St. Mallory's Forever!

43 XUAN: What was the score? Nils points.

Since you ask, we lost abysmally at lacrosse, but as you also may have surmised, my title for today's post is actually a reference to the on-going murder mystery. Okay, just mystery, but until we know where the last music teacher got to we can't totally rule out murder.

Anyway, to make a short story long (now I've committed to these regular blog posts and beginning to build up my "followers" I've got to write something!) I've spent today in the library researching Nils, but it appears I'm striking out in uncharted waters — the lack of information is appalling.

I feel rather like an archaeologist, albeit one who is uncovering old, dust-covered and fragile books, rather than pieces of Roman pottery.

My first port of call was to the music department, to see if I could talk to Mrs. Stroud. She wasn't there, but the door was unlocked so I let myself in decided to do some super sleuth snooping. I'm probably her second best music student after Helen, so I reasoned it wouldn't look too suspicious if she came back and found me here. I could smile sweetly and say I was looking at the instruments.

Unfortunately Mrs. Stroud returned before I'd even had time to get out my metaphorical magnifying glass. She was dressed up like a dog's dinner, to use yet another English expression that defies all logic, with her hair curled and clipped back and fresh make-up.

Not fresh enough to hide the expression on her face when she saw me hovering over her desk.

"Are you looking for me, Xuan?"

Fortunately Mrs. Stroud still knows me as the ESL student, so I was careful to limit my vocabulary. "I look for some information," I said. I'd taken the precaution of borrowing from Helen a copy of a non-mysterious Nils piece, available anywhere to any Tom, Dick or Harry (remind me to rant about who the on earth they were later). "This composer. Who he?"

She looked at the music sheet in my hand, and then at me, evidently suspicious, but she didn't ask me outright whether Helen had put me up to this. As if... Instead, she unlocked the door to the music library.

"He's a French composer," she said as I followed her inside. "Not all that well known, but I'm a big fan, and so is Helen. You should have asked her for help."

"She visit Don Pedro," I said, before biting my lip. Would Mrs. Stroud know who Don Pedro was? Yes, was the answer to that one.

"Oh — that's Teresa, isn't it? I remember Helen telling me. What an unusual nickname to give her. Something to do with Spanish literature, I imagine."

Doh! It's to do with a classic of English literature, you silly... Of course, I didn't say that. I diplomatically said, "I no understand it."

Confucius, he say, When faced with display of ignorance by person who should know better, enjoy privately and share with friends later, but don't embarrass poor ignorant person at time by correcting them.

Mrs. Stroud finally reached the right place in the shelves. A good job she knows her way around. The music library is a large collection of scores (paper) and recordings (vinyl — anyone remember that?). A fantastic resource if you've got the facility to play them, but to my irritation, 'record players' are not standard issue in cubicles at St. Mallory's. so no use at all.

"There are quite a few Nils examples here," Mrs. Stroud said. "By the way, that piece I played last night was by Nils."

That explained why Helen was so irritated last night. I feel guilty now about being so short tempered with her — I'd thought it was an embarrassment thing, but maybe not. I'll have to apologise when I next run into her.