their sticks,” I say to Penny, admiringly.
Penny snaps her fingers in irritation. “Why do you keep having these ideas when it’s too late?”
“Never mind about that,” I say, “have you got a full team together?”
Penny looks glum. “Yes, but at a price. The only two girls who don’t brandish a medical certificate the moment you step near them are the terrible twins.”
“The terrible twins?”
“Roxane and Eliza. Don’t say you haven’t come across them?” Penny shudders. “I suppose it’s feasible. They might have been out on a bender when you came.”
Something clicks at the back of my mind. “A couple of rather pretty girls who can look a lot older than their age? I think they were on the train that first day I arrived. Funny, I haven’t seen them since.”
“It’s not at all funny,” snaps Penny. “The American Sixth Fleet has only just pulled out of Southmouth. I’m amazed they didn’t go with it.”
“You mean, they went to Southmouth?”
“Rosie, those girls spend more time out of the school than in it. They only look in occasionally to change their underwear and pick up some more pocket money.”
“But how do they get away with it?” I say. “Why aren’t they expelled?”
“Expelled!?” Penny laughs hollowly. “The only thing you can get expelled from St Rodence for is non-payment of school fees. The school specialises in what it calls ‘difficult cases’. If your child has been chucked out of every school in the country for arson you can always let it weather out its days at St R’s.”
“I know a lot of the children come from broken homes,” I say.
“Yes. And they broke them up personally. We had one girl who ran off a mail order catalogue on the school printing press and sold the contents of her father’s country house while he was abroad.”
“Roxane and Eliza don’t sound the kind of girls who will want to play hockey.”
“They aren’t,” says Penny, grimly. “There’s only one thing that makes a trip to St Belters an interesting proposition as far as they are concerned: Men!”
“Men?”
“It’s co-ed, remember. If you see anything you like—watch it! We had a lay preacher who came to the school to preach on ‘The Joys of Self Denial’. Those two damn nearly layed him before he got through the gates.”
I watch the lithe, muscular Saranjit girls sprinting up and down the hockey field. “Sounds as if it could be quite a game,” I say.
By the time Saturday arrives I am in a state of rare excitement. It is a filthy day with rain bucketing down but Penny is not worried.
“It’ll hurt St Belters much more than us,” she says. “Napum and Rumna could play hockey on a river bed and the rest of them can’t play on any surface.”
I am surprised that we have a coach to take us to the game and say so.
“It’s the only way we can be sure of keeping tabs on them,” says Penny. “If we travel by public transport it’s too easy for them to sneak off. I remember when we played Seaford. I found half the team in the queue outside Confessions of a Window Cleaner five minutes before bully off.”
I look round the coach full of girls quietly reading Forum and swopping gatefolds of Viva. They seem harmless enough. I can’t see why the driver is padlocking himself inside the cab.
“Are we going to stop on the way, Miss Green?”
“Only for calls of nature.”
“Oh, Miss Green! Miss Oliphant always used to let us stop for a drink.”
“I remember the incident well, Letitia. The saloon bar of The British Queen was gutted and the coach burnt out. There will be no stopping!”
“But Miss Green!”
“No buts—and put that cigar out, Roxane! You’re supposed to be in training.”
There are cries of “rotten shame!” and “jolly swizz!” from all round the coach.
“Why are you crying, Fiona?”
“Dunnalot stole my eye shadow!”
“Eliza! Hand it back this instant!”
“It was a fair swop, Miss Green. She’s got my foundation cream!”
“I haven’t!”
“You have!”
“I haven’t!”
“You have! Victoria Bevan saw you polishing your grass snake with it!”
“She’s lying!”
“Quiet, girls!!” Penny has to shout to make herself heard above the noise. “Is this the way for us to go into battle? Bitter and divided? Of course not! Remember, we’re a team. The St Rodence First Eleven! Let your breasts swell with pride. Feel yourselves grow in stature as you prepare to hurl yourself at the throats of the enemy!”
“Hare krishnan!” says one of the Saranjit girls enthusiastically.
“When you grip the curved wand between your hands, let one thought run through your minds: Glory to St Rodence. Let there be no one of whom it can be said ‘She did not try her hardest on this day’. When that first whistle sounds, cry ‘God for Harry, England, and St Rodence!’”
There is a hushed silence as the words sink in. Then Eliza Dunnalot raises a hand. “You’ll have to stop the coach. I feel sick already.”
“You can see what we’re up against,” says Penny as we settle down with a pile of magazines confiscated from the girls. She points to one of the photographs, “I wouldn’t mind being up against that, either.”
“Penny! How could you. I think male nudes are disgusting. Don’t let the girls see you looking at it.”
“I think they’ve done a bit of retouching there.” Penny holds the magazine up to the light while I cringe.
We get to St Belters without further incident and my heart sinks when I see how large the school is. There are a lot of new buildings, too. So different to St Rodence where the science laboratory is situated in a prefabricated shed.
“Right, girls,” says Penny as the door slides open and the driver starts running towards the nearest building. “Good luck, and remember to control yourself at tea. I don’t want to see anyone filling their knickers with eclairs.” She steps to one side and I feel a thrill of excitement as our charges stumble out into a stiff north-easter. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten—Ten?
“I was waiting for this,” says Penny grimly. “Sometimes, one of them tries to stay behind in the coach and
