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Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
http://www.the-cbb.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5451
Author:  Advent Drabblers [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 9:55 am ]
Post subject:  Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
This sheet of paper was found in the Chalet School Archive. There were no details attached to it, but it was noted that the document was typed and not hand written, leading the historian to presume it was written by a member of staff and not a pupil. There is no official record of the events mentioned, but various other references, such as the rather scandalous posthumous diaries of Gwyneth Lloyd suggest that it may be true.

10 Top Tips for a Successful School Fête

1.Store all items for the sale in a store room with a strong lockable door.
2.Apply prices to all items the night before the sale, preferably after all the pupils and all staff apart from those helping have gone to bed.
3.Chatter amongst yourselves loudly enough to wake up one middle with an uneasy conscience but no one else.
4.Ensure that you keep your backs to the door at all times, and under no circumstances turn round if you hear the bolts being drawn.
5.Once you discover you are locked in, shout “Who's That?” disguising your voice as you do.
6.Spend several hours banging on the door until a junior member of staff hears.
7.When rescued, become icy as if your rescuer had something to do with locking the door.
8.Stay up until 3.00am having an inquisition and then the giggles.
9.When confronted with erring middle confessing to catching burglars, do not explain and do not giggle.
10.Do not allow the story to spread, on pain of death or worse.
Author:  abbeybufo [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:29 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:

Thanks ADs
Author:  Advent Drabblers [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 1:41 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
My dear Lillian

I really have to write to tell you the latest, especially as it’s a joke against me! Last Friday night, just before the sale, a group of us were doing some last minute pricing up in the store cupboard. It was well after midnight - don’t ask why we were doing it so late, please! We’d just about finished when the door shut with a bang and we could hear one of the bolts being shot across, and then footsteps running away. We shouted of course, but no one came back. I’d better describe the cupboard. It’s more of a small room really, with shelves round the walls where we stored all the things the girls had made, and a small barred window at the back. There wasn’t a lot of room for us all. Madge, Nell Wilson, Jeanne de Lachenais and myself, and no way to get any leverage against a bolted door. there’s no heating in there either, and it was cold. It’s March after all.

After a while we started banging and shouting again. It helped to keep us warm if nothing else. Finally Hilary Burn heard us and came to let us out. We all retired to the Library, and Nell stoked up the fire while Jeanne made us some coffee and dug out some biscuits, which we were more than ready for after that. Nell was furious, coming over all icy and Headmistressy, until Madge suddenly saw the funny side of it and burst out laughing. That broke the ice of course, and we all had a good chuckle. Let’s face it, whoever it was couldn’t have caught a better group if she’d tried. We talked for a while, then someone realised that it was 3.00 in the morning and we shot off to bed, none the wiser as to who had locked us in. I’m the next to visit Hilda, and you can be sure that she’s going to get the whole story. She needs a good laugh, poor soul, to help her through this time.

First thing next morning we found out! Tom Gay reported to Miss Wilson that she’d locked some burglar in the store cupboard. How Nell managed to keep her face straight till she’d gone, only she knows! She did confess to collapsing once Tom had gone - I suspect Tom’s idea of a curtsy wouldn’t have helped either. She’s not very graceful, more a boy than a girl!

Anyway, I thought I’d better find out just why she was wandering around the house at that hour of the night, so I hauled her into my room after school, and got the whole story out of her. She’d been dreaming, more of a nightmare really, and ended up by falling out of bed. It was when she was trying to remake it that she heard noises and went to investigate. I will say this for her, her remembered to put on her dressing gown and slippers before she set off, which a lot of girls wouldn’t have done. She told me that she slid down the banisters in case the stairs creaked, the naughty girl. She knows that isn’t allowed! Then she crept up to the cupboard and slammed the door. He nerve failed her at that point, and she only managed to shoot one of the bolts before she ran back to bed. She said she fell asleep straight away and slept beautifully till morning.

I was curious about her nightmare, and she said she remembered it very clearly. All the toys the girls had made were dancing around in a ring, with her in the middle. She only got out by diving between the legs of a pink cat that Bride Bettany had made. That’s how she ended up on the floor! She’s a level-headed girl, and I didn’t think the dream would return. But that wasn’t everything. You see, the odd thing was that the previous night, when I was closing the cupboard door, being the last one out, and turned to put the light out, I could swear that that pink cat was laughing at me!

All my love

Gwynneth
Author:  abbeybufo [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 2:12 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
:lol: so it was all the pink cat's fault!

*trying to remember what Bride had stuffed it with :? *

Thanks ADs :D
Author:  PaulineS [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 3:16 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
Pleased the culprit was the pink cat!
:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Author:  Liz K [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 7:36 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
abbeybufo wrote:
:lol: so it was all the pink cat's fault!

*trying to remember what Bride had stuffed it with :? *

Thanks ADs :D



Sawdust wasn't it? And then she was advised to stuff it with cotton wool.
Author:  abbeybufo [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 8:50 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
Liz K wrote:
abbeybufo wrote:
:lol: so it was all the pink cat's fault!

*trying to remember what Bride had stuffed it with :? *

Thanks ADs :D



Sawdust wasn't it? And then she was advised to stuff it with cotton wool.


Aha! sapient pearwood sawdust then :lol:
Author:  Cat C [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 9:53 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
Some of the staff's letters home must have made brilliant reading!

Thank you ADs :D
Author:  Advent Drabblers [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:08 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
"Got another beer there? Right, then I'll tell ya the weirdest night I ever 'ad. Now you know I sometimes used to go out thieving?"

"No, really? Never would 'ave guessed. Not with you spending two years in His Majesty's Prison Shrewsbury."

"Shut up, shut up, I know. Now I ain't never nicked stuff from any of me mates, see?"

"Course not, we don't have anything worth nicking."

"Too right. So anyway, I was over Armiford way once oh, back during the War, forty-four I think..."

"Why weren't you fighting?"

"Think I'm nuts? No, medical discharge me, heart problems."

"Yeah, they couldn't find one!"

"And I heard about this posh school wot had taken over a big house, owned by the Vicar only he was off abroad. So, one night, sometime in March I think. I wanders over there to have a look."

"How much did you nick?"

"Look who's telling this story? Anyone got another beer?"

"Oh give him a beer or we'll never hear the story."

"Thank you. So it was a still night, full moon which was a bit of a b*gger but, I could work with it, I'd cased the place for a few nights before - got meself a couple of deliveries and even helped out with the gardening, just so I could see what was what. It was a little after midnight when I got there and I managed to let myself in through a small window in the kitchens. My plan was to look in the offices first - that's where they keep the money, after all. I went into the library first - warmed meself up while checking through the desk there as the fire was still smouldering. Then I was just about to move on when I heard noises. At first I thought it wasn't a problem, the noise was coming from a room at the end of a little used passageway, some of the teachers I expect - nowhere near where I was going - then she appeared."

"She, what was it a ghost?"

"No, a flaming kid - thought it was a lad at first. No idea why she was awake but she'd obviously heard the same noises and was investigating. Well I followed her, hiding in the shadows like, and watched as she went down that corridor. Then she gets to the room at the end and, stripe me, little tyke only goes and slams the door shut and pulls across a bolt."

"What? You're kidding."

"As God's my witness - I'm killing meself laughing hiding in an alcove, especially as she takes to her heels and runs off afterwards. I look back at the door and see she's only pulled the bolt partway and that, with the frantic hammering on the door from the teachers, it was starting to loosen. So I finished the job for her and pull the bolt the rest of the way then scarper out of there. Far as I know those women are still in there!"
Author:  abbeybufo [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
:lol: :lol: :lol:

Trust Lesley to give us an 'inside' view :devil:

Thanks ADs :D
Author:  Pat [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:30 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
A real burglar! Nice take! :twisted: :devil: :twisted: :devil:
Author:  Sugar [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:33 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
Brilliant.

Can imagine the news headlines if no one had rescued them. 22nd Dec 2008 Multiple Skeletons found in Hereford Manor House Cubby Hole!
Author:  Alison H [ Sun Dec 21, 2008 10:38 pm ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
These are great!
Author:  Susan [ Mon Dec 22, 2008 12:33 am ]
Post subject:  Re: Advent Drabbles Day 21 - Tom
3 more brilliant stories.
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