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food, the great outdoors—one thing I hadn’t properly considered was privacy. Like try having a poo when there’s no one around. Or squeezing a pimple. Everything is way too open.
    I’m used to my whole-world double bed, spreading out and keeping my mess where I want it—laptop, books, magazines, plates, clean laundry that I really will put away one day… I
hate
this single bed. It’s like a prison bed (I imagine). I keep waking up when I turn over and hit the wall. There is one crappy little cupboard for your clothes and a big shared gear cupboard for boots and packs.
    The built-in shelves behind the bed are the only territory that’s really mine. My shelf has three pieces of beach glass. Three shells. My iPod. Books. A photo of the family. The photo of me and Mum that Beeb took. Some flowers—Mum’s idea to pack the little vase. I thought it was stupid, but it’s cool. And I brought a Taylor Kitsch poster so I can say good night to him every night.
    After everyone has freaked out about it for months, house allocation was actually okay. We are Bennett House. We got the new girl, Lou. So far she doesn’t talk, or show theslightest interest in anyone. Her facial expression ranges from generalized boredom to specific boredom. She is fiddling with her camera. She puts it down and starts rolling up balls of Blu Tack, with great concentration. Definitely antisocial. Possible fruit loop.
    Holly is doing her nails, iPod in, listening to Sia, emitting an occasional out-of-tune drone-along.
    Pippa is reading about ten pounds’ worth of French
Vogue
, and calling it homework,
bien sûr
.
    Annie, who has no concept of an “inside” voice, is in the bathroom insisting on rescuing a spider that Eliza is urging her to kill. Eliza is saying, “They’ve got friends, you fool. They’ll breed, they’ll come back, and drop on us from the ceiling. It’s okay for you, but I’ve got a top bunk.”
    Pippa moves from
Vogue
to a Sun Signs book, saying, “Omigod, it’s so true… it’s scary… you won’t believe this… it is so accurate… it’s like looking into a mirror of my soul… oops, wrong sign… here’s me… omigod, that is even more accurate!”
    Annie, who would be a large Labrador if she were a dog, comes out of the bathroom and asks Pippa to read out Sagittarius, but doesn’t stop to listen, too busy complaining about having a bottom middle bunk, warning all of us not to treat it as a communal sofa, warning Eliza (miniature whippet, star long-distance runner) not to step on it on her way up to her more fortunately positioned, prestigious, upper-level accommodation.
    *     *     *
    There’s a big emphasis on fitness and outdoor life here. I’ve got nothing against fresh air, but surely it’s overrated? Just a tiny bit? I ran the first compulsory three-mile circuit yesterday. Afterward my face was exactly the same shade as beetroot-meets-tomato, which Holly was very amused to point out to everyone. We do two of these runs, minimum, per week, for the whole term. Today every muscle tendon sinew is howling in complaint. My entire self is aching.
    Holly told me today she’s had laser hair removal in preparation for coming here. She kept that six-treatment (!) regime pretty quiet. I thought we were going to be wild women up here. Apparently that’s just me now. She could have told me earlier.
    It is freezing in the mornings. Our (terrazzo-tiled) bathroom floor feels like ice. Each house has an open fireplace. We have to cart our own wood but not chop it anymore after an accident at the end of last term—some idiot chopped his own foot.
    Bennett House is on Slushy for the first week. Then we rotate to some other foul task. The others are Grounds (weeding), Vego (kitchen-garden duty), Community (going to do community service work in Hartsfield), and Maintenance (checking firewood supplies, painting, fence mending, cleaning the chicken coop). House is ongoing—an everyday list of tasks related to