One Hundred Lines and a Rock Bun

Beryl Goes to School: Chapter Five
One Hundred Lines and a Rock Bun

Chapter One  :  Chapter Two   :   Chapter Three   :   Chapter Four

After tea, Beryl sat down in the common room to write out her lines.  I must not be mean to girls on the nature walk. First she wrote “I” all the way down the pages. Then she wrote “must”next to it. And by the time she got to the bottom of the page with “mean” her hand ached and her pencil needed sharpening. She would much rather have been playing Ludo with Marigold.

When she reached the last “walk” on the last line it was nearly supper. She gathered the pages and set off to find Gwendolen, who was a prefect and games captain and shared a study with two other prefects — past the lower school form rooms, up one staircase, down a long corridor, and down another staircase on the far side of the school. Beryl did not know the way, so she asked Milly and Molly, who pointed her in the right direction although she was afraid she might get lost. She found the door at last, three names typed on a card: Gwendolen, Thelma, Phyllis. She knocked.

Gwendolen was bent over a list of names and did not look up at once. When she saw the pages in Beryl’s hand she said, without much interest, “Oh, good — you can use those to lay the fire,” and went back to her list.

Beryl had heard that prefects sometimes put lower school girls to work like this, so she was not surprised. Luckily Uncle Robert had taught her to lay a fire properly, and the grate was already swept, so she crumpled the pages and set the kindling crosswise over them without much trouble.

“That’s neatly done,” said Gwendolen, glancing over at last, and something in her voice warmed. She set down her pen. “Now. Tell me why you were being so beastly on the nature walk.”

Beryl’s stomach dropped. She did not want to tell — that was what sneaks like Claudine did — but Gwendolen said, “It isn’t sneaking to tell the truth when you’re asked. It’s only sneaking to go running to tell tales nobody asked for, when you are being mean, dishonest or disloyal ” So Beryl told her, haltingly, just about the sheep and the mint sauce.

Gwendolen listened without interrupting. “Well,” she said when Beryl had finished, “you’ll have to learn to manage your tongue. At St. Nicola’s we don’t say things like that to each other. It doesn’t do credit to the house.” She said it plainly, not like a lecture, and somehow that made Beryl feel worse than if she’d shouted. “Do you play hockey?”

Beryl was too startled by the change of subject to answer for a moment. “No — we haven’t started yet. Miss Oak said next week.”

“Good old Oaky. She’s all right once you know her, but she can’t abide slackers, so keep your socks up, buck up, and do your best and you’ll get on fine. Her bark’s worse than her bite.” 

“Look,” said Gwendolen, “you’d better join the hockey club. Wednesday, after tea, in the pavilion — we’re starting a junior team, and I’ll teach you how to bully-off myself. It’ll give you a head start with Oaky.” Beryl did not know what bullying-off was, and it did not sound very nice, but she felt Gwendolen being kind in her own way, so she said, “Thank you ever so.”

“Here.” Gwendolen wrapped a rock bun in a twist of paper and held it out. “My mother sends them every week. Be there on  Wednesday.”

Beryl went back down the long corridor and the two staircases turning the whole conversation over in her mind. How strange it was — she had gone up expecting a scolding and come down with a hockey club and a bun. She was not comforted by the description of Miss Oak.  Beryl had heard that before about a big dog that had chased her cousin Jeremy when he was on his bicycle and he had nearly fallen off. 

There was still time before supper to find Marigold. She had so much to tell her: the fire, the hockey, and they could share the bun between them.

She was so busy thinking that she almost did not hear the strange noise coming from the form room. It sounded like someone was crying. Beryl pushed the door open. At the back, by the window, someone was bent over a desk with her shoulders shaking. It was Heidi.

“Heidi!” Beryl went over. “Whatever is wrong? Are you hurt? Are you poorly?”

Heidi did not lift her head. “Go away. You hate me. Everyone hates me.” The words came out broken, one at a time. “Miss Beech is my aunt and even she hates me. Claudine says the only reason I’m here at all is because of her, and that I’m too stupid to really belong at St. Nicola’s.”

Beryl put her hand on Heidi’s shoulder and said. “That isn’t true. You’re the best at French in the whole form. I wish I were half as good.”

“That’s only because I was sent away to school in France. Because nobody wanted me at home.” Heidi wiped her face with the back of her hand, not looking up. “I don’t have any friends. Claudine says I never will. And I was bottom in sums and the books are too hard for me. And now everyone in the whole world hates me.”

“What about your mother and father?” Beryl asked, and then wished she hadn’t, because Heidi broke into more sobs. Beryl couldn’t quite make out all the words. She heard something about being sent to live with her other aunt in Paris. “And now I’m here. And nobody wants me.” Heidi said it all in a rush.

Beryl did not fully understand all of it, but she understood enough to know it was dreadful, and that Claudine had had no business making it worse. “Claudine shouldn’t have said any of that,” she said fiercely. “Not any of it.” She thought of Marigold, and felt a small twist of worry — would Marigold mind, if she had another friend? But that was a problem for later, over supper, and it could wait. “You can be my friend, if you’d like. And you can have half my bun.”

She broke the rock bun in two. There would still be a piece for Marigold.

Heidi looked up at her properly for the first time, eyes red-rimmed. “Why are you being kind to me? I’ve been mean to you because I was jealous.”

Beryl was astonished because she could not imagine someone being jealous of her. 

She said, “Look here — if you’ll help me with my French, I’ll help you with sums, if I can. And the books. We could do it together.”

“Would you?” Heidi’s voice cracked on the word.  She looked so hopeful it gave Beryl a stab of pain.  “Yes,” said Beryl. “Now eat your bun, come on, buck up, and find Marigold with me.”

Chapter One  :  Chapter Two   :   Chapter Three   :   Chapter Four