Watergate Bay

  Darrell Goes for a Swim  They played classical music through the gramophone speaker in the baths, but on Saturdays they played songs. When Darrell had gone to the baths on a Saturday, last year, she had found she had had an utterly dissatisfactory swim. She had decided that she would swim on Mondays and Thursdays this academic year. Darrell liked routine and exercise.       She had spent the weekend stuck in her new rooms with Sally and the two new girls, Mildred, and Mildred’s schoolfriend Samantha. It was good to swim. It gave her time to think. It seemed that Mildred was a rather slow girl with a round face, and Samantha hadn’t said much at all, but she seemed rather sickly. Darrell tried not to make her mind on people after a first meeting, because her impressions of people at Malory Towers had often been misguided. She could not see herself spending time with Mildred or Samantha. They were not her type of girls. She wanted this year to be like the la...

Sally Plaits Her Hair         ‘I felt like it today. Is that fine, or did I need Darrell Rivers’ permission to plait my hair?’       Darrell said nothing else about her hair.       ‘Are you almost done?’      Darrell was packing the last of her things. She always left packing to the last minute. It was one of the things she hated most. She stuffed her yellow dress into her suitcase and turned to Sally. She gave a determined nod to Sally, who stood in the doorway, and said, ‘Done.’       Sally smiled.       They went downstairs to find Aunt Mary already in the hallway putting on her driving gloves and duffel coat.       ‘You girls look smart,’ she said, as she ushered them out of the house.       Sally and her aunt got into the car, but Darrell lingered for a moment, and took one last look at the house. It had been her retreat for...