Murder Most Unladylike: A Wells and Wong Mystery by Robin Stevens Page A

other people began to wonder at what was going on, Daisy and Alice nodded to each other and Daisy came back to sit down at the third-form table. She nudged Kitty, and whispered something, and Kitty whispered to Beanie.
    ‘Psst!’ hissed Beanie, leaning over to me. ‘Midnight feast tonight! Daisy says so.’
    I nudged Lavinia, and passed the message on, but inside I was surprised. Surely Daisy was too busy with her plan to bother about things like midnight feasts. There is an awful lot to decide on for a midnight feast – what prank to play on which other dorm, what cakes to ask everyone to bring, and when to set the alarm clock under your pillow for. Then there is the matter of secrecy. At Deepdean I have learned that it is very important, when you are having a midnight feast, not to let anything slip about it. Otherwise the other dorms know that a prank is coming and prepare themselves – or, worse, plan a counter-prank. But that afternoon Daisy fired off order after whispered order, and soon all five of us knew exactly what we had to do.
    The whole of our dorm kept exemplary silence about the upcoming feast, although at toothbrushes Beanie got quite giggly when the prefect on duty (it was King Henry that evening) told us to go to bed. Daisy had to wink sternly to quieten her down, and we were lucky that King Henry was too preoccupied to notice. Then we all lay down in our beds demurely, and King Henry clicked off the light and closed the door. The block of yellow light falling onto Lavinia’s bed vanished, and the dorm went dark.
    I must have fallen asleep at once.
    I was woken by people shuffling about. There was a thump and a giggle from Beanie, then Lavinia hissed, ‘Beans! Don’t knock into me like that, you idiot!’
    ‘Sorry, Lavinia,’ whispered Beanie, and tripped over something else.
    I sat up. Someone had pulled back the curtain at the far end of the dorm, and in the moonlight (rather dim, as the moon was mostly behind the clouds) I could see several people huddled round Daisy’s bed. Beanie must have fallen over Lavinia on the way there; they were now crouched on the floor picking up their cakes.
    I climbed out of bed, put on my slippers and pulled open my tuck box. The week before I had received two parcels. One was a green and gold Fortnum and Mason’s gift box with a note that said, From your father. Don’t tell your mother. The other was wrapped in brown paper, smothered with stamps, and had come with a note in our chauffeur’s painstaking print: Your esteemed mother sends you this gift. She wishes you to not inform your esteemed father . My mother always makes the servants write for her – I don’t know why, she can write perfectly well herself since my father taught her.
    The brown paper parcel was full of lotus-paste moon cakes from our kitchen. They are my favourite food, sweet and heavy on my tongue, like nothing here in England; but all the same I wish my mother would not send them. Lavinia saw one once, and for weeks after told everyone that I ate heathen pies. Luckily, the Fortnum’s box had proper English walnut cake in it, and not even Lavinia could sniff at that. I took it out, stuffed the moon cakes back into my tuck box, under a pile of Angela Brazil books, and went to join the feast.
    ‘Welcome,’ whispered Daisy, waving her torch in my face. ‘What have you got?’
    ‘Walnut cake,’ I whispered back.
    ‘Excellent,’ said Daisy. ‘Add it to the rest of the pile. Once Beanie and Lavinia get over here – come on , Beanie – we can begin.’
    ‘Sorry,’ whispered Beanie, hurrying over. ‘I’ve got chocolate cake and tongue, if that helps.’
    ‘It does,’ said Daisy grandly. ‘Now let’s eat – I’m starving.’
    For a while, everyone ate in silence.
    ‘Pass the tongue,’ said Daisy, with her mouth full.
    (Privately, I cannot understand the way English people eat their meat – in dull sauceless lumps which all taste exactly the same – but I have learned to