Sidone was still going on.

“Yes, Mr. Legge was so impressed, he wants us to have a ‘coming together’ in the woods that divide us.”

Everyone cheered. Jo shouted out, “Like a sort of love-in, Ms. Beaver?”

Sidone trilled, “Perhaps, perhaps, Jo, more like a Big Night Out tableau: music, dance, a winter feast. Songs, verse, performances from The Taming of the Shrew, fire, and food. The crackling of the bonfire among the dark trees; a beacon of art and joy in the bleak midwinter. A feast for the eyes and nourishment for the soul.”

Good heavens.

I said to the Tree Sisters as we left the hall, “You know what this is, don’t you? It’s a big bonfire with snacks and us prancing around like fools and Mr. Barraclough laughing at me again.”

Flossie gathered us into an enormous Tree Sister hug. “Yes, that’s true, but you’re missing the most interesting thing . . . there will be many, MANY boys there.”

Everyone at college seemed very merry about the planned Big Night Out. Ms. Fox said, “Well, sensation seekers, this may save our bacon. Few quid from Woolfe Academy and we’ll be laughing!”

Monty was skipping about when we went for our afternoon session. Clutching his heart and saying, “We must have ‘enthusiasm,’ girls. Do you know what that means?”

Jo put her hand up. “Like when someone says, ‘Would you like a Jazzle?’ And you say, ‘Not half, matey!!!’”

Flossie said, “Or someone offers to carry you around instead of having to walk everywhere and you say, ‘Yes sirree Bob!’”

Everyone started yelling out stuff and Monty had to shout over the top. “Good ideas, girls, but enthusiasm—from the Greek enthousiasmos—means literally to have the god within! To fill yourself to the brim with life. As Sprogsy shouted that night in Rome as we were running from the police, ‘Breathe, eat, drink life!!!’ Try it in your own lives. Whatever you do, do it with ENTHOUSIASMOS!!!”

Monty’s lecture on enthusiasm might be the worst thing he has ever done in his long career of doing the worst thing. Since his class we’ve been doing everything with enthusiasm. And I do mean everything. In the café, Flossie shouted at the dinner lady who asked her what kind of crisps she wanted, “I want the FINEST Corkers known to humanity!!!”

The Tree Sisters carried the “enthusiasm” theme into my nightly pep talk.

Flossie started, “Here are some major plus points of your life, Lullah. We’ve written them down and you must absorb them.”

Jo said, “When we say ‘absorb,’ we mean ‘eat.’”

I said, “Is this because Monty said we must ‘breathe, eat, and drink life’?”

Jo said, “Yes.”

I said, “He didn’t mean eat everything surely?”

Flossie said, “Shall we get on? Not seeing boys makes me a bit bad-tempered and violent.”

I read my major plus points list.

1. The Tree Sisters love you!

2. Blaise loves you!

3. Gudrun, Bob, Sidone, and Monty love you in their own way! (Which is of course not what everyone would want, but nevertheless you have got it. Big time.)