One Young Fool in Dorset (13 page)

“Well done, gels,” said Matron when we reached the
bottom. “And I’m very pleased to see you all remembered to put on
your linings.”

Now I understood why we had to put on our underwear.
If it had been a real fire, the firemen would have gained more than
an eyeful as we girls descended that fire escape.

Within ten minutes, we were back in the dorm, in bed
and dozing off to sleep again.

However, there was one particular night when every
girl and member of staff was wide awake in the middle of the night,
and it had nothing at all to do with fire drills.

11 Bad Boys

Crispy Crunchy Crackly Crack

A
s we climbed into our beds one moonlit
night, we had no idea of the spectacle we were about to
witness.

“Goodnight, gels,” said Matron at the doorway of the
dorm as she switched off the light as usual. “No more talking
now.”

“Goodnight, Matron,” we chorused.

We drifted off to sleep as owls screeched to each
other in the woods. By midnight, all the girls and staff would have
been asleep. It was a warm, still, summer night, with just the
occasional cloud sliding across the moon, throwing the world into
momentary darkness. As the hand of the clock clicked round into the
small hours, St Mary’s lay silent and peaceful. Until…

Vroooooom! Vroooooom!

Night sounds always seem louder, but this noise was
deafening, and growing louder by the second. Even we young girls
couldn’t sleep through that. We sat up, wide awake.

“What on earth?”

Vroooooom! Vroooooom!

Snort sprang out of bed and ran to the window,
tugging the curtain aside.

Vroooooom! Vroooooom!

“Oh golly! Quick, come and SEE!”

We leapt out of bed and pressed our faces against
the glass, then gaped. Outside, on the drive, six or seven
motorbikes were idling, ridden by
boys!

Suddenly, the dorm door was thrown open, framing
Matron. I didn’t know whether to stare at her in her pink quilted
dressing gown, with rows of curlers in her hair, or at the scene
outside.

“Gels! Stay in the dorm, we are dealing with the
situation. And come away from the windows.”

With that, she turned on her fluffy high-heeled
slippers and clacked off down the stairs.

Come away from the windows? She may as well have
asked us to recite the alphabet in Icelandic whilst standing on our
heads. No way could we tear ourselves away from watching the events
outside with the
boys!

The motorcyclists had paused in a line, their
engines still rumbling. They sat astride their machines, one foot
on the ground, looking up at our building. I followed their gaze.
Every dorm was awake, every curtain drawn open, every window had
faces staring out, even the prefects’ windows. The motorcyclists
waved cheekily, revved their engines and roared out of sight round
the building.

“They’re leaving,” said Corky, disappointment in her
voice, as the noise of the engines grew fainter.

But she was mistaken. The boys merely circled the
building, and in seconds they were back below us, slowing to wave
to their adoring audience of girls, standing at the windows above.
Round and round they roared, until suddenly, just as they reached
the steps up to our entrance door again and slowed to wave, the
front door was wrenched open. We gasped.

There stood Mrs Driver dressed in a pair of green
tartan pyjamas and waving a furled umbrella.

“Go away, you’re trespassing!” she shouted, shaking
her fist.

The youths probably couldn’t hear what she was
saying over the engine noise, but her wrath was clear. However, it
had no effect on them whatsoever. They merely grinned and set off
on another circuit.

“Hurrah!” we cheered, loving the excitement.

Matron appeared behind Mrs Driver, just as the
motorcycles completed another lap and skidded to a halt.

“I have called the police!” shouted Matron, her
hands cupped like a megaphone.

The boys laughed, and waved at the girls in the
windows, who waved back. Then they revved up and shot off on yet
another circuit.

Mrs Driver and Matron were livid. Together they
marched out into the middle of the drive and stretched out their
arms, as if to bar the way. Round swept the motorbikes. But they
didn’t hesitate; they appeared to be heading straight for the
crazy-looking woman in green tartan pyjamas and the other in the
pink dressing gown and slippers, with rows of curlers in her
hair.

“Gosh, they’re brave!” said Snort, as we watched the
confrontation.

The bikers hardly checked their speed. They headed
straight for the two women, but at the last second, peeled off
sideways, swerving onto the grassed area, thus avoiding any
collision.

Dozens of girls at the windows exhaled. This was
better than any movie, even the latest ones like
Coolhand
Luke
or
Bonnie and Clyde
.

Mrs Driver and Matron were a formidable duo. As the
motorbikes swept round again, the ladies tried again to become
human barricades, doing their best to obstruct the approaching
machines. The boys narrowly missed them and began another lap.

In our dorm, nobody had said a word for ages; we
were too engrossed in the scene below. Many of us had our hands
clapped over our mouths in disbelief.

I don’t know who or what lent Mrs Driver such
courage that night, although I could hazard a guess judging from
the slight sway in her walk. Whatever, when the motorbikes circled
for a third time, she was purple with rage. As they neared her, she
leaped out in an attempt to physically seize one of the
trespassers. He swerved and successfully avoided Mrs Driver and her
umbrella. At the same time, we suddenly heard distant police
sirens.

The boys decided that the game was over for the
night. They really didn’t want to face the crazy suicidal, tartan
pyjama clad harridan again, neither did they want to spend a night
in a police cell. With a last wave to their adoring fans at the
windows, they turned and headed their bikes down the drive towards
the campus entrance gates.

But Lady Luck wasn’t smiling on one of the bikers.
He was so intent on waving to his female audience, he didn’t
realise how close Mrs Driver was to her quarry. Her eyes narrowed,
and she launched herself at him.

All the girls in our dorm, and probably all the
girls in the other dorms and prefects’ rooms, gasped. The other
motorbikes had already accelerated out of the grounds and vanished.
The police sirens were markedly closer.

Mrs Driver’s rugby tackle didn’t quite connect, but
it was enough to unnerve the young man, who lost control of the
bike, sending it into an uncontrollable wobble. The bike wasn’t
travelling fast, but Mrs Driver was.

“I’ve got you, boy!” she yelled, lunging at him and
grabbing at his jacket.

In horror, the youth dropped his motorbike on the
ground and fled towards the woods, with Mrs Driver in hot
pursuit.

“Come back here, boy!” she shouted.

But the lad had no intentions of doing anything of
the sort. He disappeared into the woods, his black leather-clad
figure instantly melting into the shadows. Mrs Driver was quite a
big woman, and although out of breath, she didn’t give up. Seconds
later, she, too, was swallowed up by the woods as a convoy of
police cars with screaming sirens and blue flashing lights
screeched to a halt outside St Mary’s. The abandoned motorbike on
the grass had stalled, but one wheel was still spinning.

Policemen leaped out of the cars leaving the doors
hanging open. Matron, holding her dressing gown together at the
throat with one hand, used the other to point a long finger at the
woods. The policemen turned and ran into the trees.

“This is better than Tom and Jerry,” said Snort. “I
hope he gets away.”

Nothing happened for a long time. Gradually faces
disappeared from the windows as there was nothing to see except the
blue lights flashing on the roofs of the police cars. Matron went
inside and did a round of the dorms, ordering us all back to
bed.

“Settle down now, gels,” she said, drawing the
curtains firmly. “It’s all over.”

Snort and I waited until her slippers had clacked
away up the corridor, then we slipped out of bed again and peeped
through the gap in the curtain.

We had to wait quite a long time. We heard owls, and
saw bats flitting round the lamp that lit the steps to the
entrance, but there was no sign of the man-hunt. We were just about
to give up, when a procession emerged from the woods. It was headed
by two policemen, one handcuffed to the sorry youth, who was black
with dirt. Next came a line of more policemen, looking satisfied
with themselves, pleased that their quarry had been apprehended.
And finally, the familiar figure of Mrs Driver, in her tartan
pyjamas, and picking the odd pine needle out of her hair, brought
up the rear.

The youth was put into the back of a police car, the
policemen climbed into their cars, and the whole convoy pulled
away. Mrs Driver came back into St Mary’s and I heard her climb the
steps to her floor, muttering darkly to herself. The young man’s
motorbike was left lying on the ground, but somebody collected it
the next day.

“Matron, how did they catch the boy in the woods?”
asked Snort the next day.

“Never you gels mind. The important thing is that
they caught him.”

However, we
did
learn how the youth had been
caught, but not from Matron or Mrs Driver. It so happened that one
of the Day Bugs had an uncle in the police force, and he’d been
called out to the incident. According to him, this is what
happened.

The young man fled into the woods, with Mrs Driver
close behind. The boy zig-zagged through the trees but the incensed
Mrs Driver somehow kept up. In spite of the moon, it was dark, and
the boy was not familiar with the layout of the woods. He made a
bad mistake. As he looked over his shoulder to sense how close Mrs
Driver was, he didn’t see Pug’s Hole opening out in front of him.
He fell down the steep incline. Mrs Driver couldn’t stop in time,
lost her footing and also toppled down the slope.

At the bottom, the two looked at each other for a
brief second.

“I’ve got you now!” crowed Mrs Driver, grabbing his
arm.

“Oh no, you haven’t,” he said, wriggling out of her
grasp and jumping back onto his feet.

The chase continued. Mrs Driver was more than twice
the lad’s age, and was soon out of breath and wheezing. The boy was
probably tired of being hunted down, and frightened by the police
sirens. He changed tactics. As Mrs Driver stopped to catch her
breath, he caught sight of an air raid shelter and decided to hide
from her and the Law. When a cloud obscured the moon briefly, the
lad tugged up the manhole cover, which opened surprisingly easily
considering its age and the soil and vegetation that had collected
on it. He quickly climbed in and down the ladder, quietly closing
the manhole cover behind him.

Unfortunately for the trespasser, Mrs Driver had
seen where he went.

It can’t have been very nice inside the ancient air
raid shelter, pitch black, crawling with spiders and who knows what
else. And matters didn’t improve when Mrs Driver stood on the
cover.

“Haha, I’ve caught you now!” she cried, dancing a
crazy little jig on the lid.

I imagine the movement showered loose soil and filth
onto the poor lad below.

The police arrived with flashlights to see Mrs
Driver still dancing on the manhole cover.

“We’ll take over from here,” said a policeman. “I
can see you’ve caught the suspect.”

Reluctantly, Mrs Driver stepped aside.

The policeman bent down and raised the cover. He
shone his torch down into the darkness.

“Hello, we have you surrounded,” he called down.
“Are you ready to come up with your hands in the air?”

“Yes!” echoed the youth’s voice from below. “As long
as you protect me from that madwoman in tartan pyjamas!”

As meek as a woodland mouse, the boy scrambled back
up the ladder. A couple of officers stood close to Mrs Driver to
make sure she didn’t try to take the law into her own hands. As
soon as the youth climbed out, the policeman clapped handcuffs on
him, and that was that.

I don’t believe the boy or his accomplices were ever
charged. I hope not, because their offence wasn’t serious, and it
provided huge entertainment for us girls. Shortly after, I believe
the gates into the campus were locked nightly, so nothing like that
ever happened again while I was there.

I was very happy at TH. When her time came, my
sister elected to leave, attend college and live at home. I didn’t
think it would affect me, but I was in for a big surprise. When my
parents arrived to take us home for the holidays, along with the
trunks for packing, they brought shocking news.

12 Summer Break

Zwetschgenknödel
(Plum
Dumplings)

P
acking our trunks for the holidays was so
much easier than packing for the start of a new term. All we had to
do was throw stuff in, with no need to check the inventory
carefully. However, there always seemed to be more to take home
than we had initially brought.

“I can’t get it to shut,” I said. “Snort, come and
sit on this side.”

Snort obliged and the trunk snapped shut.

“Well, that’s it,” I said. “I’m not opening it
again. If I’ve forgotten anything, I’ll just have to collect it
next term.”

“
Ach,
well, that’s the thing,” said my
mother. “We’ve decided that as your sister is no longer here, it
would be better for us all if you went to day school closer to
home.”

My jaw dropped and I sat heavily on the trunk beside
Snort.

“Dusty’s leaving?” asked Snort.