St. Mallory's Forever!

1 - ABBY: Welcome To My World

Schools are strange places, where strange things happen.

But in an (wiggles fingers in air to insert imaginary quotation marks) ordinary school, the students leave at the end of the day, and there are a few hours where those buildings are magical.

They're empty, they're quiet, and they're free of bossy teachers.

If you've ever been in one at night you'll know empty schools also creepy beyond reason, but at least you can walk freely down the corridors. Those are the hours during which Behind The Scenes Stuff happens.

That's when they fix the computers and the lights. Cleaners come and go. Rude graffiti and disgusting stains caused by unmentionable human fluids miraculously disappear. By the time the students return in the morning, all the little mysteries they hadn't quite solved are gone as if they'd never been there at all.

Boarding schools aren't like that.

Sure, there are still cleaners and maintenance teams doing their jobs in the background. Boarding schools have their fair share of unmentionable human fluids that need removing and busted chairs that need fixing or blown fuses that need replacing.

And just like in ordinary schools departments in boarding schools don't talk to each other; errors, clashing events and new rules can be ignored for months before finally surfacing when they reach critical status; and everybody in charge seems determined to make everything twice as complicated as it needs to be.

Only it's ten times worse in a boarding school. You think state school teachers are bossy? You don't know the half of it!

~

But there are always students around in a boarding school. Most of us don't get to go home of an evening.

True, we'll be in our "houses", but we still need attention and supervision, and if left alone for a moment, prep will be abandoned and all hell with break loose.

At least, that's what it's like at St Mallory's School for Girls.

How do I know? Because I'm a boarder at St. Mall's. Three years, now, and I'm just starting the Middle Fifth.

The Middle Fifth? Exactly. Unless you're a boarder too you won't know what the heck that means. Which is why I'm starting this blog.

I'm just back from the summer hols and I've got to tell you I am seriously urinated off (we're not allowed to swear on the school's time) at the misconceptions and stereotypes everyone out there in the "real world" has about boarding school girls. It's not true! Well, some of it's not, anyway.

You see, there are (advance warning: silly pun coming up!) three schools of thought about girls and boarding schools.

First there's the jolly hockey sticks world of Eleanor Brent-Dyer, Angela Brazil and Enid Blyton. And yes, you bet we call our school Malory Towers sometimes, when not in earshot of teachers!

Then there's St. Trinians. Of course we know all the songs! Altogether now, St. Mallory's, St. Mallory's Will Never Die!

Sadly, real life here at St. Mall's is nothing like that, although the Head could well be in a man in drag. Hmmm. Now there's a rumour worth starting...

Finally there's Harry Potter. I mean, what was JK Rowling thinking of, making Hogwarts a mixed-sex school? She should have got rid of Harry and all those daft boys, made it an all girls' school with Hermione the star of the show (not that she isn't anyway – Hermione rocks!) and she probably would have sold a lot more books and might be rich by now.

Of course, none of these are remotely accurate portrayals of modern boarding school life.

Make sure you're sitting down for this, but the fact is we don't walk around with books on our head and learn how to hire a governess. No, honestly we don't.

What's more, we don't run riot in the science labs and make stink-bombs, blow up the school or scare off teachers. We wish...

And finally, we can't actually turn the younger kids into frogs – but don't tell my little cousins that, because they're convinced that I can.

So I've decided to write this blog and expose what really goes on in a top-notch all-girls' boarding school like St. Mall's. The world has a right to know!

I'll be posting here whenever I can get a moment's privacy. Not easy in a school with 400 marauding adolescents, hordes of bitter and twisted teachers, and who knows how many other ancillary staff we see but never actually meet – imagine Piccadilly Circus on a busy day and you're not even half-way there.

But I promise I'll do my best to dish the dirt on everyone and everything, as it happens.

Jolly hockey sticks!

And no, we do not say things like that here, but you were expecting it, right?

Which is why you need to subscribe to my blog. Because everything you thought you knew about girls' boarding schools is totally and utterly wrong, I promise you.

Yes, even that bit!

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