Cricket Term chapters 4-6

[coughingbear]

Apologies that this is so late - one of those days. And there is a lot going on in these three!

Chapter Four – Assorted Disappointments

Kingscote catching up after the plague – I wonder how many of them did do their set work?

Lawrie comfortable in her backwater at the back of the class, no longer wanting to be at the front with Tim and Nicola. I like that she stands up to Miss Comwell for once (and Crommie showing that she does listen to what people say even if she has a low opinion of them). And I like Nicola’s quiet return for ‘all those vengeances’ by putting Wol on Lawrie’s head. All too easy to imagine Lower IVA all taking it upon themselves to tell the other staff about where the twins are sitting now.

The arrival of Pomona; Nicola and others thinking her ‘much improved’ – I wonder if she returns the compliment?

‘I am not my colleague’s keeper’. Jan being helpful and Val wishing she wouldn’t.

Kempe in the sunk garden, speculating on open-air performances – which in a way would make sense for the Tempest (I once saw it at the Globe, in slightly mixed weather, and that was very effective) but would seem to add an unnecessary layer of difficulty to putting on an already tricky play with schoolgirls. As she eventually concludes. Feel that Nicola has some reason to resent Ann’s helpfulness over the Quilter songs! So far it’s mainly Lawrie being disappointed – not only Kempe but Tim as well think she’s Ariel for good.

Tim and Nicola: keen not something either of them want to be seen to be (though I’d say they both are) and Nicola’s rash admission to Tim that she wants to win, which for once doesn’t lead to teasing. (Though obv Tim is wrong; sometimes playing for a draw is very exciting!) And the arrival of Lois – I think of ‘quick’ and ‘charming’ as adjectives Forest often applies to her, before she puts in the knife, smiling all the while. This time over access to the practice nets and pitches. (I must say, it seems pretty generous for a girls school to have – as we discover later – four practice pitches plus the one behind the Pavilion, and six nets, but I have no idea if that’s normal.)

I like the way Tim makes it clear Lawrie has been talking – and I tend to wonder with her why Nicola’s so clear that no one should know while Lois is still at school; except that gossip would be as likely to backfire as cause problems for Lois. Is Nicola really old enough to realise that? Or is it more that she would in fact hate everyone talking about her, even if on her side. Glad that she still looks ‘out-cutlasses-and-board’ at Lois, though.

Mirabile dictu – a phrase I enjoy too, having learned it from Nicola. And much though I like cricket, ‘I am so glad I don’t play’ with Tim at the thought of 6.30 practices.

Nicola’s superstition emerging again in the lovely conversation with Tim about Prospero’s costume, culminating in the huge pleasure of imagining Val Longstreet carried off by demons.

Audition reports – Esther unable to sing in public (getting worse? In End of Term she was at least doing the solos during rehearsals); Pippin a Strange Shape, with some teasing that only just escapes nastiness to my mind; and Lawrie crunched. (Yet Kempe had surely implied that Lawrie could audition for Caliban in the holiday letter?) Lawrie, however, still thinks she can bend the world to her will.

Ginty’s disappointment next, not to be cast as Miranda, and a very uncomfortable bit of her point of view. Emma provides a ‘plausible and consoling’ explanation – which I also find somewhat plausible, though Forest leaves it entirely up to us to decide if it’s right. And like Nicola, though Monica does seem a good thing (and while giving up her part as a Mariner obviously is to keep Ginty company, she was also clear right at the start that she would rather not be in the play at all, so I don’t think it’s only self-sacrifice – and I wince every time at Ginty’s response), I have very little liking for any of Ginty’s other friends.


Chapter Five – Postcard from Home

‘the afterglow of a good read’ – oh yes, and I felt it when I read Mask of Apollo the first time too. And at least she got to finish it before the postcard arrived from the library (did Rowan know this would get her sister into trouble? I suppose not, or she might at least have put it into an envelope – unless Kingscote open those too).

The conversation with Miss Cromwell is one of my favourite things in this book. So many lines I like – ‘only those with a natural talent for crime avoid these basic errors’ – and that Crommie does want to know what Nicola thought of the book and why before getting to the school rules issue. And of course the great moment where Nicola would like to say ‘Yes, and I think it’s pretty grotty, really’ – which I always interpreted as the school rule being grotty, and I believe that was Forest’s answer when asked as well. I rather enjoy her ‘polite’ and matter-of-fact ‘because Nico liked men better than women, you mean?’ which surely just as clearly conveys her feeling that it’s ridiculous.

I loathed Dickens too when I was at school. Though the bread-and-butter reading list doesn't seem too terrible a punishment - she'll get The History of Henry Esmond out of it, at least.

The first cricket match! And really, it can’t possibly be forty overs each innings – you’d need to allow four hours at least, and even if we assume we’re now well into May, sunset is still going to be by 8.30 or so, and an evening match can’t start much before 6, and I assumed later. Perhaps it was really a maximum of twenty overs each. Anyway, it doesn’t matter, because the match only lasts a few overs each side, and Lois has to leave to avoid congratulating Lower IV.A.

Chapter Six – Letter From Home

At rehearsal – and Lawrie not doing very well, though clearly at this stage Kempe thinks she can direct her successfully. And as those of us who’ve read Autumn Term know, Nicola and Lawrie are very different on stage.

Second cricket match – this at least happens on Sunday afternoon, so there’s certainly time for twenty overs each, and possibly even thirty. I love the moment when ‘Isa, shaping for another drive, pleasantly surprised IV.A. were so short of bowlers, suddenly saw this was a different ball altogether…’ Go Esther! Nicola getting Ginty out. And running four byes to win the match because the wicket-keeper couldn’t stop the ball and the fielders don’t do their job properly.

Lois gets a small comeuppance, when her attempts (though we know they would fail) to scupper Lower IV.A. by suggesting they are taking it all a bit too seriously results in Craven realising what she’s done over the nets and pitches, and having to face either Lower IV.A. going on winning, or putting Nicola on the Prospects list. And the ‘happy ships’ line – see icon!

Almost finally, the letter from home, and the possibility that Nicola will have to leave Kingscote, and lose her friends. I think I have taken so much space already with this post, I will just leave it to commenters to discuss whether this was the right thing for Mrs Marlow to do. But although Jan is right that friendships rarely are forever, I am in total sympathy with Nick's feelings about leaving her friends behind - it doesn't matter if they would wither in time anyway. But Jan mostly does a lovely job of coping here, offering some hope about the future after all, and prodding Nicola towards working for the Prosser.

And then to conclude, the great blood for breakfast row. I do love the images of Lower IV.A.’s cavortings, and then responding ‘like filings to a magnet’ when Miss Cromwell stands on the steps and waits. And Nicola feeling that if she's got to lie it would be best to claim something forbidden - though Miss Cromwell can tell quite well that she's doing it. And that being on silence suits Nicola so absolutely. She'd be repressing her emotion anyway; here she's got to, because she can't tell anyone.


Looking forward to your comments!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

It does occur to me that shouldn't Ann have pointed out to Nicola that as it was a library book (which she knew) it might just need to go back before the end of term.

I don't think that reading list was meant as more than a notional punishment.

[(Anonymous)]

Sorry for not signing above comment - Occasionalhope

[coughingbear]

Perhaps, but I think it doesn't occur to her either.

I wondered if there would be an additional penalty - I'm not sure that when Cromwell says 'penalty there will be' it's the same as the book list. It certainly ends up on Nicola's school record.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

I always wondered why Nicola didn't think of that, either. Presumably people just renewed ad infinitum.

Why Nicola?

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I think it is a very strange decision to choose Nicola to be the one who has to leave. It just about makes sense that they don't want to disrupt Ginty and Ann who are about to start exam courses. But her reason for not moving Lawrie is that she is a baby who needs to learn to stand on her own two feet. Surely at Kingscote, standing on her own two feet is the last thing she has to do: she has Ann doing everything for her, sisters and established friends around her, she knows the rules and the teachers and she is used to the whole routine. Whereas going to a new school involves a lot more 'standing on your own feet' - having to make friends and find out where everything is. At that age I absolutely dreaded the thought of having to move schools. (I was a shy child, and as an aside, it makes sense that Esther is getting worse because I think shyness and embarrassment in public does intensify between the ages of 13 and 16, before hopefully easing off into adulthood.)
Having said that, reading the books in chronological order for the first time has made me think of another reason for Mrs Marlow to want to keep Lawrie at Kinscote - she doesn't want Lawrie to be able to wander round Colebridge after school, renewing her coffee shop acquaintances from The Thuggery Affair.

RE: Why Nicola?

[highfantastical.livejournal.com]

I think maybe it represents an 'typical' adult view of independence/standing on own feet vs. a child's eye view? So the typical view is that being away from home promotes independence, cutting of apron strings, etc. (Mrs M probably has no idea of the details in re: how much Ann does for Lawrie), while moving school is vividly appalling to the child's eye view but not SO very hideous to the typical adult's more remote view. Of course that's not to say no one is capable of remembering having to move school and hating it, or that no one has a particular degree of insight into how moving school might be vile, but I can see that being-at-home-with-mummy might seem more of an undesirably regressive step for fairly-recently-delicate and VERY babyish Lawrie, who also missed a chunk after Traitor, than for Nicola, who despite being equally fairly-recently-delicate, is plainly not in need of being propelled towards independence.

(I personally would have brought them both home, in the interests of long-term family harmony and general fairness, but I suppose the plot demands otherwise!)

Re: Why Nicola?

[mudkickerkicks.livejournal.com]

'Having said that, reading the books in chronological order for the first time has made me think of another reason for Mrs Marlow to want to keep Lawrie at Kinscote - she doesn't want Lawrie to be able to wander round Colebridge after school, renewing her coffee shop acquaintances from The Thuggery Affair.'

YES. Thanks for this - makes perfect sense.

Re: Why Nicola?

[lizarfau.livejournal.com]

Given the Marlows have saved a whole year's worth of school fees with Rowan leaving Kingscote a year early, you'd have thought they could have managed to keep any of the four Marlows there for another full year at any rate.

Evening cricket match.

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

It's possible the 'evening' cricket matches could start at about 4 o' clock - as soon as lessons were over, have tea in the middle and supper after the game. I don't know when they'd fit prep in but maybe it's held on a free afternoon where there is no prep? Is there any record of Kingscote having formal supervised prep time anyway?

Re: Evening cricket match.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

You'd still be pushing it to get forty overs in, even without people doing Lillee length run-ups.

Why does anyone have to leave?

[biskybat.livejournal.com]

Ann has only two years to go and if anyone has to leave she is the one and she can begin her A'levels at another establishment quite easily. Then they can continue to economise by announcing that they will all leave post O'level. Seems fair.

But Miss Keith would surely have had some plan she could come up with to help. Saying (sorry, I know this comes later) she hopes it will be possible to keep Nicola just isn't good enough. After all, these are the Marlows we're talking about.

And saving one lot of school fees is a drop in the ocean if the farm really can't afford it. I know the Last Ditch has been spent on Choc-Bar but there must be something else they can sell - Choc-Bar and Ginty's pony for starters.

Re: Why does anyone have to leave?

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

I do think Ann would be horrified if she only found out at the end of term that Nicola was leaving, and that no-one had asked her if she would mind going to Colebridge Grammar to do her A -levels. As you say it's quite a natural break in one's education, and nowadays lots of people leave one school after GCSEs to do A-levels at Sixth Form colleges or other schools.

Re: Why does anyone have to leave?

[(Anonymous)]

Yes - having Ann leave, and then having everyone leave when they get to Ann's age, seems like the best solution. Just having Ann leave, if she's only got two years to go, wouldn't save that much. Pulling Nicola and Lawrie out right away would save a lot of fees but wouldn't be all that fair, assuming the Kingscote education is really so much better than the Colebridge one. Just switching Nicola is one of those ideas that makes sense on paper but ends up seeming horribly wrong in practice.

If this were a Noel Streatfeild book, of course, everything would easily be solved by sending Lawrie and Nicola and Ginty out to act and sing and model for their livings.

--Katy

Re: Why does anyone have to leave?

[coughingbear]

Hard to know what the rate of exchange for school fees in relation to horses would have been in the 1970s, but these days I don't think Chocbar and Catkin together would fetch nearly enough to meet a year's fees at boarding school. (Obviously there are feed costs, but not stabling and presumably they would be reluctant to sack Fred.)

Of course it is a plot device, but I've tended to assume the farm is expected to produce enough income to cover the staff (including some kind of salary for Rowan?) and the costs of keeping Trennels, but that school fees are coming out of Captain Marlow's pay. And it is true that naval officer incomes were dropping at this period in relation to the kinds of costs, like school fees, that they would once have expected to cover easily - though possibly not all for several children at once!

Craven, Lois and Janice

[buntyandjinx.livejournal.com]

Their conversation is one of my favourite in the entire canon - or in any canon ever, come to that. Lois hoisting herself so spectacularly by instead of scuppering IVA making Craven like them even more. Brilliant.

Re: Craven, Lois and Janice

[jackmerlin.livejournal.com]

Totally agree. And Jan bringing up the 'misunderstanding' over the netball team and making Lois squirm!

Re: Craven, Lois and Janice

[elktheory.livejournal.com]

I love this scene too. I also love the scene between Lois and Janice in End of Term. "Watch the wall."

The conflicts between Lois and Janice show exactly what is wrong with Kingscote. Lois receives all the accolades and public acclaim, the post of Games Captain, while Janice is viewed with suspicion by the staff and deliberately excluded, chosen as librarian instead of Head Girl, etc. Surely it should be obvious to everyone at Kingscote, as it is obvious to all readers, that Janice is head and shoulders above Lois in every conceivable way. Especially in a school that pays lip service to "character."

Edited to add: I mean, of course, that Forest brilliantly exposes the hypocrisy of Kingscote in these characters. It is entirely believable that Miss Keith and her staff would treat Janice and Lois as they do, as is the irony of their blindness to the reality of the situation.

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

It's peculiarly satisfying that the first two cricket games are largely won on fielding (and lost on fielding errors by the other sides, too). And I love the brilliant dilemma Craven (inadvertantly?) poses for Lois, too (and her almost gaffe, in not-quite criticising Lois's lack of coaching to date of junior forms to Jan).

Also, the specific point-by-point way in which Nicola is the anti-Lois in terms of her approach to teamwork, not just as seen here but as demonstrated in EoT - she puts in someone she dislikes because she's more competent than the person she likes (contrast the selection of the Junior netball team), she takes care to coach everyone, she delegates, she makes sure individual and collective achievements are recognised - no wonder Lois hates her.

[coughingbear]

It's very satisfying indeed, and especially because it's so true - cricket matches are often won or lost by the fielding.

Nicola is a great coach and captain - and I love that she is both able to encourage everyone and they are all improving and - I think - enjoying themselves while they do it, but still rightly chooses the team on merit rather than any kind of Keithian 'character building'.

A question I forgot to put in the post was whether Janice was right to think that Lois had only coached the teams drawn against Lower IV.A - I don't think we're shown that she's coached anyone else but it's left unclear. If so, that makes the final conversation between Nicola and Lois even more interesting.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

Can't say as to nets, but our direct grant grammar school. on the 1950s, had six "practice" grass courts (rather rough), four "best" tennis lawns, and one hard tennis court

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I don't think that the numbers of pitches are implausible. Unlike boys' schools, they aren't also accommodating rugby pitches and a 9 hole golf course (I know of a secondary school and prep school in north Oxford that each have the latter. The senior school has the golf course, 15 rugby pitches, and 8 cricket pitches). Kingscote clearly isn't Roedean/Benenden territory socially, so suppose it had pitched itself from the late C19 as all about fitting girls' bodies and minds for service to the great nation, there was an awful lot of land being sold up in the pre-WWII period...

[(Anonymous)]

Some of the practice pitches may have overlapped - the wickets would be separate but the outfields overlap. It's not uncommon, and was probably even more so in those pre-health and safety days.

colne_dsr

Mask of Apollo - "that fab delirious bit"

[antfan.livejournal.com]

That "fab delirious bit where he dreamed he was acting Hamlet" really isn't that fab. Blink, and you miss it.

In fact I did miss it - remember searching about in M of A after reading it wondering where the heck it was, and when I found it, wondering what on earth Nicola was on about. There are some truly amazing scenes in M of A and she was bowled over by this obscure little passage?

Surely this is simply AF bending things to her plot - she needs the Shakespeare reference to strike home with Nicola, because the whole Mask of Apollo thread has to tie in with Shakespeare, Nicholas Marlow/the Players' books, and Lawrie...Which brings home to me the point that although the school stories never seem to depend that much on plot on the surface, they are very carefully structured.

(And I'm also boggled that a fourteen-year-old Nicola recognised the reference in Mask of Apollo as being to Hamlet - it's something like "I dreamed I was acting a prince whose father's shade wanted me to kill his murderer but I wasn't Orestes". I would never, ever have got that, at any age I suspect, if it wasn't for reading Cricket Term. Clearly I am a very "iggy iggy type" at PPeter would say. About Nicola and Hamlet, come to think of it...)

Re: Mask of Apollo - "that fab delirious bit"

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

When does Nicola read Hamlet, anyway? I've always thought she might read it after Foley quotes 'hoist with his own petard' at her, but she doesn't seem to catch Peter's quotation in RMF (I have headcanon that Hamlet allusions make Nicola jumpy because Foley, and 'He saidwhat?' is her being caught off-guard by one, which Peter interprets as ignorance, but that's a stretch.)

Cricket fixtures

[mainerobin.livejournal.com]

These three chapters are full of wonderful conversations, already mentioned here--Janice, Craven, and Lois; Nick and Tim re magic costume, Crommie and Nick over M of A (had always imagined Crommie as looking like Maggie Smith. Now that Maggie Smith was McGonigall, my headcanon has Crommie and McGonigall as sisters), Janice and Nick on the roof, Nick responding to Crommie's interrogation, and Tim explaining the Hellibonk.

And then there is the cricket. Have always, always loved reading these bits, but this time, I read them with more attention to the details and am baffled by the cricket tournament schedule.

It seems there are only 12 forms entered for the cup:
Seconds
Thirds
L4A
L4B
U4A
U4B
Middle Remove
L5A
L5B
U5A
U5B
Sixth

In most tournaments, there have to be some multiple of 8 teams playing, or some teams get a bye in the early rounds so there will be a multiple of 8 (or 4 when reaching the semi-finals) to continue. AF doesn't mention any sort of arrangement like this, but if the 8 youngest forms played in the first round that would leave 4 teams to play the 4 older forms for the second round. The third round would be the semi-finals with just 4 teams, then the finals would be in the fourth round

For the first round
The seconds beat the thirds.
L4A beats U4B.
It's not mentioned but one assumes U4A plays and beats L4B.
Who is the last team to play the first round?
Middle remove? and ?

Second round games are mentioned as:
Lower 4A plays Lower 5A
Middle Remove plays Upper 5A
Lower 5B plays Upper 4A
Upper 5B plays Seconds poor infants!

Comments welcome on this. I hope some of you cricket fans can explain to "poor, iggerant, uncricket-like" me how these things work.

Re: Cricket fixtures

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

I think we only actually get to see the parts of the draw which directly affect Nicola (one way or another) but given that the seconds, thirds and Sixth only have three teams covering two years (in the case of the Sixth) and six forms (in the case of the seconds and thirds) we've then got potential starters:

seconds, thirds, middle remove, lower IVA, lower IVB, upper IVA, Upper IVB, Lower VA, Lower VB, Upper VA, Upper VB and the Sixth.

That's twelve teams so you may be right about the split you mention between the younger teams playing early; it'd be like the early stages of the FA cup with the non-league teams coming in at the start and the higher level teams playing only from the third round onwards.

[lilliburlero.livejournal.com]

I love the detail that Nicola (and possibly Miss Cromwell too) thinks poorly of Miss Keith's apparent homophobia in placing Apollo on the Limited list. It's a lovely bit of bye-writing; and for me forms quite a lot of my headcanon around Nicola and sexuality. (Forest gets in another mention of Nicola's fondness for stories of men's friendships with Redgauntlet, incidentally.) I like Dickens and always have, though, so I don't really feel Nicola's aversion: sentimentality? ludicrous coincidence? Dickensian naming conventions?

[antfan.livejournal.com]

I absolutely love that Nicola hates Dickens! It makes perfect sense to me.

Another aside on Kingscote and novels though - I'm also - what, amazed? admiring? impressed? - that Nicola (and presumably Keith) are concerned about Mask of Apollo throwing the Thirds if they got hold of it. They must be a very impressive bunch of (what? eleven year olds?) to be even remotely interested in Mask of Apollo. You'd think Flowers in the Attic or Stephen King might be of more concern...

The Search Party

[antfan.livejournal.com]

One of my favourite bits in the whole book - series even - has always been Lower IVA going on the rampage in their act of collective lunacy. I'm not quite sure why. Maybe because it's such wonderful comic relief after the intensity of Nicola, the letter, and her rooftop conversation with Jan. But I love the way that Esther's fussing leads to the whole of Lower IVA thinking WTF and charging off into the grounds. And then Cromwell nobly falling on her sword and giving up on the Form Prize...again.

I also think the way it's related is wonderful, and how Forest shifts between different voices and perspectives, and the comic-rueful narration by Miranda and Tim ("and us nutters said, yes always") truly masterful.
(So much YA fiction is now written in first person or limited third - in fact that's always the advice in any "How to Write Fiction" book - Cricket Term would be an utterly different, and lesser, book without all those shifts in perspective.)

Re: The Search Party

[coughingbear]

I love it too - and I agree the narration is a great part of the charm. And it is a brilliant bit of collective lunacy, which is very nearly hard to believe and yet you can just see how it happens with a useless student teacher and a group of bored and bright 13-year-olds.

Nicola and superstition

[legionseagle (from livejournal.com)]

I know it's a bit late to introduce a new topic, but we never did pick up on the Nicola and superstition/Val carried away by demons thread. Any takers?

Re: Nicola and superstition

[antisoppist.livejournal.com]

See also Lawrie's deal with Them in EOT and "you might have known it would never work twice" later in CT. Is that superstition too or a conviction that you can bend the universe to your will as long as you make bargains with it?