Songmark Notes #1: Class of September 1934 *
edited by Simon Barber
*Editor’s note: at Songmark,
the class is given as the date they started, not graduated, and by its
original class leader, despite the fact this may change. Some dorms are
rather volatile. Both Adele Beasley and Irma Bundt were in Prudence’s
dorm briefly in the first year, but the final line-up was soon worked
out by the staff. Songmark dorms consist of groups of four, never more
and hardly ever less (but see Missy K’s for an exception.)
Amelia Bourne-Phipps’ Dorm
(Mature image) Kjartan shows
her dorm-mates waking Maria by dumping
her out of bed.
Amelia Bourne-Phipps
Species: Feline (house
cat.)
Appearance: Average
height, plain pale ginger body fur, blonde head-fur generally worn in a
permanent wave.
Origin: South-Western
Britain, from the country of Barsetshire (adjoining Mummerset.). Amelia
is the only daughter of General Bourne-Phipps of the Royal Engineers
and spent most of her life at boarding-schools before starting at
Songmark, which helped her cope easier than most new students. Her
mother is never mentioned in her diaries, and is assumed to have died
when Angelica was a kitten (1918 influenza? Zeppelin raid victim?) She
has an older brother, who is in the Army.
Amelia finds herself the undisputed leader of 3 extremely strong
personalities in her dorm, possibly because the others realise they
would never consent to any of them being in charge. She was nominated
as leader rather than asking for the job, but took up her
responsibilities willingly. She is generous-hearted, initially slightly
naïve and believes strongly in the principles of team spirit and
fair play (even while cheerfully admitting she may be the only one in a
room of desperadoes who does.) A good communicator, in fact more than
somewhat chatty, nevertheless she knows when and on what subjects to
keep her mouth firmly shut.
Various folk have commented that as she leads a dorm
of what in the wild would be very definitely termed Alpha females, she
must be a Double Alpha. Amelia herself would be puzzled by the idea no
matter how it was explained to her – Molly, Helen and Maria are both
friends and her team, and she has a duty to see that they all pull
their weight. Play up and play the game!
Likes: Home-built
aircraft, healthy sporting exercise, fresh air, industrial-strength
curry.
Dislikes: Underhand
behaviour, sneaks, Poi (generally.)
Helen Ducros:
Species: Tigress.
Appearance: Fairly small
for a tiger, Helen is athletic and powerful. Standard reddish-black
tiger pattern, with no prominent mop of head-fur.
Origin: Helen is an
orphan; as with Amelia her mother is never mentioned. Her father was
“Lucky” Ducros, a Texan oilfield fire-fighter of outstanding reputation
who took his daughter with him from a tender age and expected her to be
useful and independent in the field. Her life before Songmark was a
rough one of travelling between oilfield camps and boom-towns,
dangerous places even when not on fire. As a result, she never received
much of a formal education, but by the age of 10 could speak the basics
of five languages and strip a rotary aircraft engine for maintenance.
Unlike Songmark, a regular University would probably be completely
unimpressed.
Songmark is the most permanent home Helen has ever had, and indeed she
is planning on settling down based in the Spontoons after graduating.
She has been Tailfast continuously to Marti Hoele’toemi (brother to
Jirry, who is Amelia’s boyfriend) and despite her earlier fear of
becoming “domesticated”, is hoping to “have the ink wet on both mah
Graduation and Marriage licences.” This will not slow her down as a
career Adventuress, she expects.
Likes: Nootnops Blue,
“five-alarm chillies”, hard exercise.
Dislikes: Sea travel (she
gets hideously seasick despite being perfectly fine in the air),
“book-learning” especially maths, and Poi.
Molly Procyk:
Species: Red deer.
Appearance: Tall,
slender, long ears, glossy black bob of head-fur not quite
shoulder-length. Alternates between grimly determined and wild-eyed
fanatical expressions.
Origin: Molly is a
bootlegger’s daughter, and was brought up to regard the 1920’s Chicago
gangster scene as a perfectly normal way of life. Her Mother is vaguely
mentioned as having been a show-girl, and departed the scene rather
than died.
Having been brought up with the mixed expectations of being either the
cherished “Boss’s Daughter” or a hard-living gun moll, Molly decided
that Songmark was the ideal middle route. Her ideal of gaining respect
without having to be “respectable” certainly needs a lot of hard work.
She has various unfortunate character traits; a love of firearms,
explosives and such is blended with a deep-seated pyromania. Asked to
produce four alternate plans for any sort of mission, at least one of
them will involve widespread arson (she knows that most people,
particularly Amelia, will squash the notion, but is ever hopeful.)
Her disturbingly suave boyfriend Lars Nordstrom has
for a long time put her talents to good use. Considering he’s an
international smuggler based on the notorious Krupmark Island, it may
be just as well that Molly doesn’t tell Amelia everything she gets up
to on her “trips” there.
Likes: Anti-tank rifles,
saw-backed bayonets, big fires.
Dislikes: Poi,
“respectable” society, police.
Maria Inconnutia:
Species: Italian alpine
breed cow.
Appearance: Medium height
and solid, stocky figure, pale red-brown body fur with black curly
head-fur not hiding her short horns.
Origins: Maria’s original
claim to fame was being the niece of Il Puce, the “Purple Emperor” who
is the controversial ruler of Italy. She is a strong but not uncritical
supporter of her Uncle, and is less likely to complain about what he is
aiming for, than how he is going about it.
Maria has hinted that one of the reasons she wanted
to study on Spontoon was its extreme neutrality – though Italy has an
excellent aircraft industry, she knew she would be treated with kid
gloves and never allowed to fail a test there due to her connections.
This was not the sort of challenge she wanted. Initially rather a
tearaway, she has calmed down as her course progressed, and is learning
to be a journalist – or at least, someone who is very keen on gathering
information. Exactly what information she telegraphs back to Italy in
code using one-time pads, she has not revealed. It may possibly be that
the Songmark diet is so unspeakable that reports on it have to be
encrypted before transmission over a public wire service. Or not.
Although she rarely mentions them, Maria is the only
one of her dorm with a full complement of parents. She has numerous
sisters, who are apparently “full of all the domestic virtues” and she
is content to let them look after the farms and families while she
lives a bold and heroic life. Before leaving Italy she moved with a
fashionable and fast-living set of the rich, who instilled her with a
love of fast cars, boats and aircraft. It took some time for the
Songmark tutors and the rest of her dorm to get her to un-learn her bad
habits. Flying under bridges and power cables for the sake of it, does
not make for a long and profitable career.
She has also coped rather well with leaving luxury
behind. Getting up at six in the morning with no servants, cleaning
one’s own boots and the like have been quite a shock. The extremely
hard Songmark beds may help early risers.
Likes: Fast cars, planes
and boats, high fashion and fast living.
Dislikes: “Domestic”
drudgery, getting up in the morning, Songmark beds, and Poi.
Miss Akroyd’s dorm
(Mature image) Kjartan
draws Miss
Akroyd's dormroom talking things over in informal dress.
Prudence Akroyd
Species: Canine
(lurcher/spaniel mix?).
Appearance: Long ears,
tail and muzzle, mid-brown fur. Tall, slim figure.
Origin: Lancashire,
England. She comes from a long-established manufacturing family who
made their money in cotton-spinning and wool-twirling.
Prudence has maintained her position of class leader, having been
recognised as having the main reserves of common-sense by the rest. She
is generally solid and quiet, and full of surprises. “If in doubt say
nowt” is her motto, and indeed she has a lot to keep quiet about. Her
family would be surprised if she came back married, especially the one
she plans to, as of Winter Solstice 1935 she has been officially
Tailfast to Tahni (a spotted Hyena girl from Main Island.) They
plan to
marry after her graduation; this IS legal on Spontoon as early as the
1930’s.
Naturally good at languages (even before leaving
Lancashire she was also fluent in standard English and knew several
words of Yorkshire) she has picked up a lot of Spontoonie, and like the
rest of her dorm it is rumoured that not all the times they vanish with
the consent of the Songmark staff it is to head out to party. Prudence
was either the first or second dorm leader in her year to adopt Native
dress, and her dorm loyally followed her lead.
One of her great joys is the South Island formation
swimming team, which all her dorm take leading roles in. They train
constantly, and are the only qualified team of their kind in the
Spontoons. Visiting film producers have taken note, and (Songmark
permitting) they have featured in many island-filmed extravaganzas. It
is surprising how many script-writers can hurriedly include a “Bushby
Barklay” swimming extravaganza once they hear there is a suitable local
team available at reasonable rates.
Ada Cronstein
Species: Canine
Appearance: Upright
pointed ears, light brown body fur, shoulder-length head-fur. Fairly
short tail, medium height with an attractive figure.
Origin: Sealth City, NW
coastal USA. Her family are into finance: she has mentioned her father
being the only financier in town who was willing to issue a pawn ticket
for a whole steel mill in 1918 with the post-war slump: in the Wall
Street Crash he completely “cleaned up” on bankrupt businesses.
Ada is a vivacious and mischievous sort, whose idea of fun is one
continuous party. She is a hard-working student and a top-class pilot
in the week, and one of the leading lights of the formation swimming
team.
Ada’s friends tend to make fun of her admiration for
aloof, powerful women who are highly unlikely to return her interest.
If Ilse Klensch ever finds out about that picture of her on Ada’s wall
there is liable to be trouble…
Belle Lapinssen
Species: Rabbit
Appearance: Upright and
highly mobile ears, light brown head-fur and golden-brown fur
elsewhere. Slender figure.
Origin: Mid-Western USA,
from a small maize-growing town in the Bible Belt. (Main exports;
maize, belts, bibles.) She grew up watching the “barn-stormers”
compete, and was immediately hooked on the freedoms offered by flight.
Belle is only marginally less vivacious than her great friend Ada, and
between 8 to 10% perkier (natural bunny species bonus.) Her one great
fear is she will have to go home, where for some reason they would
disapprove of most of her favourite hobbies…
Carmen Velasquez
Species: Mixtecan anteater
Appearance: Tall,
slender, with a very strange silhouette when she looks up courtesy of
her record-breaking snout length. Has difficulty getting off-the-shelf
hats and flying helmets to fit.
Origin: Mixteca. Her
family run silver mines.
Carmen is certainly the most reserved of the four, and had most work to
fit in with Songmark (her English is much better than when she arrived,
and she is learning Spontoonie as are the rest of her dorm.)
If Carmen has any current problem it is a severe
caffeine addiction: the Songmark cuisine serves a reasonable amount of
tea and coffee rather than an unreasonable one. Give her a bottle of
concentrate “Camp coffee” and she will not only drink it neat but lick
clean the insides of the bottle. Anteaters are proud of their special
features, and Carmen puts hers to many uses.
Missy K’s dorm
It is not known why there are only 3 in this dorm; the dorm rooms are
all the same size and it presumably makes group exercises hard to
balance. Amelia’s diary speculates that Missy K weighs twice as much as
the smaller members of her dorm, but this makes little sense. When
Soppy Forsythe “resigned” she was immediately replaced from the long
list of hopefuls on the waiting list; for some strange reason the staff
chose Beryl.
Oloueha’he Kahaloa (Missy K)
Species: Bear
Appearance: Tall, very
broad and powerful, initially rather overweight (but the very strenuous
Songmark course burned a lot of that off.) Grey-brown fur, dark brown
head-fur worn to shoulder length.
Origin: Spontoon, Main
Village.
Missy K is not called by her full name as she claims nobody but a
Spontoonie can pronounce it properly, and it irritates her greatly
hearing it said wrongly by everyone, even including the staff. As
the first Spontoonie to study at Songmark (most of her aviation-minded
friends and relatives find the Technical High School on Moon Island
perfectly adequate) she is determined to show what a “mere Native” can
do, and is a fanatically hard worker. That said, she is bad-tempered,
intolerant and suspicious; in her first year she disapproved of the
other dorms learning the local language as she likes to keep secrets in
it.
Before starting Songmark she became engaged to
Tabodo, a mink from her village who she loves to show off to her
envious classmates. Exactly how she squared things with the tutors is
not known, but she is on permanent one-month notice to postpone
graduating for a year (pre-booked maternity leave.)
Missy K is by no means a typical, let alone
stereotypical Spontoonie. She has very rarely been seen in “native”
costume, indeed some of her classmates (notably Amelia’s dorm) wear it
far more often. Similarly, although she has not been noticed to follow
any outside religion, Amelia’s Diary has never mentioned seeing her at
any Native religious ceremony. One of the earlier entries in the
diaries mentions her being Tailfast, but she has not appeared at any of
the solstice rituals Amelia attended to renew it.
Adele Beasley
Species: Lop-eared Rabbit.
Appearance: Slender,
athletic figure, light brown fur.
Origin: East coast USA.
Her family are academics and archaeologists, specialising in
investigating Native burial mounds. For “Archaeologist” read
“Treasure-hunter”, an embarrassing fact she did not admit till into her
third year.
Adele is something of a problem to her tutors, who took her on for her
superb flying skills and were convinced that with the right training
she could break her streak of bad luck. In the air she is unbeatable;
on the ground every accident imaginable homes in on her unerringly. If
her entire class walk along a jungle trail and one branch falls on it
all day, it will hit her. What really puzzles the Songmark staff is
that none of it is her fault; her techniques are as good as anyone’s
but the consequences tend to be painful. She is quite used to it, and
rarely complains much as she is led away (again) to the Matron.
Charity “Soppy” Forsythe (Autumn 1934 – Easter 1935)
Species: Grey squirrel
Appearance: Medium build,
very average features, generally sour expression.
Origin: North of England,
allegedly (but see below.)
“Soppy” claimed to be from Lancashire, the same as Prudence Akroyd;
Prudence always said her accent was odd. She also claimed to be from a
Quaker industrialist family; to convince the tutors to let her into
Songmark she must have been quite convincing.
Whatever information records have on Charity
(including her real name) is bogus, as she turned out to be a secret
agent! She was last seen being rescued by a Royal Navy boat, and
heading back to London to wreak revenge on all and sundry.
Beryl Parkesson (Easter 1935 onwards)
Species: Mouse
Appearance: Short but
athletic, big ears, grey fur, and mischievous grin at most times.
Origin: English. Her
parents are both career criminals.
Beryl came to Songmark from a famous boarding school that threw her out
(the first expulsion ever in a history that has grand theft, murder and
arson most terms) on discovering she had forged her criminal record.
Beryl wanted to get into the famous Saint T’s school (full name
unknown) but claims getting caught by the Law is a sign of
incompetence. She is a cheerful and mischievous type, able to tell the
most outrageous lies quite convincingly, then adding unlikely but true
facts just to confuse. As she has said, “A truth that’s told with ill intent /
Beats alls the lies you can invent.”
A natural thrill-seeker, her natural haunts are
casinos and shady night-spots. She has been banned from the main Casino
on Casino Island, but has plenty of smaller venues to refine her
gambling “system.”
Beryl thinks of fraud and confidence tricks as a
perfectly acceptable way of combining business with pleasure: she is
rumoured to have sold a tourist the Rainbow Bridge before she finished
her first-year, and convinced a class of newly arrived Songmark
first-years that the Spontoon national anthem is “Althings bright and beautiful”,
and that they should sing it before every meal. Given that the Songmark
intake is vastly less gullible than the general population, this is an
achievement she takes pride in.
Her main partner-in-crime (what in other folk would
be a romantic interest) is Piet van Hoogstraaten, son of the famous
“International Businessman.” Unromantically enough, Beryl and Piet
spend much of their time swindling each other, to their mutual
enjoyment.
Jasbir Sind’s Dorm
Jasbir Sind
Species: Indian mongoose
Appearance: Tall, sinuous
but surprisingly strong, grey fur with black facial markings.
Origin: India, the Native
state of Utterly Pradesh. Contrary to common belief, many large parts
of India were never under Colonial rule except as regards foreign
policy and kept their own customs, military forces etc under their
local rulers.
Jasbir is the oldest daughter of Indian nobility: she is indulged by
her parents as the only one of her siblings with a passion for new
technology (when you’re a Maharaja, there is enough fun to be had
already in traditional ways.) She has several interests that would not
go down too well at home were they known; she is quite “stage-struck”
and has a burning ambition to dance in the tourist shows at the Coconut
Shell or other big venues. Her Tutors discourage this, but that has not
discouraged her.
More respectably, she is one of the leading lights
in the Native dance school on Casino Island, having been brought up
watching and performing in Hindu dances which are not wholly different.
She is quite aware that when she leaves Songmark she
will be returning to a far more structured, formal way of life where
every eye will be on her. There will be little scope for adventure of
any kind once she goes home, so she is determined to seek it on
Spontoon while she can.
** Jasbir Sind does some
venturesome research on Gull Island (art by Kjartan) **
Irma Bundt
Species: Bovine
Appearance: Large,
muscular frame, small horns, red-brown fur.
Origin: Geneva,
Switzerland.
Irma’s family are in the Swiss Defence Force, and she has inherited her
national traits of common-sense, stability and determination. Although
not the brightest of her class, she makes up for it with hard work and
determination.
Her religion is a matter of some comment, as her
family are devotees of the famous Dr. Rudolf Steiner, and attend the
“Goethearium” dedicated to the philosophy of Goethe. There are none in
the Pacific area so far.
Sophie D’Artagnan
Species: Otter
Appearance: Sleek, agile,
grey-brown fur with no prominent head-fur.
Origin: Bearn, a small
department in the French Pyrenees.
Sophie tends to make light of having a famous ancestor, pointing out
that ten times as many folk do great deeds than get remembered for them
(and her family has enough heroic traditions for it to read as
standard). She has the usual otter traits of playfulness, agility and a
love of water.
Li Han
Species: House-cat.
Appearance: Small,
delicate, bobbed black head-fur and tabby markings. She is the smallest
in her year; despite being a mouse Beryl is taller (counting the ears)
and a few pounds heavier.
Origin: Kuo Han.
Han fits many people’s idea of a shy, reserved Oriental, and indeed she
is by far the quietest and least boisterous in her year. However, when
sport or flying comes up all bets are off and she changes gear
entirely, becoming a small whirlwind of energetic action. She is
trained in various martial arts, and is almost unbeatable in terms of
speed and agility.
Madeline X’s Dorm
Madeline X (full name not recorded in Amelia’s diary.)
Species: Canine.
Appearance: Long snout
and tail, long ears with curly head-fur. Average figure.
Origin: 1éme
Arrondissement, Paris, France, and she won’t let anyone forget it!
It is a common speculation in her year as to what sent Madeline to
Songmark, as she spares no effort in looking down on it. Why the Tutors
let her in is ten times the mystery, given the large number of
applicants who would do almost anything (and the substantial number who
would do absolutely anything) to get in. Her family name is said to be
a famous one, and may well be that of one of the main French aircraft
manufacturing firms. She kept it secret from her classmates till well
into her first year.
Madeline is bright, witty and cultured, and scores
highly in all her classes. Having said that, she is aloof and
intolerant, and about as unsympathetic to “primitive Natives” as one
can get. She is the only one who actually complains about seeing
Natives in their traditional costume, but then her family have a large
contingent of missionaries.
Susan de Ruiz
Species: Desman (Pyrenean
water-shrew.)
Appearance: Short, dark
brown fur, long shrew-like muzzle with long ears and flexible tip.
Origin: Spanish, from
Navarre (up near the Pyrenees: she and Sophie D’Artagnan were born
within 50 miles of each other, on opposite sides of the mountains.)
Susan is an averagely athletic and acrobatic student with one great
plus; she is a mathematical genius. Given a page of complex
navigational formulae she can just “see it” as if the result was
already there; certainly examinations hold no terror for her. What most
people need paper and slide-rule for, she can unerringly do in her head.
(2 other students)
On internal evidence from Amelia’s diaries there should be 2 more in
Madeline X’s dorm, as Amelia said that only Missy K’s dorm was less
than four. Furthermore, she said Carmen and Belle were the two she knew
least – which leaves a mystery. By elimination we can only say they are
not Spontoonie, English, Italian or German as the Diaries have
mentioned the number of those in Amelia’s year.
Simon Barber
July 2006
|
