Meet the Athertons: 'A Head Girl's Difficulties' Quiz

Answer: She fell out of a train

Rosamund Atherton is due to be Head Girl and is worried about it as she is relatively young for the job. Cesca, her older sister, is due to become a kindergarten teacher while of her younger sisters, Con is a Senior and Allegra and Jose are Juniors. Gerry Challoner and Jill Trevennor visit the Athertons to break the news that Miss Catcheside has been injured in a train accident; Mr Trevennor was on the same train.

It is later revealed that Miss Catcheside fell out of the train when she leaned out of a window and the door opened, and that she was severely injured.

Answer: They are locked in

Jose and her friends want to watch a gymnastics display put on by Miss Benson and Miss Handley, but only the Fifth Form are allowed and Jose's group are in the Third Form, so they hide behind the ribstalls in the gym. When the display is over and the other girls have left, Jose and her friends discover that the door is locked and they cannot get out.

They call for help and eventually, Rosamund finds them in the gym when she goes to put away some Indian clubs. She orders the girls to apologise to the mistresses and to Gerry and Kitty O'Connell, the Fifth Form prefects.

Answer: Allegra Atherton

Jill Trevennor suspects her younger sister Sheila and her friends are up to something, and she turns out to be right. A group of Lower School girls, led by Form IVB, put together a newspaper full of (bad) poetry making fun of the Sixth and Fifth Forms and the prefects, who do not see the funny side of it. Allegra is the editor, while Althea and Fiamma - whose sisters Domenica and Giulia were involved in the gym prank - are the sub-editors.

The spelling and grammar are so atrocious that Rosamund gives the Lower School girls a fitting punishment of having extra lessons in spelling, grammar and scansion in place of games practices for a fortnight. As with 'Gerry Goes to School', the younger girls complain about having to fag (run errands and do tasks) for the Fifth Form.

Answer: Aveline

Aveline Gladwin Meredith is in IVB and is one of the ringleaders, and both Rosamund and Francesca dislike her because she has a bad attitude. She contributed a poem about Vivien Ashe, the Games Captain, to the 'Gazette'. She wears big bows in her hair and short skirts. Allegra wants to invite her to tea and Mrs Atherton is not keen, but cautiously agrees, although she will put a stop to the friendship if she dislikes Aveline.

The constant clashing with her younger sister at school is stressing Rosamund out, and Francesca and Mrs Atherton are worried about her. Francesca explains that after Marcia Compton left, the unpopular Alicia Brett (who caused the fag strike in 'Gerry Goes to School') became Head Girl and the juniors enjoyed winding her up. The Head Girl who came after her did not take misbehaviour seriously and as a result, discipline has become a problem among the younger girls, something Rosamund and her prefects are trying to remedy.

Answer: Diphtheria

Miss Phillips, the acting Head, calls Rosamund in and tells her that she is concerned about Gerry and Jill, as Cecil and Sheila Trevennor have diphtheria (Gerry is still living with the Trevennors), as do the Vivalanti girls. The school is forced to close and the girls have to take their work home with them. Cecil Trevennor, who has always been susceptible to illness, later dies, as do Domenica Vivalanti (although her sisters survive), Dorothy Ellis and Mary Anderson. The epidemic is particularly bad in the poorer area of town and Rosamund's uncle, Dr Farringford, is extremely busy.

Diphtheria spreads to the Athertons when Con is discovered to have a sore throat. Jose's kitten, Fifi, also has it and has to be put down. Although Con survives, she is very weak and has to be taken to the south of France to recover. Mrs Atherton and Con's little brother Noel go with her. Sheila Trevennor also goes to France with the Burnham sisters, and Kitty O'Connell has to take the rest of the term off.

Answer: Blossom

To 'Chalet School' fans who've read 'Lavender Laughs in the Chalet School', Adelicia comes across as a prototype Lavender, being a skinny and 'delicate' girl with artificially curled hair with big bows, and an obnoxious manner, being obsessed with clothes and parties. Her father sent her to St. Peter's in the hope she might become more sensible, and although her work standard is very poor, she is placed in the Sixth in the hope that the other girls might be an influence on her. Her nickname at home is 'Blossom'. (Incidentally, 'Blossom' is also the name of Rosamund Atherton's first daughter much later on.)

Adelicia causes Rosamund headaches when Rosamund is trying to find out what subjects she takes, and Vivien Ashe calls her 'the creature' in a letter to her sister. She also gets into trouble over inappropriate clothing, and is the cause of an outbreak of sentimentality in the school, having gained admirers in the younger forms.

Answer: Teachers being given apples

Thanks to Adelicia encouraging girls to admire her by flattering them and giving them chocolates, the younger girls (and a couple of Fifth Formers) go through a sentimental phase, sending each other and the prefects love letters and walking around arm in arm. Adelicia cannot be friends with Rosamund, so she targets Allegra, and Vivien is angry with Allegra's involvement as Rosamund is already under a lot of stress at home. Rosamund herself is disgusted to find a letter to Allegra from Aveline, gushing over Vivien and talking about buying her a present. She is distracted in a maths class to the point where it makes her feel ill, and Miss Motley has to send her out until she recovers.

The sentimentality also affects the girls' performance in games lessons; in a IVB netball session, the girls are playing with little effort and Vivien and Rosamund have to intervene. Vivien also takes IIIA for hockey and notes that they played very badly. Rosamund recalls a similar thing happening in another school, where the girls' work and games performances were affected and took about a year to sort out.

Answer: Krinkum Krankum

The Athertons own multiple pets and one of them is Krinkum Krankum, a black retriever puppy. Dr Farringford spends the night with the Athertons after driving Rosamund home and Mr Atherton leaves a lit cigarette in the drawing room, which causes a fire. Tou-Tou, Jose's kitten, senses danger and wakes Krinkum Krankum, who wakes Rosamund up by barking, and she smells smoke and alerts the rest of the family.

Although the Athertons are able to escape to safety and Mr Atherton, Dr Farringford, the servants and the Athertons' neighbour put the fire out between them, the drawing room is badly damaged and an essay Rosamund had written for a prize is destroyed; luckily, Rosamund is able to rewrite it from notes and the new version is better than the first. Mr Atherton gets Krinkum Krankum a collar with 'Hero Dog' on it.

Answer: A hamper

Rosamund and the prefects punish the juniors involved in the sentimentality campaign by collecting their letters and making the girls read them aloud in front of the school. Rosamund also has a quiet word with Aveline, and Allegra falls out with her after she makes nasty remarks about the Athertons. Adelicia, however, is a different matter and the prefects decide to prank her, although they don't want the younger girls finding out. They give her various gifts purporting to be from an admirer, including a bag of liquorice allsorts, some stale cream buns and squashed tulips.

Vivien comes up with the idea of giving Adelicia a hamper with some terrible poetry attached to it. Adelicia has realised at this point that someone is making fun of her and starts crying, and Vivien tells her that the prefects do not like sentimentality and that it isn't the done thing at St. Peter's. She offers to make peace with Adelicia and Adelicia accepts, and the two carry the hamper away when Miss Phillips tells them to get rid of it. The sentimentality campaign is then officially over.

Answer: Gerry goes to France to study music

The juniors play a prank on Maeve as revenge for scolding them, and smear red valerian on her coat. While walking home from school, Maeve is swarmed by cats who are attracted by the scent, and she, Rosamund and Vivien have to take refuge in a church, before they follow her in and the girls escape and lock most of the cats in. Dr Farringford comes to the rescue and takes Maeve home, and once she takes her coat off, her cat leaves her alone.

St. Peter's play the Grange School at tennis and Diana Burnham, who has returned to school, sprains her ankle. Rosamund is first reserve and has to take her place. She is terrified, especially as she has to play against Tot, the Grange's star player, but luckily manages to win the match.

Finally, the school holds an end-of-term Speech Day, where Rosamund wins a prize for her essay, and the girls act out extracts from plays. Rosamund plays Deirdre in 'Deirdre and Naoise', while the juniors do 'The Oyster Princess' and the seniors do 'Twelfth Night'. During 'Twelfth Night', Rosamund watches from the wings and her robe gets in the way, so she throws it aside and it lands on a light and catches fire, and the play has to stop. Luckily, Nina Ruffell puts the fire out and nobody is hurt, but Rosamund is embarrassed.

In other news, Miss Catcheside gets engaged and is due to leave the school, and Mr Atherton's shares in a copper mine finally make him some money. On the last day of term, Miss Catcheside - who has returned to school - reveals that Rosamund has won the Verulam Scholarship and will be going to Oxford, but Rosamund is too embarrassed to make a speech. (Gerry does plan to go abroad to study music, but in Italy, not France. The music master Signor Donati has a friend, Signor Cinganelli, who will be teaching her.)