Well, the good news (if that's what you want to call it- but I did see Vikki wailing over on 'Family') is that I *do* have it all on word doc so can be reposted. But I'm trying to decide whether it might not be easier to simply email the doc to those of you who want it. I'm happy enough to re post- so basically it'll be numerical! Either way, I will try to write and post the next chapter tonight.

Me for the email file, please Rachel.Trench@blueyonder.co.uk

Looking forward to the next installment :)
 

Ray *who has probably been watching too much Blackadder*

Really sorry it's happened to you too - know how it feels!

BTW lesleyanngreen@tiscali.co.uk - but would also be good if you could re-post so new people could see it!
Lesley

but can I be really cheeky and wait until it's finished.  ;D :o

It would be nice for it to be reposted for people who are not up to date with the thread, or for new people. But as it will cause you some work, then it is really up to you.

If I could just have chapter 8 I think that will bring me up to date (foxtrot1001@aol.com)

Thanks a lot.

Or you could send it to Liss to put in the fiction section.

km_brown77@hotmail.com

The following morning, Cecil went through her dormitory rate at an even faster speed than normal, prompting a sarcastic comment from the dormitory prefect.
     “Do you know something we don’t, by any chance?”
     Cecil turned from flinging her curtains up over the rail to give Marie a cheeky grin. “You never know. I need to go!” and she dashed off, completely unaware of what had had just said.
     Marie rolled her eyes as she watched her go. “You know,” she announced to the dormitory at large, “there are times and seasons when I wonder if Cecil Maynard has a screw loose!”
     Rosita laughed across from her own cubicle. “Only one and only some of the time, Marie? How little you know her!”
     Meanwhile, Cecil had one aim in mind. She was determined to get to Len as soon as she could in order to ask if Len would secure them permission to use the phone in Miss Dene’s office. Fortunately for her, she bumped into her sister just as she crossed the corridor towards the Staff Room, and Len raised her eyebrows at the sight of her younger sister. 
     “What are you doing here at this hour?” she demanded.
     Cecil grinned up at her. The girls were still in their dormitories, and the Staff in the working Staff Room, so they were quite alone. “Looking for you, actually! I want to ask you something.”
     “What’s that, then?” Len responded amiably.
     “I was talking to Grainne last night,” Cecil said, and Len darted a quick look at her, wondering how much she knew. “She wants to know if she can use the phone?”
     Len, who had been in the process of handing over various odds and ends for her sister to carry, stopped dead. “Who does she want to phone?”
     “Her cousin, I think. The one she stayed with in the holidays. She wants to ask her some stuff, and I wondered if you’d be able to help.”
     “Grainne’s still in the Annexe, isn’t she?” Len asked.
     “Yes, though I think she’s coming back to Daffy tonight.”
 

**********************8
A Chalet Girl in Trouble

INTRODUCING GRAINNE

Grainne O’Malley opened her eyes and looked around her. It was early summer, and in the Bernese Oberland, light came early. The dormitory was still and quiet as her room mates continued their slumbers, but Grainne had almost forgotten where she was. Silently- she had long since learnt to move quietly- she pushed back her blanket and swung her legs from the bed, and moved to look out of the window, not realising how unusual it was for a new girl to get one of the coveted window cubicles at the Chalet School. 
     The School, now based at the Gornetz Platz in Switzerland after various migrations, had been established by an Englishwoman named Madge Bettany in the Austrian Tyrol some years before the outbreak of the Second World War. Whilst in its birthplace, the School had flourished and developed a cosmopolitan intake that was naturally reflected in its attitude towards the teaching and learning of modern language. 
Furthermore, almost from its inception the Chalet School had had a close relationship with the great Sanatorium established by a Dr James Russell near to Breisau, where the School was. Many of the School’s pupils were relatives of patients being treated for Tuberculosis at the ‘San’ and this in turn meant that the staff at the School had a greater awareness of health issues than was customarily the case in boarding schools at the time. 
The School- San relationship had been initially cemented by the marriage of Madge Bettany to Dr Russell, and later reinforced with the union of Madge’s younger sister, Joey, who also boasted the honour of being the School’s first pupil, and Dr Jack Maynard, partner to Dr Russell and twin brother to the School’s first Mathematics mistress. 
Circumstances had forced both the Chalet School and the San to flee from Austria during the Nazi annexation of that country, and both had subsequently settled first in Guernsey, and in England itself. The connection had between the two establishments was maintained during their years of ‘exile’ in Britain, and some fifteen years before this story opened, both institutions had finally been able to relocate to the Gornetz Platz in the Oberland, where they had remained ever since, with Joey and Jack Maynard and their long family living next door to the School. Jack acted as Head of the Swiss San, whilst his brother in law Jem Russell continued at the English branch. 
     As the School’s newest pupil considered her surroundings for the first time, her breath came out as a long, satisfied sigh. To call the view panoramic was putting it mildly, and Grainne thought that never had she seen anything so beautiful as these grand Alps. Perhaps- just perhaps- things would work out for her here, she thought wistfully. 
It had been a shock leaving the Holy Family Convent, where she had boarded for as long as she could remember, but she was an honest girl and knew well that she had little real emotional attachment to the place except that which comes from long familiarity. Naturally quiet and uncertain in manner, she had had few friends, preferring instead to withdraw to the security she found in her books. She read almost obsessively, and while this had given her the upper hand in lessons, she had learnt little about how to interact with others, and this had made her unusually innocent for her age, and consequently the butt of cruel jokes, some of which she had not completely understood. Her family circumstances had not helped; her father worked at the Dail Eireainn, and her mother was a dedicated socialite. They were wealthy, but neither had much time for their only child.

UPPER IVA- AND A RAMBLE!

     Daphne, a russet haired maiden of fifteen, looked curiously at Grainne. You never knew what new girls would be like, she mused to herself, but this one certainly looked quiet and ordinary enough. She won’t set the world on fire, she thought blithely. She had however noticed one breach of etiquette, and being an ‘old’ girl and thus an expert on the school’s customs, she set to tending her temporary protegee’s manners. 
“You didn’t curtsy!” she remarked in accusing tones. 
Grainne’s head lowered, and she blushed as she remembered Cecil’s curtsies earlier.
“I-I forgot,” she stammered, all her nervousness and tensity flooding back. 
“You always curtsy to the Head,” Daphne proclaimed didactically. “Some people- like the Continentals, f’r’instance, curtsy to all the Staff. But you must curtsy to the Head. It’s polite,” she ended gloomily. 
“ ‘La pudeur et la politesse,’” Grainne muttered under her breath. 
Daphne cocked a brow at her. “Politeness and piety?” she asked with a grin, and the new girl flushed again. 
“I-it was the motto of my old school,” Grainne explained.
Daphne laughed. “It’ud be a good one for here,” she commented. “And listen, kid,” she continued, regardless of the fact that the new girl was plainly less than a year younger than herself, “don’t look so scared all the time. We’re not that bad, honest! And here we are!” As she spoke, she rapped on the door, and a sweet clear voice called for them to enter. 
     All of the girls in the sunny room known to the school at large as ‘Upper IVa’ turned to look at the newcomers with interest. Their form mistress, a slender woman in her mid twenties, smiled. 
“Ah! It’s our new girl, isn’t it?” Grainne nodded, and the mistress nodded at Daphne, who was also her cousin. “Thank you, Daphne. You may go. Tell Miss Ferrars I’m sorry for the delay,” and Daphne vanished, leaving Grainne to face the mistress and the girls. 
Mrs Entwistle crossed the room to stand beside Grainne. “Grainne- isn’t that how you pronounce your name?- we’ve made a space for you here, beside Rosita Maloney. You’re Irish, aren’t you?” and Grainne nodded. 
“There you go. A compatriot for you!” and the mistress gave a low laugh. “Rosita and- let me see- Cecil, I think! You pair may help Grainne get everything she needs from Miss Dene or Miss Kennedy when they return. In the meantime, help her organise herself as far as possible. Now, everyone else!” and she carried on to name the new form officials for that term. Cecil flashed an encouraging smile at the new girl, while Rosita gave her a murmured welcome in Gaelic Irish, much to Grainne’s astonishment. She was not to know that Rosita was a gifted linguist who had implored her mother to send her for holidays in the ‘Gaeltacht’ so that she could learn the ancient language. 

THE term had just entered its third week. Grainne was finally starting to feel that she knew the Chalet School routine well enough to release her breath and take things more calmly. It had taken all this time to accomplish, for that same routine could seem horrendously complicated to the new and uninitiated! 
First there had been the dormitory routine of bedmaking and cupboard keeping to master- and Grainne was no tidier than most girls of her age. Then there had been the various language rules- both those relating to the French and German days and the ‘slang’ rules of which she had been aquainted by Cecil, Celine, Rosita, and another friend of theirs, one Dorothy Woodward. To their amazement, this particular rule did not faze the new girl as much as they had expected. She had never been in the habit of using a great deal of slang, and was all the more relieved that this was the case when she heard the penalty for using forbidden language in the school. She was however more anxious about German days in particular.
     “What happens if we don’t speak German then?” she asked nervously, being only too aware that her knowledge of that language was basic, to put it kindly. 
     “Fines!” Cecil returned succinctly. 
Grainne looked even more horrified. “But I don’t know any except words like for meals and- and ‘Herr’ and ‘Frau’ and ‘Fraulein’!” she wailed. 
     “They’ll take that into consideration,” Dorothy interjected soothingly. “The first two weeks, anyhow,” she amended gloomily. “After that, if you don’t do it, you’ll get fined same as the rest of us!”
     Grainne looked grimly determined. “In that case, I’ll have to do some serious studying!” she declared.
     “Can’t,” Rosita said laconically. 
     “I can’t? What do you mean?”
     “Rules is rules, my love! Remember I told you on the ramble that they’re nuts on health here? Well, they say that we work hard enough when we are working, so we shouldn’t need to work at other times.”
     Grainne looked even more confused at this involved explanation, and Cecil grinned. “She means that we work hard in lessons and prep time, but we can’t touch our school work during our free time. That make more sense?”
     Grainne agreed morosely that that did indeed make sense, and relapsed into silence as she considered how she was to make any kind of academic prowess on German days, but Cecil and Co., who had decided to adopt her into the ‘Crew’ refused to allow any kind of moping, and she found herself being drawn into their many and various ploys. 
     As it happened, their friendliness made things less difficult for her than they might have been. All four were of long standing in the school, and Cecil at least spoke German as fluently as she did English, while Celine was only too happy to assist the new girl in mastering her own language. Between the two of them, as well as the private coaching arranged by the Head, she soon found that she could at least get by on French and German days, which alleviated that anxiety.
When the language obstacle was removed, the Staff found her to be a good and conscientious worker in all subjects, although as Miss Wilmot, head of Maths, said, she would never be a mathematician. Her ‘bent’ was decidedly for the Arts and Humanities side of the curriculum, and Miss Yolland, who was responsible for Art and Design throughout the School, reported that her drawing skills were excellent.
As a result of all of this, by the beginning of the third week of the term, Grainne was starting to feel considerably more comfortable with her new life. She still fretted from time to time about the cause of her sudden withdrawal from Holy Family, but as the days went by and she became increasingly integrated within the Crew, she had even less time to devote to this. Consequently, she fell into the habit of brooding on it at night after Lights Out. Not unnaturally, this affected her sleep, and it was not long before the School’s beloved domestic tyrant noticed it. 
She appeared at the doorway of Daffodil one morning before Prayers. 
“Is Grainne O’Malley here?”
The other girls exchanged glances. What had Grainne been doing? 
“I’m here, Matron,” the new girl admitted. Inwardly she was shaking. The Crew had taken an almost malicious pleasure in informing her of the ways and habits of ‘Matey’ as she was affectionately known.