by Mike London
Mrs Harrison, the headmistress of Westview Girls School, had scarcely started work that Monday morning when her telephone rang. A little irritated at having been called so early in the day, she took the call. As the telephone conversation went on, anyone watching would have seen that she was growing more and more annoyed. Finally, having jotted down some brief notes, she apologetically assured her interlocutor that the matter would be dealt with, and replaced the phone.
Some of the naughtier girls at Westview had a nickname for the headmistress. They called her the Dragon. Just then it really did look as though she might be about to breathe out flames of fire.
Mrs Harrison made a phone call and resumed her work. When she heard her secretary arrive, she went in to see her, before she had even had time to take her coat off.
"Could you do me a favour, please, Barbara?" she asked. "Could you pop into Mr Richardson's form during registration and ask him to send Joanne Goodall to me and then on to Mrs Nichols form and ask for Madhavi Kumar to be sent here?"
Mr Richardson was form master of the fifth form and Mrs Nicholls was the sixth form mistress.
"Yes, of course, Headmistress. Shall I give them any reason?"
"Thank you, Barbara. No need for reasons. They will find out soon enough."
Barbara thought, seeing the expression on Mrs Harrison's face, that she could make a good guess at the reason. Corporal punishment was not an everyday occurrence at Westview, but during her time at the school she had seen quite a few girls waiting apprehensively outside the head's office, and had subsequently seen them walking unsteadily out of the office after an interview with the headmistress, often with their eyes teary and their hands held to the back of their skirt. The secretary suspected that Madhavi and Joanne, despite being senior girls, might be in for a very uncomfortable meeting with the head.
When the bell went for registration Barbara went to the sixth form room first as it was the nearer.
"Mrs Harrison's compliments, Mrs Nicholls. She would like Madhavi Kumar to report to her straight away, please."
Madhavi was taken by surprise. It really took her aback, hearing her name like that and having to report to the head. A summons to her office was rarely a good thing. But she couldn't think of anything she had done against the rules in school at all. She started to walk towards the office, while the secretary went down another corridor to the fifth form room.
Maddie walked slowly, trying to think of anything she might have done that could have attracted the interest of the headmistress. The only thing she could think of was that she had been part of the senior hockey team that had won the inter-school championship last Friday. Perhaps the headmistress had called her to the office to congratulate her? But in that case, why hadn't the other sixth formers in the team been summoned as well? She couldn't work it out and her mind was whirling as she turned into the short corridor to the head's office.
She paused briefly outside and the knocked firmly. Whatever would be, would be!
The headmistress called "Come in!" and the worried schoolgirl entered, immediately noticing that Mrs Henderson by no means looked in a congratulatory mood.
"Ah! Miss Kumar! Go outside again and wait by the wall."
Maddie knew she was in trouble but still had no idea why. She stood by the wall nervously waiting.
Meanwhile, Barbara had made her request of the fifth form master and now she and Joanne Goodall were walking along the corridors together.
"What's all this in aid of, Barbara? Why does she want to see me?" the nervous schoolgirl asked.
"Honestly, Jo, I don't know," the secretary replied. "She didn't tell me anything. But I think you'd better get yourself ready. She really looked in a bad mood. The only thing I do know is that I had to send Madhavi Kumar to her as well. Does that give you any idea?"
It didn't at first, but suddenly the penny dropped. Jo stopped walking in horror at the sudden idea. If she was right it was really bad news. But how could the headmistress have possibly found out?
"Come on, Jo, we've got to get going. Mrs Harrison is waiting," Barbara chivvied the sixteen-year-old along. Really worried now, Jo walked in silence with the secretary.
Madhavi was still waiting outside and the secretary left Jo with her as she knocked and went in. She told Mrs Harrison that the fifth former was waiting outside.
"Thank you, Barbara, very good," said the headmistress. "I'm going to let them both cool their heels for a bit. Send the pair of them in after ten minutes."
The girls waited nervously as Barbara started her work. The secretary ignored the whisperings between the two of them only intervening to stop them communicating when their voices rose above a murmur. Jo still hoped she was wrong and didn't pass on Maddie the reason that she had thought might explain their having been summoned. She hoped she was wrong.
After ten minutes Barbara picked up the two girls' permanent records, which she knew Mrs Harrison might ask to see, and knocked on the door to the headmistress's office, ushering the two girls in.
"Joanne Goodall and Madhavi Kumar, Headmistress. These are their files"
"Thank you, Barbara, I shan't be needing you for this."
The secretary left, closing the door behind her. The two girls stood in front of the headmistress's desk still not knowing why they were there. She regarded them angrily for a while before ignoring them again and looking through their records. As she had remembered, she had had to cane Madhavi quite severely a couple of years ago but Jo had kept out of serious trouble: the last punishment noted on her file was a slippering when she had been a third year. Jo saw Mrs Harrison looking up at her from the file and rubbed her hand on the side of her skirt uneasily.
"I am really disappointed at the two of you," the headmistress said finally. "You are a disgrace to the school!"
Both girls winced at the force of the headmistress's words. Madhavi was completely puzzled and found courage enough to say, "But Mrs Harrison, we really don't know why we're here."
The headmistress frowned her to silence. "I have received a report that five or six girls from this school were seen engaging in raucous behaviour at the new Burger King restaurant in town." The way she pronounced the name of the restaurant left no doubt as to the depth of her disdain for it.
"The girls were heard to swear loudly and repeatedly and at least two were seen to be smoking."
Jo's fears were now confirmed. But how could Mrs Harrison know who was involved? And why were just the two of them there if she knew that more girls were involved?
The headmistress continued. "This is an absolute disgrace! The reputation of this school is very important to me and it should be to you. But you have shown absolute contempt for it: comporting yourselves like fishwives in a public place while wearing school uniform.
"We can only hope that this matter does not come to the attention of the local newspaper. They would gladly sell papers by showing that pupils here, far from being educated young ladies, cavort themselves in the worst form of antisocial behaviour!"
Mrs Harrison was genuinely angry, this was not just an act to impress the girls, and it showed.
Jo did not dare to deny her involvement, now that she knew why she was there but she did summon up the nerve to say, "But Mrs Harrison, why do you think it was us? It could have been anyone!"
The headmistress paused, looking at both girls.
"This morning I received a telephone call from someone who was there in the restaurant at the time of this outrage. She told me that there were five or six girls involved. She knew they were from Westview because her own daughter goes here. She told me all the girls were seniors. That one of the girls' bags had the name Jo Goodall painted on it in typewriter correction fluid. And she told me that one of the other girls looked Pakistani or Indian. Finally, she told me that she heard the girls shouting something about a hockey match. You were both in the team that won last Friday, weren't you?"
The headmistress looked from Jo's shocked face to the face of Madhavi Kumar, standing next to her.
"I really don't think there is much doubt that you two were there. Do you agree?"
Both girls nodded miserably.
"Furthermore, I have telephoned to the restaurant manager who has confirmed to me that there was a disturbance on Friday afternoon and that he received complaints from several customers. He told me that he went over to the girls' table to request that they be less loud and moderate their language. Unfortunately, he was not so observant as Mrs Thompson and could give me no further details, but this confirms that her complaint was a justified one.
"I regard this as a really serious matter, regarding the good name of the school and I intend to get to the bottom of it. Go out, Joanne, and stand by the wall. I will question Madhavi in private."
Maddie did not want to give her friends away. She knew that she was in for it but did not want to be the cause of other girls getting the cane. To the headmistress's repeated demands for names she would only reply "I'm sorry, Mrs Harrison, but I can't tell you." She was tempted to imitate Melville's character and say "I would prefer not to" but she didn't want to anger the dragon unnecessarily.
At last, the headmistress told her to go out and stand by the wall and send Joanne Goodall in. Maddie gave her a look as they passed, intended to warn her not to tell, but Jo was too worried to understand what was meant.
Jo was a rather easier nut for the headmistress to crack. Soon enough she got names out of the scared sixth former: Sandra Allen and Gemma Maxwell of the fifth form and Leanne Gregory and Cheryl Walton of the sixth form. Six girls in all, counting Jo herself and Maddie. All of them had been part of the victorious team apart from Sandra, who had tagged along as Gemma's close friend.
The headmistress went to the door and called Maddie back in. When the two girls were standing side by side, she asked Maddie to confirm the names that Jo had given her. Casting a disappointed look at Jo, Maddie did so. She went on to add, "But Jo left before the rest of us, right after the manager came over, so she's not so much to blame."
Mrs Harrison nodded, glad that Madhavi had given the mitigation and not Joanne herself.
"Thank you, Madhavi. I will take that into account. But it was Joanne's school bag that Mrs Thompson noticed, so she was obviously there at a time when there was a lot of misbehaviour."
She told Madhavi and Jo to stand facing the wall and wrote down the names of the other girls involved on a piece of paper. She left the girls standing there and went out to the secretary's office.
"I'm sorry to trouble you again, Barbara," she said, handing over the list of names. Could you please round up these miscreants for me?"
She went back into her office and started to work, ignoring the two senior girls who were staring at a blank wall and contemplating their likely fates.
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