Page 4 of Save Me (Maxton Hall #1)

I wish I could tell Mum, Dad, and Ember what happened.

I know I’d feel better for it. But I can’t.

Home and Maxton Hall are two separate worlds that don’t belong together.

And I swore to myself that I’d never mix them.

So nobody at school knows anything about my family, and my family doesn’t know about anything that happens at Maxton Hall.

I set that boundary on my first day at the school, and it was the best decision I ever made.

I know that Ember often gets irritated by how secretive I am, and Mum and Dad can’t always hide their disappointment quickly enough when they ask me how my day was and I just answer “OK”—I feel so guilty when that happens.

But home is my oasis of calm. The things that count here are family, loyalty, trust, and love.

Whereas at Maxton Hall, all that matters is money.

And I’m scared that bringing that stuff back here would shatter our peace.

It’s none of my business what Mr. Sutton and Lydia Beaufort get up to together, and I’d never rat on them.

Nobody at Maxton Hall knows anything about my private life, but that only works because I stick firmly to the rule I set for myself: Just keep your head down!

I’ve spent two years making myself invisible to most of the school and flying under their radar.

But if I told anyone about the thing with Mr. Sutton, or went to Mr. Lexington, the head, it would create a scandal. I can’t risk that, not now that I’m so close to my goal.

Lydia Beaufort, her entire family, and especially her arsehole brother, are exactly the kind of people I want to keep at arm’s length.

The Beauforts run the oldest and grandest menswear company in the country.

They’ve got their fingers in all kinds of pies, especially at Maxton Hall. They even designed the uniform.

No. No way am I messing with the Beauforts.

I’ll just act like nothing ever happened.

I just smile at Mum and mumble, “Nothing much,” but I know how fake it must look. So I’m grateful that she doesn’t insist, just pours me more coffee without comment.

School’s a nightmare. I’m terrified of bumping into Mr. Sutton or Lydia in the corridors between lessons, and I practically sprint from one classroom to the next.

Lin gives me several funny looks, and I make an effort to pull myself together.

The last thing I want is for her to start asking questions I can’t answer.

Especially seeing that I don’t think she bought my story that I got the date wrong and that’s why I haven’t got my reference yet.

After our last class of the day, we go to the school office together to pick up the posters, which finally arrived in the post yesterday.

I’d prefer to go to the dining hall first—my stomach was rumbling so loudly in maths that even the teacher turned to look at me—but Lin said we should save time by sticking a few up along the way.

We start in the school hall and attach our first poster to one of the huge pillars. Once I’m sure the sticky pads will hold, I take a step or two back and cross my arms. “What do you think?” I ask Lin.

“Perfect. Everyone will see it the minute they come through the doors.” She turns to me and smiles. “They’ve turned out really smart, Ruby.”

I study the looping black script announcing the Back-to-School party a while longer. Doug’s done a great job on the graphics—the combination of the lettering, the subtle golden sparkles, and the silver background looks grand and glamorous, but modern enough for a school party.

Maxton Hall parties are legendary. At this school, we have them for everything—new academic year, end of term, foundation day, Halloween, Christmas, New Year, Mr. Lexington’s birthday…

Our budget on the events team is eye-watering.

But, as Lexie keeps reminding us, money can’t buy the image conveyed by successful events.

In theory, the parties are for us students.

But really, the main aim is to impress parents, donors, politicians, and anyone else with the money to support our school, to give their children the best start in life and a direct path to Oxbridge.

When I started here, I had to pick an extracurricular activity, and the events committee seemed the best choice.

I love planning and organizing, and I can hide in the background without my classmates taking any notice of me.

I didn’t expect it to be this much fun though.

Or that, two years later, I’d end up co-running the team with Lin.

She turns to me, a broad grin on her face. “Isn’t the way nobody gets to boss us around this year the best feeling in the world?”

“I don’t think I could have lasted another day under Elaine Ellington’s rule without punching her,” I reply, which makes Lin giggle. “Don’t laugh. I’m serious.”

“I’d have loved to have seen that.”

“And I’d have loved to have done it.”

Elaine was a terrible team leader—dictatorial, unfair, and lazy—but the truth is that I’d never have hurt her. I’m not the violent type, and besides, it would have broken my rule against attracting attention.

But it doesn’t matter anymore. Elaine’s done her A levels and left the school. And the fact that Lin and I were elected as her successors proves that the rest of the team hated her bossy style just as much as we did. It still hardly feels real though.

“Let’s get these two up and then have something to eat,” I suggest, and Lin nods.

Luckily, by the time we get to the dining hall, the queue’s gone down. Most people are heading to their afternoon lessons or soaking up the sun on the grounds. There are plenty of empty tables, so we get a good spot by the windows.

Even so, I keep my eyes fixed on my lasagna as I carry my tray through the room to our table. I only dare look around once I’ve sat down with the rest of the posters on the chair beside me and my backpack on the floor. Lydia Beaufort is nowhere in sight.

Lin opens her planner on the table opposite me and studies it while sipping her orange juice.

I can see Chinese pictograms, triangles, circles, and other symbols on the pages, and yet again I admire her system, which looks way cooler than the colors I work with.

But then I remember the one time I asked Lin to explain what they all mean and what she uses them for; half an hour later, I’d given up even trying to understand.

“We forgot to put a sample poster in Lexie’s pigeonhole,” she murmurs, stroking her black hair behind her ear. “We’ll have to do that after lunch.”

“No problem,” I say through a mouthful. I think there’s tomato sauce on my chin, but I don’t care. I’m starving, probably because all I’ve been able to eat since yesterday is a few cornflakes.

“I have to help Mum with an exhibition after school,” Lin says, pointing to one of the Chinese words. Her mother recently opened an art gallery in London. It’s going well, but Lin often has to help out, even on weekdays.

“If you need to head out early, I can put up the rest myself,” I say, but she shakes her head.

“When we took this job, we agreed to split the work fairly. We do this together or not at all.”

I smile at her. “OK.”

At the start of term, I told Lin that I don’t mind doing some of her share now and then.

I like helping other people. Especially my friends—I don’t have that many.

And I know that her home situation isn’t always easy and that she often has to take on more than she can really manage.

Especially considering how much schoolwork we have this year.

But Lin is just as ambitious, and just as stubborn, as I am—that’s probably one of the reasons we get on so well.

It’s almost a miracle that we found that out.

When I started at Maxton Hall, she moved in very different circles.

In those days, she’d spend her lunch breaks sitting with Elaine and her friends, and it would never even have occurred to me to speak to her, despite the fact that both of us being on the events team meant I’d clocked that she’s just as keen on journaling as me.

But then Lin’s father created a genuine scandal, and their family lost not only all their money but also their friends.

Suddenly, Lin was alone at break times—I’m not sure whether people didn’t want anything to do with her anymore or whether she was too ashamed to speak to them.

But I do know what it feels like to suddenly lose all your friends.

It was the same for me when I moved here from my old school in Gormsey.

I felt overwhelmed—higher academic standards, the nonschool stuff, the fact that everyone here was so different from me—and at first I couldn’t manage to keep in touch with people from home.

My friends there made it pretty clear what they thought of that.

Looking back on it now, I realize that true friends don’t just laugh at you for wanting to get involved with things at school.

I used to laugh off names like “nerd” and “smartarse,” but it wasn’t really funny.

And I know that it’s not real friendship if they don’t even try to understand what you’re going through.

They didn’t ask even once how I was, or if they could do anything to help.