work out team lists.”
She yields and gathers up her things, dumping them on Diana’s desk, and I get out my things. There’s only a few moments of blissful silence, enough time for me to just begin to think about the team list I’m making up, before Diana turns back to the others and says, “It’s simply wonderful how often Miss Evans is at the door when Herr Wolfsdorf finishes music lessons, isn’t it?”
I groan, trying to concentrate on the task at hand. Third hockey team. Little Rhoda Phillips is quick and good, but heaven knows Mary MacConnell worked like a trooper at practice, and she did run back to the school like the wind. I repress a grin at the thought. The first time I said “Good shot!” to Mary MacConnell, she tripped over and fell flat-faced in the mud. Oh, poor kid, it will break her heart if I don’t put her in. Yet Rhoda really runs like a dervish on the wings.
I simply don’t know who truly deserves the final place. It’s important, not just for the sake of winning the next inter-school match, but because I know whichever of the kids is knocked back to reserve will be crushed. And Valerie’s high-pitched giggles and all the chattering from across the room are making it impossible to concentrate. Diana treats the study like her own particular drawing room, when it’s just not big enough for four grown girls. Having studies is supposed to make it easier to concentrate than doing extra work in a common room. The Fifth form common room was a haven of peace compared to this.
Not that Rosalind contributes much to the noise. She sits quietly and listens to the other two chatter, saying the worst kind of girlish, spiteful, gossipy ways, and rarely says a word in response. She looks decidedly uncomfortable at times, especially when girls amuse themselves inventing lovers and romances for the mistresses, or start talking in a silly syrupy way about young men they met in the holidays. I often get the feeling that Rosalind doesn’t approve of these subjects any more than I do. She never protests, if so.
Mind you, I don’t object, either. I can’t, somehow. Every time I start to tell them off, I remember that out of the girls in this room I’m most likely the only one with any experience, as such, and the memory of Ray’s breath hot on my mouth seals it with shame.
I’m not as good at exerting a wholesome influence over Diana as Miss Carrol predicted.
Rosalind really is an oddly self-contained thing. Diana and Valerie pump her quite often about her family and her home, but she answers in soft little sentences, never giving much detail, and switches the conversation away from herself as soon as possible. I wonder if her people are very badly off, despite the elfin ears and platinum hair, the way she avoids speaking of them. Or perhaps she’s unhappy at home.
She seems so meek, but sometimes I look up from my studying and she’s watching me, quietly and thoughtfully, with the same penetrating gaze she’d turned on me when I entered the study that night. I have no idea what goes on behind those spectacles.
Not really worth thinking about it, in any case, not when her choice of friends tells so much about her character and I have all the extra games coaching to worry about. Besides, when she’s not looking at me, she’s looking at Diana, with a kind of worshipping attention like a puppy looking at its owner. I don’t understand Diana’s magical appeal in the slightest. Even Frances, who is usually as level-headed as is she irritating, is infatuated with her, although Diana rarely has time for her. Rosalind seems head over heels.
It’s a shame. For a while there, I’d hoped to have someone in the form who would understand and sympathise with how I felt about pegasi and unicorns and winged and magical beasts of all kind, but that would involve actually having a conversation or two some time.
It doesn’t matter. For my part, I certainly don’t have the time to bother with Diana
She yields and gathers up her things, dumping them on Diana’s desk, and I get out my things. There’s only a few moments of blissful silence, enough time for me to just begin to think about the team list I’m making up, before Diana turns back to the others and says, “It’s simply wonderful how often Miss Evans is at the door when Herr Wolfsdorf finishes music lessons, isn’t it?”
I groan, trying to concentrate on the task at hand. Third hockey team. Little Rhoda Phillips is quick and good, but heaven knows Mary MacConnell worked like a trooper at practice, and she did run back to the school like the wind. I repress a grin at the thought. The first time I said “Good shot!” to Mary MacConnell, she tripped over and fell flat-faced in the mud. Oh, poor kid, it will break her heart if I don’t put her in. Yet Rhoda really runs like a dervish on the wings.
I simply don’t know who truly deserves the final place. It’s important, not just for the sake of winning the next inter-school match, but because I know whichever of the kids is knocked back to reserve will be crushed. And Valerie’s high-pitched giggles and all the chattering from across the room are making it impossible to concentrate. Diana treats the study like her own particular drawing room, when it’s just not big enough for four grown girls. Having studies is supposed to make it easier to concentrate than doing extra work in a common room. The Fifth form common room was a haven of peace compared to this.
Not that Rosalind contributes much to the noise. She sits quietly and listens to the other two chatter, saying the worst kind of girlish, spiteful, gossipy ways, and rarely says a word in response. She looks decidedly uncomfortable at times, especially when girls amuse themselves inventing lovers and romances for the mistresses, or start talking in a silly syrupy way about young men they met in the holidays. I often get the feeling that Rosalind doesn’t approve of these subjects any more than I do. She never protests, if so.
Mind you, I don’t object, either. I can’t, somehow. Every time I start to tell them off, I remember that out of the girls in this room I’m most likely the only one with any experience, as such, and the memory of Ray’s breath hot on my mouth seals it with shame.
I’m not as good at exerting a wholesome influence over Diana as Miss Carrol predicted.
Rosalind really is an oddly self-contained thing. Diana and Valerie pump her quite often about her family and her home, but she answers in soft little sentences, never giving much detail, and switches the conversation away from herself as soon as possible. I wonder if her people are very badly off, despite the elfin ears and platinum hair, the way she avoids speaking of them. Or perhaps she’s unhappy at home.
She seems so meek, but sometimes I look up from my studying and she’s watching me, quietly and thoughtfully, with the same penetrating gaze she’d turned on me when I entered the study that night. I have no idea what goes on behind those spectacles.
Not really worth thinking about it, in any case, not when her choice of friends tells so much about her character and I have all the extra games coaching to worry about. Besides, when she’s not looking at me, she’s looking at Diana, with a kind of worshipping attention like a puppy looking at its owner. I don’t understand Diana’s magical appeal in the slightest. Even Frances, who is usually as level-headed as is she irritating, is infatuated with her, although Diana rarely has time for her. Rosalind seems head over heels.
It’s a shame. For a while there, I’d hoped to have someone in the form who would understand and sympathise with how I felt about pegasi and unicorns and winged and magical beasts of all kind, but that would involve actually having a conversation or two some time.
It doesn’t matter. For my part, I certainly don’t have the time to bother with Diana
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