everything was better after we got the dolls, even school; until the six months were almost up — and we found out we were staying in England for another year.
Chapter Thirteen:
Something Big
When Daddy told us, Emmy and I could hardly believe it. We just looked at him, and then he said, “Aw, Em, don’t cry. It’s only a year.”
ONLY a year! ONLY! It was easy for
him
to say that! He loved London. But we hated it. Only a year! — as if he was asking us to wait fifteen minutes (though even that’s a long time when you want to go NOW). “Only a year.” What a stupid thing to say!
I ran to my room and slammed the door. ONLY a year!
Then, when I was sure no one could hear me, I did something I hardly ever do (and didn’t want to do then), because I was so disappointed and angry, too. ONLY a year! More than twice as long as we’d been here already before we could go home!
I was still crying when my mother came in to put the others to bed.
After she’d turned out the light, she came over to my bed. I could feel her sitting down on the edge of it before she gave my back a little pat.
“Do you hate it here that much?” she said in her gentlest voice. I didn’t answer; I can’t cry and talk at the same time. But I did make myself stop crying.
“Daddy and I thought you weren’t very happy in London. We’ve been thinking about that, and talking to our friends here, and we thought you might be happier in the country. How would you like to go to a boarding school in the country?”
I thought of all the books about girls going to boarding school. It DID sound fun — and exciting, too.
I sat up.
“Could Emmy come too?”
“Well — six is a little young for boarding school,” my mother said.
“She’s almost seven. And in
The Girls of Rose Dormitory
the heroine’s little sister was only five and she was at the school. So were other kids her age.” (Though they were called “the babies.”)
But when I asked Emmy, she didn’t want to go, even when I told her that some schools in the stories had their own horses and the girls could ride them.
“That’s in a book, not real life,” she said.
“Things that happen in books happen in real life, too!” I said. “I bet that IS true!”
“Well even if it is I think we should all stay together.”
But the more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea of going. Boarding school DID sound fun in the stories, and almost anything would be better than London. And if I found a really good school, one with horses, Emmy might change her mind. As my mother said, “Maybe when she’s a little older.”
My mother and I had lots of time to talk because it was vacation (they called it the Easter holidays even though it wasn’t Easter yet), and we went to look at boarding schools almost every day.
They were empty, because it was the holidays, so of course that made them different from the books. But they didn’t LOOK like the schools in the books, either, or at least not at all the way I had imagined those schools.
In real life, the rooms were little, and dark; and the people who showed us around were so old!
And then suddenly spring came.
Spring in England is different — maybe you have to live through an English winter to understand it. The days lengthen, far more than they do in America, and the sky is bright, bright blue, not gray. The air feels soft and clean, you can smell damp earth and see leaves sparkling in the sun wherever you go.
It still rained, but there was sun every day.
When I opened my eyes one morning, there was even sun on my bed, and that was the day my mother and I went to look at the Brighton School for Girls. Brighton, my mother told me, was a seaside town. When we got off the train, the air was sparkling and smelled like salt; and at the school — which was a very short walk from the sea — all the windows and the white front door sparkled in the sun.
It looked like a clean, happy place. A comfortable-looking lady in a
Chapter Thirteen:
Something Big
When Daddy told us, Emmy and I could hardly believe it. We just looked at him, and then he said, “Aw, Em, don’t cry. It’s only a year.”
ONLY a year! ONLY! It was easy for
him
to say that! He loved London. But we hated it. Only a year! — as if he was asking us to wait fifteen minutes (though even that’s a long time when you want to go NOW). “Only a year.” What a stupid thing to say!
I ran to my room and slammed the door. ONLY a year!
Then, when I was sure no one could hear me, I did something I hardly ever do (and didn’t want to do then), because I was so disappointed and angry, too. ONLY a year! More than twice as long as we’d been here already before we could go home!
I was still crying when my mother came in to put the others to bed.
After she’d turned out the light, she came over to my bed. I could feel her sitting down on the edge of it before she gave my back a little pat.
“Do you hate it here that much?” she said in her gentlest voice. I didn’t answer; I can’t cry and talk at the same time. But I did make myself stop crying.
“Daddy and I thought you weren’t very happy in London. We’ve been thinking about that, and talking to our friends here, and we thought you might be happier in the country. How would you like to go to a boarding school in the country?”
I thought of all the books about girls going to boarding school. It DID sound fun — and exciting, too.
I sat up.
“Could Emmy come too?”
“Well — six is a little young for boarding school,” my mother said.
“She’s almost seven. And in
The Girls of Rose Dormitory
the heroine’s little sister was only five and she was at the school. So were other kids her age.” (Though they were called “the babies.”)
But when I asked Emmy, she didn’t want to go, even when I told her that some schools in the stories had their own horses and the girls could ride them.
“That’s in a book, not real life,” she said.
“Things that happen in books happen in real life, too!” I said. “I bet that IS true!”
“Well even if it is I think we should all stay together.”
But the more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea of going. Boarding school DID sound fun in the stories, and almost anything would be better than London. And if I found a really good school, one with horses, Emmy might change her mind. As my mother said, “Maybe when she’s a little older.”
My mother and I had lots of time to talk because it was vacation (they called it the Easter holidays even though it wasn’t Easter yet), and we went to look at boarding schools almost every day.
They were empty, because it was the holidays, so of course that made them different from the books. But they didn’t LOOK like the schools in the books, either, or at least not at all the way I had imagined those schools.
In real life, the rooms were little, and dark; and the people who showed us around were so old!
And then suddenly spring came.
Spring in England is different — maybe you have to live through an English winter to understand it. The days lengthen, far more than they do in America, and the sky is bright, bright blue, not gray. The air feels soft and clean, you can smell damp earth and see leaves sparkling in the sun wherever you go.
It still rained, but there was sun every day.
When I opened my eyes one morning, there was even sun on my bed, and that was the day my mother and I went to look at the Brighton School for Girls. Brighton, my mother told me, was a seaside town. When we got off the train, the air was sparkling and smelled like salt; and at the school — which was a very short walk from the sea — all the windows and the white front door sparkled in the sun.
It looked like a clean, happy place. A comfortable-looking lady in a
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