St. Mallory's Forever!

36 HELEN: A note of mystery.

Yes, I know, bad puns are the bane of every reader's existence, but this mystery seems to be a scarf knitted from about eight different threads and the only thing that's holding them together is the common factor of the Nils piece. If that is what's holding them in place...

I don't even know what I'm talking about any more. I'm writing this early in the morning after approximately four and a half hours of sleep, for goodness' sake.

Also, that's the second time I've used a blog post title that started with 'note' as a pun. (Tenth Doctor impression: I am so, so sorry.)

So, 'fessing time. I haven't told the girls about the Bursar saga yet. Several reasons.

First, it's just so embarrassing about Mum and him. I'm still not quite clear just what their relationship is, but I don't like it. Not just because I disapprove of him as a person (not that I even know him properly) but also because, the more I think about it, the more I think there is something else going on after all.

Mum and I haven't talked about it yet (we're carefully avoiding one another at the moment) but my mind is already working overtime with new conspiracy theories to replace the old ones. Or at least to back up the old ones.

Here's the way I see it. Feel free to disagree in the comments section.

There's something fishy going on. We have the missing music teacher from last term, for starters. We have the mystery Nils piece written after he died. We have the Bursar lurking in the music shop spying on us. And we have the Bursar and Mum.

The first two are definite mysteries. The Bursar spying on us? Okay, it could be coincidence that he was there at that time. But then there's the other coincidence, that Mum should get a last-minute job here at St. Mall's where the Bursar works.

Now I don't know how Mum got to hear about this job, only that it was very sudden. One minute we were in the middle of the school hols and she was a teacher at a London comp' and planning the new term. Then suddenly she's somehow heard about this vacancy at St. Mall's, applied and got the job and started work a fortnight later, dragging me in her wake.

The thing is, Mum isn't like that. She will take an hour deciding what to have for lunch when there's only two dishes on the menu and she's allergic to one of them.

Okay, I exaggerate. Fifty minutes, tops.

The thing is, Mum doesn't rush into things. Least of all changing jobs and moving house. Okay, so we still have the house in London, obviously, but for the duration of term time this crazy school is our home. Yet Mum is a Londoner, like me. She's no more comfortable here than I am.

I think it was the Bursar who contacted Mum about this job at St. Mall's, and who pulled strings to make sure she got it. Because he needed someone in the music department he could manipulate

Why? The Nils score. It's the one constant that pulls everything else in.

Except of course that we didn't have the Nils score then. Okay, a minor flaw in an otherwise perfect argument.

But if the Bursar does know Mum from yesteryear (that bit I do believe, or Mum would never let him call her Kitty) he must know she's a Nils expert. I think that's why he arranged to get her here. Except, like I said, how would he know about the Nils score when I only bought it by chance in a music shop after we moved here?

Okay, so it doesn't make any real sense yet, but you have to admit there's enough to declare the conspiracy theory well and truly live again.

Yay! I won't have to disappoint Abby, Xuan and the Don after all.