall we do?' Jane asks. 'We would want something that reflects all of the wives. Something we can show to the class, like one of those moving portraits?' Hang on a minute... moving portraits? When Anne stumbled over her sentence? This can't be happening, surely?
'You must be talking about films, Jane,' Anna says.
'Films, yes! Sorry, I forgot the name of them.'
'Don't worry, it happens to the best of us,' I say. 'A film is one option, but we would want help from others, costumes, for example.'
'I am studying music,' Kitty says before mumbling 'at least the teacher isn't like my last music teacher'. 'I can help us with music.'
'So can I,' Catalina and Anne agree. I grin, and we start forming a plan.
'If we do a video, do we want Henry VIII in it?' I ask.
'NO!' Everyone in my group say.
'Are you crazy? You know what he did to us!' Anna says.
'I know he divorced Anne of Cleves based on- wait, you said 'us'.'
'Well done, Anna,' Anne says. 'Great way to reveal our secret.'
'I know about what Henry did to his wives because I read a lot of biographies about his wives. I do not know them personally; I wish I did.'
When school ends, we agree that for the next week, we will go to each other's houses so we can work on the project. Today, we are going to Catalina's home. I text my parents where I am going, so they don't panic about where I am, and we set off.
