‘That’s why I want you to open the outer door,’ Kate said reasonably. ‘Oh, never mind, I’ll do it myself.’

But as she moved down the room the rat ran out from under the bed. It came to the middle of the floor, stopped and turned wicked eyes upon Kate. It was a huge, brown mangy-looking creature. The frightened girls were whimpering, but clapping their hands over their mouths to keep from screaming out loud. Out of the corner of her eye, Kate saw Isobel slither down the wall on to her bed. ‘Mavis – see to Cartwright. She’s about to pass out,’ Kate said in a matter-of-fact tone.

The rat was on the move again.

It ran first to the right, then to the left, and then seemed to become aware of the open door and went towards it.

‘It’s gone into your room, Corp. I thought it would.’

There was another wail from the corporal.

‘It’s all right, we’ll soon have him out now.’

And she did. Having opened the outer door, it was a comparatively simple task to shoo the offending animal out into the night.

It took some time for them all to settle back to try to sleep, for they all insisted that Kate should scour the hut with her torch light to ensure there were no more unwelcome visitors.

By morning Isobel had regained her composure and was on the defensive. ‘You enjoyed that last night, Hilton, didn’t you? You actually enjoyed seeing us all squirm.’

Slowly Kate straightened up from bending over to make her bed to meet Isobel’s resentful gaze. She was standing at the foot of the bed glaring at Kate.

Time seemed to take a tilt and, for a fleeting moment, Kate was once more the child in the cold, unfriendly dormitory facing the scathing expression of Isobel Cartwright.

Not this time, you don’t, Kate thought. ‘Yes, Cartwright,’ she said quietly. ‘There are people in this world who enjoy teasing others, seeing them squirm, as you put it.’ As she was speaking, Kate opened the top drawer of her locker at the side of the bed and reached in. Her fingers closed over the wrinkled roundness of the whelk shell. Without taking her eyes off Isobel’s face, she lifted it out and placed it in full view on top of the locker. ‘Normally,’ she went on softly, ‘I’m not one of them.’

Kate saw Isobel’s glance flicker towards the shell and become fixed upon it. She watched as a deep red flush crept up the girl’s neck and suffused her face.

Isobel’s voice was a strangled whisper. ‘It is you!’ They stared at each other, then Isobel said slowly. ‘You said you’d get your own back one day, didn’t you?’

Kate nodded, her gaze holding the other girl’s relentlessly.