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A CHALET GIRL IN TROUBLE by Lisa Townsend

Chapter 13: Chinese Whispers

“I wish someone would tell me what the matter is with that O’Malley child in Upper IVa!” Thus Kathie Ferrars as she entered the Staff Room that day at break and collapsed in her own chair by her great friend, Nancy Wilmot.
Len Entwistle looked up from where she was seated next to her cousin, Maeve Bettany, and opened her mouth to say something, but she was forestalled by a voice at the door.
“Don’t worry, Len. I’ll answer that one myself,” and Miss Annersley smiled at her Staff. She was greeted with delight. The Staff of the Chalet School were mostly of long standing, and, as a body, they were very attached to their gentle Headmistress, although it is doubtful if she had altogether grasped that herself, being a modest woman.
Miss Annersley sat down laughing next to Mlle. “Such enthusiasm!” she commented as she accepted a cup of Mlle’s patent coffee, and a lemon biscuit from Adrienne Desmoines, currently ‘Staff Baby’ and therefore reduced to waiting on the others. The Staff waited for her to take her refreshments, and then the questions started.
“So there is something wrong?” Nancy demanded.
“What’s been happening?” asked Sharlie Andrews, the Junior mistress, curiously.
“Simply this- that it’s hit and miss whether you can expect to see the kid in class these days!” declared Rosalind Yolland, the Art mistress. “And even when she is, she either looks profoundly miserable or so distracted that I seriously wonder whether anything I’m saying is getting through to her!”
“And just think, Rosalind,” chimed in Kathie, “if you feel like that with a subject like Art, just imagine what it’s like in Geography!”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Rosalind demanded, glaring at the junior maths and geography mistress.
“That’s enough,” the Head interposed, with a meaning look at both, and they subsided. Miss Annersley suppressed a smile as she continued. “Nancy’s right. There is something wrong with Grainne O’Malley, and, as I said to you before, Rosalie, it’s a difficult situation.” The Head paused to take another sip of her coffee, and the Staff waited in silence. “I must ask you people not to interrupt me until I’ve finished,” Miss Annersley began, and several people who were occasionally guilty of this offence during Staff Meetings flushed uncomfortably, while the rest of the Staff grinned sympathetically at them.
“Well then, to put it in a nutshell, we are facing a problem we’ve never had to deal with before. I said, no interruptions, Nancy!” and Miss Annersley looked sternly at the Maths mistress, who grinned unrepentantly. “Matron had been concerned about Grainne for some time, and a couple of days ago, Len asked Daisy Venables to come and look at her. Daisy’s diagnosis was that, unlikely as it may seem, Grainne is expecting a child- probably in December.” Hilda Annersley paused, and the Staff Room erupted.
“But, Hilda, ma chere, she is only fourteen!” Mlle expostulated.
“I know, Jeanne. But her age has little to do with it!”
“What are you going to do?” Rosalie Dene asked curiously. She was less surprised than the others, having overheard various snippets of conversation over the past few days.
“I don’t know. I do know one thing, however,” and Miss Annersley stopped again to look around at her Staff. “I am not going to expel this child.”
“Would you mind telling us why?” Rosalie’s assistant, one Clare Kennedy and like so many of them, an Old Girl of the School, asked respectfully.
“Not at all. This has to be quick, people. The first bell will be going shortly. Basically, Grainne has been a victim of circumstances beyond her control, and is in no way responsible for what has happened. She has been deeply shocked and upset by the revelations of the past few days- including a phone call this morning- and when she does return to lessons properly again, please remember that and ride her as gently as possible. However, that cannot unfortunately be the end of the matter, given the nature of the problem. There are three issues that I still need to consider. Firstly, what to tell the rest of the School, since pregnancy can’t be hidden indefinitely. Secondly, what and whether to tell the parents what has happened; and finally, what is to happen to Grainne over the summer break and next term. And there’s the bell! Please think it over, and let me know if you have any ideas. Remember what I said!” and Miss Annersley rose from her chair, and left the room.
The sound of the door clicking shut broke the stunned silence that had descended on the Staff as they listened to the Head’s response to Clare’s query.
“Goodness!” gasped Rosalind Moore, head of Geography. “Len, did you know about this?”
Len nodded as she scrabbled her books together. “I’ve known from the start,” she confessed. “I couldn’t say anything until Auntie Hilda did, though.”
“Why can’t Grainne go home?” asked Peggy Burnett as she and Len met at the door.
Len gave vent to an indescribable snort. “Because her mother’s such a selfish old bat, if you really want to know!” and Peggy swallowed a giggle at this unparliamentary language.
“Can’t her dad help?” Rosalind Yolland threw over her shoulder, but since she had to move on almost immediately, Len did not hear the question and consequently did not answer.
Len made her way back to Upper Iva, whom she was to take for French Dictee. Mlle de Lachennais was responsible for all the Seniors, and Miss Bettany and Mlle Desmoines shared the Juniors and Junior Middles between them, so Len took all the Senior Middles, for this year at least. She had hopes of taking on more advanced work in French the following year, but at the present was perfectly content with her lot.
Upper Iva were waiting for her, looking as prim and proper as in them lay, and their form mistress repressed a grin. She did not miss the urgently questioning look flung at her by Cecil, but chose to ignore it for the meantime, much to that young lady’s annoyance. But then Cecil had no time to fret over it, for Len had chosen a particularly difficult passage this time, and she had to concentrate. Her last marks for Dictee had been shamefully bad for a girl who spoke and read French as fluently as English and Mrs Entwistle’s comments had been stinging in the extreme. Cecil had no wish to risk a recurrence of that episode, all the more so as she was hoping to extract more information about Grainne from her sister.
Unfortunately for that, Len kept them hard at it until the bell rang for the second lesson after break, and they had to go to Hall for a singing lesson. Cecil loved singing, and forgot all about Grainne, but that afternoon during their extended Science period, she remembered again. The first lesson was Biology, followed by some Chemistry with Miss Wilson, who this term had decided to do more work with the Senior Middles, seeing that Vida Armitage, the Junior Science mistress, was more of a Biology and Botany specialist.
Miss Armitage had not noticed Cecil’s abstraction, and she was left to think in peace. That was more than could be said for Miss Wilson’s lesson. That lady had planned a very full lesson involving several related experiments which she fully intended to ask them to write up for prep. Furthermore, ‘Bill’ as she was known, never stood any nonsense, and Cecil found herself being pulled up for lack of concentration more than once. Finally, when she had surpassed all her previous efforts by mixing her chemicals and producing some interesting effects in the process, ‘Bill’ flung her out of the room.
Cecil had been standing in the corridor for a short time- which she was quite happy to do, since it gave her time to think- when the irate Miss Wilson, having ensured that the others had started making the relevant notes, came out to find out what the trouble was.
“What’s your problem today, Cecil?” the Head of St.Mildred’s demanded.
“Nothing!” Cecil retorted, a little too quickly. Like Miss Annersley, Miss Wilson was known to Cecil by a brevet title out of school, and since she saw the latter more rarely than the former, Cecil found it proportionately harder to remember the appropriate behaviour.
‘Bill’ glared at her. “Don’t be impertinent, Cecilia! Your lack of concentration could have caused a serious accident in there this afternoon, had it not been for the fact that the chemicals you have been using are harmless. Furthermore, you have lost your experiment time which in turn means that you will be unable to complete your prep correctly. Go back into the lab now, and I’ll give you something to keep you occupied until the bell goes. Then I will send someone to bring your Kaffee und Kuchen here, and I’ll give you the lesson again after school.”
“But- what about the rest of my prep?” Cecil wailed.
Miss Wilson glared at her again. “You should have thought about that before! You must do the rest of it as best you can, and take the consequences tomorrow. Go back into the lab, now, please. I don’t want to have to speak to you again this afternoon.”
Cecil trailed disconsolately into the lab again, and exchanged a rueful glance with Rosita, who had guessed the cause of her distraction. ‘Bill’ provided the girl with an extremely boring passage to copy- in complete silence!- for the rest of the afternoon’s lesson, and Cecil found that unless she wished to get into even more trouble, she had to knuckle down. Then Rosita was sent with a sharp command to bring something to Cecil at once, and there followed such an unpleasant lesson that Cecil was determined never to risk a repeat of it. Suffice it to say that when she was finally released, and could return to her form room to start on the remainder of her prep, she was ready to fight with a feather.
“What happened to you this afternoon?” Marjorie asked in amazement as she put her books away when prep had finished.
“None of your business!” Cecil growled as she slammed her own desk shut.
Rosita looked knowingly at her. “I know. It’s Grainne, isn’t it?”
“They won’t let me see her!” Cecil burst out aggrievedly. “And I couldn’t get hold of Len. I’d have gone to her during Kaffee und Kuchen but then that nasty old Bill kept me back! She’ll want to talk to me!”
“How do you know that?” Celine demanded.
“Well, it was my idea, wasn’t it?” Cecil said unguardedly. “She was going to tell that horrid stick of a cousin of hers about the baby and I want to know what happened!”
There was a concerted gasp from those girls who were still in the room- most of the form, as it happened.
Rosita was quick witted, but in her astonishment did not watch her tongue. “A baby- surely you’re not saying, Cecil, that Grainne is going to have a baby?”
The look on Cecil’s face as she realised what she had said confirmed Rosita’s assumption, and before many hours were up, the news had filtered through the majority of the School with the speed peculiar to boarding school grapevines, and Grainne’s secret was out.

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