Rivals of the Chalet School
Key Facts (Possible Spoilers)
School Facts:
Headmistress : Mademoiselle Lepattre. (In this term, she gives up all teaching duties to concentrate on the administration of the school, with Mademoiselle Lachennais coming to take the modern languages department)
The School is located on the Tiernsee, in the Austrian Tirol.
Series Characters Whereabouts:
Madge and Jem Russell live up on the Sonnalpe.
Joey Bettany is 15, and a prefect for the first time this term.
Robin Humphries is a Junior at the school. She is obediently following Dr Jem's regime for her health, and is doing well.
Cornelia Flower is a Middle and right in the middle of the rivalry.
Dick and Mollie Bettany are back in Europe and with their children, Peggy, Rix and Bride, have been sharing a chalet by the lake with the Russell's for the summer.
St. Scholastika's is an established school which has been transferred from England as an experiment. They are totally unprepared for the Austrian winter. There are about 50 pupils in the school.
Robin's father, Captain Humphries, is Jem's secretary, and is staying at the Kron Prinz Carl for the summer.
The middles read all of Jo's Elsie books in order to find out about the Ku-Klux Klan, to find out ways of getting at the Saints. When the Chalet School is snowed in, time is spent on preparation of the Christmas Play, written by Madge Russell, and called "The Guest". However, because of Chicken-pox, the play was never performed.
When the girls are marooned by the lake path, they climb through the pine wood above Geisalm, up to a village on the alm, and cross down to the Tiern Pass. They have coffee and rye-bread at the guesthouse at Geisalm, and hot milk and bread in the alm village. Hay carts met them at the bottom of the pass to take them back to their respective schools.
Miss Browne, head of St Scholastika's objected to Guides because she disagreed with them, and felt it was unnecessary for her girls, although some of her staff disagreed with her.
Joey goes out on the ice to warn the St. Scholastika girls that it is dangerous, and she and Maureen O'Donovan both become immersed in the freezing water. Maureen contracts rheumatic fever, and Joey comes down with pleuro-pneumonia. They are taken to St. Scholastika's (which was closer), and, whilst they are sick, the rest of the Saints are sent to the Chalet School, except for a handful of seniors who can work by themselves. Joey is near death when the Robin asks to sing to her, and this proves to be the turning point for Joey, who then begins to recover.
As revenge for a practical joke played on them by the Middles, Joey, Simone, Marie and Freida put cornflour in the hair of Cornelia, Yvette, Evadne and Anita. As a punishment, they have to wash and dry each girl's hair.
Out of all the St. Scholastika girls, the head girl, Elaine, and her friend, the snobby Vera, are those that continue to hold resentment towards the Chalet School longest. In an effort to discredit the other school, Vera writes a letter to Princess Elisaveta, to inform her that "a very common school at Briesau was claiming that she had been there for a time".
Contributed by Gillian Hussain, Australia __ working from a hardback edition
If you want to find out more, click on Spoilers
As the link suggests, it gives more of the story - without, of course
giving everything away!