'History. I love history.'

'Why's that, do you think?'

'Well, you know those books we have, with the pictures of cavemen and women and the fires? I always want to know what's happening behind, inside the cave.'

'And how do you occupy your spare time when you're not reading?'

'Brownies,' said Sarah triumphantly. 'Though I'm getting too old and I can't say I like knots.' She remembered belatedly that her mother had warned her never to say what she didn't like doing, so she changed the subject to elocution classes.

After Sarah had read aloud an extract from Through The Looking Glass, Miss Simon indicated that the interview was over. It was actually quite easy to shake hands and Sarah walked dreamily back along the passage with the memory of the Head's dry, cool fingers pressing her own hot palm. She could hardly bear to go down the stairs in case she should never come back again. Glancing up at the stained-glass window she saw that it depicted three running, laughing girls in long frocks with white roses round their feet, holding out a scroll which read 'FI AT LUX'.

Please, please, please, she prayed, let me belong to somewhere this old.

As soon as they were out of the double doors and down the steps on to the forecourt of Priors Heath Mrs Beckett

whispered loudly: 'How did it go? What did she say?'

'She liked my reading aloud. I told her about Jane Eyre.'

Mrs Beckett looked pleased and her compressed lips relaxed. 'What did you say exactly?'

'I said I read to you while you did the ironing.'

'Sarah, you didn't. You didn't mention my ironing! Miss Simon wouldn't want to hear about my ironing.'

'Oh, never mind, it doesn't matter.' Sarah quickened her pace. They were passing the wall of a brewery which gave off a sickly aroma of malt. She knew that this interrogation would continue throughout the walk into the town centre and the bus ride back to Hillingdon. 'I said that my favourite subject was history.'

'Sarah, you hardly do any history at Becksmith. Whyever didn't you concentrate on your English?'

'History was fine.'

'I hope she didn't ask any arithmetic questions.'

'Of course not. Anyway, I must have done all right in the maths test, mustn't I, or I wouldn't have got this far?' 'Sarah, I'm sure lots of girls did very well in the test. There's no need to boast.'

'I wasn't boasting, I was just saying. . .'

'I know. Dear old Sarah, you've done so well. Come on, let's go and have tea in a shop. You deserve it after that ordeal. Daddy said we should.' The moment of tension was over. Mrs Beckett had established that her child had not been showing off, at least not deliberately. Faringford town centre was unknown to them, being some fifteen miles from home, but it had a proper high street with several tempting little cafes. Mother and daughter linked arms in joyous anticipation of the wonderful treat of tea out.

Nine months later Sarah was studying history in a classroom on the top floor of the New Building at Priors Heath School for Girls, Faringford, Hertfordshire. She had graduated from cavemen to Saxons and was grappling with a page of questions set by the formidable Miss Stone who wore a sack-shaped pinafore over a checked shirt.

During their first lesson at the beginning of September Miss Stone had terrified Sarah by her strictness. 'Girls, I don't care what anyone else in this school expects from you. I demand one hundred per cent and I cannot stand halfheartedness. will not tolerate sloppy work or lame excuses for homework not being done. You are bright girls, or so we've been told. Your brains give you privilege. Do not abuse or waste them.'

Afterwards groups of girls wearing new navy-blue tunics and knitted cardigans had stood about in the quad doubled up with hilarity at the squat fierceness of Miss Stone. But Sarah had felt as if she had just emerged from an ice-cold shower. I will please her, she thought, I will make her notice me. She matters.

8. Describe a typical Saxon dwelling. In the picture two girls with immensely long plaits did some weaving outside a neat little hut. The next drawing showed their living accommodation with skins tossed over a plank bed. It must have been dark and smoky, Sarah decided, with spiders and rats probably, unless they had cats. I wonder if cats had been tamed by then?

She had just written a neat number 8 in the margin when a scrap of minutely folded paper landed full square on the fresh ink and made a faint smudge. Sarah's head jolted up but everyone else seemed to be writing busily. She unfolded the note.

Sarah Beckett. Do you want to come to my birthday outing on Saturday? Imogen.

All speculation about Saxon domesticity went flying from Sarah's head. An invitation from Imogen Taylor? But they weren't friends. Surely Imogen was barely conscious that Sarah existed? She dared a glance at Imogen who sat three rows away with her long thin legs splayed in the aisle and her angular shoulder in its grubby white shirt turned away. Sarah's heart beat faster and her cheeks were hot.

After the lesson Imogen dived for the door and stalked off, bound no doubt for some unlawful break-time activity. Sarah scurried in her wake.

'Sarah,' called Claire Tomkins, 'aren't you coming to the dining room? It's Tuesday. Chelsea buns.' But Sarah had no time to explain where she was going.

In the short time that the girls had been at Priors Heath Imogen Taylor had established herself as a wild card. She wore her new uniform with panache, the knot of her tie almost invisible, her skirt hitched to knicker-Ievel. Witty and impudent, she kept to the line of acceptable behaviour by a whisker, accumulating a following of reprobates as surely as a magnet will attract iron filings. Sarah had watched Imogen with wistful, alarmed eyes, absorbing the quality of her fine cheek-bones, white skin and thin, unruly body. Her own friends like Claire tended to be calm and sensible, 'good workers' as the teachers said.

She caught up with Imogen on the stairs and felt dwarfish

and awkward elbowing along behind her.

'This birthday. Do you mean it?'

'Of course.'

'Will Caroline be there?'

'No.'

'Will Fiona?'

'No.'

'Will Laura?'

'No one else. Just you.'

'It's very nice of you.'

'Yep.' By now they had crossed the crowded quadrangle. Behind them was the red-brick New Building dating from the 1920Swhen Priors Heath School for Girls had undergone a major expansion. Ahead was the eighteenth-century Old House where Sarah had been interviewed and to the left was a high wall with an arched entrance to the rose garden, a haven for staff and prefects and absolutely out of bounds to anyone in the lower school. 'I'm meeting Laura in the garden,' said Imogen. 'Coming?'

'Oh no. No.' Sarah hung back, scared of such insubordination.