Free Whip Hands by C. P. Hazel

Clare.
    The office junior was going to take more responsibility in future!
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The Further Education of Miss Rose
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    â€˜Miss Rose, Miss Rose, can we remove our cardigans? The atmosphere is getting so stuffy.’
    â€˜Miss Rose, I really can’t see the blackboard properly sitting in the front row. It must be long-sightedness or something. Can I move to the back row again?’
    After only two weeks in a private boarding school for girls I was beginning to feel at my wits’ end. I could scarcely believe it. The Camilla Bancroft Academy was credited with a high academic reputation, but for the life of me I couldn’t see why.
    Certainly not if this sixth form was typical. Only fifteen girls in the class, compared to twice as many at nearby Boroughbridge Secondary, where I’d started my teaching career around five years previously. But these girls were far more demanding to teach.
    Luckily, unlike the majority of the staff, I didn’t have to live in. Already I was beginning to feel that some of the third and fourth-formers were beginning to establish one of those sickly ‘crushes’ that feature strongly in school stories. Oh, how glad I was to get away from their simpering faces at the end of each day, retreat to my penthouse flat in town and unwind with a good book.
    After, of course, the marking was complete. At Boroughbridge High there was ample opportunity during staff time to do most of my marking load. At Camilla Bancroft, which was named after a fierce Edwardian spinster with a spine like a ramrod and a matching educational philosophy, teaching went on right up to teatime. My stamina, I suspected, was just not up to it.
    Only twenty minutes to go, according to the ancient classroom clock that marked each minute with a sound like a mousetrap being sprung. Though the ancient mullioned windows were thrust wide open, the room had become unbearably stuffy. With a feeling that was close to gratitude I could see that my charges were subdued by a combination of boredom and the oppressive heat of a mild autumn afternoon. Somehow my account of the French Revolution wasn’t stirring the imaginations of these privileged darlings. And, frankly, I’d gone past the point of caring.
    It was then I heard smothered laughs from over by the far window where the same group of three girls always took a table. They were supposed to be reading but this trio, led by a striking, raven-haired girl called Philomene Lamartine, were as usual out to create a diversion. The Lamartine girl was mature-looking for her age and had a good brain, but unfortunately she found little to apply herself to at Camilla Bancroft except in areas such as drama and music, where she could indulge her penchant for exhibitionism. Her father was half-French. Or so she said.
    The other two, Fay and Fiona, were usually well-mannered, but once they got together with Philomene anything could happen. As I looked up from my reading Fay gave a loud yelp of glee, clapping a hand over her mouth too late to prevent it alerting the rest of the class that some diversion was afoot.
    When I stood up I could see what had caused Fay’s shocked response. Philomene had pinned her long locks to the top of her head, exposing her graceful neck. The effect was further enhanced by two buttons of her school shirt being undone. Then, as the whispering grew to a hubbub, she slowly lowered her forehead to the table top. Reaching for a ruler, she brought this down, edge first, on to the back of her neck. She finished with a brief death scene complete with bodily convulsions.
    The final effect, witnessed on either side by Fay and Fiona, whose shrieks of delight were now unrestrained, was to grasp her hair and pull her head up from the table. She had arranged her features to create the maximum effect. The dark, staring eyes and twisted mouth caused some of the more impressionable members of the class to scream out in horror.
    â€˜Lamartine,