Annie Dream Will Do

Annie was a dreamer. She always had been. Her school reports at the end of each semester usually ran to a prescribed script, “If Annabelle were to apply herself she would see great improvement in her results,” or “Annabelle is often distracted by her own thoughts”. Her English Composition teacher thought she had struck gold when Annie entered her class at the beginning of the year; such an imagination was bound to produce a world of literary excellence. That gold soon dimmed, tarnished, and finally rusted down to powder as Annie continued to dream dreams and see visions, but neglected to put them on to the page. It seemed that there was no motivation, only meditation going on in this girl’s life.

Then BAM! Out of nowhere the tap was opened. Essays, accounts, recounts, narratives in the first, second, and third person, an amusing take in blank verse on “Humpty Dumpty” from the point of view of the Wall, and all with illustrations to match. Annie was an artist.

---

Annie was an artist, and like all artists Annie was alone. Sometimes lonely, sometimes solitary, always alone. Today was one of the days when she was happy to be by herself, but as ever in the senior dormitory at Willows House, the boarding house for St Cecily School for Girls, solitude was impossible to maintain.

« Ciao Anna, cosa stai facendo? »
“Oh hi Rina, just a bit of homework.”

Rina Coliardi was one of Annie’s two best friends, and had the bed two down from hers in the eight bed ward. Rina had recently turned sixteen and had been sent to St Cecily on a year’s exchange from her school in Florence.

« Quale soggetto studi? »
“English, as you should be.”
« Scusa, mi dispiace. »
“Then I have some Geography to complete for Miss Seine.”
« Ah, quello è amore. »
« Rina! Deve davvero parlare inglese. »
“Brava! Again I am sorry.”
« La prossima volta sarà colpito è sul fondo!»
“Then I shall speak English only, thank you for one last chance.”

Annie enjoyed the company of Rina, even if she did find her a bit chatty. Rina had left the room again and Annie was left with her thoughts. Quello è amore, “the one that you love”. Was her crush on Miss Seine so obvious? There truly were no secrets in a dormitory, but there was confidentiality. Even if Rina did know, she would tell no-one. Annie opened the folder that she had closed when Rina had startled her, and returned to her note:

Dearest sweetest Miss Seine
I like the skirt you are wearing today and the ribbon in your hair.
I love your hair and want to have hair just like yours.
I hate being pumpkin coloured,
I want to be dark and lovely,
Like you,
The almost All-Black Beauty.
Your Pumpkin xx

Annie winced. She had never been so personal in giving away her hair colour in these anonymous notes. What if Miss Seine discovered who she was?

---

Ella Seine’s heels clipped on the floor as she walked the short corridor between her classroom and the staff study lounge. Her twenty-second birthday had fallen on the previous Thursday and she had finally got around to collecting the small pile of cards that her girls had left for her. They had all been sweet and loving, profuse with little exes under their names, (and hers), and the posies of flowers from the Monsignor’s garden had made her happy, even if the groundskeeper was less impressed by the holes in his display.

One card however, more a letter than a card as it had been composed on orange-scented paper, had startled her a bit. She decided to show it to her school-appointed buddy, her senior colleague in geography, Ms Spark.

“Muriel, may I speak with you for a moment?”
“Of course Ella. You look flustered, is all good with you?”
“Yes. I have been walking and I am gagging for a hot wet one.”

Muriel wagged her finger playfully.

“We’ll have none of that double entendre here Miss Seine. A young woman with a French name should not display such obviously New Zealander manners.”
“Bah, they sank The Rainbow Warrior. Sorry. Yes I am fine but I would like some tea.”
“What did you want to speak with me about?”

Ella showed her the letter.

Darling Miss Seine.
Happy Birthday Miss,
I hope it will be a beautiful day,
Because you are a beautiful woman,
And a beautiful person.
I trust you with my life.
With all the love of my
Heart.
Your loving and devoted Pumpkin.
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

“Are you concerned by this Ella?”
“Confused is a better word Muriel. Is this not inappropriate?”
“It’s a simple teacher crush my girl. I’m sure you had them when you were a child.”
“Of course, but I never wrote love letters to the mistresses.”
“Bah, a crush girl. A woman as beautiful and as friendly as you should not be unaware of her effect upon her students.”

So long as that is all it is, thought Ella.

-----------

The letters from Pumpkin had continued to arrive. Sometimes they were slotted into her mark book on her desk during lessons, but not always the same lesson or the same year level, so there no clues there. Sometimes they arrived on her desk via internal mail, or were left in her pigeon hole in the staff lounge. Several came via her homework box where the girls could submit assignments as they were completed. These at least were date/time stamped. One arrived by post neatly addressed to her in an envelope “Miss Ella Seine, Dept. of Humanities, St Cecily School For Girls, Lower Bothering, Herts. SG27 0TK”. The postmark showed it had been sent the previous Saturday from Southend-on-Sea. None of the girls were from Southend, it was too far for the day girls to travel in, and the boarders had all been at Willows or Burrows.

It was a puzzle to Ella, but more of an enigma than a mystery. The letters were all sweet, flattering and confidential rather than erotic or dark, but it was still unsettling for her. She had shown several of the letters to Muriel Spark, but the older woman continued to pooh-pooh them as a “crush”.

---

Lower Ten was, despite its name, a group of very intelligent girls. It was Ella’s favourite group, smart and studious yet not so stressed as her A-Level girls were. Ella was early to class that day and set her desk up before quickly dashing across to the adjacent faculty room for a glass of water. When she returned, a pink slip of paper lay folded on her mark book. Ella noted that it had been carefully lined up so as to underline the box where she had written her name on the cover.

E is for elegant
L is for lovely
L is for lovely, (you are twice lovely)
A is for athletic, (I saw you coaching netball)

S is for smile, yours is beautiful
E is for extravagant, the gifts I want to bring you
I is for intelligent, as you most certainly are
N is for night-time, when I have you alone in my thoughts.
E is for erotic, those night-time thoughts.

Ella quickly filed the letter into the back of the book, deciding to keep it to herself.

The next morning Lower Ten produced another of the pink notes, with identical placement on the cover of her mark book.

P is for pretty, which I lack in abundance.
U is for ugly, which you lack in abundance.
M is for mother, and mountains, and MILF
P is for puella, the Latin for girl.
K is for kiwi, my second favourite bird from New Zealand.
I is for me, that is I. I love you Miss Seine.
N is for never, because I know you will never love me as I love you.

Beneath the poem was a sketch of a butterfly, whose each wing bore the name “Ella”. It sat on a jack-o-lantern whose human tongue was reaching out of its ugly mouth toward the butterfly.

---

In the front row of Lower Ten sat Annie, Rina, and their third musketeer Julie Carpenter. Annie liked to sit near the front; she said it was so that she was away from the trouble-making and attention seeking girls nearer the back. Rina sat near the front so as to be close to help with her English. Julie sat with Rina. Annie pretended to read her text book and peered over the top of it, watching Ella casually fingering the pink note. She had seen the teacher’s blush as she had read it, and the widening of her eyes when presumably she’d reached “MILF”. Annie knew she could never confess her love openly, but she knew that the casual notes were not enough to sate her feelings any longer. The drawing had been a boon for her, Annie was thrilled by the feelings she gained when that lusting tongue had come from her pencil. Annie liked that something she had produced had affected the emotions of Miss Seine; she only hoped it wasn’t going to end in tears.

---

“Deidre! Oh Dee I have missed you so. How are mummy and daddy? Is Setanta behaving himself?” Annie had been allowed to phone her parents and her younger sister had answered the phone. Annie loved her family, and whilst she was proud to be away from home and at St Cecily School she missed them all terribly. “Oh really? He’s a naughty doggie, a naughty NAUGHTY doggie. You tell him what a bad boy he is. But give him a snuggle-cuddle for me.” Annie smiled; Setanta had been into the neighbour’s yard and had left a big pile of his messiness right next to one of the old lady’s wellington boots. “Yes I am having a lovely time at school and I have made loads of friends”, Annie lied, “and the teachers are mostly nice. Oh it is a shame mummy and daddy are out, but you must give them my love! And you must have some for yourself Dreary.” Annie chuckled, “yes of course I remembered, oh ‘Fanny-smell’ is it? I see you also remembered. Okay sweetie pie, my love to all!!”

“Sweetie pie? What will Mademoiselle River-in-Paris say to know that you have been cheating on her?” Julie had snuck up behind Annie and was jabbing her in the kidneys in a failed attempt at a tickle.
“Mind your business Missus Sprays-duco.”
“Hey! I’m Carpenter, not Car Painter!” Julie feigned distress.
“It was my sister if you must know.”
“Big or little.”
“Little. I am the biggest. I wish I had a big sister.”
“You could always ask Miss Insane.”

Annie walked off, fuming.

-------------

Annie sat at her desk, drawing absently. She hadn’t really thought about it, she was just downloading her anger into scribble. Julie Carpenter could be such a bitch at times, but such a love at others. “Girls,” she said, “ha! Who needs ‘em?” Annie smiled, tore off the scribble, and began to work on something more defined.

---

“Ella I understand your concern, this is getting beyond what we might have thought acceptable.”

Ella was sitting in the Head Master’s office with the man himself, Fr Peter.

“Thank you Father. As a first-year teacher I wasn’t sure where ‘the line’ was, but I was pretty sure this last letter had crossed it.”
“And you have no idea who this girl is?”
“As I say, Lower Ten is where the last two notes came from, but there have been others.”
“Others?”

Ella reached into her bag and handed the pile across to Fr Peter.

“Southend is on the coast of Essex. We have no girls from Essex, it is in a different archdeaconate.”
“Yes, but look at the date. The week before then a team of girls from St Veronica’s at
Leigh-on-Sea had come to us for the hockey tourney. One of our girls may have confided in a friend and had her post the letter upon her return.”
“Your beloved is certainly resourceful Miss Seine.”
“With all due respect Father, I may be her beloved, but she is not mine.”
“Granted. In view of the language in these last three letters, and the limerick you found chalked upon the board in your homeroom, I shall take a very serious view of this. You are sure you have no idea whom?”
“No sir. As I say circumstantial evidence points toward a hockey-playing red-head in Lower Ten, but there is not enough evidence to prosecute on that basis.”

Fr Peter smiled.

“I suggest you go therefore and have a quiet word with Annabelle O’Reilly. If not her then we can keep an eye out. If her, well she needs to come to see my carpet.”
“Sir?”
“Miss Seine even if you are not seeking vengeance, and are prepared to demonstrate understanding of this schoolgirl-crush, you have been harassed in a sexual manner and that is not condoned here at all.”
“Of course Father, I understand. Thank you for seeing me sir.”

---

Annie had completed her drawing, but was still working through her scruples. Did she dare send this one to Miss Seine? It was well drawn, and she was proud of it, but even Annie knew that the line had been crossed with this one. Were this scene ever to eventuate in real life Miss Seine would have been summarily dismissed, and probably charged by the police. Should even the picture appear the same consequences might have applied. No, this one must remain for Annie alone.

---

Ella stopped at Annabelle’s door. She hadn’t really thought of this bright girl as being “Pumpkin”, indeed the identity of her admirer was rather flattering considering how talented and intelligent Annie was. But still, the girl was fifteen and the line had been crossed. Ella only hoped that the episode would not have to end with Annie bending over in Fr Peter’s study to “look at the carpet”.

---

Annie heard the clack of heels stop outside the door, and presuming it was Rina she decided to not put the drawing away just yet. Rina of course had known that Annie had this crush; quello è amore and all that. She hoped that her Italian friend would also enjoy the drawing skills. She pulled the drawing out of her file and placed it on her desk. Then she went to sit on her bed, and called a cheery “it’s open” to the polite knock at the door.

---

The first thing Ella saw as she entered the room almost dropped her to the floor. There on the desk in 6B pencil was an image of herself naked to the waist. From both ends. At the feet of her figure knelt the likeness of Annabelle O’Reilly, also nude. Annie’s figure had one hand on Ella’s thigh, and the other between her legs. One of Ella’s own hands was matted with Annie’s hair, the other cupping a breast.

It was an extraordinary drawing, almost beautiful.

« Figlio di puttana. Merda! »

Ella turned just as Annie threw her hands up in front of her face.

“You’ve seen it, haven’t you?”
“Annabelle I...you drew this?”
“Yes Miss.”
“And the notes I have been...”
“Mine also Miss.”

Both fought to regain their composure. Ella won.

“This is a remarkable drawing Annie, and your poetry too. And I can say I am flattered, but...”
“I know Miss.”
“What can we do about it?”

Annie had begun to cry.

“You know that such things are unacceptable in our school. And I was quite perturbed by the clandestine attention.”
“I like you Miss. I meant no harm, I just...I just really like you.”
“I see that Annie, and I know it. But still...”
“You must tell the Headmaster. Oh, shall I be sent away?”
“Yes and no. It is true that the Father must know, as I have spoken to him of my unease at these letters. But no, you shall not be sent away.”
“But how then shall I be punished?”
“You’ll most likely be caned.”

Annie burst into tears.

“As I understand it the cane is used for girls above the ninth grade, but that you will be allowed to leave your skirt and underwear in place.”

Annie gasped, she had presumed the caning would have crossed her palms.

“And it’s four strokes since you are in the old fourth form.”
“Oh Miss, please. Please? Is there nothing else?”
“I’m afraid not Annie. For the letters themselves and the love I would have interceded for you, but the last poems, and now this,” Ella lifted the cartoon, “this I cannot overlook. I forgive your lack of awareness, but still you must learn what is acceptable and what is not.”

Annie took a deep breath, and nodded.

“Miss, couldn’t you punish me?”
“What do you mean?”
“You could smack me.”
“Annie I have no authority to cane, you know that.”
“No Miss, I mean yes Miss; I know Miss. But as a boarding house mistress you can spank can’t you?”
“Only the smaller girls Annie. A single, sharp smack on a covered bottom for the little girls if they are cheeky toward me. You are in tenth grade, and this is a school matter, not a Willows matter.”

Besides which, thought Ella, by the looks of your drawing my spanking you would only encourage you!

“Please Miss, it’s the cane. Couldn’t you just smack me with a hairbrush or one of my gym shoes? On my knickers perhaps?”
“If I do this Annabelle, the notes and drawings must stop. I am flattered by your attention, but your affection has become uncomfortable for me. I am delighted that you like me, and pleased that you love me, but the lust...um eww!

Annie laughed.

“I can handle that Miss. So will you? Will you smack me yourself?”

Ella smiled. “Find me one of your dance slippers, and then come here.”

---

“Thank you for seeing me Father. I did have a word with Annabelle. It seems she was unaware of any inappropriate activity.”
“She was unaware of the activity, or unaware that it was inappropriate?”

Ella smiled.

“We found the heart of truth, and it does not require you showing her your carpet.”
“I am so pleased Miss Seine, I find that a very unpleasant task. For your part I am certain that you would have handled the discussion with a large amount of resolved tact. Incidentally, how did you get to the heart of the truth?”
“I began at the seat of the girl and pursued an appropriate course from there.”
“Splendid.”