Zodiac Girls: Brat Princess by Cathy Hopkins

about Tigsy and the stay I missed
at the fabocious hotel in Paris. She’d have been eating
the best of everything. Dinky dishes on divine designer
plates, not this plastic rubbish they use here. And to think of some of the meals I had sent back because they were
too cold or too hot or too slimy! I’d kill for them now.
Even an avocado would be welcome.
    7 – 10 p.m. Recreation time, meaning more
misery in the way of sports activities and workshops,
sometimes with Mr O and sometimes with Macho
Mario. No real recreation. Like shopping. Or TV. Or
eating chocolate or anything that reminded me of
home. Mr O was distinctly cooler with me after the first
day when I tried to run away, and he kept muttering
under his breath about “a waste of time,” and “never
in all his days had he met with such ingratitude.” Pfff ,
I thought. He is so used to being the centre of attention, which
is why he doesn’t like it if someone disses him .
    I went along with the routine because I had to,
although every day felt like it lasted an eternity. I even had to ask permission to go to the bathroom! But there
was no escape. I played along and they thought I’d
given in. Idiots! As if. I hadn’t. Not in my head I
hadn’t. Someone would pay. And when I got out, I’d
soon show Mum and Dad how much their little
betrayal had really cost them!
    Of course I did my best to rebel in the first couple
of days. Every trick in the book. But these guys were
good, they were very good and it was going to take me
some time to work out how to get the better of them.
I tried feigning a heart attack, a vomit attack, headache,
migraine, but they just yawned like they’d seen it all
before and – having witnessed Jake’s nut-boy antics and
Mark’s prolonged silence, I guessed that they had.
    In the first week, I went without some meals – like
when I discovered I had to actually help cook the food.
All I said when asked to chop some onions was
“Excuse me, do I look like anyone’s slave?” and I
wasn’t allowed any dinner! My clothes soon began to
feel looser through lack of food.
    I went without my pillows as a punishment for
running away on my first day and I went without hot
water for starting the porridge fight, which was so unfair because I did clean up in the end – after about
eight hours, in fact, which is something of a record for
getting me to do something.
    For the first three days, Mario insisted that I was kept
apart from the others and made me sit in a stone circle
in the main hallway. On my own. For hours on end. He
told me that he was actually being kind because some
inmates had to sit in a stone circle outside in the cold and
that’s what I’d have to do if I didn’t co-operate. And
that’s when I decided I’d play along for a while. It was
sooooooooooo boooooooooooring in that stupid circle,
but being chucked out into the freezing December
weather would have been even worse. I finally had to
give in and say, whatever. I decided that I would play
the game. Whatever it took to get out of here and back
to my normal life.
    Some evenings there were more messages from Mr
O at the end of my bed. Always about the stars, stuff
like – today Mars has been at an angle to Saturn. Or,
Pluto was square to the Sun or trident or sextile – with
bits of advice thrown in. I asked the others again about
the zodiac thing and they knew nothing about it. None
of them was a Zodiac Girl or Boy, that was for sure.
Seeing as they were my only allies in there, I didn’t
pursue it. I didn’t want to be any more of an odd girl
out than I already was. I acted like I was going along
with it to Mr O though, and smiled and thanked him
for his kind messages – then I tore them up and put
them in the bin.
    One thing I swore to myself and that was that no-one
would see me cry. I’d never let them know that they
had upset me. And one of these days, I would get my
revenge. And then they’d be