St. Mallory's Forever!

51 XUAN: Sans iPad.

How clever of me, to get myself stuck in the Sanatorium without my iPad or iPhone, and with no way of retrieving either! You must have thought something awful had happened, but never fear — I'm fine and dandy, save for a slightly damaged ligament in my left ankle. Permit me to elucidate.

After I finished reading The Life of David Nils, which took me a while even with my speed-reading skills (I must tell you about my tutor one day), I was on my way to update Abby when I was waylaid in the corridors by a student called Lin.

I hardly know her — I'd have mentioned her before if I did — but she's one of the other international students here at St. Mall's. She's also Chinese, but unlike me she came here with limited English skills, so sought me out to make sense of her history homework.

Of course, I said I'd help. Unfortunately, there still remains a language barrier between us, as she comes from Hong Kong, where Cantonese is the primary language, not Mandarin. Cantonese, by the way, is the language they'll be speaking at your local Chinese take-away. And no, "number forty-seven twice with egg fried rice and bamboo shoots" is not Cantonese!

Anyway, I followed Lin back to her boarding house (Paddington, for those keeping score) and had a challenging but fun hour or two helping her translate Teacher English into English For Beginners. Say, who'd have thought those ESL lessons would come in useful!

Of course, having finally got entrance to another boarding house I had to go exploring. I mean, in theory they're all much the same, but until you've been in every one there will always be nagging doubts they've got some secret facility your own house hasn't. In the event it turned out Lin's house was as bereft of saunas, sun-beds and swimming pools as Marylebone, and there was no sign of partying or other activities frowned upon by the School Admin. Not even an illicit lemonade still on the radiators.

Unfortunately by the time I had established all this I'd not only missed dinner (no big deal — I never eat much of an evening) but I was still out after curfew.

Now, being out after curfew unless accompanied by a staff member is a serious offence at St. Mall's. Actually, any breach of rules is a serious offence at St. Mall's. And while I had no idea what the punishment might be (I understand flogging and keelhauling has been abolished in the UK, but private boarding schools may be exempt) I suspect my father would be less than pleased if he heard I had been found guilty of some heinous crime in my first term here.

On the other hand, there is this delightful English saying that you might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb. I'm not sure how that originated — maybe to stop shoplifters in the meat department at Tesco?

Whatever, the sentiments were sound. I reasoned that since I had already broken the curfew it would make little difference to my ultimate fate whether I was just five minutes past the curfew deadline or a whole hour. Thus it was that I, law-abiding Xuan who has never so much as returned a library book late, found myself wandering the school after curfew in search of further clues.

To be perfectly honest with you, I didn't know entirely what I was looking for. A mysterious note tucked behind a radiator? A trail of violin pegs and bow strings that would lead me to a musical thief?

And of course not knowing what you are looking for presents its own obstacles to knowing when you have found it. And so, having found nothing (or maybe I found loads of clues but didn't realise it), I began to sneak my way back to Marylebone, running from shadow to shadow, ducking beneath windows of occupied rooms, and diving into bushes when sighting staff or sixth formers on their rounds.

Being on the South Downs, the school is set unobtrusively into said gently undulating hills, and whilst obviously the classrooms and sports fields are all level, the grounds are tiered, rather like the rice fields back home. Gentle slopes separate each tier, and there is a choice of winding path or steps to move from one level to another.