‘End of Term’, Part Five

Chapter Six: A Change of Cast

Miranda has been watching the play rehearsals secretly, so she’s there to witness Miss Kempe’s frustration with Jess’s terrible rendition of Shepherd Boy, Dr Herrick making Ginty the Archangel Gabriel, and Tim giving an impertinent but useful suggestion about stage direction. Then, what a surprise, Jess suddenly can’t do Shepherd Boy! Her father has to fly to South Africa to investigate I.D.B (which I think is Illegal Diamond Buying) and is taking his whole family with him! (As if expats working in the colonies didn’t always put their children in English boarding school. Personally, I would have given Jess a broken leg or glandular fever or something else a bit more plausible.) Miss Kempe tries to convince Miss Keith that Lawrie should have the part, but the best she can manage is being allowed to have Nicola.

Nicola is very happy when she’s told, about not having to sing a solo, although surely having a lead acting role would be just as stressful? But then Lawrie bursts in, convinced she has the role. They race off to the noticeboard to check, and yes, it’s Nicola.

“Look, Lal” (Nicola used the baby name she hadn’t used for years), “I’m most awfully sorry. Truly I am.” Which was true. The pleasure of being Shepherd Boy was gone for ever.

Nicola is much more gracious about it than Lawrie would ever be. Lawrie tells Nicola she hates her and to get away and fetch Tim, which Nicola obediently does. Tim’s reaction is even worse:

“Why didn’t you say you wouldn’t do it? You knew how Lawrie would feel.”
“But – Yes, I know, but –”
“You really are the end,” said Tim, eyeing her with an angry, hostile look. “Honestly, there are times when I could hit you, you’re so stupid.”

Nicola has no control over the play’s casting, as Tim knows perfectly well, but the really awful thing is Tim’s presumption that she understands Lawrie better than Lawrie’s identical twin. Lawrie, literally sick with disappointment, goes off to the san with Tim, while Nicola contemplates her ex-friendship with Tim, remembering all their quarrels and that Tim had only written to Lawrie in the holidays:

“[Nicola] took it for granted that people liked her better than Lawrie. Only Tim didn’t. Tim liked Lawrie best … And then she was ashamed – a cold, squirming apprehension that probably she’d butted in, often, when she wasn’t really wanted.”

Poor Nicola! At least she has Miranda as a friend now. As well as Esther and Sally and Elizabeth and nearly everyone else, because Nicola is simply a nicer person and better friend than Lawrie. I can see why Tim would find Nicola’s Moral Uprightness a bit much, but I can’t see why Tim puts up with Lawrie’s self-centredness and immaturity. Unless Tim likes being the Superior One in their friendship, always knowing more than Lawrie? Or thinks Lawrie is going to be a superstar in the future and Tim likes the idea of being the best friend of a celebrity … except I don’t think Tim cares that much about social status.

Chapter Seven: A Change of Team

The next day, Tim has the nerve to try to pretend nothing’s happened, and then when Nicola doesn’t respond to her cheery greeting, says, “What’s up with you? Still sulking?” Lawrie is also Not-Talking to Nicola, so everything’s a bit strained. It all blows up in art class when they’re drawing the play and they realise Miranda has been watching rehearsals. Nicola, worried about her performance as Shepherd Boy, quietly asks Miranda for her opinion, but Lawrie butts in to say Nicola is “pretty awful”. Miranda loses it and it is GLORIOUS:

“The trouble with you is, you’re a spoilt brat … If everything doesn’t go the way she wants it, she yells the place down. Bellow, bellow, bellow. Anyone’d think she was six.”

Miranda also points out that Nicola wanted to be in the netball team just as much as Lawrie wanted to be Shepherd Boy, without making the same fuss, and they’d actually be winning their games if Nicola was in the team. And Miranda blames Tim:

“…if you weren’t always telling her, Lawrie, I mean, how madly brilliant she is, she mightn’t be such an ass.”

But the best bit is when she turns to shy, conflict-averse Esther to back her up and Esther immediately, unequivocally agrees that Lawrie is an ass. This silences even Tim! It’s great.

But poor Esther is otherwise having a miserable time. She’s been forced to take on Nicola’s soloist singing duties in the play, even though she has debilitating stage-fright, and she knows she can’t even run away because she doesn’t have a proper home to run to anymore. It’s a good thing she has Nicola and Miranda as friends, because the adults in her life are being actively harmful.

The netball team loses yet another game and Lawrie injures her leg in gym just before the final game of the term. This presents a moral dilemma, because she was planning on playing brilliantly in the final game and gaining colours:

“…she’d be almost as good as the people in books who played with broken bones and sprained ankles and no one knew till they’d fainted at the end – and she’d always wanted to do that.”

But even Lawrie concedes that with a hurt leg, it’s going to be difficult to play as well as she usually does, let alone better (“People in books must have different types of bones or something”). During an illegally-long hot bath, she contemplates (in a side-long, Lawrie-ish way) the things Miranda said about her and wonders if she, Lawrie, might have been cast as Shepherd Boy if she wasn’t so babyish and spoilt. Then she comes up with a plan. She’ll let Nicola play in her place (instead of Sally, the official sub). This, she decides, is such a nice thing to do for Nick that somehow, as a reward, Lawrie will end up being Shepherd Boy. Also, if they get found out about the netball swap, Nicola will be in so much trouble, she won’t be allowed to be Shepherd Boy, and Lawrie can revel in schadenfreude.

The plan goes surprisingly smoothly the next morning, as they manage to fool Ann, Ginty and Matron. Lawrie stays in bed being Sick-Nicola, while Nicola messes up her hair and goes down to tell the netball team. They all think it’s an excellent idea, and agree not to tell anyone, “specially not Marie Dobson”. Tim needs some convincing and Nicola thinks:

“It was queer and difficult being friends with someone who disliked you so much. At least she supposed they were friends and she supposed it was dislike, though neither seemed quite the right word.”

Let me assist, Nicola. Yes, Tim dislikes you. You’re free to dislike her back. No, you’re not friends. There, sorted.

There are some amusing bits where neat, precise Nicola is forced to be messy and disorganised in order to be a convincing Lawrie. They take the train to the school where they’re playing their netball matches, telling Marie to walk with the Seniors, then ordering her out of their train carriage. (The teachers don’t seem to notice this blatant bullying, which presumably happens at every away-game, so I don’t think Nicola should have any concern about them noticing the twin-swap.)

Now, I don’t even like netball (typical Wing Defence), but this game is pretty exciting. Everyone plays well, especially Nicola – so well that Lois and Janice, watching the game, realise it’s not Lawrie playing. Janice says, “Lois, do have the sense to let it alone. You shouldn’t have got Nicola out in the first place.” Lois hotly denies this and prattles on about prefects having to do their duty, while Janice is coolly amused and dismissive, pointing out that Lawrie will get into just as much trouble as Nicola if Lois decides to report them. When Miss Craven comes over, Janice wickedly says, “Lawrie played particularly well. Didn’t Lawrie play well, Lois?” and Lois reluctantly agrees that Lawrie deserves her colours. I’m liking Janice more and more.

On the way back, Marie manages to squirm into the carriage with the rest of the triumphant team and then gloats that she knows a secret. Except then she finds out that everyone else knew about the twin-swap and didn’t tell her because they knew she’d sneak to Craven or Lois. So Marie bursts into tears, exclaiming it’s not fair that Nicola told everyone about Guides last year. Even though Nicola hasn’t told anyone. Marie is so pathetically awful – it’s completely understandable that the other girls don’t like her. If only a teacher or an older girl would take Marie under her wing and teach her some social skills, then work out what she’s good at and let her have some success and responsibilities in that. Or they could have left her in the B class with her friend Pomona. Instead, they throw her into the netball team, when she can’t play, and ignore it when the others exclude her from everything. At least Nicola realises “we’ll have to be a bit careful … she has feelings same like the rest of you”, although Lawrie “who never really believed anyone but herself had any, remained unconvinced”.

Next, Chapter Eight: As It Turned Out