Well, I just wrote this, thinking that Gwendoline is a great character and is rather under-appreciated by Enid Blyton. I mean, she's just like my sister, and lots of people like her, for some strange reason not told to the rest of us. I'll try to continue when I get, I dunno, 5 reviews, but it may take longer than that because I'm a very slow writer. Sorry!
Disclaimer: I do not own the copyright or whatever to any of Enid Blyton's books, including Malory Towers. Shame, really. They're great!
Gwendoline shook her gleaming gold curls. It was time for the French exam. Luckily it was Mam'zelle Dupont, not Rougier. It was third form, and she still somehow had the hope that this time she would be somewhere above the bottom. It was probably her overgrown and encouraged self-esteem that let her hope. It was hard to believe that anyone could be so self-obsessed. She carefully penciled in what she thought was the approximate translation for a couple of lines of a French poem. All around her girls industriously bent their heads over their test papers, occasionally glancing up to gaze longingly out at the window, and the sunny blue sky beyond it. Of course, Alicia was already finished, and was attempting to show her friend, Betty, some small sketch on the corner of her paper. Betty glanced at it, gave her a nod and a smile, and answered the last question on her exam. Gwendoline hated Alicia. She had fallen victim to her malicious tongue many a time.
She looked around the room again. There was Zerelda Brass. Oh, how she admired the American, who had such beautiful features, almost as beautiful as her own. It was a pity she had to put her hair in plaits. But it seemed she wanted to be like all of the other horrible girls. Gwendoline was disgusted. Zerelda seemed to be having some problems with her test. She kept fiddling with her nails, and tapping her test paper with her pencil.
Over there was Bill, faithful to her promise to Ms. Peters, but still occasionally glancing out the window towards the stables, longing for her horse. Gwendoline couldn't understand at all why anyone would like such a horrible, dangerous creature. There didn't seem to be anything good about Thunder. She didn't know what Bill saw in that animal. Maybe she was mad? Or Thunder blackmailed her into pretending to like him? Well, horses couldn't blackmail, but anyway…
Sitting by the window over there was Sally. She didn't really like Sally. This was partially because she was a friend of Darrell's. How could anyone like such a horrible girl as Darrell? Also, Sally had tipped her off a lot during her head-girl days. She hated anyone making a fool of her.
Gwen turned back to her own test. Let's see… it was some poem that she was meant to translate. What was the point? It wasn't as if it made her look beautiful, or made anyone, except maybe Mam'zelle, admire her. Whining non-stop in her head, she bent down and squinted at the paper. Votre visage est plus beau que le jour d'un été. Let's see… it was something about a face, and a… wasn't that summer day? And something about nicer or prettier… She did some guess work, and scribbled, "Your face is nicer than a summer day." It seemed to be right. Probably the poet was writing about her. She gave a small, smug smile, and looked at the next line. Votre sourire est plus brillant que les fleurs printanières. Something about spring flowers? And that was your smile at the beginning. Wow, Gwendoline thought. This was much easier than usual. Usually she couldn't understand a word. Maybe it was because she had actually studied this term, but she doubted it. Wait, that was brighter, in the middle there. "Your smile is brighter than spring flowers." Again, the poet seemed to be writing about her. This definitely was easier than usual. Next was Je vous préfère au papillon exquis. Something about an exquisite butterfly… and a preference… "I prefer you to an exquisite butterfly," she decided.
It went on. The poet must have met her, and had been incredibly impressed with her virtues, it seemed. It described her flowing golden tresses, her lips as red as a rose, her stunning blue eyes… it went on and on. She liked this poem. She had failed all other exams. But this time Gwendoline translated every last one. It was easy. She couldn't see how she hadn't gotten it before.
Darrell had finished now, as well as most of the other girls. Oh, how she hated Darrell. They had gotten off to a bad start, when on the train during first form, Alicia, who Darrell seemed to actually like, had humiliated her in front of all the new girls, including Darrell. It hadn't actually been Darrell's fault, but Gwendoline had hated Alicia for doing that, and hated everyone who knew about the incident. Then Darrell had slapped her in the pool… The list went on and on. Everyone liked Darrell. She apparently was a nice, kind, caring girl, but Gwendoline didn't believe one word of it. Darrell was always so mean to her, but what had she done to Darrell? She hadn't done anything mean! Well, there was that time when she smashed Mary Lou's pen and blamed it on Darrell, but that was because Darrell had slapped her! And there were some other times, but it was always because Darrell had done something first it. It wasn't Gwen's fault. Darrel had started it.
Now it was time for the next class. Another exam. This one, however, was a Maths exam. The girls entered the classroom, and sat down. They received their test papers, and began to work. Again, before working on the exam, Gwendoline surveyed the room. Nothing much was happening, just a normal day.
Irene, it seemed, had somehow already finished, and was humming to herself, and scribbling feverishly on the back of the exam. Belinda was not far behind, and started doodling what seemed to be a picture of a face… Gwen's face. Gwendoline quickly checked her expression. She was scowling. She quickly wiped the scowl of her face. What kind of place was this, where you couldn't even scowl in peace? She hated Belinda for that.
Over there, Darrell was of course looking like a model student. She was working away at her test, and probably doing perfectly. That was another reason she hated Darrell.
Sighing, Gwendoline stared at her own test. Had Ms. Peters made a mistake? It was all easier than usual. She had studied, but that didn't make that much of a difference, did it? Swiftly, Gwen wrote down the answers in her perfect, flowing, handwriting. Do you dare laugh? She always had perfect, flowing, immaculate handwriting. She glanced up at the clock. Fifteen minutes left to go. Had she missed a page or something? Or been given the exam for first-formers? It was so easy; she had finished it so quickly. Only just after Alicia, and before Darrell and Sally and the other girls. How strange… She speedily went over her work. Yes, it seemed to all be correct. She must have been given the wrong test. Well, she wasn't going to tell Ms. Peters. If someone else made a mistake to her advantage, she would take the advantage. Though even the first-form test would be more difficult than this. How puzzling.
Fifteen minutes had passed. Now it was time for lunch. Gwen sat down at a table on the opposite side of a group of girls chattering on about how they did on the tests, and oh, wasn't question three challenging. No, it wasn't. It was quite easy, thought Gwendoline. That was a change. Nothing ever was easy. She always failed. She was the one who said that question one, question fifteen, and all the questions in between were challenging. Not that anyone else seemed to listen. Maybe they just didn't hear. They never heard her telling them such exciting stories about herself. She was such an amazing storyteller; they had no idea what they were missing out. She really should learn to speak up. What a shame no one appreciated her stories.
Lunch had finished, and Gwendoline joined the group of third-formers heading towards the classroom for the next exam. This one was a history test. Gwen hated history. What was the point in knowing about things like the civil war and other boring things? It wasn't as if they were interesting, or gave her an advantage in life. Sighing, she stared blankly at her test.
She carefully wrote down her guess on the first question. Again, this was easier than usual, much easier. Maybe she had been given the first-formers test again. Or maybe (though this she barely dared hope) all that studying to get a good report card had actually worked.
She looked up. Ms. Peters had called over Irene. Though they were speaking quietly, Gwen made out the words, "-history test instead of maths exam." It seemed that scatterbrained Irene had somehow done the wrong test. Behind her, Gwendoline heard one of Jean's signature snorts. Poor Irene, with no sense but double the brains of anyone else.
Gwendoline forced herself to turn back to her own test, instead of inspecting the room as she had before. She scribbled down the next answer. This must be the wrong test. She had never managed to get more than one answer without guessing on a test before. The next question was a breeze, too. The entire test went in about five minutes. Gwen glanced up at the clock; it must be wrong. She quickly scanned her paper for mistakes, but no, it seemed correct, except that she had spelled Catherine of Aragon with an "e" at the end. Aragone… sounded quite nice actually. Wow. She actually had time to think about small things like spelling, and how nice misspelled words sounded when pronounced how they were (mis) spelled. Normally she wouldn't even know who Catherine of Aragon was. And the minutes ticked by, as Gwendoline purposely misspelled words and pronounced them in her head. There were some nice ones, like pifflee, geren, and betauful. Piffle, green, and beautiful.
Finally, everyone finished, and it was time to watch the lacrosse game. Gwen didn't actually want to watch. It wasn't that she didn't like the game; it was just that Darrell was playing. And apparently she was good, so Gwendolyn would have to watch her do well. There was always the chance that she could watch Darrell fail, but knowing Darrell, that wouldn't happen. Darrell was just too good at everything. Unlike Gwendoline. She decided to just drink lots of the lemonade served at the game, and try not to pay any attention. At least it was good lemonade, and Gwen liked good lemonade.
The game was terrible. The fact that Malory Towers won was good, but the bad thing was, of course, Darrell. She (of course) had done excellently and even scored the winning goal. Gwendoline hated seeing Darrell do something well. And the lemonade didn't taste good. A waste of time, that's what sports are, thought Gwendoline. She didn't see why anyone played them. Playing sports was just a waste of time. And an excuse to drink lemonade, if you were like Gwendoline.
There was a break before the next exam, during which Gwendoline happily sat down and began brushing her hair. She must be thousands of strokes behind by now. She was meant to do one hundred a night, but the other girls didn't let her. At most she could usually get about fifty.
"Sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, seventy," she recited as she brushed. "Seveny-one, seventy-two, seventy-three, seventy-four, seventy-five, seventy-six, seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine, eighty, eighty-one, eighty-two." She went on until she reached a hundred. There she paused, hairbrush inches away from her head. She was behind… but maybe she should study for the next exam. It was geography, wasn't it? She hadn't studied that yet. No, she thought. With the luck she was having, she would get easy tests again, and if not, she hated to admit this to her self, but what difference would it make? She would fail, like usual.
Cheerfully, she continued. "Hundred-one, hundred-two, hundred-three…" and so on, until it was time for the test.
It was the geography test this time. Geography wasn't one of Gwendoline's strong points, but then, what was? There was no beauty class at Malory Towers. It was very unfortunate. If there was one she was sure that she would excel at it.
She glanced at the paper and groaned. It seemed that her luck was no longer with her. The exam was filled with impossible questions, about countries, and maps, and capitals, and other nonsense like that. If only she had studied for geography! She did not know this, but if she had studied, this test would be dramatically easier.
She set to work, slowly and painstakingly scrawling out what seemed to be a good answer. It probably wasn't correct, but it was the best she could do. There was one that she knew, which was that the capital of England was London. She had to guess all the rest. She definitely was going to fail this exam. And what a shame, because all of the others had been coming along so well! Studying really must be the key to success, she thought. Look at the evidence: She had studied for the French test, success, studied for Maths, success, studied for history, success, didn't study for geography, failure. Tomorrow she would study. Now, the test was over, and it was time to go to the dorm with the other North Tower girls, and get ready for bed. Maybe she could study if she got ready quickly. She had a brand new book to study with. It was the one she had used to study for the easy exams. Hopefully it would make all of the exams easy.
She went off, straggling behind the chattering group of other North Tower girls, brushed her teeth, washed her face, brushed her hair (only 46 strokes!), changed into her nightdress, and got into bed. There was no time to study, so she just put the book next to her bed, so she would remember it in the morning. Studying might actually be a good idea, she thought drowsily. Then she began to snore.
The studying had changed Gwendoline a lot. Can't you tell? Now, instead of dragging herself off to fail exams, she was finding them easy, and actually wanting to study! How strange...
Early the next morning, Gwendoline woke up. It couldn't have been later than 5:00 AM, but the sun was shining. It looked like it was going to be a marvelous day. She remembered the studying that needed to be done. It was far too early to even think of getting up. She fell back to sleep almost immediately.
After what seemed only a minute to the sleeping mind of Gwen, a bell rang. It was time to get up! Gwendoline quickly sat up, alert, and annoyed with herself, which had never happened before. Early in the morning had been the perfect time to study! Why hadn't she grabbed the opportunity! She grabbed the book, hurriedly got ready for breakfast, and ran to the table. There, she wolfed down her food. Now she could study. She quickly read over the parts about the next few exams. Then it was time to go.
In the classroom, Ms. Peters showed them where they were on the scoreboard. Gwendoline nearly burst with inflated self-esteem. She was actually seven above bottom! Some other poor person was now bottom. The tests she had studied for were all correct. Studying was the way to go, she thought.
I know, really boring ending for the chapter. But never mind, hopefully it'll get more interesting. By the way, the French part is not a poem, but random sentences that I got from an English-french online translator. Now, review! I'm sure you really want to tell me to never continue. And especially Lord Cullen and SofiaCastano… please?