"When is this rain ever going to stop? I thought Frangea was the land of sun and more sun, even at night," Dolly Bloomen said, wrinkling her freckled nose and staring at the droplets running down the glass of her dorm window. "I need my vitamin D dosage like, all the time." She was a big blonde girl with a healthy tan who clearly liked the outdoor life.

"Vitamins are essential to good health," Vetta Mindal said as she looked up from a puzzle game she was playing with herself. "Good health is one of the five well-springs of joy." A cushion hit her on the head and threatened to mess up her game, but she caught it before it did so and laughed. "Exercise, such as throwing weights, is also good for health."

"Don't say it!" Dolly warned, knowing the girl from Poldorama had a habit of reminding everyone of the various sources of joy.

There was a sound at the door and Pirouette Wrangly bustled in carrying shopping bags and wearing the latest designer shades.

"Cherryball Flats is so full of riffraff I had to queue at some stores," she huffed. "They really should have fast lanes for elite shoppers." She tumbled her purchases on her bed and looked at the other two occupants through her sunglasses. "Why are you lot stuck in here on such a sunny day?"

Dolly gestured at the window.

"It's been like that for ages. How didn't you get caught in it? Chauffeur guy must have been extra busy," she said tartly.

"Speak like glass," Pirouette said.

"Clearly? Well, look for yourself." With that Dolly went to the window and opened it, then she stepped out onto the balcony and saw a cloudless sky, just as the rain ceased. "Wait a minute," and she disappeared from view.

"Has she thrown herself to her death?" Vetta said, rushing forward in alarm to see, but not wanting to see. Kindness can be conflicting like that.

She had not of course thrown herself to her death, for the girl from Nordeyer had spotted something on the roof of the school and in a moment had ascended the ladder on one side of the balcony to the high-placed walkway between sloping tiles. There she found a coil of hose and beyond that the long straight hair of a familiar figure swaying in the breeze.

"Lovely view up here, isn't it?" Meresinth Woodbine said. "Especially on a sunny day like this. Look, you can even see the sea."

"You!" Dolly cried. "I've been stuck inside fuming at the weather and it was you all along. I could throw a rain cloud at you if one could make them small and heavy and covered in spikes. Ah, there's an idea," and she made a grab for the hose, pointing it at the culprit and turning the nozzle to full blast. The surge of water kicked it out of her hands so that it bounced on the parapet a moment before slithering like a frightened snake over the edge where a scream of outrage carried up from the balcony below.

"My do!" came a plaintive cry. "My highly expensive do which cost an hour of my young and beautiful life besides."

"Oops," said Meresinth. "I'm sure that wasn't meant to happen. Truce?"

"Truce," agreed Dolly, peering over the edge at the damage done to Pirouette's hairdo and trying not to laugh. "But only if you completely take the blame."

Having switched off the water and retrieved the hose, the two girls climbed down from the roof and sauntered nonchalantly into the dorm. Vetta made a silent hand gesture to suggest their unintended victim had locked herself in the adjoining bathroom to sort out the mess she had become.

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"Her hair still looked lovely, even when wet. It shone and glowed," insisted the ever-optimistic girl, and she resumed picking up the various sparkly hair-grips scattered upon the damp carpet where they had been discarded in haste.

"Let's see what her poshness has been buying," Meresinth suggested, reaching for a garishly coloured bag and pulling out some bundle tastefully wrapped in store advertising. She plucked at a ribbon and a gorgeous satin frock literally jumped out from its micro-packaging, unwrinkled and shimmering with newness.

"Oh, that's lovely," Vetta said from the floor.

"Gaudy. Tacky. Needs some adjustments," and to the astonishment of the two girls watching she took up some scissors and clipped out a patch from the lower part of the dress, at the back so that anyone wearing it would not see the damage. The generous pleating of the skirt would make it difficult to spot. "She's probably paraded herself up and down the walks in store when trying it on so won't think to check herself too closely when she first wears it," Meresinth said. "Now, you two promise you won't say anything about this. I'll take the blame when she finds out, mark my words, but not before. After all, it's my fault and no one else's."

"You can say that again," Dolly laughed. "I'm no sympathiser with the imperious one, so let's see what happens."

Vetta Mindal blushed and trembled so that Meresinth fixed her with a meaning stare.

"Promise!" she insisted. "On our friendship. You know that's one of the five, and I want joy out of this matter."

Hesitantly the nervous girl nodded and mouthed agreement without really saying anything. The Arbornica girl took that as an affirmation and placed the dress back in its wrapping, not without difficulty of course for she was not a trained fabric purveyor, but it looked good enough perhaps to a dazzled purchaser. Just in time for that same purchaser leapt out of the bathroom like a suspicious thing.

"What are you doing?" she said quickly, glancing at everyone. Vetta came up to her and offered a handful of glittery plastic.

"I think it's stopped raining," she said with a stutter.

"Thank you Vetta. I believe you." She glanced sourly at the other two who had sidled away from the girl's bed and tried to look appallingly innocent. "I think I'll have a word with the groundsman about what happened. Some gutter up on the roof must have been blocked, started leaking and then broke."

"If that had been standing water that's been there some time it was probably full of bugs," Meresinth said. "I'd have a level three deep blast shower if I were you, to be on the safe side."

The look on the girl's face told a story and she disappeared instantly into the bathroom, scattering the hair-grips Vetta had given her all over the carpet again. The latter looked at the mess and sighed.

"Leave them," Dolly said. "She dropped them. She should pick them up."

"She is troubled right now," Vetta explained, kneeling once more on the soft carpet and beginning her self-imposed task anew as the sound of the plumbing shuddered through the room due to the sheer volume of water being blasted out in the shower cubicle. "To help," the girl said, "is an act of generosity, which is one of the five well-springs of joy."

"Well, the sun is actually shining," Dolly said, stepping carefully over the prone girl, "and I intend to indulge in the healthy joy of playing ball. Coming Merry?"

"Right with you," the other girl said, flicking her braid across one shoulder and positively leaping over the cowering Vetta as she did so.

No one was meant to see the soft tears that fell from the girl's eyes as she completed gathering the pretty grips and placed them upon a table while their owner still showered but Sentimentalia entered just then, full of her own thoughts on matters.

"What's this?" she said. "The place is a bit of a mess and there you are with tears still wet upon your cheeks. You look pale Vetta. What's happened?"

"Nothing," came a barely audible answer, followed by a trembling lower lip.

"Have you been a victim of one of Meresinth's increasingly heartless jokes?" Esper asked seriously. "She's been really getting out of hand in the past few days and I think this needs to stop or someone is going to suffer."

"She hasn't played a joke on me," Vetta said tearfully and truthfully, her words coming thick and slow as she controlled her emotions. There was a scream in the room just then.

In the emotion of the moment neither girl had noticed a towel-wrapped Pirouette re-enter the room and make directly for her shopping bags. Feeling stressed she did the only thing someone in her situation could do to cheer herself: admire her latest purchases. Pirouette had a connoisseur's eye, so that when she lifted up the crimson satin dress she had so much delight in purchasing not a half hour ago she noticed the hole in its skirt immediately. She stood there, her mouth gaping as much as the ragged dress.

"No. I can see you were not the victim this time," Esper said angrily.