It's another day like any other at St. Trinians. The spring sun is shining down, with the hope of an early summer heat wave soon to come. The thick plume of smoke that rises above the science block suggests that there's been an 'incdent' earlier than usual this morning, and the distant chatter of machine gun fire tells the tale of the fifth form, off on a cross country run - St. Trinians style. However, the birds are singing in the trees (except for those that are cut off with a sharp 'squawk' by a First Year hunting party) and the atmosphere is of casual, relaxed anarchy. A time of promise!

Which makes the summons to visit the Headmistress all the more puzzling. Each of you, shortly after breakfast, received word that Miss Fritton needed to see you immediately in the Upper Staff Room. Now that is odd! Nobody uses that room much. It's right at the highest part of the school, and the long climb up the stairs is seldom worth the effort. Nothing of any value is kept there, and in poor weather it is draughty and damp. It has a nice view over the school grounds, but other than that, it has no redeeming features. It is only ever used for meetings where some secrecy is required. Whatever could she want that needed such discretion?

None of the girls had been told who else was attending, of course. Given who has been arriving, certain suspicions might be forming, however.

The Upper Staff Room itself is actually rather nice to be in at the moment. The two large windows, with their comfortable window seats, are facing the morning sun. Several couches, in need of some urgent repairs, are available for sprawling on, and a battered card table with mismatched chairs occupies one wall. A lopsided portrait of Millicent Fritton hangs on one wall. A sideboard sports several decanters, all of them empty. No unattended booze ever lasts long at this school.

Miss Fritton has not yet arrived, so the reason for being asked to come so urgently is still unclear. But it must be important, otherwise why be asked to attend at all? In the meantime, there is nothing to do but settle down and wait.

Up early as usual, Angharad was surprised to find Miss Fritton's note. (A note, in real handwriting on paper, how quaint. Most people communicated by e-mail or text, at least if they expected a response from her!)

Washed and dressed, Angharad checked that her laptop was fully-charged before heading off upstairs as she was bid. The room was empty. Oh well, she was a few minutes early.

She sat down on one of the couches and opened her laptop. Hmm. Where to go, what to read? Obama's e-mail? Nope, boring. NASA was recruiting astronauts again. Maybe it was time to put in... US citizens only? That wouldn't be a problem. Aha... some Russian correspondence about Ukraine. She'd thought they were the ones taking pot-shots at MH17, whatever they said, ever since they gave a high military honour to a Russian missile unit that was near the border... now, who to send that little tidbit to? WikiLeaks? The BBC?

Viridia stalks in very carefully.  All the prefects knew why this room wasn't used much any more and she still wasn't quite sure how many of the "Bloomer Buster" bombs had been installed during the '96 demonstration.  Ms Lavalle had apparently set off at least one but she only had third hand reports to say that only one had been placed and she wasn't about to trust those.

On the other hand she was aware of at least one stash of bootleg gin hidden in the false leg of one of the couches which was probably every bit as dangerous and probably ruled out an existing bomb in that specific couch.

Carefully seating herself on the relevant couch to make sure none of the others did she folds her hands demurely on her lap with her fingers brushing the hem of her skirt and adopts a casual pose of almost insipid interest in nothing in particular, something that everyone else here would recognise as a sign she's preparing to unleash something nasty.

A few moments later, Eustacia arrives. She doesn't look out of breath, but she probably ambled up the stairs to avoid just that situation. She sees those present and raises an eyebrow. She then saunters to a window seat, and sits down. Out comes a lollipop of the small round and Kojak variety.

"Well, goodness me. Fancy seeing all of you here." She then checked her watch and popped the lollipop into her mouth. She looked out of the window and toyed with one of her pigtails absently. She even started swinging her legs. The signs are there for those with the knowledge. She's bored, and probably wondering who she can throw to the wolves today. She then winces.

"Oh, I say! Jolly good shot, that! That's one third former who won't be walking straight for a while. Seriously, at her age she should know not to stray too close to the shrubbery. She'll need a new satchel, too. Looks like the first form are carrying it off as spoils of war...no, no...they're fighting over it..." She holds the lollipop like a microphone. "And Warner Junior has dealt young Peabody a mighty blow with her tennis raquet. Warner's down, but not out, she's got her teeth into Mayford Minor's ankle and is not letting go!" She then looks up and remarks "I'll have a fiver on Peabody. Any takers?"

Viridia chuckles.

"Really Eustacia, what do you think a third year was doing with a satchel out there?  Five pounds says it's a trap or extremely volatile which is basically the same thing.  Those first years aren't going to win they're going to have their hairstyles augmented with excessive heat driven motion.  Unwary lot we appear to have this year, I wouldn't have risked a fight over a third year's stachel three weeks after arriving in the school."

"You may be right, but either way, it will be an amusing diversion. Of course, there is the chance that the third form were acting as couriers, hence the satchel. In which case, there will be dire retribution after lunch from whoever they were working for. Just a normal day."

She considered the people assembled so far. "Bit of an odd bunch to ask to come here. I wonder what's up. I don't suppose the Prefect grapevine has any hints?"

Viridia sits back daintily and narrows her eyes while letting her body sink into a fair approximation of the venus reclining pose.

"Well there's Natalie Jordan's so-called plutonium mine which is nearing the dining hall and threatens to undermine the reinforcements of the reinforcements of the west wing but I didn't think that the teachers were aware of that one yet.  The may-day parade plans of course would be worrying but the teachers have a perfectly good bunker prepared for that.  Or it could be, yaknow money again.  Getting some senior girls together to deal with money problems seems to be the current idea to deal with them."

Angharad looked up.

"Oh... do I have to do some more bit coin mining? I've been looking at some algorithms to, ah, speed up the process, but they're not perfected yet. Could give them a try, though."

She pulled up a file on the laptop and started reading through it. Bit coin mining was so tedious, especially if you did it the way you were supposed to. Hence her research into short-cuts to the process.

Viridia gives Angharad an attempt at a perfect skirt-curling smile which rather falls short despite effort.  Then she taps her arm in the chair.

"Do you remember Angharad?  Particularly obviously leaching internet coins excites.  And who does it excite dear?"

Her tone has gone particularly soft.

[Private to Angharad Probert: If you can't solve it on sight

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Spoiler text: (Highlight or hover over the text to view)
Take the first letter of each word

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]

Eustacia chuckled as she looked out of the window. "I doubt it is mining of any sort. I'm not remotely involved in that sort of thing. No, something is afoot. The three of us are hardly a matched set. Ooh... that had to hurt. You know, they may still be green, but some of these firsties have a lot of enthusiasm."

Angharad giggles like the schoolgirl she so rarely resembles.

"That's only if you get, like, caught, dear Viridia. That's script-kiddie territory. You mask the routines, it just looks like chance. Bit mining is random enough a process that chance will turn up a whole run of the beggars evey so often."

[Private to Viridia Bowman: Hint appreciated but unneeded - neat way of expressing it, though!]