St. Mallory's Forever!

8. ABBY - Hi-Ho. Hi-Ho. It's Off To Work We Go..

Yep, St. Trinian's and Disney are about the extent of my musical abilities. And we've got music second period! Gulp!

Of course, I blame the last music teacher. By last, I mean the one we didn't have for most of last term. Mrs. Walters had some sort of nervous breakdown – no, not caused by us! – and we missed a ton of lessons. No wonder my music skills are so bad. That's my excuse, anyway.

And now we've got a new music teacher. Poor Mrs. Walters won't be coming back, apparently. Gosh, maybe we are as bad as St. Trinian's after all!

~

Okay, so Day One of St. Mall's proper is finally under way, after the sponsored chaos and gossip catch-up of yester-evening. Our first lesson was Biology and things seemed to be off to a good start. Helen and Zoo-Anne were there. And by the way it's spelt X.U.A.N and pronounced 'shin'! Hah! The Don may find European languages a walk in the park, but when it comes to the world at large she's as lost as we are. Zoo-Anne indeed! We shan't let her forget that in a hurry!

Anyway, Biology was uneventful. Would you believe our Bio' teacher was laid up in the San? On the first lesson of the first day! Probably caught some infection from one of experimental cultures she's always growing in petri dishes.

And poor Miss Cantrip drew the short straw to cover, as the only teacher with a free period. What she knows about biology can be written in large letters on the point of a needle, so she just told us to revise quietly while she pretended to be busy marking prep.

Hah! How can any teacher have prep to mark in the first lesson of the first day of term? I bet she had some celebrity gossip mag hidden away that she was secretly reading.

So we whiled away the time whispering to one another. Or at least, I whispered to the Don and Georgia and co. Helen and Zoo-Anne – sorry, Xuan (pronounced shin, don't forget!) were together on the front lab bench and the Don and I were about three benches back, so no communication was possible with the new girls without setting off the Catnap antennae.

Yeah, we call Mrs Cantrip Mrs Catnap when she's out of earshot. Hey, we're teenagers!

Anyway, gossiping with the Don sure beats Biology. I mean, who on earth needs to know the life-cycle of a slime mould in the excruciating detail we had to learn it in the Upper Fourth?

That said, I'd rather learn about slime mould again than go through those daft team-building exercises they made us do last year. Being stuck on the lawns outside the local hotel playing mini-golf on holes made for five year olds isn't – surprisingly – my idea of tremendous fun. Even trying to shove a million facts about pathogens and zygotes down my throat is better than that.

And then we had Music, with the new teacher. Now that was a whole different kettle of fish.

~

Don Pedro assures me that I could be good at an instrument if I put my mind to it. I tell her that she's clearly been talking to my doppelganger for the past three years if she believes that. I wouldn't know a C Sharp if I sat on one.

Anyway, we went into the music room, all prim and proper, not knowing what to expect. And get this. The new teacher, Mrs Stroud, is only Helen's mum!

In fact it was only when Helen let slip and called the teacher Mum instead of Mrs. Stroud that we cottoned on, despite the physical resemblance. Both are a bit mousy, with long dark hair and really skinny frame (I'm jealous as heck, I'd have to go to the gym for hours at a time to look like that!).

Even the Don was taken aback. Teresa prides herself on knowing every bit of top secret staffroom goss' going, and had been entertaining us with various conspiracy theories about why the previous music teacher Mrs. Walters hadn't returned. Everything from that she won the lottery to that she was kidnapped by aliens. But Don Pedro had no idea the replacement teacher and the new girl were connected, let alone blood relatives!

This is the first time in living memory we've had a teacher and daughter situation, so this could get very interesting. But let's get back to the Don's catastrophic fail.

I tell you, the Don's database is seriously running on two cylinders this term. How did Teresa not get the juicy gossip on this in advance? She's really losing her touch.

But you're wondering about Mrs. Stroud, right?

Well, first off, you've got to hand it to her, she knows what she's talking about when it comes to music. Well, mostly.

There was this awkward moment when Mrs. Stroud asked us which musical instruments we played and Xuan reeled off this list of tongue-twister names that Mrs S. had obviously never heard of. Of course we all sat there sniggering and smirking.

And Helen... Well there's the strange thing.

Helen had obviously never heard of these names either, but she seemed genuinely interested! She was staring at Xuan with a Tell me more! This is fascinating! expression on her face that was so intense I could feel the sincerity radiating out.

I tell you, that girl is not normal. Then again, Helen probably thinks the same of us.

Anyway, I thought that this might be a good time to try and heal the Rift of Eternal Awkwardness. Helen was sat down next to Xuan, and I had taken up a strategic position one seat down, with Christie on my other side.

See, by sitting there, not only could I maintain a non-stalkerish distance without seeming like a snobby sociopath, but I was still close enough that I could talk to her. If I could ever pluck up the courage to do so.

Unfortunately for Helen, as she was the only one her mum could actually name, it being the first day, she was called up to answer a lot of the questions.

Just as well. Apparently we're studying some composer called Tchikov .... Tchaichiv ... (excuse me while I look this up)

Tchaikovsky! That's the one! Oh, and if that's not your preferred spelling, tough. I looked it up and there were a couple of variations that were acceptable.

Anyway, we're studying that dude up there, and somehow, despite my chronic uselessness, I'm expected to learn all the technical musical gibberish that somehow applies to that long mess of violin, piano and "DUN DUN DUN DUUUUUUN!"

What's worse, is that most people actually seem to understand it.

Oh, and then at the end of the lesson Mrs. Stroud announced that actually, he wasn't one of the composers on our course. We're going to move onto those next, when we've had time to get to grips with 'the diverse musical styles of orchestral composers'.

Somebody shoot me. Now!

The only thing I had to distract me from this madness was the fact that the Bursar kept appearing in the windows, squinting into the classroom like some sort of overgrown mole-rat. Mrs Stroud gestured to him once or twice, but he just shook his head and walked off as if he hadn't been doing anything strange. But he kept coming back – sometimes looking through the windows, and once or twice we heard him rifling through the big stacks of books that live in the room just off the main classroom. The works department haven't got around to soundproofing these walls yet. They must have run out of cash after refurbishing the Science Block last year. Although given the extortionate amount of money we pay for school fees I wonder if that's even possible...

But yeah, that was my Weird Sighting of the Day. Wonder what he was looking for?

dF8K