"Meet your new Governess and her daughter, children, Fraulein Eliza and Julia." The Captain announced as he presented Eliza and Julia to his six children.
The children stood as statues, with their arms by their sides, chins up, and their backs straight. The only thing that moved on any of them, even the littlest girl at the end of the line, was their eyes. Which were all wondering in Eliza's and Julia's direction. The Captain went down the row of children scanning them for imperfections. He came across his eldest son and straightened the knot on his uniform which had gone askew.
"Frau Schmidt," the Captain called out for his housekeeper. "Order a small uniform for Ms. Wells' daughter Julia."
"Yes, Captain," and the old women brisk fully walked away with her instruction.
"Now Fraulein, listen carefully. I will whistle the child's signal, they will step out and call out their name and then you shall have a try at it." Eliza was too flustered to respond to such a radical statement. For all she knew whistles such as the Captain's were for dogs, cats, and other such animals.
The Captain blew his whistle, not waiting for a response from Eliza, to signal his first child. The first girl in the row of six, she was obviously the eldest, step out and shouted out her name, "Liesl". She then quickly stepped back to her position in line. The Captain then blew a slightly different whistle and the boy, who was next in line, stepped out and shouted "Friedrich" and just as his sister had done before him he stepped back into his place. The Captain blew a somewhat different whistle for each one of his children who would then respond by marching out and declaring their names to their new Fraulein. All but one said their name. The little button nosed girl with braided blonde hair. It took her father two blows of his whistle for her to just step out but being so young and nervous she forgot to call out her name, Eliza thought it was cute.
"That's Gretl," the Captain grinned. Eliza grinned back at him but his grin quickly faded away when he realized he was showing a bit of a weakness.
The Captain removed a shiny silver whistle from his pocket and handed it to Eliza. Eliza looked disgusted at the Captain's offering of the whistle. "Go on take it, the children will help you." Eliza glanced back at the children she caught a gleam from Liesl's eyes that she didn't trust. Then out of no where there was a loud shriek of a whistle being blown. Eliza quickly directed her attention down to Julia immediately. The girl was holding the whistle to her lips and was in the process of taking in a deep breath for her next go on the whistle. Eliza ripped the whistle from her daughter's lips and gave her a stern look. All the von Trapp children were laughing which gave Eliza's stern look no power at all. They all stopped laughing however, from one glare from their father.
"I won't need the whistle. I'll just use their names. They all have such lovely names." Eliza gave a warm smile to all the children. The children smiled back to the revelation of no whistles. Their father glanced over at them and their smiles quickly faded.
"You will take this whistle and learn to use it, this is a rather large house and I do not want to hear yelling!" The Captain said aggressively. Eliza took the whistle reluctantly. "And for when I need you this will be your signal." The Captain began a chain of whistles.
"Captain!" Eliza yelled, "Sir," The Captain gave her a dirty look for her interruption of his whistle blowing. "I can not respond to a whistle sir! Whistles are for dogs, cats, and other such animals! Not for humans and certainly not for me, sir!"
"Hmmm… Were you this much trouble in your previous jobs?" The Captain asked rather sarcastically.
"Much worse, Sir," Julia responded. The Captain gave out a "Humph" and began to walk away. There was another loud whistle bursting the silence in the room. The Captain turned around and almost instinctively looked down at Julia. He noticed the child was standing still for once. He looked to Eliza who was pulling the whistle from her mouth.
"And what's your signal, Sir?" Eliza said innocently. The Captain glowered at her and gave her a forceful smirk.
"You can call me Captain." He then turned and walked out of the room back towards his office. Eliza smiled and put the whistle in her pocket with no intention of taking it back out. "Now," Eliza directed her attention back to the children, "at ease," Eliza joked. The children followed her direction and became "at ease". Eliza was surprised by this but ignored it,"if you could tell me your name and how old you are again."
Liesl stepped forward, "I'm Liesl, I'm sixteen and I don't need a governess."
"I'm glad you told me Leisl, we can be just good friends."
"I'm Friedrich, I'm fourteen, and I'm impossible!"
Eliza chuckled at Friedrich, "And who told you that?"
"Fraulein Helega, four governesses ago."
"I'm Brigitta." The girl just stepped back. Her brothers and sisters started to giggle at her.
"You forgot to tell me how old you are… Louisa." Eliza grinned at her catch.
The sister who was reading her book when she came into the room stepped forward. "I'm Brigitta, she's Louisa, she's fourteen and I'm ten. And I think that is the ugliest thing I have ever seen!" The girl said looking at Eliza's carpet bag sitting by her feet.
"Brigitta, you shouldn't say things like that!" Her brother standing next to her told her.
"Don't you think it's ugly!" Brigitta protested.
"Well yes, but what is it?" The boy inquired.
"It's a carpet bag," Eliza stated.
"Like you carry carpet in it?" The boy asked.
"No, made of," Eliza corrected him.
"Oh… I'm Kurt, I'm eleven, and I'm incorrigible."
Eliza laughed again," congratulations."
"What's incorrigible?" Kurt asked.
"I think it means that you don't want to be treated like a boy." Eliza defined. The boy was contempt with the definition of the word and stepped back. The smallest girl in line tapped her foot impatiently at Eliza. "Yes, you're Gretl. " Eliza remembered her name quiet easily. The little girl held up five fingers," and you're five years old? My you're practically a lady!" The girl giggled at Eliza's comment. Julia was becoming jealous of all the attention the von Trapp children were getting and she wasn't getting any at all. She pulled on her mother's dress to remind her mother that she was there. "Oh yes, sorry Darling. This is…"
"I'm Julia, I'm six, and today's my birthday!" Julia interrupted her mother. Liesl gaze softened a little bit at hearing it was Julia's birthday. She had officially decided on her own that they wouldn't mess with Julia, not unless the girl called to be messed with.
"Well I have to tell you all a secret. I've never been a governess before so I'm going to need as much advice as you can give me." Eliza told the children. Louisa smiled at her two older siblings.
"You've never been a governess before?" Louisa asked distrustfully.
"Nope," Eliza smiled.
"You have got to tell father to mind his own business," Louisa told her and she started walking towards Eliza.
"And always be late to dinner." Her siblings followed in her lead. "And always slurp your soup! Sluuuuuuuuurrrrrrrrppp!" Friedrich make a slurping nosy. "And always blow your nose during desert!" Kurt ordered.
Friedrich looked over to Liesl who nodded to her younger brother. He pulled out his frog and gently slipped it into Eliza's pocket of her over jacket. Friedrich gave Liesl a grin when his task was done and Liesl gave him a quick wink.
Eliza was being suffocated by all the children surrounding her and she couldn't find Julia in the mass. "Don't listen to a word they say, Fraulein Eliza!" Eliza could hear a small voice from below.
"Oh, why not?"
"Because I like you," Gretl answered simply.
"Okay children," Frau Schmidt came walking back into the room. "It's time for your walk, your father's orders." The old woman started to scoot the children out the front door to walk around the grounds. "I'll show you to your rooms deary." Frau Schmidt made a move to grab Eliza's carpet bag. Eliza quickly got in her way and grabbed her carpet bag before Frau Schmidt could get to it. Eliza just grinned to Frau Schmidt's who showed a face of utter suspicion.
The children walked slowly to the front door. They won't to see if their new precious Fraulein would notice the frog that had been stuffed into her coat pocket.
"Why doesn't Julia join us?" Brigitta asked as she reached for the door first. Eliza smiled at the thought of the children accepting Julia.
"If you want to, Julia, you can go for a walk. Besides it'll be good for you to learn where everything is. Then you can come back and tell me." Julia smiled at her mother and hugged her waist and she ran off to join the von Trapp children who were still slowly making their way to the door.
Eliza started to make her ways up the stairs once again behind Frau Schmidt. "What poor dears," Eliza said as she could feel something squirming around in her pocket. She stuck her hand inside her jacket pocket to find something cold, slimy and uninviting. She pulled out the frog and looked at it with a sigh. "Julia, would you mind letting this go by the pond?" Eliza said as she handed the frog to Julia's opened hands. Julia grabbed the frog and it let out a loud "croak" as the little girl squeezed it too tight.
"No, you're hurting him!" Friedrich cried out as he came and snatched the frog from Julia. He gasped as he just let it out that he was the one who slipped it into Eliza's pocket. Eliza knew though that it wasn't just his idea alone he could tell by the looks on the other kids faces. "I mean, I'll let him go." He tried to recover.
Liesl looked away when Eliza tried to make eye contact with her. The children then walk quickly out the door, with Julia in the middle and little Gretl tailing close behind.
