I'm in trouble - big trouble.
I could get deported.
Unless someone in Pennington House stand up for me.
But who? Everyone hates me, especially Sarah, my boss's daughter - who'd love to see me sent back to America . . .
How dare Elizabeth spy on me!
Sarah crept out of the house and around the side garden until she reached her father's office window. Standing on her tiptoes, she looked over the sill. Fenwick and Elizabeth stood before the earl's desk in the brightly lit office. Luckily the window was open a crack, so Sarah could hear everything.
". . . and Elizabeth," he father was saying. "I want you to step up your efforts to befriend Sarah. She's an impressionable young lady, and I want someone reasonably levelheaded to stay close to her. She needs guidence."
Wait a bloddy minute! Sarah thought, her mind reeling at what she'd just heard. "Does he really think I would ever condescend to be friends with a scullery maid? The barefaced cheek!"
Okay, she reasoned, maybe that wasn't exactly fair. If it were Vanessa who wanted to be her chum, that would be a different story. Vanessa was tres cool. But Elizabeth? Please!
"How dare he!" Sarah spat as she crept back into the house. Her blood was boiling. She knew that her father was using spies - Mary, Fenwick, the head-mistress at the Welles School, but this was beyond the pale. "How dare that lowly maid Elizabeth think she could trick me into being friends! I'll show that girl a thing or two!" she seethed. "Mark my words!"