How to Survive Boarding School

“You know what?”

Hannah-Kate exclaimed as she sat on her bed cross-legged in her pyjamas. A long-ish pink nightgown, with frills on all the edges, she had a face-mask on and her hair pushed back from her face.

“What?”

Emily asked from the window, she was also in her pyjamas, a pare of grey three-quarter length shorts and an oversized plain green top. She was dangling her legs out of the window letting the rivers soft current cool her feet.

“We should play truth or dare!”

She giggled madly.

“Yeah!”

Emily and Amelia yelled at the same time. Amelia having just finished getting changed and was on her way to the bathroom, she was wearing a deep green pyjama set, long trousers and a tank top.

“What do you think Stacy?”

Hannah-Kate yelled in the general direction of the bathroom.
Stacy came out of the bathroom in a white nightdress made to look like a football jersey, half of her red hair was already in a plat, she was just beginning the other side. She leaned against the doorframe, a worried look playing across her face.

“I dunno Hannah. Your ‘innocent’ games of truth or dare tend to get a little out of hand.”

Hannah-Kate held up her hands.

“I promise no alcohol.”

Stacy still looked worried.

“Okay, listen. There are new rules too. The dares can’t go outside this room and they can’t be anything that will cause us injury or get us in trouble. And the forfeits cant cause injury or trouble ether.”

Stacy relaxed slightly and looked over at Emily who nodded violently, grinning.

“Fine then.”

Stacy sighed, she went and sat on her bed finishing plating her hair, looking resigned.
Emily got up and shut the window. She walked over and sat down beside Stacy, smiling. Hannah-Kate came over to join them.

“Whenever your ready Lia!”

Hannah-Kate yelled.
A muffled yell came from the bathroom and Amelia skidded into the room, her hair in rollers. She jumped onto the bed between Emily and Hannah-Kate.

“Me first?”

Hannah-Kate asked, nobody objected, so she turned towards Emily.

“Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

Hannah-Kate thought a minute.

“Okay. Lets start easy. How many siblings have you got?”

“None.”

Replied Emily smiling, she turned towards Stacy.

“Truth or Dare?”

“Truth.”

“If you could tour with any band, past or present, who would you tour with?”

Stacy laughed.

“The Gorillaz.”

Emily grinned.
The game continued that way for a while. The four girls spilling their secrets to each other.
Emily learned that while she and Hannah-Kate were only children, Amelia had a younger sister and Stacy had four older brothers. And that Amelia had a different crush every month. And Hannah-Kate could speak five languages fluently.
The dares got more and more dangerous as the night wore on going from flushing different substances down the toilet to licking windows.
It was nearly midnight, they had drawn the curtains and turned off most of the lights by this point, curfew was hours ago.
Amelia had wandered off to bed sometime after eleven and Emily was almost asleep with her head in Stacy’s lap.

“Okay Stacy. Truth or Dare?”

Hannah-Kate yawned.

“Dare.”

“Hmm.”

Stacy stretched, her arms dropped to her sides with small thumps and she grinned, a light in her eyes.

“I dare you to kiss Emily.”

Hannah-Kate whispered menacingly.
Emily sat up, confused, she had heard her name, but she had been half-asleep.

“What’s happening?”

She asked groggily.

“I just dared Stacy to kiss you.”

Stated Hannah-Kate as though bored.

“Oh.”

Emily responded, not really bothered, she turned to Stacy expecting her to just peck her on the lips and then dare Hannah-Kate to do something worse, like flush her head down the toilet.
But Stacy just sat there. Emily yawned, she wanted to go to bed.
Emily realised Stacy wasn’t going to kiss her, she was just sitting there looking from Hannah-Kate to Emily and back again.
So Emily decided to take the reins, she wasn’t going to let Stacy forfeit and have to do something much worse. She leaned forward, cupping Stacy’s face in one hand, she leaned in slowly and kissed Stacy gently on the lips.
It was quick, the only thing Emily noticed was that Stacy didn’t pull back as soon as their lips touched.
Emily pulled back and yawned again, stretching her arms over her head and getting up off the bed.

“I’m going to sleep, you two should too, we’ve got school tomorrow.”

She wandered over to her own bed and pulled the curtains shut before crawling under the sheets gratefully.
She could hear Stacy and Hannah-Kate still talking quietly outside her beds curtains. She wondered vaguely if they were talking about her for a minute but she didn’t really care, she was too tired. She was ready and able to deal with any repercussions of her actions tomorrow.
It was only a dare, it meant nothing to her.

‘But what did it mean to Stacy?’

A small voice inside her head asked as she rolled over, pulling the blankets up to her chin and closing her eyes.
She pushed the voice away, she was sure it was just a dare to Stacy too.

’Then why did she look so worried?’

The little voice had come back, Emily frowned. She didn’t know the answer to that one, but she didn’t want to deal with it now.
Emily snuggled down a little further into the nest of blankets around her.
She was asleep in seconds.