HOUSE RULES – part two

By

Claris­sa

Pen­i­tent or arro­gant won­dered Miss Sven­son as she sur­veyed the tall blonde fig­ure of Miran­da Spears stand­ing before her study desk. Well, maybe not quite the usu­al arro­gance, she not­ed; but cer­tain­ly not penitent.

‘I am going to give you one chance to answer this ques­tion, Miran­da,’ began Miss Sven­son, ‘so think about your reply carefully.’

The girl dropped her eyes to the floor.

‘Where did you go this afternoon?’

The school girl looked a lit­tle per­plexed by this ques­tion, then replied ‘I went with the hare and hounds.’

‘Yes,’ rejoined Miss Sven­son, ‘but where did you go? Did you stay on the course? LOOK AT ME IN THE EYE!’

There was a slight pause, then the girl looked up. ‘No,’ she responded.

‘No, Miss Sven­son!’ retort­ed the headmistress.

‘No, Miss Svenson.’

‘I’m still wait­ing for an answer to my ques­tion,’ con­tin­ued Miss Sven­son, ‘Where did you go this afternoon?’

The girl shuf­fled slight­ly before her, then fixed her eyes on the head.

‘I went into the vil­lage, to Cam­ston, then came back to school the long way, rejoin­ing the race just before the fin­ish line.’ She looked down abruptly.

‘I see,’ said Miss Sven­son. ‘Can you think of one good rea­son why I should not expel you on the spot?’

The girl kept her eyes on the ground, ‘No, Miss,’ then, look­ing up deter­mined­ly, ‘except if I can explain it was some kind of protest.’ She start­ed to trem­ble slight­ly. ‘Ever since you sent me to Dr Rudd for pun­ish­ment I have not felt part of the school. It wasn’t so much the actu­al strap­ping, but the fact it was giv­en by him, in his study, not yours.’

Miss Sven­son flushed slight­ly; ‘Well, I am not going to jus­ti­fy my rea­sons for that pun­ish­ment, but I can assure you that nei­ther you, nor any oth­er girl, will be pun­ished by Dr Rudd again.’

The girl looked up briefly, then returned her eyes to the floor.

‘But you still haven’t answered why I shouldn’t expel you,’ con­tin­ued Miss Svenson.

Silence from the girl.

‘It is because you haven’t lied’ assert­ed Miss Svenson.

The girl seemed to draw a sigh of relief.

‘Of course, this doesn’t exempt you from pun­ish­ment for your dis­grace­ful behav­iour on the fox and hounds. Cheat­ing in the race is, I believe, essen­tial­ly a House mat­ter, and I will leave it up to Tara Watts, head of house, to deal with you on that. How­ev­er, going out-of-bounds also requires pun­ish­ment: six strokes on the bare with the senior cane.’

No response from the girl.

‘It will be a severe pun­ish­ment, Miran­da, but I hope you agree a fair one. And, I can assure you, it will be admin­is­tered by me. Now go and fetch the cane!’

House Rules – part one

By

Claris­sa

One of the things of which Miss Sven­son, head­mistress of Cams­ford House, was most proud was not the school’s rep­u­ta­tion for aca­d­e­m­ic excel­lence or high dis­ci­pli­nary stan­dards – both cher­ished as they were – but for some­thing more intan­gi­ble; what she liked to call esprit de corps: a spir­it of team work and fair play amongst the girls, a spir­it which, for Miss Sven­son, was exem­pli­fied by the annu­al com­pe­ti­tion for the House Cup.

Held over a week­end dur­ing the Win­ter Term, the four hous­es at Cams­ford – Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh and Grenville – would chal­lenge each oth­er for the hon­our of the Cup across six events, cul­mi­nat­ing in a cross-coun­try ‘hare and hounds’, held on the Sun­day. For this, the two lead­ing heads of house (or, more fre­quent­ly, their nom­i­nees) would act as hares, set­ting off in good time ahead of their pur­suers. This year, Miss Sven­son had not been sur­prised to learn that Miran­da Spears, the long-legged fifth-for­mer, had been select­ed as the hare for Drake.

So, here she was, see­ing off the hares into the dull light of a Novem­ber after­noon. Set over the exten­sive grounds of Cams­ford, the win­ner should come home with­in an hour and a half. All should be well and tru­ly home with­in two.

As the hares ran off to the cheers of sup­port­ers, Miss Sven­son chat­ted warm­ly to staff and pre­fects, and await­ed the return of the vic­tors. At ten to three, Sara Hodge, wear­ing the dis­tinc­tive green sash of Grenville, came into view and tore back over the line, fol­lowed by the first of the red-sashed Hawkins hounds. A cou­ple more hounds fol­lowed then, at about three o’clock, Miran­da Spears, the Drake hare, came into view. Although not the win­ner, she had seem­ing­ly evad­ed the hounds, and was greet­ed by whoops of delight from the Drake con­tin­gent. By half past three, every­one had been account­ed for and every­one had retired to the din­ing hall for tea.

Miss Sven­son went round the room con­grat­u­lat­ing Greville’s head of house, and her hound, on win­ning the Cup, before seek­ing out Drake. Strange­ly, she couldn’t seem to find Miran­da Spears, but she would catch up with her lat­er no doubt.

By five o’clock, Miss Sven­son had returned to her study to pick up mes­sages. She read through the list left by her sec­re­tary, not­ing only one unex­pect­ed num­ber: that of Mrs Sweet­ing at the vil­lage shop in Cam­ston. She picked up the tele­phone and dialled.

Her call was answered immediately.

‘Is that Miss Sven­son?’ came the voice. ‘I’m so glad you’ve rung. I don’t want to be a busy-body or any­thing, or tell tales after school, but I thought I should let you know I think I saw one of your girls in the cof­fee shop here in the vil­lage; I wouldn’t have noticed her – she looked so grown up – except she was wear­ing some kind of a sash, and I know it’s the House Cup today.’

‘Could you tell me the colour of the sash?’ asked Miss Sven­son. Now, no doubt, she would hear it was the red or blue of one of the pur­su­ing hounds – gone dis­as­trous­ly off track.

‘Yes, it was orange.’

‘Are you sure,’ con­tin­ued Miss Sven­son, ‘not red?’

‘No, orange, I’m sure. Does it make a difference?’

‘Yes it does,’ con­tin­ued Miss Sven­son, ‘thank you very much for let­ting me know.’

She replaced the receiv­er and let her head rest momen­tar­i­ly in her hands: there was only one pupil enti­tled to wear orange that day, and that was the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Drake house – it’s hound, Miran­da Spears.

Regrets

By

Claris­sa

It was only a short dri­ve back from the boys’ school, Till­wood, to the main school at Cams­ford House, but for Miss Sven­son it had seemed like an eter­ni­ty; indeed, the cul­mi­na­tion of a thor­ough­ly dis­agree­able afternoon.

Not only had she had to wit­ness the pun­ish­ment of one of her pupil’s, Miran­da Spears, at the hands of anoth­er – a resound­ing six of the best with the strap from Tillwood’s head­mas­ter, Don­ald Rudd – but she had also had to endure Rudd’s excru­ci­at­ing com­bi­na­tion of  syco­phancy and self-regard. Yes, she had assured him on the phone that morn­ing, she was ful­ly aware of his prowess with the cane (enough to bring the hardi­est sixth for­mer to tears in three strokes); of his dis­dain for the strap (less painful); and of his unerr­ing trust in her abil­i­ties and judge­ment. Yes, yes, yes.

And, of course, the pun­ish­ment itself had not been pleas­ant. Miran­da Spears had not com­plained undu­ly, but it felt wrong for one of her charge to be pun­ished by anoth­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly a man, and par­tic­u­lar­ly a man such as Rudd.

Now, to cap it all, she was hav­ing to dri­ve the silent, tear-stained school girl back to school.

Miss Sven­son had thought about under­lin­ing to the girl the deserved­ness of her pun­ish­ment dur­ing the brief jour­ney back, but as the car pulled onto the grav­el dri­ve, she realised she had said noth­ing. Com­ing to a halt, the school girl’s hand poised impa­tient­ly on the inte­ri­or door han­dle, Miss Sven­son sim­ply heard her­self say­ing ‘You are of course excused prep, Miran­da. Feel free to go back to the dorm and recov­er your­self; I’ll send along matron shortly.’

As expect­ed, the girl did not reply, but mere­ly pulled back the han­dle and head­ed out of the door. Miss Sven­son watched as the tall fifth-for­mer made her way slow­ly across the grav­el, stop­ping only once to flick back her long blond hair; a ges­ture of seem­ing defi­ance for which Miss Sven­son sud­den­ly felt unac­count­ably glad.