{"id":5535,"date":"2018-01-01T23:29:43","date_gmt":"2018-01-01T12:29:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=5535"},"modified":"2018-01-02T13:36:59","modified_gmt":"2018-01-02T02:36:59","slug":"end-of-term-part-six","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2018\/01\/end-of-term-part-six\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018End of Term\u2019, Part Six"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter Eight: As It Turned Out<\/strong><\/p>\n

The play looms and there\u2019s further discussion about it in the art room. Miranda says it\u2019s odd they\u2019re all so unreligious about the play and Lawrie makes an unexpected contribution: <\/p>\n

\u201cI<\/em> should have thought,\u201d said Lawrie decidedly, \u201cthat it was more important to make the audience feel religious than be it yourself.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When Miranda asks if that\u2019s possible, if you yourself don\u2019t feel religious, Lawrie says that of course you can \u2013 that\u2019s acting. Lawrie has the occasional thoughtful observation, but it has to fight its way through the tangle of ridiculousness that fills her head. No wonder she drives her teachers round the bend. I bet there are lots of priests and vicars and pastors who have given up believing what they preach, but have to fake sincerity each Sunday at the pulpit because leaving their career would be too much of an upheaval in their lives.<\/p>\n

Lawrie\u2019s observation only deepens the \u201cchilly sense of inadequacy\u201d Nicola feels in her Shepherd Boy role, especially as even Bunty, the Second Former carrying Sprog in the play, says Nicola and Lawrie should swap roles. But then on the morning of the play \u2013 major drama! Esther gets a letter from her terrible mother saying they\u2019re moving to a new flat which doesn\u2019t allow pets, so not only does Esther have to stay at school for the first part of the holidays during the move, but Daks will be sent \u201cto the kennels\u201d, which Esther interprets as the poor puppy being killed (not an unreasonable notion, given the way her parents have behaved so far). This is just too much for Esther on top of everything else, and when neither Miranda nor Nicola can console her, she\u2019s taken off to the san by Matron, who for once, sounds \u201cquite kind\u201d because Esther is so obviously distraught.<\/p>\n

I have to say, as someone who was sent off to board when I was ten, LEAVING MY DOG BEHIND, I am having ALL THE FEELINGS about Esther right now.<\/p>\n

Anyway, Miranda and Nicola come up with a clever plan. Miranda will invite Esther to her house for the first part of the holidays (Nicola can\u2019t because of Grandmother) and Nicola will buy Daks and then Laurie can bring him to school next term as her<\/em> pet. They\u2019ll have to phone various parents to organise this, though, and Nicola\u2019s mother loathes the phone, especially phoning strangers, so Nicola has the good idea to call Mr Merrick. The only thing is, he might be at work and \u201cif you telephoned the House of Commons the person who answered would, obviously, be Mr. Churchill\u201d. (I could just picture Churchill, sitting alone at a desk in the foyer, answering phone calls in a fog of cigar smoke.) <\/p>\n

Luckily, Miss Kempe spots her two most \u201csensible, reliable\u201d pupils and sends them into town to shop for last-minute play requirements, so they can call from a phone box. (So much easier to create plot complications when no one has a mobile phone.) Nicola then learns more about Miranda\u2019s life \u2013 that she lives at a very grand address and must be \u201creally rich\u201d, but also that \u201cvery, very occasionally you get people who don\u2019t like being friends with Jews\u201d, including a girl in IV B who \u201ctalks about Jew girls\u201d and \u201cMarie Dobson would like to\u201d. Nicola is shocked and horrified:<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had a muddled feeling she ought to apologize for the stupidity and bad manners of her countrymen, only, since they were Miranda\u2019s too, it would sound pretty silly.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Given Miranda is one of the chief bullies of Marie, I wonder what\u2019s cause and what\u2019s effect. Does Miranda bully Marie unmercifully because Marie is anti-Semitic or does Marie use (or think<\/em>, as she doesn\u2019t seem to do it aloud) anti-Semitic abuse against Miranda in retaliation for the bullying, or are the bullying and the anti-Semitism unrelated? (Miranda also refers to the IV B girl as \u201cthat common little soul with the perm and the Jaguar\u201d.) These characters are all so complex, with complicated motivations \u2013 even the admirable ones (and Miranda is mostly admirable) are far from perfect.<\/p>\n

It also turns out Miranda\u2019s family is Polish and her real family name is some long, unspellable Polish name. I wonder if that\u2019s why Antonia Forest used the example of Polish Catholics being persecuted earlier?<\/p>\n

Mr Merrick, by the way, agrees to collect Daks from Esther\u2019s mother and deliver the pup to the Marlow house, even saying he\u2019ll adopt Daks if Nicola\u2019s mother won\u2019t. Mr Merrick is pretty much the only kind, sensitive and sensible adult in this entire series.<\/p>\n

Back at school, the girls try to tell Esther they\u2019ve started sorting things out, but Matron refuses to let them disturb Esther or even give her a message. Then there\u2019s a great bit when Val the Head Girl comes in, in utter disbelief, to tell Nicola \u201cYour Member of Parliament wants to speak to you\u201d and hooray, it\u2019s all sorted with Mr Merrick! But when they try to find Esther to tell her, they discover she\u2019s run away home, leaving a note for Miranda! Should they tell the teachers? Will this get Esther into terrible trouble? What if Esther manages to make it back in time for the play? <\/p>\n

Then Nicola has her brainwave. She gathers Lawrie and Tim and tells them the news, astutely leaving it to Tim to put it all together and say it out loud. With Esther away, Nicola and Lawrie can swap. Lawrie will be Shepherd Boy, Nicola will go back to singing her solos, and Miranda will be Candle Angel instead of Esther. But they can\u2019t tell the teachers, otherwise they\u2019ll use \u201cghastly drip Helen Bagshawe\u201d, the official Shepherd Boy understudy.<\/p>\n

Miranda would love to be in the play, but worries everyone else will mind, with her being Jewish. She tosses a coin to decide, \u201ctails I don\u2019t\u201d, then when it comes down tails, decides to do it anyway. They make it to the Minster all right, but are pulled up outside the changing rooms by the teachers, including Miss Cromwell, who\u2019s just spoken with Esther\u2019s mother. Then it all comes out. Tim is in big trouble for lying that Esther was on the other bus. Then Lawrie puts her foot in it when she realises they won\u2019t let her be Shepherd Boy after all:<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I must<\/em>. It\u2019s why I let Nick play in the match. I made a bargain. I said if I<\/em> let Nick have one match, They\u2019d<\/em> got to let me do the Shepherd Boy \u2013\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Miss Cromwell asks with whom Lawrie made this bargain and Lawrie \u201cwaved her hand vaguely at the ceiling\u201d, presumably at Athene and Jupiter and St Luke and Zeus and St Therese, and Miss Cromwell nearly explodes. Blood for breakfast! All is lost! <\/p>\n

Except, no, here comes Dr Herrick, who explains that Esther\u2019s understudy is Nicola, so of course, Nicola must sing and no, of course, Helen can\u2019t be the Shepherd Boy, she\u2019s hopeless. So it\u2019s sorted, except who will be Nicola\u2019s Candle Angel partner? Miranda is the only logical choice, but Miss Kempe worries that \u201csome people would take great exception\u201d to a Jewish angel in the Minster and anyway, what would Miranda\u2019s father think about his daughter \u201cbeing shanghai\u2019d into a Nativity Play\u201d? Janice is again the soul of reason, pointing out that outsiders won\u2019t know and a Jewish angel is hardly like \u201cthe Oberammergau Christ turning out to be the district\u2019s leading Nazi\u201d. (I forgot to say earlier that Grandmother\u2019s Christ figurine in her bedroom is an Oberammergau Christ, and I wondered at the time if that might be a subtle hint at her Nazi-sympathising.)<\/p>\n

Miss Kempe moans that she \u201ccan\u2019t start arguing the metaphysics of the case\u201d (you should probably be in a different book series, then, Miss Kempe), but helplessly agrees to go along with it as long as Miranda\u2019s father won\u2019t object. So Nicola finds Miranda, who\u2019s furious about being snubbed earlier, but Nicola manages to convince Miranda that they were only worried about her father. Miranda says he won\u2019t mind: <\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, it\u2019s only a play to me. It\u2019s not as if \u2013 well, as if I was going to believe anything different, or anyone wanted me to, or anything.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But as they\u2019re waiting in the Minster for the play to start, a small child is mesmerised by Miranda\u2019s convincing angel-impression and Nicola starts to feel a bit overwhelmed by the responsibility of re-enacting the first Christmas.<\/p>\n

Next, Chapter Nine: Right Way Round<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter Eight: As It Turned Out The play looms and there\u2019s further discussion about it in the art room. Miranda says it\u2019s odd they\u2019re all so unreligious about the play and Lawrie makes an unexpected contribution: \u201cI should have thought,\u201d said Lawrie decidedly, \u201cthat it was more important to make the audience feel religious than … Continue reading \u2018End of Term\u2019, Part Six<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,6,18],"tags":[25],"class_list":["post-5535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-1950s-and-1960s","category-books","category-my-favourite-books","tag-antonia-forest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5535"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5539,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5535\/revisions\/5539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}