Young Writers Society

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It had been another warm night, with windows flung open and blankets discarded. Its time had gone, yet summer still clung with all its worth to the first days of September. Effy had tossed and turned in the heat, and only managed three or four hours sleep before the nanny came to wake her.

“It’s your big day today Elizabeth,” she said, tossing open the curtains to let burning sunlight in. “You don’t want to be late now.”

“I don’t want to go!”

“Don’t be silly. Of course you do. You’re just a bit nervous, it’s to be expected.”

Effy sat up in her bed and glared at the nanny through sleepy eyes. But she didn’t correct the stupid woman. That would take all day.

“Now put your clothes on Elizabeth.”

“That’s not my name!” Effy spat. The nanny laughed.

“Yes it is. You can’t call yourself by silly baby names at school!” The nanny laid Effy’s new uniform at the foot of the bed. “Get dressed. Breakfast is in fifteen minutes. You’ll want to give your parents a goodbye won’t you?”

Effy’s eyes snapped open, wide as saucers, and fresh sweat dripped from her brow. “B-But… they’ll come won’t they? On the train? I shan’t go on my own, Nanny! I won’t!”

The nanny laughed again- a horrible shrill noise that hurt the ears. “Of course they’ll come. Only for the first term, mind, to settle you in. After that you’ll have Margo.”

“But why must I say goodbye at breakfast?”

“Because you’ll be bound to cry a little bit. All girls cry on their first day at school. But they pretend they don’t. Best to get the tears over with in the sanctuary of your own dining room, not in front of your peers and the older girls, who’ll laugh at you no doubt for getting blubby.”

Effy relaxed a tad. She would have defended herself- made quite clear that she would not cry. But Nanny saw through fibs like they were clear glass.

When the nanny left, and Effy was left alone, she didn’t hang around. She didn’t take one last woeful glance around her bedroom, like in the films. She knew that she would cry if she did- and even if there would be tears, she wanted them to be kept to a minimum. Instead, Effy quickly tugged off her nightdress. It was soft and cottony and smelt of home, with little pink roses embroidered all over. Not like the horrid school nightgown. That was starchy and stiff and uncomfortable, the cuffs were so tight they left marks on your wrist, and the whole thing was bleached within an inch of its life.

And yet that was nothing compared to the day uniform, the one Effy now carefully dressed in. Everything had to be school approved, right down to the lacy white vest and knickers (with navy blue knickers over the top in case of BOYS). First was the blouse, white as the undergarments, starched stiff, with long sleeves and a little rounded collar. Then the pinafore, grey and equally uncomfortable, it hung oddly from the shoulders and draped to the knees. There was also a dark red cardigan, for when it got cold, long white socks, and clunky black shoes with a big ugly buckle. When Effy had finally hauled on the whole ensemble, she stood in front of the mirror and huffed. She wanted her dresses back already -- little frilly dresses -- and cute white pumps. Margo had told her that they could wear their own clothes at the weekend, and thus her three favourite outfits were packed neatly in her trunk on top of school books, gym wear, spare uniform and clean underclothes. But for the five remaining days of the week this was to be her loathsome fate.

Effy tied her hair into two plaits. They were a little messy, and one was higher than the other, but she found herself with no cares for how her hair looked.

Before heading downstairs, Effy crossed the hall to Tommy’s room. The door was ajar, but she could still hear him pottering about inside. She cleared her throat and tapped once.

“Come in.”

Effy did so, all of a sudden very shy. “I thought I’d better say my goodbyes now. Mamma will no doubt hog conversation at breakfast.”

Tommy paused, his back still to the girl. He’d been finishing his packing, rechecking pens and ink, and counting his best marbles into a small hessian bag.

“I shall miss you ever so much you know,” Effy continued. “Ever so.”

Tommy turned at last, and smiled weakly. “No you won’t. You’ll have hoards of friends before the week is out, and I shall be all but a faded memory to you.”

“Never!” Effy felt tears prick her eyes, and hurriedly scrubbed them away with the heels of her hands. “How could you think that?!”

“I don’t mean to say you’re heartless, or that you don’t care,” said Tommy. “But it will happen none the less.”

“I won’t let it happen.”

Tommy chuckled, but it was quiet and diluted. “No. If you say so.”

“I’ll keep in touch. I’ll write letters!”

“You’re only allowed one letter a week. And you won’t be allowed to send it to St Christopher’s- they’ll think you’ve got a sweetheart, and that’s strictly against all the rules.”

Effy couldn’t stop the tears now. They fell from her eyes like waterfalls cascading down the rocks.

“Then when will I see you again?” she asked, feeling utterly hopeless.

“Christmas. We get a week either side of it,” Tommy replied. It saddened Effy’s heart even more so to see the look of complete powerlessness on her brother’s face. It was always Tom she turned to, Tom always knew what to do. But not now.

“Until then,” she whispered. Tommy nodded.

“Until then.” He wrapped his arms around Effy and hugged her tightly as he could. “Have a good time. Make sure you do that for me. And-and work hard. And get the best grades you can.”

Effy nodded. “I will.”

“Good girl.”

When they pulled apart, both twins suddenly felt so incredibly alone, as if they would never be whole again.

Breakfast had already started when Effy and Tommy got downstairs.

“There they are- the terrible two!” Robert laughed through a mouthful of toast. It was his fifth slice. He had also munched his way through three eggs, a bowl of porridge and two grapefruits.

“Good morning,” said Father, folding his newspaper and placing it beside his tea cup. “Thomas, Elizabeth, I trust you both slept well.”

“Very well, thank you,” they both lied in unison, and sat at their places. Tommy caught Effy’s hand under the table, and squeezed it in a reassuring way.

“Are we excited then?” asked Mamma, with a tight smile pulled across her face. “All packed and ready to go?”

The twins nodded, but did not look her in the eye.

“Someone’s taken my lipstick,” Margo interjected, strutting out from the living room and sitting back down at the table. “They took it from my handbag, and I need it.”

“Oh, Margo,” sighed Mamma. “No one has taken your lipstick, do give it a rest.”

“I bet any one of you ten pounds that it was that new chambermaid. Doris was honest, she knew her place. This one’s got a lip on her. She has no respect.”

“Molly did not steal your lipstick,” Mamma insisted. “Now eat your toast.”

“I’m not hungry,” Margo said, her nose in the air. “Paige and Victoria have been to a spa in Switzerland this summer, and have been dieting for months. I want to look my best when they arrive, so I can shame them with my new figure.”

Robert snorted. Mamma glared.

“Margo, you look fine. You’re fifteen for heaven’s sake, you don’t need to diet.”

Margo huffed, and stood up.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have a lipstick to find.”

“And you’re not wearing lipstick to school!”

But Margo was already half way up the staircase.

It was getting on a bit by the time breakfast was over. The maids- that is, Molly, Mary and Isobel, they were only a modest household- went upstairs and fetched the children’s trunks. The nanny straightened Tommy’s tie and pulled up Effy’s socks, even if both were perfectly fine. She then tried to sort out Margo’s lapels, but the glare she was met with was so frosty that she backed off within a mere millisecond. Robert meanwhile, sat on the steps, lighting a cigarette, in his rather fetching new suit. He was going to Oxford, to study law. He didn’t care much for the subject, but Father had given a stern disapproval to all of the subjects he wanted to learn- that is, various sciences, which Mr Greenwich thought utterly useless.

A taxi came for Robert at eight o’clock, while Margo, Tommy, Effy and their parents would take Father’s car.

“I’ll see you all soon then,” said the former, giving hugs all round, even to his Father who looked appalled. “You never know- I might come back at weekends to visit my darling parents.”

Father looked even more appalled.

The journey to the train station was not a long one, twenty minutes at the most, and yet it seemed to last for an eternity. Effy was seated in the middle, squashed tightly between Margo and Tommy. Mamma and Father were silent, as were all the children. Margo looked out of the window, across the houses and people, in a rather bored fashion. This was her fourth year of boarding school; this whole thing was mere monotonous routine to her. But Effy and Tommy were filled with apprehension and fear. They had prodded both of their older siblings with questions over the summer, and yet they still did not feel half as prepared as they would have liked.

At the station, when they eventually arrived, Father parked the car and everyone got out. The twins took their own luggage, dragging the immense weight along with both arms. Margo, meanwhile, trailed behind, admiring herself in a little compact mirror, and left a grumbling Father to carry her trunk.

The platform was buzzing when they reached it. There was the usual assortment of gruff city business men and other such types on their way to work, but there was also an abundance of school children. Very few, if any, were going to the same schools- parents in this area sent their offspring to all corners of the country, and indeed world, for there were many on their way to the coast to catch ships to Europe or America.

A dozen or so trains came and went whilst Effy and her family waited. They had found a small space of bench in a corner, where they rested their legs. After twenty minutes, Father became bored, and made it known.

“I think I’ll go to the office early today Samantha,” he told Mamma, checking his fob watch. “Phone my secretary when you require picking up.”

He turned to his children and cleared his throat. Supposing that he should say something, he, after much deliberation, opted for: “Well, goodbye then. Behave yourselves.”

“We will Father,” Effy and Tommy answered in perfect unison. Margo was too busy watching a rather dashing young man she’d spotted in a crowd of Sixth Form boys standing beneath the station clock.

Father kissed Effy’s cheek, before standing straight, and offering a mere handshake to Tommy. The boy was not surprised, and barely minded. Men like his Father never showed affection, especially to their sons.

“Goodbye,” Father said again, and before another word could be uttered had disappeared into the crowd.

Another ten minutes, and then there it was- the big bottle green steam engine, rattling down the tracks.

“This is the one,” said Mamma, standing and taking her youngest children’s hands.

“Is it?” Effy asked. She gave a muffled cough into her cardigan sleeve as the platform was filled with smoke so thick that she could barely make out her mother beside her. When it cleared, she found herself being dragged into a carriage. “But our things!” she exclaimed.

“The porters are sorting them out dear,” Mamma chuckled, and pointed out of the window. “Look there.”

Effy breathed a sigh of relief, and they made their way to their seats.

Margo had found a group of girls about her age at the other end of the carriage. They had come from the previous town, and were going to a school many miles from hers, but Margo soon fell into conversation. Effy, too, normally had such an ease with strangers, but today she found herself feeling rather shy, and kept to her seat beside Tommy.

“Do you suppose the teachers will be nice?” Effy asked after a while. Until that moment she had spent the time staring wistfully out of the window.

“I don’t know,” said Tommy. “I doubt mine shall be. Robert says they hit you or cane you all the time. A boy once lost a sock, and he was caned so hard that the scars still sit on his flesh, some five years later.”

Effy’s jaw dropped in a rather un-ladylike fashion. “Just for losing a sock?!” she exclaimed. Tommy nodded.

“Don’t worry though. They’re much harder on boys than they are on girls. You’ll be fine, I’m sure.”

Somehow, Effy didn’t believe her brother. But she left it at that all the same.