The Dragonfly Pool

“Yes, I see.” Tally was trying not to think of the poor spiders, squashed to death by unexpected feet. But Margaret was in full cry now, explaining the rules.

“You have to curtsy when you meet the headmistress and call her ma’am and always walk on the left side of the corridor, but you soon get the hang of it. And of course you have to have exactly the right clothes. We’ve just finished buying my uniform for next term and you wouldn’t believe how expensive it was. Mummy nearly died when she got the bill from Harrods!”

She went to her wardrobe and took out, one by one, the clothes she would need for St. Barbara’s and laid them on her bed. There were two bottle-green gym slips with pleated skirts and a matching sash to tie around the waist. There were four pale blue flannel blouses, a tie, a pudding-shaped velour hat with a hat ribbon, a straw hat for later in the term, and a blazer edged in braid. The blazer, like the tie and the hat ribbon, was striped in the St. Barbara’s colors of bottle green and blue, and the motto on the pocket said: BE THE BEST.

“The best at what? ” asked Tally.

“Oh, everything,” said Margaret airily. She picked up one of the gym slips and held it in front of her. “There’s always a big fuss about the length of the skirt. Matron makes us kneel down and if the hem is more than four inches off the ground we get detention.”

Tally tried not to panic. The whole bed was covered in clothes; there was a smell of starch and newness.

But Margaret had not finished. She went back to the wardrobe and brought out a big carrier bag full of brand-new shoes.

“The lace-ups are for out-of-doors, and indoors we have strap shoes, and on Sundays we wear these pumps. Then there are sneakers and dancing shoes . . . and I have skating boots . . .”

After the shoes came Margaret’s underclothes: woolen socks and garters and a liberty bodice that buttoned into Margaret’s bottle-green knickers. The knickers had pockets and elastic around the knees.

“Mummy thought I could wear the same knickers that I had last term, but I told her I couldn’t. They have to be new because people can see you take your handkerchief out of your knicker pocket. And here are the things we have for games . . .”

From another cupboard Margaret produced a pair of nailed hockey boots, a brand-new hockey stick, a woolen bathing costume with the St. Barbara’s crest on the chest, and the school scarf. Like the blazer and the tie, the scarf was striped in the school colors of bottle green and blue. It was not a joyful color scheme.

Like a bruise, thought Tally, but a very expensive one.

“And we have to have regulation nightclothes, too: some schools are sloppy—they let you wear what you like at night—but not St. Barbara’s. Even the slippers are regulation—and on Sundays we wear special dresses: green velvet with lace collars; I can’t show you everything because the maid is still sewing on name tapes. But here’s my satchel—we have to have proper leather ones with our names stamped on, and hymn books, of course, and a lunch box.”

But even Margaret, who seldom noticed other people, saw that Tally was beginning to look worried and now she said, “The school will send you a list of the things you need and your aunts will help you buy them. Only you must have absolutely the right things—a girl came last term without her Sunday shoes and she got into awful trouble. Being different is the thing you mustn’t do.”

At this point Roderick came into the room. He was nearly two years older than Margaret—a fair, good-looking boy who seldom spoke to girls if he could help it. Roderick’s school was so famous and so grand that he didn’t really need to show off about it, but since Tally wasn’t usually easy to impress he mentioned that the Prince of Transjordania was in the class above him and that this term they were expecting a boy who was related to the family of the ex-emperor of Prussia.

“But we don’t treat them any differently than the other boys at Foxingham,” he said carelessly.

The rules at Foxingham were of course even stricter than those at St. Barbara’s—there was hazing and caning—and it was a famous rugby school, which had beaten Eton at the game.

“Have you bought your uniform, too? ” asked Tally.

“Of course,” said Roderick.

For a moment he hesitated. Then he went to his room and came back with his brand-new blazer, his tie, and his cap.

All of these were striped fiercely in red and yellow. Walking out together the boys, thought Tally, must have looked like a swarm of angry wasps or ferocious postmen. The motto on Roderick’s blazer was: OUT OF MY WAY.

“I’ll lend you some books if you like,” said Margaret. “School stories. I want them back of course, but I’ve read them millions of times. They’ll give you an idea of what to expect.”

She went to her bookcase and took out Angela of the Upper Fourth and The Madcap of the Remove and gave them to Tally, who thanked her warmly.