A Passionate Proposition. Susan Napier

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      ‘No!’ Her guess had Jessica almost tripping over her tongue with an over-hasty denial. ‘I mean, n-no, thanks—it’s OK…really! I—I feel quite sleepy now…’ She punctuated her stammered words with an unconvincing yawn. ‘Uh—goodnight, Miss Adams…’ She turned tail and scampered up the stairs.

      Anya took up her pen again and tried to return to her research, but the memory of Jessica’s anxious expression nagged at her conscience. She regretted the initial dismissive-ness which had cost her the girl’s confidence. Anya’s ability to gain and hold the trust of her students was mentioned in her reference as one of her major strengths as a teacher. It was largely thanks to that glowing reference from Eastbrook’s headmistress that she had gained her challenging new post and, after allowing herself to be persuaded to sacrifice a few days of her precious holiday to help run this camp, the least she owed her former school was to fulfil her responsibilities with good grace.

      Anya had been a boarding pupil herself at Eastbrook, and was aware of the bitter feuds, petty cruelties and reckless dares that were carried out behind the house mistresses’ backs. Remembering some of those escapades, she felt her guilt deepen to active unease and she pushed back her chair, gathering her books and papers up into a neat pile which she stowed in her zipped backpack. It was past time she packed up anyway. Tomorrow was the final day of the camp and the schedule was crammed full of activities, right up until the time that the bus was due to ferry the girls back to school. Then Anya would be at liberty to return to the peace and quiet of her cosy cottage. After years of sharing various accommodations she was revelling in the freedom of total independence, and these past few days of communal living had reconfirmed her belief that she had done the right thing in finally striking out on her own.

      Friends and family had thought her crazy for moving to rural South Auckland and taking on a hefty mortgage at the same time as a new job, but at twenty-six Anya had felt it was time for her to take control of her life. It had been a childhood dream to live here in the countryside, and as an adult she now had the power to turn her dream into a permanent reality.

      She carried her bag up to the cramped cubicle in which she and Cathy were quartered before walking quietly down the gloomy corridor towards the twin rooms the girls were sharing. She paused outside the first door, eyeing the square of pasteboard slotted into the metal holder which announced the room assignment.

      Cheryl and Emma.

      Her intuition hummed.

      Cheryl Marko and Emma Johnson were a tiresome duo of spoiled little madams who had made it starkly plain that they were only here because the conservation camp was a compulsory part of the syllabus for boarding pupils. They had been due to go out on tonight’s bird survey with the others, but Cathy had allowed them to stay behind when, coincidentally, both had complained at the last minute of severe period cramps.

      Rather too coincidentally, Anya had thought, doling out mild analgesics to the pair as they had languished smugly in their sleeping bags while the rest of the girls clattered out on their mission.

      She eased the door ajar and ducked her head inside the darkened room. A full moon pierced the gaps in the uneven curtains, casting pale bars of light over the narrow bunk beds, striping two motionless lumps in the bunched sleeping bags.

      Reassured, Anya was about to withdraw when she hesitated, her grey eyes narrowing. For a couple of fashion-obsessed teenagers who constantly preened over their rake-thin bodies, they were displaying suspiciously voluptuous outlines!

      Darting inside, she stripped back the hood of the first sleeping bag and stared in dismay at the untidy sausage of towels and designer-label clothes which had been used to pad out the empty interior. A quick check of the second bag yielded the same result.

      Her stomach clenched in apprehension. Of course, it was quite possible that Cheryl and Emma were off on some innocent teenage escapade, but she had the sinking feeling that their sophisticated tastes wouldn’t be satisfied by a common-or-garden midnight feast or giggling dorm raid.

      A quick search of the rest of the empty rooms revealed no sign of the missing pair and, clinging to the slim hope that her instincts were wrong, Anya opened one final door and flicked on the overhead light.

      ‘Girls?’

      Jessica jerked bolt upright in her sleeping bag, her spectacles still perched on her nose, while in the next bed a chubby redhead rolled over onto her back, blinking blearily into the glare as she struggled into wakefulness.

      ‘Cheryl and Emma seem to have disappeared,’ said Anya crisply. ‘Do either of you know where they’ve gone?’

      She fixed her eyes on the redhead’s sleep-creased face.

      ‘Kristin? You’re friends with both of them—did they say anything to you about what they were planning to do?’

      ‘I was feeling so rotten earlier, Miss Adams, that I didn’t really pay attention to what anyone was saying,’ she replied plaintively.

      Anya wasn’t fooled by the self-pitying evasion, nor was she in any mood for a drawn-out question and answer session.

      ‘What a pity,’ she sighed. ‘I was hoping to handle this on my own, but I guess I don’t really have a choice. You girls should get dressed—the police will probably want a word with you—’

      ‘The police?’ Jessica gasped.

      ‘B-but—shouldn’t you wait a bit longer before you do anything?’ gulped Kristin. ‘That’s what Miss Marshall would do if she was here. I mean—they’ll probably turn up soon, anyway…’

      ‘I can’t take the risk—not with a beach and river nearby,’ Anya said firmly. ‘If I was still on staff it would be different, but I’m just an unofficial helper on this trip. I can’t simply do nothing—that decision isn’t mine to take. Fortunately we have their parents’ phone numbers—’

      It was the master stroke.

      ‘Their parents?’ Kristin’s flush of horror almost matched her vivid hair. ‘You can’t call Cheryl’s Dad—he’d go ballistic! They only went to a party!’

      ‘A party?’ Anya’s heart sank even further. ‘What party? Where?’

      The facts that reluctantly emerged were hardly reassuring. A group of local boys who had been tossing a rugby ball around on the sand that afternoon while the girls were playing a game of beach-volleyball had extended the invitation to a party at one of their homes. Cheryl and Emma, the only ones daring enough to accept, had arranged to be picked up outside the gates of the regional park at ten o’clock by one of the boys in his car. They had been promised a ride back any time they wanted to leave the party.

      Anya hid her horror. ‘You mean they agreed to go off in a car with total strangers?’ She racked her brains to remember exactly who she had seen on the beach. She had noticed several familiar faces from her new school, and had been able to reassure Cathy that the boys weren’t a roaming gang of thugs.

      ‘No, of course not!’ Even Kristin knew the difference between reckless defiance and outright stupidity. ‘It’s OK, Miss Adams—because Emma knew a couple of them from one of the bands who played at our school ball!’

      Anya rolled her eyes. Oh, great…raging hormones and delusions of rock star grandeur!

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