We move into the final year of the series with the last winter term book: Challenge for the Chalet School, first published in 1966 and covering the term after Summer Term. Miss Annersley goes on an educational tour of schools, leaving the Headship of the CS in the hands of maths mistress Nancy Wilmot. Two new girls, Evelyn Ross and Jocelyn Marvell, join the Seniors and Middles respectively and make waves in very different ways. Notable events:
At the end of the summer holidays, Miss Annersley has a meeting with the Maynard triplets and informs them that she will be away from the school for the term, having been invited to take part in an international tour of schools. The stunned triplets mull over possible candidates for the temporary Headship, and Len guesses Miss Wilmot, which Miss Annersley confirms. The Head also tells Margot that she will be Games Prefect this year, and Con will be editor of The Chaletian. She also asks the triplets to keep an eye on new girl Evelyn Ross, who at sixteen is older than most new girls and whose mother is very ill at the San. Meanwhile, Evelyn is at the San, having just had the news broken that instead of having left school altogether as she had expected, she will be going to the CS for her final year, much to her dismay. Not at all relishing the idea of going to such a big school after having been an important member of her previous small private school, she decides to walk along the Platz and take a look at it. While on her walk, Jo Maynard drives past her and waves to her, much to her astonishment, and she wonders who she is. On reaching the station for the mountain railway, feeling hot and tired, she meets Eugen Courvoisier, who is waiting to pick up Biddy and their children. He greets Evelyn pleasantly, reassures her about her mother, and offers her a lift back to her pension, which she gratefully accepts. Biddy greets her warmly when they arrive, and when they stop off at Adlersnest on the way to the pension, she is also introduced to Hilary Graves and her two daughters. The whole encounter makes her feel better and shakes her out of her sulks. The first day of term arrives, and Evelyn finds herself placed in Va, sheepdogged by Lesley Anderson. When the girls have arrived and are lined up on the drive, Miss Wilmot makes the announcement that she will be the temporary Head, leaving the girls stunned. After Abendessen and Prayers, she gives the girls more details, then leaves the Seniors to dance. Evelyn is introduced to some new dances and several girls, including Jane Carew, Janice Chester and Len, who introduces herself as Dr Maynard’s daughter and tells her they would have had her over to Freudesheim before now if it hadn’t been for Phil, who developed polio the previous term and is still unable to use her left leg. The next day, lessons begin, and after a ramble in which Jane asks Evelyn to partner her, Evelyn goes along to lessons with Va. She causes a sensation when Margot Maynard dashes in to ask which game she prefers between hockey and lacrosse, and Evelyn replies that she doesn’t like games. Moira Carroll, severely lacking in tact, criticises Evelyn’s last school for their lack of games, and Lesley hastens to intervene after Evelyn retaliates. After ten days or so, Evelyn begins to find her feet, but is no happier. Lesley, although still sheepdogging her, is showing no inclination to be real friends. Jane, the only other girl for whom Evelyn feels any attraction, is already part of a group with José Helston, Dilys Edwards and Adrienne Desmoines, and Jane’s main reason for being friendly at all is that she feels sorry for Evelyn with her mother being in the San. Meanwhile, having put her name down for hockey as being the lesser of two evils, Evelyn makes no effort to play well and is pulled up by Margot for it, infuriating her and causing her to answer back, which does not endear her either to Margot or her form. That evening at prep, she has a row with Moira over who gets to use a book of Miss Derwent’s first, culminating in her threatening to tell Miss Derwent she couldn’t do her work because of it, much to the shock and disgust of Va. Margot hears the scene and catechises Moira and Evelyn sharply for the row. By the next day, Moira has cooled down and apologises to Evelyn, who refuses to accept it. Disgusted by her behaviour and her threat to sneak the night before, Va send her to Coventry, and she soon begins to feel very miserable. Matey is quick to notice it and how she is refusing food, and urges Miss Wilmot to step in. Miss Wilmot sends for Lesley, Va’s form prefect, and tells her that matters need to be resolved, both for Evelyn’s sake and before the rest of the school becomes infected by the same chilly atmosphere. Led by Lesley, Va make some friendly overtures towards Evelyn, and she begins to feel happier again. She is further cheered up when Miss Dene takes the Third XI for hockey practice instead of Margot, as Miss Dene realises that chastising her for poor play only sets her back up, and instead tries encouraging her, with better results. A pleasant ramble to the Auberge also helps to lift her spirits. The Sunday before half-term, Evelyn goes to visit her mother at the San, accompanied by Felicity, who is going to visit the slowly-recovering Phil. Jo drives them over, and a chance remark from Jo revealing just how ill her mother has been stuns her, for she had had no idea of it. When Evelyn enters her mother’s room, she does her best to keep her quiet and chatters about school doings, but when she inadvertently makes her laugh and go off into a coughing fit, she is badly frightened and has to be ushered out. Matron Graves takes her into her office and cheers her up with coffee and a reassurance that her mother is really getting on well now, but she goes back to school much graver. Meanwhile, in Upper IVa, Erica Standish is pulled up for not having her atlas, but swears to an irate Miss Ferrars that she put it away in her locker. Evelyn arrives in the geography room with it just then, having found it amongst her own books, and when Victoria Wood backs up Erica’s claim that she had put it away properly, form prefect Agneta Gabrielli tells Miss Ferrars that everyone in the form has had a similar issue of missing one book or another. Miss Ferrars marches Upper IVa back to their form room to check their lockers, and it is soon discovered that everyone in the form is either missing something, or has an item belonging t someone else amongst their own things. Before she can do anything about it, Miss Ferrars, who has been fighting stomach pains all day, collapses. Miss Wilmot hears the resulting pandemonium and sends for Matron, Gaudenz and Jack Maynard, then sends the rest of the form away and comforts Miss Ferrars until Matron and Gaudenz arrive to take her away to the study until she can be taken to the San. Seeing the pile of items from the lockers on the mistress’s desk, Miss Wilmot fights the urge to go dashing to the study to see what’s going on there, summons Upper IVa back and reassures them, then asks for the meaning of the loot on the table, which the girls explain. Miss Ferrars is successfully operated on for appendicitis, putting her out of the proceedings for the next six weeks. At Mittagessen, the girls discuss the event and what they will do for a Nativity Play producer without her, until Miss Wilmot stands up and tells them that after rest period, they are to go to their form rooms and empty their desks and lockers, causing much speculation amongst the girls. Although items are discovered well and truly mixed up across the school, Miss Wilmot does nothing about it for the time being. The culprits are soon revealed to be eight girls from Lower IV, led by new girl and firebrand Jocelyn Marvell. Carlotta von Eschenau, younger sister of Wanda, had recounted the Lost Property prank played by Ailie Russell’s gang some years before (see Trials), and Jocelyn instigates a similar prank on Upper IVa, who have been adopting a superior attitude to Lower IV. Sneaking out of prep while Len is with Matron, they attempt yet another raid on Upper IVa’s lockers, but are caught red-handed by Miss Wilmot. Although only Jocelyn’s gang took part in the prank, the whole of Lower IV knew and agreed with it, and Miss Wilmot isolates them for the rest of the evening and lectures them on their vengeful behaviour. Jocelyn and her gang are docked of their pocket money and tuck for a week, and are forced to apologise in person to Upper IVa. Miss Annersley comes to the school for a weekend’s flying visit, and suggests that they ask Stacie Benson, who is still at Freudesheim, to take over Junior geography and maths while Miss Ferrars is hors de combat, with the prefects to take over producing the Nativity Play and Miss Derwent as an advisor. A week after half-term, the two Fifths split up for games, and Margot and sub-prefect Joan Dancey are in charge of the hockey match. Margot is in a bad temper, as she had hoped to be excused the period to look over some work she had left undone. She snaps at the girls and pulls them up constantly for accidental faults, especially Evelyn, who fumes inwardly. When Margot yells at her to strike the ball instead of being so cautious, she hits it so hard it bounces off a tuft and hits Lesley in the elbow. The result of Lesley’s accident is a chipped elbow, putting her out of hockey for the rest of the term, and Margot bitterly regrets her treatment of the girls that afternoon, especially after overhearing the two Fifths discussing it and blaming her, rather than Evelyn, for the accident. She goes to Miss Burnett and confesses, and Miss Burnett consoles her. Jo sends over the Nativity Play, and Evelyn, who is keen on acting, hopes for a speaking part and asks Va eagerly for details about previous plays. Jocelyn, on the other hand, is uninterested until she hears the play actually read out, then finds herself struck by it to the point that she hopes for even just a tiny speaking part herself. Lower IV decide that they have seen enough of Stacie Benson to play a prank on her to see how she will take it. Jocelyn proposes that they coat the drawer of the mistress’s desk with cobbler’s wax to stick it shut, and the form agrees. However, when Stacie goes to get the mark book out of the drawer and is unable to open it, she guesses it is a joke. Jocelyn and her fellow conspirator Sandra Johnson own up, but as the entire form was in on it, Stacie forfeits all their marks until the drawer can be opened to get the mark book, docks their pocket money to pay for the damage to the drawer, and every mistress who comes to take the form for the rest of the day also tell them what they think of them. The next day, Stacie comes across a white-faced Evelyn standing in the corridor staring out of the window. Evelyn says she has just been told her mother has suffered a haemorrhage and she isn’t allowed to go to her, and so Miss Wilmot had sent her to try and do some lessons if she could. Stacie, at a loss on how to deal with her, takes her into an empty classroom, and is thankful when footsteps approach and Mary-Lou, who has been told the news by Jo, looks in. Mary-Lou takes Evelyn to the Annexe and comforts her, telling her about her own mother and how she had pulled up after relapses. Her warm sympathy helps Evelyn, and after three days the news finally comes that Mrs Ross has turned the corner and is pulling up again. Jocelyn’s next exploit is to attempt to go around the common room without touching the floor, but a table collapses underneath her and she bangs her head. Matey whisks her off to attend to it and send her to bed, and Miss Wilmot scolds the rest of the form for not stopping her doing something so dangerous and condemns them to never being left unsupervised for the rest of the term. Jocelyn has a bad day which culminates in her raging at Len and Ted during a rehearsal for the play, resigning her part and storming out of the room. She bumps into Stacie, who wrenches her back in an effort to save herself from falling, runs away from her and spends the rest of the day ignoring the rest of her form. After she snaps at Ottillie Sneider at bedtime for trying to make amends, Lower IV give up and send her to Coventry. Their scathing remarks about her rouse all Jocelyn’s worst feelings, and she decides to run away. The next morning, while the rest of the school is walking across to the chapels for the mid-morning church services, Jocelyn sees her chance and escapes. She takes the road to Ste Cecilie, but, knowing that the Sheppards live there and that Grizel would smell a rat if she saw the Chalet uniform, she instead turns off another path halfway along which leads up to a shelf called the Rundbrett. By the time she reaches it, it has begun to snow, and after trying in vain to get into a locked shepherd’s hut, she makes for a chalet a little way away, slips in the snow and falls. At that moment, Mary-Lou comes racing up and lifts her up. It transpires that Stacie, still worried about Jocelyn after the row the day before, had planned to ask her to tea at Freudesheim with herself and Mary-Lou, hoping that the latter could talk some sense into Jocelyn. However, she notices that Jocelyn is not at church, and she knows from Matron that no one is ill. Remembering her own unhappy first term (see Eustacia), she confides in Mary-Lou that she thinks Jocelyn was miserable enough to have run away, not to England, but simply to cause the school as much trouble as possible. As Stacie’s back is still aching from the wrench, Mary-Lou sets off alone with Bruno to search for Jocelyn, sure that she can’t have got far. Bruno soon picks up her scent and leads Mary-Lou to the Rundbrett, where they arrive just in time to see Jocelyn fall. Knowing that the chalet belongs to a recently-deceased widow, Mary-Lou gets in by breaking a window and drags Jocelyn inside, forcing her awake with hot chocolate and soup. The snow finally stops, and Mary-Lou drags Jocelyn back down to the Platz, where Jack Maynard comes along in his car by chance and picks them up. As Stacie and Mary-Lou had told no one else about that day’s events, nobody has been worried by Jocelyn’s running away, but she herself has been badly shaken. The term ends with the Nativity Play, overseen by Miss Ferrars who returns to the school at the beginning of December, along with Miss Annersley, who is joyfully welcomed back by Miss Wilmot, who vows never to take on the Headship again. Phil Maynard’s recovery continues, and Evelyn is told that though her mother will be cured in time, she will always be frail.
So, thoughts on the final winter term book? What do you think of the idea of the school having to do without Miss Annersley for a term? What do you think of Nancy Wilmot’s tenure in the hotseat? Thoughts on Evelyn and Jocelyn? What about Lower IV’s antics?
_________________ 'I'm sorry, I only play for sport.' - Lara Croft
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