Maddox Academy: Grievous Beginnings - Wattys 2022 Shortlister

Chapter Twenty-Five - Strong, Compelling Desires

"Cleopatra was the last known ruler of the Ptolemaic Kingdom of Egypt. She had a relationship with Roman leaders Mark Anthony and Julius Caesar, and she died in 30BC at around the age of thirty-three," Miss Collins said. "Now, what was rumoured to have caused her death?"

"An Egyptian Cobra, but they didn't know how," I said.

"Excellent. Now, for your Prep this week, I want you to write a fictional story surrounding the life of Cleopatra, including her death. I expect to see an element of truth involved so no tales of dragons or evil schoolteachers." The bell rand. "You're dismissed."

I stuffed my notebook into my bag, throwing in my pen and the ink bottle before swinging my bag onto my shoulder. The other girls filed out of the room, but I stood off to the side and waited for Katie, watching her wrestle with her own notebook and struggled to get it into her bag. A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth and I raised eh eyebrow at her when she turned around. She pouted in response and put her bag over her head, letting it sit on her hip.

Together we walked from the classroom and down the hall. The halls were full of students on their way to their dormitory to drop off their school bags before supper. I kept my bag and the two of us walked down the hall to the common room to meet Jo. She had had a last-minute choir practice which had taken her out of history, they were supposed to be finished by the final bell, but she wasn't in the common room. Neither was anyone else. With the weather starting to turn, most people spent their time on the grounds outside leaving the common room free and quiet.

Katie slumped down on the sofa, swinging her legs up so she took up most of the cushions. I sat on the floor and pressed my back against the bottom of the sofa, crossing my legs and rummaging through my bag to pull out my presentation notes. My history prep would have to wait, as would everything else until I had finished my project. Regardless of whether I planned on returning for fifth year, I needed to beat Victoria to prove a point.

"I still can't believe you agreed to that competition. Though I can't believe Victoria agreed either. She won't play fair, you know that," Katie said, rolling her head to the side and dropping her arm off the side of the sofa. She wrapped her fingers up in a small strand of my hair that escaped my plait.

"She doesn't make the decisions, the teachers do. I reckon she accepted it to prove a point, much like me. This whole thing seems to be about proving a point, though I'm not sure what that point is. As for the competition, you said her dad is a fair judge, all I have to do is keep my project away from her."

"How do you plan on doing that? You share a room with her.

"Easy, I never let it out of my sight. It's always in my bag and when my bad is in my room, so am I." I shrugged.

"Right, sounds so simple."

"It will be."

I dropped my presentation notes onto my lap and started to look through them, making any immediate changes I could see. With March behind us and April in full swing, there were only two months before the presentation deadline. My competition agreement with Victoria had overtaken anything else and I knew that I had to beat her regardless of my decision to return to Maddox. She had kept her distance from me since out arrangement, but I knew it would only last so long.

The arrangement we had made came with its own risk and not just the games that Victoria was likely to play. If neither of us won the overall prize for our year group, it would come down to who had the highest mark out of a hundred and if we got the same score, we were going to be stuck. There were a lot of things that could go wrong, but none of them mattered until the day of the presentations. Until then, I was determined to put it out of mine and focus on putting all my effort into the project.