“Fiddle faddle!” Miss Murdstone brings her fist down smartly on Jill Batson’s crumpet. “I’m not talking about a cross country. I’m talking about a properly organised sports day, Green, Dixon, that’s your province.”
Penny sucks in breath. “It’s not going to be easy to arouse enthusiasm whatever we organise. If you remember our last sports day, the only event that attracted any interest was throwing the javelin.”
Miss Honeycomb winces. “Poor Miss Marrow. Is she out of plaster yet?”
“I believe she’s doing as well as can be expected,” says Miss Murdstone. “No, I don’t think we’ll include the javelin in this year’s programme. And that goes for the other field events as well. Anything that can be thrown is out.”
“Long jump is all right, though,” says Miss Batson.
“Provided we can find someone who can reach the pit. It was pathetic last year.”
“How about the high jump?” I ask.
“First prize went to the first girl who was able to clear one of the hurdles without assistance.”
Penny shudders. “That was terrible, wasn’t it? The race took twenty-two minutes and in the end we had to lay all the hurdles flat. Even then, half the field failed to finish.”
“And the winner was disqualified for taking stimulants—”
“—During the race.”
“Are you sure you want to go ahead with this?” says Penny levelly.
Miss Murdstone swallows hard. “I have made a decision and there is no going back on it. There is a good deal of untapped vigour in the school. Since Miss Bondage’s departure and the decision not to proceed with the Commando Training Group it needs an outlet.”
Her words are interrupted by another burst of small arms fire which removes three panes of glass at the top of the window. Miss Murdstone moves swiftly and courageously to the shattered casement. Below us, a small girl with a smoking sten gun is picking up the remains of a wood pigeon.
“Right, Deidre! You will write out fifty times ‘I must not fire at birds flying across the face of the school buildings’.” Miss Murdstone turns to the rest of us triumphantly. “There, ladies! I think that makes my point more tellingly than any words. The girls need an outlet for their surplus supplies of physical energy and a sports day will provide it. I will draft a letter to the parents today.”
There is no arguing with her and I secretly curse Deidre Hoareflooting for discharging her weapon at such an inopportune moment. Shooting is forbidden during chapel, anyway.
“We’ll have to run heats and make it compulsory for every girl to go in for three events,” says Penny. “We’ll never get anybody to enter if we ask for volunteers.”
“Are parents likely to turn up?” I ask.
“I’m afraid so,” says Penny. “It’s one of their few chances to be snubbed and insulted by Miss Grimshaw in person. And, when you pay over a thousand a year for the privilege you don’t want to miss it.”
“Do you think she’ll be all right?” I ask.
“She has a marvellous sense of self preservation. If she smells a governor or a school inspector she can sober up in a moment. Parents have almost the same effect.” Penny is so unkind. She is always pretending that Miss Grimshaw is an alcoholic. I don’t think it is nice to make jokes about people who are sick.
“What are the parents like?” I ask.
“All sorts,” says Penny. “They only have one thing in common. They’re very stupid. You’d have to be to send your child here, wouldn’t you?”
“Penny, you’re so cynical!”
“Not a bit of it. I’m realistic, that’s all. They’re also inclined to be rich and lecherous. I’ve known girls in the school who can boast three different fathers on Commemoration Day. Some of the parents get confused and find themselves taking last year’s wife’s children out to tea. I remember Lavinia Pope-Drooley. She went out with the wrong Daddy and married him.”
Really! It is amazing how the other half live, isn’t it? I find all this a bit shocking but Penny comes from that kind of home so she can take it in her stride.
As Sports Day approaches a feeling of tremendous apathy falls over the school. The only people showing any enthusiasm are Penny and myself, for obvious reasons, and the two Saranjit girls who reckon that they are going to clean up everything between them. This supposition is proved untrue when some joker reverses the spikes in Rumna’s running shoes so that they stick up through the soles. This is not a very nice thing to do but there is no need for her to release a hooded cobra in the showers—such a pointless gesture, too, because none of the girls ever use them—the showers, I mean. The only person to go in there is Mr Chaney, the school caretaker, who is trying to grow edible toadstools. Prayers were offered up for him in the school chapel and he is said to be as well as can be expected. The hooded cobra died.
“Obviously the work of a race gang,” says Penny when she hears about the spiking.
“You mean, because she’s Indian?” I say, horrified.
“Not that kind of race,” says Penny contemptuously. “Everyone hates everyone else here, regardless of race, colour or creed. I was referring to the girls who run the gambling syndicates. If a lot of girls back Rumna and she doesn’t run the bookies will keep the stake money.”
“That’s awful,” I say.
“It certainly is,” says Penny. “Thank goodness I’ve got my money on her sister.”
I ignore the implications of this unsavoury remark and concentrate on learning more about the organisation of this most important event in the school calendar.
“Do the parents have tea?” I ask.
“Very few of them. A cup of lukewarm gin is more their scene. Usually it’s a quick look round the school and back to the hamper. The more thoughtful parents know that the more they eat the less their children will have in the weeks to come.”
“When you put it like that I don’t know why anyone should want to send their child to a school like St Rodence.”
“It’s in the blood,” says Penny. “The ancient Spartans used to leave new born babies on the side of a mountain. If they survived they were reckoned to be Spartan material. The English private school system is based on the same lack of principle. Then of course there is the English literary tradition. Schools like Dotheboys Hall and Lowood have persuaded parents that such founts of misery are part of a child’s cultural heritage.”
“Yes,” I say. I don’t really understand what she is talking about but I don’t want to appear dim. “So the parents don’t play any part in the proceedings? There isn’t a fathers’ race or anything like that?”
Penny shudders. “Even worse: there is a parents’ obstacle race. Everybody loathes it but it is a school tradition—about the only one the school has, apart from not paying the fees.”
“Who sets it all up?”
“Oh, Seth and Ruben. They could do it in their sleep.”
“Yes,” I say thoughtfully. Her words remind me that I have not been back to the pav. to pick up my tennis racket. There is something about the old man that I don’t completely trust. He keeps asking me if I would like a glass of Molderberry wine whenever I see him and flexes his elbow in a very strange fashion—at the same time striking his forearm. Sometimes I think I will never understand their country ways.
There is another distressing incident on the eve of sports day when Napum, now a firm favourite for every event in her sister’s absence, withdraws with a pulled muscle. There are rumours that an anonymous