Pliable teen Marigold McAllister keeps the wrong sort of company
Nearly everyone who comes across 15-year-old Marigold McAllister agrees that she is "a very nice girl". This opinion is corroborated by both her mother and the end-of-term reports that accompany her home from the private school in Hampshire at which her parents installed her four years ago. "Once again, Marigold has excelled herself at her studies," the headmistress declared in her precis of the summer's achievements, before adding, somewhat cryptically, "but I would remind her, once again, that a girl will also be judged by the company she keeps."