{"id":6217,"date":"2020-12-31T01:32:31","date_gmt":"2020-12-30T14:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/?p=6217"},"modified":"2020-12-31T01:32:31","modified_gmt":"2020-12-30T14:32:31","slug":"the-cricket-term-part-five","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/2020\/12\/the-cricket-term-part-five\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Cricket Term\u2019, Part Five"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chapter Eight: Casualty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, that chapter title is ominous, but it gets off to a good start with Lower IV.A beating Lower V.B, although it\u2019s their \u201chardest match to date\u201d and they scrape through with a bit of luck. This means Nicola\u2019s team will face Lois\u2019s team in the Final, which is on the second-last day of term. The only really good players in the Sixth Form are Lois, Janice and a girl called Olive; \u201cthe rest of them were there simply to make up the numbers\u201d and Val Longstreet says Lois is being \u201crather adolescent to be so<\/em> obsessive about winning\u201d. In response, Lois storms off in a temper, although you\u2019d think she\u2019d have enough to worry about with final exams. But she wants to be a games mistress and maybe you don\u2019t need high marks to get into that sort of college? Maybe it\u2019s based on school sports results?<\/p>\n

Then it\u2019s the swimming match against Wade Abbas Collegiate and Ginty\u2019s friends insist she take her lucky clover leaf with her. It\u2019s now sandwiched between two glass lenses from a pair of old spectacles (exactly what Alexander Fleming did with his penicillin-mould paper to give to Prince Philip, who did not appreciate it!<\/a>) and she insists Nicola hold it throughout the tournament for good luck. Nicola obliges and Ginty gets the highest score in the diving and is the star of the relay team, so it sort of works, despite Ann\u2019s disapproval of all this superstitious nonsense. (Antonia Forest doesn\u2019t seem to think Ann\u2019s religious beliefs are superstitious nonsense, although I can\u2019t see much difference myself.) <\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Nicola clutches the glass so tightly that it breaks and gashes her palm. Being a Marlow, she covers up the gushing blood until Matron, noticing her lack of proper school hat (because Daks killed it), also notices the injury. She drags Nicola off to the San to bandage it, then orders Nicola off to hospital for stitches. Nicola, who\u2019s heard Peter moaning about how stitches are agony, protests, but Matron is stern: \u201cDon\u2019t be ridiculous! Do you want to lose your hand?\u201d So poor Nicola imagines her hand being hacked off, \u201cdunking in hot tar to follow\u201d, although a perfectly nice Pakistani doctor stitches it quickly and mostly painlessly and has a chat about cricket with her, assuring her she\u2019ll be able to play in the final.<\/p>\n

She arrives back at school in time for supper, where she\u2019s ordered to have a Junior Supper of \u201cmilk, oatcakes and stewed fruit\u201d because she\u2019s an invalid. (Given the blood loss, you\u2019d think beef stew and orange juice would be more useful, but well, it\u2019s Kingscote<\/a>.) She reassures everyone that, contrary to belief, her arm hasn\u2019t been amputated and she will be playing in the cricket final and singing in The Tempest<\/em>. Then Miranda helps her over to the San, where she has to spend the night. Miranda\u2019s crush on Janice has reached epic levels — she\u2019s analysing everything Janice says or does, and is desperate to have a chance to play Ariel against Jan\u2019s Prospero. Except of course, that will only happen if Lawrie doesn\u2019t play Ariel. Which is impossible.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m confused again about forms and ages. Nicola says Janice was \u201cin the Sixth with Kay and in teams with Rowan, but I don\u2019t think you\u2019d call them friends\u201d. If Janice was in the same year as Karen, why did Karen go to Oxford a year ago? Did Janice repeat a year or was Karen so brilliant that she got into Oxford early? I\u2019d also thought Janice was friends with Rowan, but apparently not (and I remember now that she was surprised when Rowan didn\u2019t turn up at school, but then Rowan didn\u2019t seem to tell anyone she was leaving).<\/p>\n

Matron insists that Nicola ring the bell if her hand hurts in the night and Nicola says she will, while wondering “what exact degree of unbearable agony would bring her to the pitch of actually doing that\u201d. She wakes in the night \u201cher hand an enormous, throbbing hurt\u201d, convinced she has gangrene, like Hornblower\u2019s Lieutenant, but naturally does not call Matron, because Nicola’s a Marlow (and also because Matron told her off earlier for not being as stoic as her sister Rowan). So Nicola, unable to sleep, goes on with her Cromwell reading. She only has three more books to read, so she\u2019s doing pretty well. Dombey and Son<\/em> is a slog at first: \u201cit was slushy, it was yuk, she couldn\u2019t care less if that wetter-than-wet lad died, but all the same, it was<\/em> sad\u2026\u201d Then Matron comes in, tells her off and gives her an aspirin. She does get a boiled egg for breakfast, so there\u2019s a bit of iron replenishment, then it\u2019s back to school, although as she can\u2019t play games, she spends a lot of time in the library with the seniors.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Lawrie is continuing to be terrible at being Ariel, and during a rehearsal break, shows off her Caliban act to the others. Miss Kempe has had enough by now and tells her off, so Lawrie, predictably, has a sobbing fit and is ordered off stage. Nicola is ordered to fetch Miranda, who does a much better job, despite not having rehearsed it with the others \u2014 she\u2019s funny and poignant where she\u2019s meant to be, \u201cmore like something magic\u201d. Miss Kempe seems to be impressed, in her undemonstrative way, and Miranda is ecstatic that she\u2019s had a chance, even just one, to be on stage with Janice. Lawrie sulks for a while, then goes off to tell Miss Kempe that Miranda ought to do Ariel: \u201cIt\u2019s just not my part, honestly.\u201d Lawrie is convinced that she can make a bargain with Them Up There, as she did last time, when she got to play the Shepherd Boy after letting Nicola play in her place in the netball match. Miss Kempe makes Lawrie promise not to say anything to the others about giving up the role. In fact, she goes straight to tell Nicola, but falls asleep before she can, and then doesn\u2019t have a chance the next morning. By then, Miss Kempe has decided Miranda will act and sing Ariel\u2019s part, so both twins are out of the play. Nicola is astonished that Lawrie has voluntarily given up the part and Miss Kempe is astonished that Lawrie hasn\u2019t told anyone.<\/p>\n

Miranda thinks this is \u201cabsolutely blissful\u201d and is perfectly happy to give up studying for exams. Nicola asks won\u2019t her father mind when she doesn\u2019t come first, as she usually does, but Miranda says he\u2019d be just as happy if she\u2019s a super Ariel. Nicola considers that now only Meg Hopkins is in the way of the Prosser scholarship, unless it goes on year averages, in which case Meg will definitely get it\u2026 Miranda knows there\u2019s something wrong, but Nicola refuses to say and Miranda assumes that Mrs Marlow is gravely ill. <\/p>\n

Then the exams arrive and Nicola is pleased at how the papers match what she\u2019s studied \u2014 \u201cone of life\u2019s little ironies<\/em>, now that she knew it was practically impossible she\u2019d inherit Kay\u2019s Prosser\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Next, Chapter Nine: The Prosser<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chapter Eight: Casualty Well, that chapter title is ominous, but it gets off to a good start with Lower IV.A beating Lower V.B, although it\u2019s their \u201chardest match to date\u201d and they scrape through with a bit of luck. This means Nicola\u2019s team will face Lois\u2019s team in the Final, which is on the second-last … Continue reading \u2018The Cricket Term\u2019, Part Five<\/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":[293],"tags":[25,309],"class_list":["post-6217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-books","tag-antonia-forest","tag-charles-dickens"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6217","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=6217"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6223,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6217\/revisions\/6223"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michellecooper-writer.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}