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by Michelle Magorian

  At recess, she stood shivering at the back of the school grounds and watched the other girls running around or strolling together talking. Some of them weren’t even wearing cardigans, yet she had put on her Beanie over her blazer and still found the cold unbearable. Occasionally a girl would run up to her and ask her a question, just to hear the way she spoke, and would instantly scuttle away with ‘What a scream!’ or ‘How frightfully funny!’

  By the end of that first break, Rusty had begun to detest the ways of the English. As far as she was concerned, they were a bunch of limey pantywaists.

  After break came English. Here, at least, thought Rusty, was a subject she would be able to cope with. But she was wrong.

  Upright and smartly dressed, with her hair twisted into a French roll, Miss Webster looked at the girls with an air of disdain, and in Rusty her sarcasm found a ripe target.

  ‘This term we shall be reading A Tale of Two Cities. By Charles Dickens,’ she added, looking pointedly at Rusty.

  ‘I don’t suppose they’ve ever heard of him from where you’ve just come.’

  Rusty flushed.

  In turn, each girl began to read from the first chapters. Never once raising their head from the page, they mumbled monotonously into the textbook, and sometimes so quietly that Rusty had to strain her ears to hear. At last she had found something she could do better. Eventually her name was called. It was a neat dialogue section, too.

  ‘ “Wo-ho!” said the coachman. “So, then! One more pull and you’re at the top and be damned to you, for I have had trouble enough to get you to it! -Joe!”

  ‘ “Halloa!” the guard replied.

  ‘ “What o’clock do you make it, Joe?”

  ‘ “Ten minutes, good, past eleven.”

  ‘ “My blood!” ejaculated the vexed coachman, “and not atop Shooter’s yet! Tst! Yah!’ ” Rusty yelled. ‘ “Get on with you!”

  ‘The emphatic horse, cut short by the whip in a most decided negative, made a decided scramble for it, and the three other horses followed suit.’

  Rusty continued to read with gusto, not noticing that Miss Webster and the girls were exchanging wry looks.

  ‘That will be enough,’ the teacher said, but Rusty did not hear. ‘That will be enough,’ she repeated.

  Rusty looked up. ‘But I just started.’

  ‘It’s a pity you did,’ the teacher said.

  A round of giggles.

  ‘And I think until you stop talking in that affected manner, you’d best not read again.’ She turned to the girl next to her. ‘Gladys Crawley, continue.’

  Gladys Crawley continued in the monotonous tone of the other girls.

  Rusty clenched both her hands into fists and stared at the blurred pages of her book, swallowing down tears of rage.

  When enough of A Tale of Two Cities had been read, Miss Webster rose and began writing on the blackboard from a book. ‘This is your homework,’ she said. ‘Copy it into your jotters.’

  At the top of the board she wrote, ‘ “To a Skylark” by Percy Bysshe Shelley.’

  As Rusty stared up at the words, she remembered that ‘Skylark’ was one of Skeet’s favourite records. Dinah Shore sang the song. They used to go down to the romper room and he’d play it over and over. The others were busy scribbling down the first verse.

  Hail to thee, blithe Spirit!

  Bird thou never wert,

  That from Heaven, or near it,

  Pourest thy full heart

  In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

  What did that mean? thought Rusty. But the next verse she liked.

  Higher still and higher

  From the earth thou springest

  Like a cloud of fire;

  The blue deep thou wingest,

  And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest.

  When the mistress had finished writing out six verses, she began walking around the desks, looking over the girls’ shoulders as they hurriedly went on writing. When she reached Rusty’s desk, Rusty looked up at her.

  ‘Those are pretty lines, aren’t they?’ she said.

  ‘From one lonely cloud

  The moon rains out her beams, and heaven

  is over-flowed.’

  ‘Did I ask you to speak?’ Miss Webster snapped.

  ‘No, ma’am,’ said Rusty, startled.

  ‘No, Miss Webster,’ the teacher corrected. She picked up Rusty’s jotter, took one look at it and flung it down on the desk. ‘And this writing will not do. Didn’t you learn anything at your American school?’

  ‘Not if her maths and French are anything to go by,’ muttered one of the girls.

  More smothered giggles.

  ‘What’s wrong with my writing?’ said Rusty.

  ‘Have I asked you to speak?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ said Rusty firmly. ‘You just asked me a question, which some smart-aleck over there,’ she added, glaring at the girl, ‘gave a dumb answer to.’

  ‘Virginia Dickinson, when you have completed one hundred lines of “I will not be insolent”, you will begin some simple writing exercises.’ She stalked up to her desk. ‘Come up here,’ she said.

  Rusty left her desk, seething.

  ‘This,’ Miss Webster said, indicating an exercise book, ‘is for improving your writing. You will write within these red lines. And this book here,’ she said, throwing a slim textbook on top, ‘is the style of writing we require. Now please take it with you.’

  As Rusty walked back to her desk, the class rose to their feet.

  ‘You have a week to learn those six verses. Ample time. I expect you to be word-perfect. You will receive your essay on Wednesday.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Webster,’ they all chorused. ‘Thank you, Miss Webster. Good-morning, Miss Webster.’

  As she left, everyone began talking until Miss Paxton, Rusty’s House Mistress, entered the classroom. She had come to teach Latin.

  After the humiliation of the English lesson, Rusty kept silent for the duration of the class, as Miss Paxton went through a new declension on the blackboard. The homework she gave was a revision exercise and a small piece of translation from Latin into English.

  After a dismal lunch of a rubbery kind of fish that sounded like snook, together with overcooked vegetables and prunes, Rusty attempted to cope with the longer, half-hour lunch-break that followed. Her hands became so cold that after the bell had rung for them to go indoors, it took her longer than usual to untie her shoelaces. When she had finished buckling up her sandals, the others had already left the cloakroom.

  By the time she reached her form room, one order mark in tow for being seen running in the corridor, she was late for class. She flung open the door and was greeted by a loud bellowing from a large, stout woman in her sixties whom she had heard referred to as ‘the Bull’.

  ‘What time do you call this?’ she roared.

  ‘I’m sorry, Miss Bullivant,’ Rusty said. ‘I got lost. I’m new.’

  ‘Newness is not an excuse for unpunctuality. Take a punctuality mark. Now go and sit down.’

  Rusty moved swiftly to her desk.

  ‘Now we will commence the lesson proper.’ Miss Bullivant peered at Rusty over the half-moon spectacles that were balanced precariously on the ridge of her broad nose. ‘I was just informing the rest of the class that we shall be following the events of the Civil War. I know little of your previous schooling. Have you covered this period at all?’

  Rusty beamed. ‘Uh-huh. We covered it last year.’

  Miss Bullivant smiled. ‘Is history a subject that interests you?’

  ‘Oh yes, I love it. I just love finding out how people lived. I guess if I didn’t want to go to some kind of art school, I’d like to be an archaeologist. You know, find out how people lived from the stuff they left behind. But the Civil War is real interesting because –’

  ‘Well,’ Miss Bullivant interrupted, ‘perhaps you could tell the class a little of what you know. Stand up.’

  Oh boy, th
ought Rusty, I’m saved!

  She cleared her throat and took in the rest of the class boldly.

  ‘It all started,’ she began, ‘when the slavery of the Negroes had spread so much that it had gotten as far as Kansas, and the Northerners, they didn’t agree with it, so they tried to stop it. That’s when the Republican party started. They were all people in the Northern states then. So anyway, they started putting taxes on all the stuff that was coming out of the Southern states. The Southerners came to be called the Confederates, and the Northerners the Union Army.’

  Miss Bullivant slapped her hand hard on the desk. Rusty jumped.

  ‘What are you talking about, my girl?’

  ‘The Civil War,’ said Rusty, astonished. ‘You asked me ifl–’

  ‘I’m talking about the English Civil War,’ the woman spluttered.

  ‘The English Civil War?’

  ‘Sit down!’

  Miss Bullivant was about to speak to one of the other girls when her face suddenly froze. ‘Virginia Dickinson,’ she said, her voice trembling, ‘I take it you have covered some aspects of English history?’

  Rusty stood up. ‘Uh, a little.’

  ‘Indeed. What would that be?’

  ‘The War of Independence. When we stopped the king living off the Americans’ hard work.’

  ‘You consider yourself an American, do you?’

  ‘No, I meant –’

  ‘And is that all the English history you’ve covered?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Bullivant.’

  At this the entire class broke into gasps.

  ‘What did you learn in your school, then?’

  ‘Why, American history.’

  ‘American history would hardly cover a term, my girl.’

  She gave a sigh. ‘Oh, sit down. Cecilia Rogers, hand her a history textbook.’

  The lesson continued in lecture form. There were no discussions, no projects given, just a list of dates and events to be memorized.

  Rusty was still determined not to be beaten. She’d had a lot of no’s that day – she had to be close to a yes.

  The following lesson was art. It was taught by Miss Collins, the gym mistress, a pleasant middle-aged woman who knew nothing about art. Art to the other girls was what they called ‘a bit of larking around’. When Miss Collins asked if anyone had been to an exhibition during the holidays, Rusty was the only one who had raised her arm. Miss Collins seemed delighted by her response.

  ‘Tell us about it,’ she said.

  ‘My American father took me to an exhibition of Winslow Homer,’ she said.

  ‘Winslow Homer,’ repeated Miss Collins slowly.

  ‘Uh-huh, and it was just beautiful.’

  She could hear someone giggling. Miss Collins frowned at the girl and returned to Rusty. ‘I’d be interested to hear why you thought it so beautiful.’

  ‘Well, I guess I like paintings that make you feel something, and it’s his sea and river and outdoor pictures I like. Sometimes the sea is so wild, and sometimes when he paints someone on a lake, it’s so calm and peaceful… makes me break out in goose bumps.’

  ‘Goose bumps?’ repeated Miss Collins. ‘We call those goose-pimples. That’s interesting.’

  Rusty was so thrilled at not being criticized that a great stream of words came tumbling out of her mouth. When she had finished, the teacher was still smiling.

  ‘And this Winslow Homer,’ she said, ‘is this someone you know? Does he live in the town where you lived?’

  ‘Oh no,’ said Rusty. ‘We had to go to New York City’ -and then it dawned on her that the teacher had never even heard of him. ‘He’s a very famous American artist,’

  she added.

  ‘I see. Well, we all have a lot to learn, haven’t we?’ ‘Especially Virginia Dickinson,’ muttered one of the

  girls.

  As the first week dragged on, Rusty not only felt more of a ‘dud’, but in many of the classes she became increasingly bored. Even in the singing lesson, the songs had none of the verve and power of the American songs. As they sang ‘Cherry Ripe’ in the shabby Music Room, Rusty longed to sing out lustily:

  ‘Oh, Shenandoah, I long to hear you,

  Away, you rollin’ river!’

  or:

  ‘Thus spoke the Lord, bold Moses said,

  Let my people go,

  If not, I’ll smite your firstborn dead,

  Let my people go.’

  or:

  ‘Oh bury me not on the lone prairie

  Where the wild ki-yotes will howl o’er me;

  Where the rattlesnakes hiss and the winds blow free,

  Oh, bury me not on the lone prairie.’

  In gymnastics the girls resented the way she grabbed a rope and hauled herself effortlessly up to the ceiling, and, though she had never leapt over a gym horse, she rapidly picked it up.

  ‘Virginia Dickinson, you have springs in your heels!’ said Miss Collins.

  Miss Collins also taught Greek dancing, and even in her first lesson Rusty did well. Her flying skips and Mercury steps were a little wayward, but she was complimented on the way she flung herself into it.

  ‘A lesson to you all,’ commented Miss Collins, and Rusty could see that the others hated her for it.

  But in subjects like geography and biology she was hopeless. Nor could she cope with lacrosse. She was used to basketball and softball. She loathed the hysterical life-and-death approach to the game, and hated standing around in a small gymslip on a cold lacrosse pitch.

  She longed to put on her roller-skates and go flying along the pavement, or hop on to a bicycle and go somewhere with the gang – maybe to the movies, or out for a soda — or even just play a game of jacks.

  The height of her misery came within twenty-four hours of Judith Poole being made Dormitory Monitor, when Rusty was summoned to report to the House Mistress. She was met in the downstairs hallway and taken to the same classroom where she and Miss Paxton had had their earlier little ‘chat’. Rusty sat in the chair, her blazer done up tightly. It wasn’t that it was cold, exactly; it was more damp, and it seemed to be soaking into her very bones.

  Miss Paxton looked serious. She sat at the teacher’s desk and clasped her hands.

  ‘This morning,’ she said, ‘one of the Sixth Form prefects told me that you were found talking to two of the workmen at the back of the school, and that when she asked you to come away, first of all you ignored her, and then were insolent.’

  ‘Oh, that,’ said Rusty, thinking that that encounter was over and done with.

  ‘If it happens again, I will have no alternative but to give you a discipline mark.’

  Rusty attempted to make light of it. ‘I have so many marks already, it won’t…’ She stopped. ‘A discipline mark is the worst kind? Right?’

  ‘That is correct. It is given publicly in assembly, and if any girl receives three, she is automatically expelled.’

  ‘Expelled! You mean I could get kicked out for talking to the workmen?’

  Miss Paxton nodded.

  ‘But why?’ she stammered. ‘I mean, I was just asking them what they were doing and they were explaining about pointing. You know, filling in the spaces between the bricks where it’s got worn away.’

  She could see that Miss Paxton was not interested.

  ‘The prefect who reported you said that you were smiling; that you were behaving in a manner not suitable for a girl from this school; and that you were extremely rude to her.’

  ‘I was rude! She was the one who was rude. She interrupted me in the middle of a conversation. I said I’d like to finish my sentence, please, but she just went on.’

  ‘Virginia Dickinson, when a prefect speaks to you, you treat her with respect, and you answer her immediately. For one thing, she’s a few years older than you.’

  ‘Well, the workmen were even older. You wouldn’t want me to be disrespectful to them, would you?’

  Miss Paxton gave the impression that she was about to explode. ‘Whil
e you are under the school’s jurisdiction, you will speak to no males, unless it be your father or brothers.’

  ‘You’re kidding,’ said Rusty.

  ‘Which brings me to my next matter.’

  She opened her bag and placed all Rusty’s photographs on the desk.

  Rusty gasped. ‘Where did you get those?’ she cried. ‘They were on my chest of drawers.’

  ‘From where I took them.’

  ‘But why? I mean, I thought we were allowed to have photographs.’

  ‘Of relatives.’

  ‘But,’ spluttered Rusty, ‘they’re as good as my relatives. I’m one of the family.’

  Miss Paxton lifted the picture of Skeet and placed it in front of the others. ‘I am informed that this happens to be…’ She stopped, barely able to form the words. ‘... Your boyfriend.’

  ‘My what!’ said Rusty. ‘Well, you’re informed wrong. That’s Skeet. He’s my American brother.’

  ‘I’m sorry, but it’s against the rules for girls to have photographs of boys.’

  Rusty stood up, furious. ‘Well, your rules are cruel. I don’t care if I do get expelled. I hate this school, and the sooner I get kicked out, the better!’

  Miss Paxton blanched. ‘Do you know what it means to be expelled, my girl? Aside from the shame it would bring to the House and the school, it will mean that no other school will ever take you on as a pupil. You and your family will be disgraced. No institution or college will even consider you.’

  Rusty sat down slowly. If only she could talk to someone. If only there was someone who would take her side.

  ‘So you see,’ said Miss Paxton quietly, ‘we’re only trying to help you.’

  Rusty stared back numbly at her.

  ‘I believe your mother is collecting you outside the gates tomorrow afternoon,’ she said. ‘I suggest you take the photographs with you then. After all,’ she added gently, ‘you will be able to see them at weekends.’

  As Rusty walked down the drab corridors, hugging the photographs, she felt as though she had stumbled into some ghastly nightmare; all the time she kept asking herself, why was she being punished like this? What had she done that was so terrible?