Olivia and the Great Escape by Lyn Gardner Page B

heel. At the door, he turned back and snarled: “You stuck-up Marvell sisters deserve everything you get!”
    Eel waited until she was certain that he was too far away to hear and then she burst into noisy sobs. She wished she could turn back the clock to before she’d even thought of applyingfor the Imperial, before she’d got involved with Alex and before she’d got herself into this terrible mess.
    Suddenly, Aeysha popped her head round the door.
    “Eel,” she said, both surprised and concerned to find her crying. Eel was normally such a cheerful little soul. She put her arms around the younger girl. “Is it anything I can help with?” she asked gently.
    Eel looked up at Aeysha, her face wet with tears. “Aeysha, have you ever done anything you really regret?”
    “Loads of times,” said Aeysha. “There was the time I told my brother that I hated him and so did all my brothers and sisters, and he went out on his bicycle and fell off and gashed his forehead, and for days after I was consumed by guilt because I was convinced that I had caused the accident, when in fact there was something wrong with the peddle on his bike and it would have happened anyway. But it didn’t make me feel any less bad. I knew that I should never have said what I did. He’s still got the scar on his forehead and I still feel a little twinge of guilt every time I see it. But my brother just laughed.He loves me, so he could forgive me.”
    “That’s quite bad,” said Eel. “But I think I’ve been badder, and it’s got really complicated.”
    “Well,” said Aeysha, “the best thing would be to come clean. Most things can be put right if you talk about them. Keeping secrets makes things fester. Do you want to tell me about it?”
    “I’ll think about it,” said Eel, wiping her tears.
    “Well, anytime,” said Aeysha.
    Eel sighed. “At least Livy told Alex Parks where to get off,” she said.
    “I guessed as much,” said Aeysha.
    Eel clapped her hand over her mouth. “Oh, didn’t she tell you?”
    Aeysha smiled. “You know Livy, she’s like an oyster.”
    “I’m pleased she did,” said Eel, as the bell rang for afternoon lessons. “I don’t think he’s a very nice person at all.”

Chapter Nineteen
    Alicia and India Taylor were in Alicia’s office, drinking tea.
    “Something’s wrong,” said Alicia. “She’s stopped taking extra classes in jazz and tap, and when she is there, Mrs Merman says that her work has tailed right off.”
    “The same in ballet,” said India. “It’s so odd, at the beginning of the term Eel was making extraordinary progress. And I do mean
extraordinary
. You could actually see improvements from lesson to lesson. It was as if she was inspired. But now she seems listless and distracted. You don’t think she’s worried about her dad, do you?”
    “Well, both of them do worry about him, of course. We all do. It can’t be easy having Jack asyour father. He’s away such a lot, what he does is dangerous and his successes and failures are so very public. This latest stunt is particularly gruelling, and it’s worse for the girls because it’s being so closely documented by the press. I know it’s stressful for him, but I’m not sure he ever considered how stressful it would be for those of us watching him. I can’t wait for it to be over.”
    India smiled to herself. Alicia’s relationship with her son-in-law was often difficult but she had clearly developed a strong affection for him in the year or so since he had turned up destitute at the Swan with Olivia and Eel in tow.
    “But I think it’s something more than Jack that is worrying her,” said Alicia.
    “I do wonder whether we should have put her forward to audition for the Imperial,” said India.
    “I’ve wondered that, too. Jack and I talked about it and we decided against, but of course he was strongly guided by me. Now I feel that perhaps it was a mistake. Maybe it would have answered some of the questions she