Free Call of the Kiwi by Sarah Lark

doesn’t get along with her classmates, and she rejects the subject matter. The bible history teacher recently brought her to me because she put forward Darwinian ideas in an essay. Instead of writing about original sin, she wrote something about the origin of species. I had to rebuke her sharply.”
    Sarah turned red.
    “The girl has grown up a total stranger to the world,” Miss Arrowstone declared with outrage. “And you are undoubtedly not entirely without fault. But so be it, the girl ran wild on that sheep farm. A little bit of homeschooling probably stood no chance against that. What’s more, is it true what Lilian says? That her grandfather was really a livestock thief?”
    Sarah Bleachum had to smile. “Lilian’s great-grandfather,” she corrected her. “Gloria is not related to James McKenzie.”
    “But she did grow up in the household of this dubious folk hero, did she not? It’s all very opaque. And who is this Jack?” While she spoke, Miss Arrowstone drew a piece of paper out of her desk drawer.
    Sarah recognized Gloria’s large sloping handwriting.
    “Do you read the girls’ letters?” she asked, outraged.
    “Not usually, Miss Bleachum. But this on e . . . ”

    The students at Oaks Garden were forced to write home on Friday afternoons. Few of them had much to say, but they had learned to inflate small events—a good grade for a drawing, for example, or a new étude in their violin lessons—into the highlights of the week.
    Gloria invariably sat mutely in front of her piece of paper. She simply couldn’t bring herself to describe her misery. It was just a chance to revisit all the indignities she’d suffered that week: the Monday morning when she had once again found the school blouse she had assiduously ironed the night before wrinkled under all the clothes Gabrielle had taken out on Sunday evening.
    “A shame for our house,” Miss Coleridge declared, giving Gloria a few disciplinary marks. Gabrielle sneered.
    Or Tuesday, when the headmistress had come to choir practice and insisted that the new arrivals sing for her. Miss Arrowstone wanted to know if the daughter of the celebrated Mrs. Martyn was really as hopeless as Miss Wedgewood maintained. Gloria had failed miserably. After being chastised for her poor posture at the podium, she broke off in the middle of the song and ran in tears from the podium to hide in the garden. She received more disciplinary marks when she only returned in time for dinner.
    On Wednesday there had been the fuss about original sin.
    On Thursday, Gabrielle had exchanged her sheet music for Gloria’s at her piano lesson. She did not even know where to start in the workbook for advanced students, and as punishment, Miss Taylor-Bennington made her play from memory. All her arduous hours of practice that week had been for naught.
    She could not possibly report all of that back home. She could not even write it down without bursting into tears. When she finally reached for her pen, she dipped the nib so forcefully into the ink that the drops fell like tears onto her writing paper. And then she wrote the only words that came to mind: “Jack, please, please, come take me home!”

    “So you see, Miss Bleachum,” Miss Arrowstone said. “Should we have sent this letter?”
    Sarah gazed, stunned, at Gloria’s cry for help. She bit her lip.
    “I understand the need to be strict,” she replied. “But I’m simply proposing a few additional French lessons. It will help Gloria integrate if she can follow along better in class.”
    The headmistress softened her stance.
    “Very well, Miss Bleachum. If the reverend has nothing against it.”
    Sarah was piqued anew. What did Christopher have to do with her teaching Gloria? Since when did she need his permission to take on a pupil? But she maintained her composure. Nothing would be gained by further antagonizing Miss Arrowstone.
    “Please tell him that was a lovely sermon on the place of women in the Bible,” the