The snow finally melts away and the sun returns with its familiar warmth. After breakfast we go for lessons with our new teachers, who are uniformly dour and dull which makes me wonder if maybe the last lot had to leave because Matron disapproved of their smoking and drinking and whatever else they got up to in their wing of the house, and it wasn’t really a half-term at all. I wade diligently through the comprehension books and sums but I have half an eye on the brightness outside, and despite my inability to shake Will’s ghost away, my stomach fizzes with excitement at the prospect of being far away from here. I imagine Clara running along a beach in cut-off denim shorts, laughing and pushing me into the sea. In my head she’s as wild and free as she was born to be. I think of how uncomfortable and awkward I was before. How I behaved around Julie McKendrick. Clara’s changed me. The house has changed me, too, but Clara mainly. I wouldn’t have gone over the wall without her.
