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Extracts from a Diary
by Amelia Bourne-Phipps
-edited by Simon Barber-
19 January, 1937 to 24 January, 1937


Tuesday 19th January, 1937

A brighter few days than lately - which was good as we have been out all the daylight hours with the Tiger Moths. There has been some repair work on them as well; temporary whitewash markings on the runway have laid part of it out as an aircraft carrier, and we are practicing very short takeoffs and landings. Of course, we do not have the catapults or arrestor hooks of a proper carrier, but it is quite a strain learning to come in twice as steeply as we ever were trained to. I have heard carrier landings described as “a sort of controlled crash” and indeed there is no option but to hit the runway rather hard. Missy K burst a tyre, and there is a lot of general wear and tear. I can see why the Tutors keep this till the third year, the poor Tiger Moths are taking rather a hammering despite our best efforts.

    Another reason for our practicing this time of year is the low ebb of air traffic using the runway. It would hardly do to have a DC-2 full of passengers following us down carrier-style, and of all the things we have done this is likeliest to have us crash-landed blocking the runway till the crash crew can get us off. It is just as well we are only in the Tiger Moths, which a dozen strong furs can pick up and walk off with in emergency. I have no idea of how those big Handley-Page Heyford bombers manage fully laden, the ones we saw on our super-carrier H.M.S. Lord Moseley last year. Still, unlike Eastern Island a carrier can at least turn into the wind.

    The Ave Argentum were up as well today, with their second-hand Potez fighters making a quite decent show. Anything we might have admired them for vanished this evening, when Jane Ferris came in with her fur bristling and waving their new prospectus that she had “acquired” (along with quite a few points for her dorm, or I miss my guess.) There are only two printers on Spontoon apart from the newspapers and Jane happened to be at one of them when a friend there anonymously slipped her a printing proof. They are claiming they are “The major establishment of its kind worldwide, and the longest established.” If one counts by numbers they do outnumber us, but it is pure cheek calling themselves the major one! As for longest established, Songmark was set up first with its present charter. The Ave Argentum began as the aerial equivalent of a Lady’s Riding School, and only added the other adventurous aspects after Songmark became famous.

    Various people are going around with their ears right down and muzzles wrinkled, and there is talk of issuing more public challenges - of course our Tutors have to approve such things, but from the look on Miss Devinski’s face I expect they will.

    Other unwelcome documents today came bearing a British stamp; with sinking heart I recognised the return address on the back as being from the Allworthy family solicitors. They are asking me to release funds needed for the shipyard expansion; the warship trade is picking up and there is only a certain amount the current executors can do. All it needs is my signature on some papers; there are folk waiting for my decision and jobs are at stake in Barrow-in-Furryness.

    Oh dear.
 

Wednesday 20th January, 1937

A busy day as ever, with a long day’s small boat handling session in a brisk and gusting wind. In March I am booked to take the exams for my Day Mariner’s Certificate, after which I can sign myself up as qualified boat crew should the aeronautical trade ever go into a decline. It is jolly hard work but so much fresh air and sea spray certainly chases the cobwebs away; I returned via Casino Island aching all over but feeling quite invigorated.

    I even managed to smile at what the local cinema is offering; the latest Little Shirley Shrine epic, “Baby, take a dive.” I had to admit the plot is original; it is the first film I have heard of with an all-singing and all-dancing portrayal of professional bare-knuckle playground prize-fighting. Molly has mentioned it was filmed in Cuba where laws against such things may exist but are not actually applied very often; the current government there presumably has the vixen goddess of Justice portrayed not blindfold but with a keen eye out for the big money. Their idea of an honest policeman is one who gives his Boss a cut of the day’s bribes, by her account. Molly is still a big movie fan, and says Miss Shrine enjoyed making this as though her co-stars were never allowed to land a punch on her, the reverse was decidedly otherwise. “The Shrine Sockaroo” is actually a surprisingly catchy number I have heard Radio LONO playing.

    There is one starlet the Spontoonies are not keen on having back; I remember Jirry telling me of her instant transitions between angelic sweetness on camera and howling tantrums the second the last piece of film goes through the gate. She may have fame and fortune but compared with being a barefoot puppy or kitten playing with friends all Summer in the Spontoon woods - I know which I would want for a child.

    Supper was a huge helping of nicely spiced vegetable stew, which had even the less herbivorous of us very keen on polishing our plates. While the rest of my dorm were relaxing afterwards I was picking up a pass for Meeting Island and hurrying out into the rain and darkness with the latest letter from Home to see Judge Poynter. I took time to dress in my best rather than the Songmark uniform, with a white dinner frock I brought when I came out. It has had to be let out several times since then, as I have gained rather a lot of muscle since then. Still, the overall effect is quite pleasing. I know Jirry likes it.

    I must say, the Judge’s housekeeper keeps the place in very good condition considering the furniture and ornaments are mostly nineteenth century. While I awaited his arrival I looked around at the various mementoes of a very long career. There was one shelf filled with volumes of what looked like an unpublished manuscript work on the Gunboat Wars, and indeed the Judge was here all that time. The fire-lit room was very cosy after the rain outside, and looking around the polished wood and Victorian antiques I felt very odd. Everything in there had been sent out from England decades before I was born, and none of it is replaceable. Should I accidentally break a plate, the nearest one to match it is probably in the Gilbert and Sullivan Isles, but that is just as far from England and equally precious to its owners where it is now.

    Judge Harold Poynter arrived about seven, dressed impeccably in a rather nice tweed suit. He spotted my drooping ears, and was most sympathetic when he heard the latest complications. It makes quite a change after living with Molly for three years, to talk with someone who always believes in doing the right thing rather than going for the main chance. Even he had to admit it was quite a dilemma; unless a rightful claimant to the Allworthy inheritance turns up to challenge me, I will be stuck with it. There are people in England expecting me to help them, and the only way I can do that is by either finding a proper claimant to the title or actually declaring I am the true and documented Lady Allworthy, wiling mate to Lord Leon and wearing his ring even now. Ouch. Ouch with knobs on, as Prudence says. If that star-nosed mole Isabella in the first year questioned me in front of a court I would have to admit those are the facts, however unwelcome they look.

    Harold promised his continuing support, and he has yet to hear from the various Law Lords back in England. Even if they could make an instant decision, it is easily a fortnight’s airmail both ways and the courts only re-convened after New Year. A search for other claimants to the title could take awhile; from his enquiries so far it seems there was always a discreditable streak in the family, and it might be the real claimant has been living as a remittance man somewhere a very long way from the family estates. Finding such folk takes time. It would be a supreme irony if he is one of the ones on South Island that Maria says are exiles sent out to avoid embarrassing their respectable families back home! They generally leave their names behind them, and do not read any announcements we might put in the Times requesting they come home.

    From the few things Harold has found out about Leon Allworthy’s family it is not one I would really like to be allied to. Naturally a good country-house weekend in the social Season must have a murder, but what I keep impressing on Molly is there is more than one sort of casualty than the one found in the library or drawing-room. If the guilty party (always exposed by the visiting Amateur Detective at suppertime on Sunday evening) has conducted an energetic and imaginative crime, he or she tends to end up sent off on Imperial Service to the North-Western Frontier of India, where they tend not to come back from. Several of Lord Leon’s family did go that way, and even if there are some Eurasian mongrel hounds or other mixes claiming direct descent from Allworthy stock they will never be allowed within sniffing distance of the title. For all I know Lord Leon has platoons of pups somewhere across the globe, but without a Pedigree they could never claim anything from the estates.

    It was a great relief to have Harold’s support and indeed it is very good of him to put himself out for me. The room has one working legal desk with an old-fashioned clerk’s high stool (engineered so if one dozes off one noisily falls over from a great height) but that is unsuitable for two people to look over documents. The leather sofa is very comfy, with the sort of decorative cloths on the back one associates with grandparents’ homes. I have not seen antimacassars on chairs since one issue of Weird Tails with that Mad Scientist who reacted antimacassars with liquid Roland’s Macassar Fur-Oil and blew the island off the map.

    I can report that as before, some canines do indeed like having their tummies rubbed. And as before, that was absolutely all that happened before I left. I had taken Precautions in advance, too. I should be grateful I suppose that they were not needed; as I often tell myself I am Tailfast to Jirry in principle if not in paperwork terms, and should not even think to look elsewhere. Still, if rubbing tummy-fur is what Harold wants, that is what he will get and very grateful I am of his work for me. It does leave one feeling a little disappointed, though. Had Lord Leon the virtues of Judge Harold Poynter, I doubt I would be trying to scrape off the title like something accidentally trodden in.

    On the water-taxi back I realised just why I must be feeling this way now. Last Spring I was down with another handsome canine of excellent family and excellent character, who wanted to do the right thing for me. Canines are noted for being loyal and dedicated to others, with the occasional exception as the movies love to cast as a Bad Dog. I have thought a few times about how things might have been had Kim-Anh Soosay taken up Mr. Leamington’s offer on the Gilbert and Sullivan Islands. Being installed as his Native girl in the “hill station” of Wellington Wells high on Mount Mikado, I might have let Nature take its course and presented him this month with our mixed kitten/pup. For Kim-Anh Soosay, that would not have been a bad thing at all - but she is not a Songmark student.

    Actually, from what I hear about the current Governor there, it might not have turned out too happily even for Kim-Anh. Mr. Leamington would be probably reassigned to Northern Newfoundland, the South Shetlands or somewhere without tempting Heathen girls in tropical costume, and any “unemployed undesirables” left behind might tend to get booted onto the first guano-boat heading out of the Empire. Which goes to show - not all stories one reads in “Extra-Spicy Pacific Tails” are particularly good career plans!

   
Thursday 21st January, 1937

At last, something we have been waiting for! As the Ave Argentum challenged us in public to the aviation contest last time, Songmark have returned the favour and invited them to a series of public “friendly contests” - as any two schools might challenge each other. We have not heard what the athletic events will be, though we are strong in swimming, climbing and anything involving rough terrain; a steeplechase rather than a flat track race. Beryl has volunteered to train us in original Classical Olympic “Pankration” boxing, which she says the new Ave Argentum “Penitente” Masie “Masher” Thynne was always keen on back at Saint T’s. This may turn out like the original revival in England, the “Olympick” Games held on Dover’s Hill in the Cotswolds centuries before the current Olympic organisation started.*  They had a good deal of vigorous rustic sports such as wrestling, shin-kicking and swordplay that could get extremely out-of-order. Let alone not winning medals, not everyone came home with quite the configuration of ears, tails et cetera they arrived with. Our current national sport of cheese-rolling on a 50 degree hill is a sturdy survivor of that tradition; only the sturdiest furs tend to be survivors of the event.

    Belle and Carmen had their suggestions in the box straight away. Well, in the original Olympics the athletes really did wrestle in their naked fur; a tradition Carmen was loudly disappointed was not revived last year in Berlin in front of the cameras. I expect there is nobody of their tastes allowed in the Ave Argentum, and Prudence’s dorm has a natural edge in intimidating the opposition that way. Plus they are all jolly fit, as indeed we all are. We have not seen our rivals out on the sand dunes with knapsacks full of wet sandbags or hauling themselves up greasy rock slabs in the rain. Perhaps all that physical culture would spoil their dainty figures, and they are expecting to hire Cape Buffalo henchmen by the tonne to do the heavy work when they graduate. Still, one can go too far, as witness some of those lady wrestlers in that “Health and Efficiency” magazine that Prudence subscribes to. Mrs. Oelabe has cautioned us that taking things to that extent can actually harm one’s chances of carrying a pup or kitten - fortunately, that is the last thing Prudence and her dorm are liable to worry about!

    As before, the events will be refereed by neutral Spontoonies, in this case the Guide’s School. They should be good at spotting traps and trip-wires on the course, at any rate. The Guides know an awful lot about traps, as we discovered training along with them last year. Molly often carries a feather with her for opening doors a crack and checking for trip-wires and electrical contacts; the Guide’s school often send members along to her classes in demolitions. As to non-aggressive sports it would be quite unfair to challenge the Argentum to a hula dance; therefore some of us are eagerly suggesting it.  A respectable Senorita would not wear that sort of costume in public or move that way, though Susan de Ruiz has told us interesting things about the fandango and I have seen it danced on Casino Island very passionately. Possibly not by the “respectable” Spanish, though.

    Miss Devinski is going round with a sort of grimly satisfied look, so there should be plenty of woe and lamentation in prospect for the opposition. Ten times more for us should we disappoint her, of course. Folk say that yellow Labradors are the calmest and gentlest of dogs, and many indeed do take up careers in teaching, preaching and nursing. Folk also say the exception proves the rule, and our dear Tutor is certainly that!
   
*Editor’s note: Amelia is quite right about this, for a change. The first modern “Olympick Games” were revived in England around 1612 and included cudgel-play, throwing sledgehammers and iron bars, and a good deal of cheerful minor bloodshed. Far more in the spirit of the original than the current incarnation, actually.


Friday 22nd January, 1937

A lively day indeed. We were shepherding our first-years to a class on Casino Island (they have a morning with the grizzled prospector we had, tutoring them as to telling Fool’s Gold from the genuine article and such) when we ran across some familiar faces, or beaks as one might say. It has been awhile since we saw any of the Orpington Island duck-cult in town; possibly the Allthing had banned them for three months again, finishing yesterday. Anyway, it was our luck to have that Ingrid Ledasdottir with us, who is certainly a fine figure of a swan maiden.

    It is a good thing we speak Spontoonie, and know something of the duck-cult! From their excited chatter I gathered Ingrid resembles some ancient cult-figure allied to their own, who they have been seeking for centuries. Knowing how these things work, it is more likely one of their ancestors carved a figurine of a pretty sailor-girl he saw onboard Captain Cooked’s ship when he first explored the Nimitz Sea two centuries ago. These things pass into legend, and if a century passed before any more swans were seen the locals could spend the long evenings building up all sorts of mythology around an unnamed exotic statue their Grandfather left them. Swans are not a native species around here and there are few Euro families of them on Spontoon even now. A very average swan towers over any of the drakes, and I can well imagine the appeal.

    Anyway, while Helen briefed Ingrid on what they were saying, Maria and I turned to the broad-billed flock and told them to keep their wing-tips off, in no uncertain terms. Although the idea of a Euro girl being grabbed for cult reasons by admiring Natives is mostly pure Hollywood, this is one flock who might actually think to do it. In which case, Maria’s suggestions involving bread stuffing and orange sauce might come into play. It is perfectly true as she said that the Songmark diet is awfully short of fresh meat, and to look at the ducks’ reactions our reputation does precede us. Though many of the Spontoonies know by now that we speak their language, it evidently came as an awful shock to the Orpington birds.

    Ingrid looked more amused than startled, and commented that ducks and swans are distantly related, though not distantly enough for her. Rather like third cousins several times removed by the bouncers and told not to come back, by her tone. I must check if swans really are in the Antidae, the scientific term for the duck family, and if not how close they are. Molly’s comment was she thought the scientific description of a duck was “Professor Duck.” Happily we are talking of Orpington, not Cranium Island. The duck-cult are not liable to pop up through the fourth dimension and carry her off to enthrone her in some fowl temple to be ritually married to their Drake-Spirit incarnate. At least I don’t think so.

    We left the first-years about to find out that gold and diamonds are even rarer than they thought, but a seam of ten percent iron or two percent copper ore can really buy one the famed house on the hill. Still, a Songmark girl should be able to spot a promising quartz seam when she sees it, even though it is liable to be hiding worthless uranium rather than good copper ore. Beryl is still trying to sell shares in companies exploiting that phoney Trautonium ore deposit on Cranium Island - a quick look at the periodic table shows there is no such element. Maria jokes it is refined from impurities in deposits of Balonium, Unbelievium and Unobtanium.

    Oddly enough, that mad shrew Alpha Rote claimed the material was perfectly real, and that Cranium Island has the only known Trautonium deposits, They also have unique deposits of elementally pure Illinium, Alabamium and Virginium *, she says, that were discovered by one of their exiled American Mad Scientists (a change from the usual German ones) and are used in many fascinating experiments. Exactly what she regards as a fascinating experiment is a question better left unasked and especially unanswered if one values one’s peace of mind and sleep at nights. It is better to ignore Alpha Rote, we have discovered - in our book, Cranium Islanders should join the select ranks of policemen and lunatics as being folk it is pointless to argue with. But she does have a most remarkable mind, and seems to think not just sideways but twisted through the sort of angles they never showed us in trigonometry lessons. Alpha has a way of finding solutions that nobody thought of - and of running into problems to match. Still, she is the only person we know to own a tesseract-shaped slide rule, though she says there are certain physical reasons not to bring it to Spontoon.

    Our own trip was to the hospital, where we have advanced classes in medicine. It is one thing to read the books, but actually spotting early signs of Distemper, Parvo Virus and Peruvian Sarcoptic Mange rely on how the patient feels and behaves rather than anything a diagram can show. We keep our immunisations up to date, of course, but some of us are booked in for boosters. The first-years came in through there in the afternoon to have their own “shots”, so we could escort them back.

    As if we did not have enough trouble with Crusader Dorm, today their Eva Schiller was kicking up a fuss. She is normally the best behaved of that bunch, but apparently over her holidays in Germany she has been told immunisations are basically Wrong, with a capital W. She rarely mentions politics and indeed this is more of a social religion; artificially preventing Nature’s epidemics means that packed urban areas with “an unhealthily polyglot population mired in their own filth” can exist, which should not. Which hardly applies to Casino Island, I would have thought myself though it is far more “polyglot” than anything her Chancellor has complained about. Just as she refuses to use cosmetics beyond plain grooming and washing, the use of artificial immunity is a deception and a mockery of an inherently healthy Pedigree body of high quality (unquote.) She has a definite lack of compassion on the subject, and talks a lot about “Social Darwinism” where the weak should make way for the more resilient. Personally I can take every advantage I can get; I just wish there had been a vaccine last year for Pacific Marsh Typhus.

    I have seen glowing depictions of what Eva means of the city of the future, a rather idyllic scene of updated village life with sunshine and fresh air with clean-furred pedigree pups playing in the light of a bright (probably swastika-shaped) sun. Exactly how they will fit this with still having somewhere like the Ruhr valley steelworks or the Hamburg shipyards, will be interesting to watch. Happy peasants in the fields produce potatoes, not ships and aircraft.

    Back for a fine meal of egg fried rice and salted fish, definitely all local produce. Even the rice is grown in the “Formosan” village on Main Island where the river from Crater Lake comes out in its delta. Susan de Ruiz says the Argentum have found out about our diet; quite possibly some first-year complained about it. At any rate, one of the Argentum’s third-years turned up her muzzle and pityingly announced to Susan that personally she was unused to cheap food, and the Songmark staff were evidently lining their own pockets out of the food budget.

    I would trust our Tutors with my life, let alone my allowance, and would bet all of it that Miss Devinski “salts away” about as much as the Songmark cook manages to save on her salary.  The food is, as everyone keeps reminding us, plentiful and wholesome, and even a carnivore girl gets used to it in time. And the Spanish can hardly boast about their corruption levels; from what we have heard about their military one would guess Beryl was in charge - except she has a sense of style and would not get so blatant about it. The cheapest, shoddiest goods of all kinds the Spanish merchants call “de munition” - for the troops - and in some regiments on either side of the conflict, half the troops themselves do not actually exist. They are registered for pay, which their officers pocket, and issued equipment and rations, which the officers promptly resell on the black market and probably ends up with the opposition. This is, Susan says, so long-established and commonplace that nobody even tries to reform it.

    Out tonight for guard duty, again. Hopefully no more Rain Islanders will be coming over the fence at us. On the other paw, knowing our dear Tutors they just might.  The guard dogs are back patrolling, but if someone really wants to try parachuting in at night they might get past them. We have met some of our “intruders” since, and it is a case of “no hard feelings” for the various hard knocks they received. They volunteered to test us, it turns out, even knowing our reputation. Medals and promotions all round should be in order for that! Though Molly was brought up to shoot first and ask questions afterwards, she has calmed down a little at Songmark. Not enough, though.
       
*Editor’s note: although they were known to exist as late as the 1940’s, none of these can be currently found in the periodic table. Evidently they got lost in the wash in one of the periodic clearings of the table. The elements of that name on Cranium Island are not necessarily the ones our science books reassigned to replace (e.g. Alabamium=Astatine) the original names!


Saturday 23rd January, 1937

Out today with an unusual addition to the Saturday group, Adele Beasley. True, Miss Devinski has been dropping darker and darker hints about her Curse still not being fixed - and on top of everything else I am expected to fix that one way or another. Still, we were booked for our morning dance class and that is as sacrosanct as anything on our timetable.

    We had rather a surprise seeing today someone we have only met on South Island, our visiting Priestess Gha’ta, who showed the class some fine old dances. In fact, though she speaks Spontoonie very well in a very old form, she surely has a poor grasp of the language’s dates and numbers as the ages she told us were quite unbelievable. Certainly she is a very exotic girl, the only one we have ever seen here with naked skin rather than scales, fur or feathers. Mixtecan Hairless canines occasionally appear as tourists, but only another of their unfortunate species could possibly find them attractive. That star-nosed mole in the first-year is a similar fright to look at but at least has nice glossy fur.  Not having any themselves, Mixtecan Hairless have to keep covered up or sunburn awfully - one can normally scent them coming by the quantities of zinc paste they have to plaster on.

    Gha’ta danced a surprisingly sprightly hula that had everyone clapping along to it; really we must learn “When He rises from the waters”, evidently one of the religious dances from her home near Ponape. The event she describes sounds rather a jolly occasion; at least everyone has been looking forward to it for a very long time. A most improbably long time, in fact. Possibly Gha’ta is counting in a different number base than we do.

    Adele has not specialised in the hula dances, but swayed along with plenty of enthusiasm. We finished at lunch time then headed out to Main Island, where the folk live who specialise in Red Indian styles. A rapid hike up to the North coast to Chikloota brought us to the Yakan household where Clear-Skies Yakan was expecting us. We are all very keen to help Adele; even Molly.
 
    Having surveyed our friend’s problem before, Clear-Skies has been doing some research on such curses and asking her elders. Unfortunately it seems it is a curse of a very old style, such as is rarely used now - and the more traditional practitioners stayed in their ancestral lands rather than move out here to be near at hand for our consultations. Just as Molly boasts about the highly conservative hillbillies of the Appalachians and such places who have changed little in two centuries - those are the radicals and renegades who crossed the globe; the countryfolk back in Barsetshire are the true holders of the traditions.

    Just when we were steeling ourselves imagining returning to Alaska or the Aleutians to search for a witch-consultant (one step up from a witch-doctor) Clear-Skies mentioned there is a community in Tillamook that far pre-dates the general settling of the island and are known to practice the most ancient of rituals. She has written to the elder shaman there explaining the problem, and hopes for an answer soon. Mind you, a lot of these Red Indian languages are not at all suited to being written down, and she says it will be surprising if she has quite made herself plain enough to be helpful.

    An interesting afternoon while Helen and I studied along with Clear-Skies, and the rest took a look at Vikingstown over the ridge where Professor Kurt von Mecklenburg und Soweiter has his first full-scale “Bio-reaktor” that is eating twelve tonnes of mixed waste a day to power the Main Island baths and much else. The reactor itself is smallish, they tell me, but he has an extensive and growing array of storage sheds for wet and dry wastes. After a big storm the Northern beaches are black with seaweed that local children now collect; this gets mixed in with the dried crop wastes from last year and ferments furiously along with the fish cannery waste and everything else available. Every day it swallows twelve tonnes of organic waste and delivers about a tonne of finished compost for the local fields and gardens; a major effort to wheel around Main Island. One can quite imagine why Professor Kurt wants the Allthing to restore some of the old railway lines.

    By the time they had returned, we had put together a plan of sorts to show our Tutors. It will need polishing, but a trip to Tillamook with Adele seems to be in order. If Miss Devinski tells me to fix Adele, and Tillamook is the nearest place, we should be able to swing it with our tutors. Besides, it will be more miles on our logbook in a good cause - last year Molly and Maria went out to Mildendo to “rescue” that school-chum of Beryl, and this is a far more legitimate trip.

    Back via Main Village, with an hour to spare for a change. Maria mused that we will not know what to do with ourselves after graduation; one sees pilots and aircrew relaxing in Mahanish’s with a Nootnops Red or a Pensa-cola (the Florida flying-boat pilot’s drink) awaiting incoming aircraft. The airport has a library of light reading for air travel; highly coloured editions of “Extra-Spicy Pacific Tails” are always popular.  The idea of wondering what to do with a spare half hour is rather exotic these days - as Miss Wildford put it, “If seven twenty-four hour days a week aren’t enough to do it all, work nights as well.”

    Rather gratifyingly, when we got to the gatehouse we passed some of Red Dorm being most enthusiastically searched by Belle and Carmen. Serves them right! Though no contraband had been found yet, Carmen assured me they had hardly begun to search, and had another four hours on gate guard to put to good use. I think Brigit and Liberty are going to get rather chilly standing there like that.

    Molly was in a good mood, discovering her monthly subscription to “Criminal World” had arrived. Considering its subject matter it is in a remarkably standard layout, with articles, editorials and even a comics page. Some of the articles were definitely interesting, including the regular one “Effective bribery around the world.” Now I know Chinese warlords and their staff like “Broomhandle” Mausers as presents, especially that strange clumsy variant with the drum magazine that turns it into the world’s smallest machine-gun. Molly says it is hideously inaccurate with the muzzle climb so extreme the usual technique is to hold the pistol sideways and expect it to spray in a horizontal fan. Breaks the ice at parties, no doubt.

    The comics section is equally strange, with the adventures of “Rick Traceless.” A handsome and square-jawed wolf, his adventures around the world are portrayed exactly like those of a regular comics hero, except for the plots. Where the regular all-action hero would be foiling pirates and gangsters, Rick Traceless is robbing banks and foiling Detective forces left right and centre. There is even a comedic love interest, a Police Commissioner’s daughter who he is taking great satisfaction in gradually corrupting. When she asks him what psychologically motivates him to constantly rob banks, at least he has a good reply ready - “because that, my dear, is where the money is.”


Sunday 24th January, 1937

Maria deserves a medal! It takes extreme bravery to tackle Miss Devinski before breakfast with a request, but that is just what she did - and got grudging and conditional approval to start planning Tillamook. This will have to wait till the shaman writes back and we can arrange things with Clear-Skies Yakan, but in principle we can go ahead, possibly borrowing the Junkers 86 for the job. It will be somewhere new to see, and if it does not quite have the tourist facilities of Spontoon, at least we are not going there on holiday. A cold, raw day today, and the prospect of spending time in a Red Indian “sweat lodge” was rather appealing.

    We heard last night of another appealing idea; the Ave Argentum have taken up the gauntlet and agreed to our sporting challenge. On scale, I think the gauntlet will be rather like Beryl’s white dress gloves; full of surprises with half a pound of lead shot sewn into the knuckles. Our Tutors are working out the details, as it should be a fair match in front of the Spontoonies. That is, if Father Dominicus is not training his flock in the finer arts of Samoan Wrestling, that will probably be off the programme (much to the disappointment of Missy K and Prudence, albeit for different reasons.) I expect this will be third-years only; we are about as fit and practiced as we are going to be, and quite relish the idea of putting a few high-born noses out of joint. Not literally with Olympic “Pankration” contests though. Even if one of their “Penitentes” is practiced at it courtesy of Saint T’s undeniably athletic education (and this Masie Thynne was disqualified a few times for cheating, Beryl says, even though the only hard and fast rules in Pankration relate to not using weapons, biting or eye-gouging.)

    Anyway, we will have to find out about that one. Today we went out to South Island, where Gha’ta put us through a few exercises in the tradition that were quite as tiring as anything we did in hula dance class yesterday. Although it does leave us feeling drained, our abilities are certainly increasing. We feel like a Songmark first-year being introduced to the delights of running along the beach with pack and collapsing like a washed-ashore jellyfish - but getting a hundred yards further than the week before. It is slow going though; at this rate we will be a fiftieth as qualified as the other Priestesses about the year 1957.

    Back to the Hoele’toemi household, in time to sample the first locally brewed tea of the season! The islands are scattered with similar failed experiments from the Plantation days; we have spotted cinnamon and vanilla bushes by their scent and indeed someone fifty years ago must have planted most of their kitchen cabinet in the hope of getting a bumper crop of something. The plants being able to survive and slowly spread is not the same as a Plantation being able to get an economical crop yield.

    I helped prepare the meal as usual and took the chance to have a long talk with Mrs. H about my Allworthy title problem. The trouble is, if I accept the title I would have to be officially “invested” in the House of Lords, and that hardly fits with staying on Spontoon being Mrs. Amelia Hoele’toemi. There is no word as yet from Judge Poynter on finding proper claimants, and indeed it would be too much to hope for that one of the “Remittance men” on South Island stands up and waves a tattered but valid Allworthy Pedigree.

    Mrs. H says I might be better off publicly claiming the title, knowing nothing can be finalised before I get back to England - and with such a shaky legal claim the Press are going to be all over the case. Not something I would look forward to. Except if Maria gets to write the story first, and slant it in such a way that the inheritance will be grabbed off me by the first better claimant to grab me at the airport. I could certainly live with that - and in the meantime I could sign those papers. It is not as if I would be taking money out of the business; investing Allworthy funds on the Allworthy estates is something that the rightful heir is unlikely to feel defrauded by.

    Of course, there is the embarrassing bit of how I ended up with the whole mess. I would have to smile and tell folk that I was going to marry Leon of my own free will, and only the odd circumstances of Krupmark prevented us doing so more formally. Actually I am sure he could have got a vicar over there if he wanted or even a qualified ship’s captain; my whole Krupmark trip started when he summoned a doctor over for consultation and I was the pilot. I doubt he could have got the Reverend Bingham to agree to wed us, but there are less scrupulous clergy available if one reads and believes the Sunday papers. At school I remember Salome and Jezebel, the daughters of that defrocked Cardinal; their father claimed “once a priest always a priest”.

    Mrs. H nodded, and pointed out that Jirry knows the truth about what happened - had Leon Allworthy been as advertised, there would be no complaints about my spending a week that way with a lonely and victimised gentleman. Polynesian traditions are nice like that. Any wrongdoing was entirely on the other side, Mrs. H says. So she agrees that I can take the Allworthy name to keep it warm - and to help furs back home who are depending on their being someone at the helm of the estates.

    Not what I wanted to do at all, but if they teach us one thing at Songmark it is how to make the best of bad situations! At least I can rely on Maria to drop the right article in the right quarters - I can almost see the indignant articles demanding I be stripped of the title and the newspapers scouring the globe to find a rightful claimant. In six months I hope to be again wearing a Tailfast ring, which should give me some moral support and probably inflame the Society journalists past boiling point (“Gold-digger to marry Savage in Heathen ceremony - deliberately makes mockery of our Sacred Traditions!”). According to Officialdom I am a Spy in the service of a foreign power, so at least I will not be worried having a reputation to spoil. Father knows the truth, Jirry and his family likewise - and the rest of the world can think what they like. It would be useful to know just which Enemy Nation I am supposedly working for; as it is, this makes it rather hard to disprove.

    An excellent luncheon followed, with Saffina complementing Mrs. H for an excellent “fufu” such as she likes best at home in Ubangi-Chari. I suppose there is only so much one can do with boiled and mashed cassava; despite being a world apart the African and Spontoonie dishes turned out very similar. Mrs. H says she likes cooking for an appreciative audience, and certainly we get through everything put in front of us. The Songmark average diet is about four thousand calories a day, the same as Captain Scott ate pulling sledges by paw in the Antarctic. Unfortunately for him, he was burning about ten thousand, and without the healthy fresh fish, fruit and vegetables we thrive on.

    Saffina is hoping she gets picked for the athletics challenge against the Ave Argentum; certainly she is one of the sports stars of the second year, if any second years are chosen. She is one of the main players in the Kilikiti team, being a full-grown lioness though looking very distinctive in her tabby markings. What with her Mother being a Missionary’s daughter marrying a Native and converting to “traditional pagan beliefs” in the heart of Africa, that would really unsettle Father Dominicus. Hannah Meyer was telling us similar things about that New South Zion long-jumper in last year’s Berlin Olympics - he was absolutely the last person the organisers wanted to have to present a gold medal to. They had to, but somehow the cameras all developed a “technical fault” at the critical moment and the footage never got into the official “Olympia” film. According the doctrines of the folk involved, neither a New South Zion Olympic champion nor Saffina should even exist.

    Mrs. H keeps up with the Althing news more than we have time to do, and points out that the Argentum was officially only given a year on Spontoon. Its future will be decided sometime in May, giving them time to arrange a new venue for the September term should they have outstayed their welcome here. Still, they are working hard at keeping their reputation as a quiet and respectable bunch, with no scandals that we know of. Living expenses are fairly low out here and indeed they are putting a lot of money into the off-season local economy with than number of students and a rather more lavish accommodation budget. The Northern Star Hotel has single and twin rooms, they say, not our rather barrack-like wooden dorms. I rather doubt they have to build their own water heater if they want a bath.

    Helen naturally vanished off for the afternoon with Marti, to the accompaniment of envious sighs and twitching tails from the rest of us. Molly whispered that Lars was back in town, and next week she hopes to see him - no doubt “diverting” her usual Sunday trip here. Our Tutors are going to really hate that. I have never lied to Miss Devinski yet; with what our Tutors know it would be silly to try anyway - but if Molly vanishes and I am asked where she went, I will be able to honestly say I did not see where or whom she met. Where she intended to go, is not what they call admissible in court; I have intended to be Tailfast three times for that matter. I certainly did not intend being Lady Allworthy.

    A most pleasant afternoon; about the only time we get to relax in term time. Of course, the average tourist watching us would probably say we are hard at work - but hoeing the taro patch, helping with the neighbour’s kittens and help maintaining a longhouse is sheer laziness next to our Songmark course. There is nobody standing eagle-eyed behind us with a stopwatch, a slide-rule or a micrometer, as appropriate.

    All good things come to an end, and as Helen reappeared smiling and rubbing her neck-fur we had to make our own farewells. It is definitely getting lighter now in the evenings! We passed the old Plantation sundial on the way back to Resort Bay; the sunset does not quite alter by two minutes every day as they taught us at Saint Winifred’s - its rate of change is rather more of a sine wave, flattest at the solstices and steepest at the equinoxes. The sundial is a very nice piece of work, and by my chronometer and the published times in the Daily Elele, it is spot-on. No doubt on Cranium Island at the time they built radium-dialled sundials one can read in the dark.

    Arriving at Resort bay, I was last in the group - when I heard Helen quietly growl “speak of the devil…” and saw Molly’s tail twitch excitedly. It would not take Sherlock Hound to deduce who we had bumped into - Lars Nordstrom, just as Molly had been looking forward to meeting. Actually I did not recognise his silhouette against the waterfront lights for a second - he has shed his horns for the Winter, and has two smallish velvet-covered bumps not unlike bulbs starting to sprout for the new season. I blushed somewhat recalling the matching set of last year’s horns.

    Helen was all for going straight back to Songmark; there was a water-taxi just coming in. But I persuaded her to leave Molly behind for the next one, and I stayed of course as chaperone. It would have been rather a squeeze with five passengers on that water-taxi anyway.

    There is a tourist shelter looking out over the bay, that is thronged with furs seeking shade in Summer; it was empty and provided good shelter from the wind today. Lars explained he had been busy at work, on Krupmark and elsewhere - and congratulated Molly on having brought Captain Granite to justice. Apart from kidnapping and such, he claimed Captain Granite had permanently altered the … preferences of many ladies, who were left disliking the idea but unable to change it.

    Actually I don’t think this is possible, as I am sure Prudence and her dorm would have mentioned it by now even as something to try and avoid. On the other paw, Angelica hinted that she had a curse with a rather similar effect. Lars’ comment certainly had an effect on Molly, whose ears went right down. She suddenly got extremely … affectionate, as if wanting to prove nothing had been altered. It is a good thing the beach shelter only looks out over the open lagoon, and there was nobody around!
 
    Afterwards, we got a surprising piece of news. Lars has volunteered to head out to Macao, somewhere he does a lot of business with anyway, and seek out the Direwolf.  He winked and mentioned you could probably hear a certain ferret’s teeth gnashing from Meeting Island, but Lars has put himself forward as the obvious candidate to do some “trade” out there, being well known in the military side of the import and export business. There are things that are legal to own but cannot be exported without various special permissions - he mentioned the Direwolf has put requests out in the trade for up-to-date military radios, hydrophones and such. Not the sort of thing one can buy in Herr Rassberg’s store! I should think the profit margins will be large, as will the risks - but those two go together for anyone trading on Krupmark.

    Molly was very keen on going along for that trip - after which she demonstrated that she was very keen, again. Our Tutors are going to go completely off the rails when they hear about this as an idea for an excursion - not that I will tell them, unless Miss Devinski asks me directly. We had enough to do with planning Tillamook, and we are booked for New South Thule in March - from what Mr. Sapohatan said, the Direwolf is a rather more urgent mission.

    It was already well past dark by the time I managed to persuade Molly to part with her stag and we just got into Songmark before the gates closed for the evening. Fortunately I got her upstairs and into the shower before anyone scented her, though Mrs. Oelabe was sniffing around our trail. Carbolic soap is jolly useful stuff and no mistake. Maria and Helen had saved us some supper, as we need every meal we can get.

    Though our Tutors did not call us to the carpet tonight, Helen nearly had a fit when she heard the news. It is all the worse for being apparently approved of by Post Box Nine, and indeed seems to quite fit the bill Mr. Sapohatan laid out for us. Molly was rather smug about it all, I must admit. As she pointed out, it is a perfect mission for Songmark third years, and being officially approved of our Tutors are very likely to let us go, or at least some of us. One hardly knows whether to be pleased at the prospect or not; although Macao is not Krupmark it has a lot of the same elements, and far more substantial military force in the area. The one good thing about Krupmark is its lack of intrusive government; by all accounts the Portuguese just look at the money the place brings in and tell their Governor not to do anything to decrease that. In Macao there is the extra hazard of external military intervening; I expect the Royal Navy would rather like to see the Direwolf following the rest of the Kaiser’s Navy to be scuttled as happened to the rest in 1918. And what Japan would do as it rolls through China is anyone’s guess, though the results are not likely to be pleasant.

    Maria is practical, and comments that our adventures have not got us thrown out yet, and if we do come back with our tails on and a properly written-up report, it will be all valuable experience. She commented that Molly probably misses bright lights and big cities - true enough, the last one we visited was in Vostok last year, and that was rather dour for someone used to Chicago. How much Maria herself misses the social whirl is something one sometimes forgets; Rome and Casino Island are not really comparable.

    To bed early, Helen threatening to wipe the smile of Molly’s muzzle with a scrubbing brush and floor soap. At least Helen is Tailfast; should she discover she has Marti’s kitten on the way she will have somewhere to go even without finishing the Songmark course. And as a look at the calendars shows me, if any of us get such news after Easter - we might get to graduate regardless. But it is not something to risk.


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