her.
"She's losing her temper," said Eunice Gardiner, skipping.
"I don't believe what she says," said Sandy, desperately trying to visualise the scene in the art room and to goad factual Monica into describing it with due feeling.
"I believe it," said Rose. "Mr. Lloyd is an artist and Miss Brodie is artistic too." Jenny said, "Didn't they see the door opening?"
"Yes," said Monica, "they jumped apart as I opened the door."
"How did you know they didn't see you?" Sandy said.
"I got away before they turned round. They were standing at the far end of the room beside the still-life curtain." She went to the classroom door and demonstrated her quick getaway. This was not dramatically satisfying to Sandy who went out of the classroom, opened the door, looked, opened her eyes in a startled way, gasped and retreated in a flash. She seemed satisfied by her experimental renactment but it so delighted her friends that she repeated it. Miss Brodie came up behind her on her fourth performance which had reached a state of extreme flourish.
"What are you doing, Sandy?" said Miss Brodie.
"Only playing," said Sandy, photographing this new Miss Brodie with her little eyes. The question of whether Miss Brodie was actually capable of being kissed and of kissing occupied the Brodie set till Christmas. For the war-time romance of her life had presented to their minds a Miss Brodie of hardly flesh and blood, since that younger Miss Brodie belonged to the prehistory of before their birth. Sitting under the elm last autumn, Miss Brodie's story of
"when I was a girl" had seemed much less real, and yet more believable than this report by Monica Douglas. The Brodie set decided to keep the incident to themselves lest, if it should spread to the rest of the class, it should spread wider still and eventually to someone's ears who would get Monica Douglas into trouble.
There was, indeed, a change in Miss Brodie. It was not merely that Sandy and Jenny, recasting her in their minds, now began to try to imagine her as someone called "Jean." There was a change in herself. She wore newer clothes and with them a glowing amber necklace which was of such real amber that, as she once showed them, it had magnetic properties when rubbed and then applied to a piece of paper.
The change in Miss Brodie was best discerned by comparison with the other teachers in the Junior school. If you looked at them and then looked at Miss Brodie it was more possible to imagine her giving herself up to kissing.
Jenny and Sandy wondered if Mr. Lloyd and Miss Brodie had gone further that day in the art room, and had been swept away by passion. They kept an eye on Miss Brodie's stomach to see if it showed signs of swelling. Some days, if they were bored, they decided it had begun to swell. But on Miss Brodie's entertaining days they found her stomach as flat as ever and at these times even agreed together that Monica Douglas had been telling a lie. The other Junior school teachers said good morning to Miss Brodie, these days, in a more than Edinburgh manner, that is to say it was gracious enough, and not one of them omitted to say good morning at all; but Sandy, who had turned eleven, perceived that the tone of "morning" in good morning made the word seem purposely to rhyme with "scorning," so that these colleagues of Miss Brodie's might just as well have said, "I scorn you," instead of good morning. Miss Brodie's reply was more anglicised in its accent than was its usual proud wont. "Good mawning," she replied, in the corridors, flattening their scorn beneath the chariot wheels of her superiority, and deviating her head towards them no more than an insulting halfinch. She held her head up, up, as she walked, and often, when she reached and entered her own classroom, permitted herself to sag gratefully against the door for an instant. She did not frequent the staff common rooms in the free periods when her class was taking its singing or sewing lessons, but accompanied
"She's losing her temper," said Eunice Gardiner, skipping.
"I don't believe what she says," said Sandy, desperately trying to visualise the scene in the art room and to goad factual Monica into describing it with due feeling.
"I believe it," said Rose. "Mr. Lloyd is an artist and Miss Brodie is artistic too." Jenny said, "Didn't they see the door opening?"
"Yes," said Monica, "they jumped apart as I opened the door."
"How did you know they didn't see you?" Sandy said.
"I got away before they turned round. They were standing at the far end of the room beside the still-life curtain." She went to the classroom door and demonstrated her quick getaway. This was not dramatically satisfying to Sandy who went out of the classroom, opened the door, looked, opened her eyes in a startled way, gasped and retreated in a flash. She seemed satisfied by her experimental renactment but it so delighted her friends that she repeated it. Miss Brodie came up behind her on her fourth performance which had reached a state of extreme flourish.
"What are you doing, Sandy?" said Miss Brodie.
"Only playing," said Sandy, photographing this new Miss Brodie with her little eyes. The question of whether Miss Brodie was actually capable of being kissed and of kissing occupied the Brodie set till Christmas. For the war-time romance of her life had presented to their minds a Miss Brodie of hardly flesh and blood, since that younger Miss Brodie belonged to the prehistory of before their birth. Sitting under the elm last autumn, Miss Brodie's story of
"when I was a girl" had seemed much less real, and yet more believable than this report by Monica Douglas. The Brodie set decided to keep the incident to themselves lest, if it should spread to the rest of the class, it should spread wider still and eventually to someone's ears who would get Monica Douglas into trouble.
There was, indeed, a change in Miss Brodie. It was not merely that Sandy and Jenny, recasting her in their minds, now began to try to imagine her as someone called "Jean." There was a change in herself. She wore newer clothes and with them a glowing amber necklace which was of such real amber that, as she once showed them, it had magnetic properties when rubbed and then applied to a piece of paper.
The change in Miss Brodie was best discerned by comparison with the other teachers in the Junior school. If you looked at them and then looked at Miss Brodie it was more possible to imagine her giving herself up to kissing.
Jenny and Sandy wondered if Mr. Lloyd and Miss Brodie had gone further that day in the art room, and had been swept away by passion. They kept an eye on Miss Brodie's stomach to see if it showed signs of swelling. Some days, if they were bored, they decided it had begun to swell. But on Miss Brodie's entertaining days they found her stomach as flat as ever and at these times even agreed together that Monica Douglas had been telling a lie. The other Junior school teachers said good morning to Miss Brodie, these days, in a more than Edinburgh manner, that is to say it was gracious enough, and not one of them omitted to say good morning at all; but Sandy, who had turned eleven, perceived that the tone of "morning" in good morning made the word seem purposely to rhyme with "scorning," so that these colleagues of Miss Brodie's might just as well have said, "I scorn you," instead of good morning. Miss Brodie's reply was more anglicised in its accent than was its usual proud wont. "Good mawning," she replied, in the corridors, flattening their scorn beneath the chariot wheels of her superiority, and deviating her head towards them no more than an insulting halfinch. She held her head up, up, as she walked, and often, when she reached and entered her own classroom, permitted herself to sag gratefully against the door for an instant. She did not frequent the staff common rooms in the free periods when her class was taking its singing or sewing lessons, but accompanied
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