It’s time for a guest! This entry was written by my friend, Estella, who is not participating in the Blogathon, but is being such a good supporter!
Ladies and gentlemen, here is Estella, writing a book entry for Lauren!
I am writing all about one of my favourite books when I was a little girl - First Term at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton. In fact, I liked the whole series - there were 6 of them, I believe. I was a total Enid Blyton fan! So I’m going to tell you the plot of this delightful book which was first in the series, and then you can all go out and read it! ;D
Darrell Rivers is terribly excited that she is going to boarding school! Ooh, the excitement! And terribly nervous too - she is on the bus with all those girls she doesn’t know and oooh! She decides she likes a girl called Alicia, who is witty and funny and clever. She decides she dislikes a girl called Gwendolyn, who is crying and clinging to her mum, so she is obviously a drama queen and not a true stiff upper lipped Brit! Gwendolyn also has her long golden hair loose, rather than being tied up sensibly in braids - proof of her utter vanity and stupidity! Sensible Darrell has short brown hair (and twinkling eyes!).
Now, Darrell’s first impressions of Gwendolyn turn out to be totally right - clearly the loose hair and the tears were indicative of a bad character, because Gwendolyn turns out to be spiteful and petty and also scared of water (proof of her utter cowardice!) - so the other girls like to push her into the swimming pool and laugh at her! The other girls are all decent and jolly people, naturally!
Darrell wants to become best friends with Alicia, who is full of mischief and plays all kinds of exciting tricks in class. But alas, Alicia already has a best friend called Betty. What can poor Darrell do? She has to search for a best friend! Gwendolyn clearly won’t do! She checks out another new girl called Sally, but Sally’s manner seems rather stiff, so she dismisses Sally.
Then poor Darrell gets into trouble! We discover she has a fatal flaw! Her temper! She loses her temper one day with Gwendolyn - evil Gwen was taunting poor Mary-Lou, who is a mouse of a girl, and pretending to drown her! So Darrell stood up for Mary-Lou by slapping Gwendolyn very hard! Dear oh dear! The other girls in the class get together to find a suitable punishment for Darrell - she must apologise to Gwen! But dear old decent Darrell, who is full of pluck and goodness, has already done this of her own accord once she calmed down, so all is well, and she is greatly admired by all (except Gwen!).
However, later on, all is not so well. Darrell loses her temper with Sally one day and gives her a big push. Sally keels over and becomes very ill! Darrell feels terrified and guilty - oh my! Has she killed Sally? After much agonising, she goes to confess - and then learns to her utter relief that Sally simply has appendicitis and she didn’t cause it! Then she and Sally become best friends (hurrah! Darrell has found the best friend she wanted!). Although Sally was ’stiff’ at first, we discover that was because she was jealous of her new baby sister, not because she is a naturally stiff person, and her jealousy gets sorted out and overcome and all is well.
But then all is not well again. Evil evil Gwendolyn gets Darrell into trouble. She breaks Mary Lou’s precious fountain pen and then puts it in Darrell’s desk, so it looks like Darrell stole it! The horror! The whole class turn against Darrell and brand her as an evil thief! Except for Mary Lou and Sally that is, who both adore Darrell and don’t believe she could possibly have done such a thing!
But then proof is found that evil Gwendolyn did it - some tell-tale inkstains are found - and the whole class loves Darrell again and apologises profusely to her!
And then it is the end of term. Oh, and there was probably a midnight feast in there somewhere too! And there is also a lovely scene where Darrell hatches a plan to help Mary Lou stop being a mouse, and become brave - which works, naturally, as Darrell is such a genius, and Mary Lou is a good decent person who must therefore have courage deep within her! This plan involves Darrell pretending to have cramp in the swimming pool and yelling that she’s going to drown, so Mary Lou has to save her and thus be hailed as a hero! Despite the fact that Mary Lou can’t actually swim.
There - aren’t you all dying to go read the book and indeed the whole series now?! What becomes of these girls in their tumultuous journey through secondary school? Who will become head girl of the school? What will their future careers be?
Related posts
