The Adventures of Fiona McCormack
A Story by Jenny O’Brien
The four girls rushed off, laughing to themselves about their close escape. It seemed that Pippa had been right all along; they could get away with anything. Fiona, Rebecca and Hannah were less used to making trouble than Pippa and sought her assurance that she wouldn’t pull too many stunts like the one with Mr O’Leary. Reluctantly, Pippa agreed to at least ask the others before rushing into anything else. She thought that their immunity would only last until the end of term, a few days away and that they should make hay while they could.
“If I behave myself for the next few days”, Pippa asked the others, “will you help me to do something really good on the last day of term?” “When you say really good, what do you mean?” asked Fiona. “She means really bad!” said Rebecca who knew Pippa well enough to realise that she was incapable of being good. “Or I can always carry on being naughty until the end of term”, threatened Pippa. “It’s your choice.” After a good deal of thought, the others agreed that it would be better to leave anything too serious until the last day. Like many schools, at Saint Mary’s there was something of a tradition of high jinks on the last day and the staff tended to take a more tolerant view of bad behaviour. So it was agreed. “What are we going to do on Friday?” asked Fiona. “Leave it to me”, said Pippa. “I’ll think of something!”
When Pippa said that she was going to behave herself for the next few days, the others should have realised that all things are relative, especially Pippa’s idea of behaving herself! Hardly a class went by, without some incident, but it was all fairly low level troublemaking and on each occasion, as soon as it was realised that Fiona was involved, the girls were let off with a stern warning and told to behave better in future. All this helped to boost their confidence and by the time Friday morning came, they were ready to finish term with a flourish.
As the four girls were dressing that morning, they tried to find out what Pippa had planned. “I’ll tell you later”, she insisted. “I bet she hasn’t thought of anything”, said Hannah. Pippa looked hurt. “What me? You think that I can’t come up with something good?” “Well, why don’t you tell us then?” Hannah goaded her. “I think that you haven’t thought of anything good enough yet and you’re playing for time”. Pippa threw her shoe at Hannah. “I have come up with something really brilliant,” she declared. “Something that people will talk about for years. I’m just not sure that you three have the guts to help me do it!” Now it was the other three’s turn to feel hurt. “Of course we have the guts”, they assured her. “A deal is a deal”, insisted Fiona. “We swore to stick together and we will. Now, what have you got in mind, Pippa?”
Pippa, who was sitting on the edge of Rebecca’s bed, leant forward. “All I can tell you is this. What do we have for the last two periods today?” she asked. “Double French” answered Fiona. “And who do we have for double French?” “Sister Dominique of course”, said Fiona, who was getting a bit bored of the question and answer session. “That’s all I can tell you for now”, said Pippa. “Just meet me in the classroom at the start of afternoon break”. The other three girls nodded. “And another thing”, Pippa added, “stay out of trouble today. We don’t want one of us to be standing outside the penguin’s office when all the fun starts, do we?” “You, want us, to stay out of trouble!” said Rebecca incredulously, emphasising each word as she spoke. “It’s not us who have difficulty in staying out of trouble, Pippa! What worries me is how you will manage it?” Pippa grinned. “Don’t worry about me”, she insisted. “I am quite capable of being a good girl, so long as I know that I can be a very bad girl later!”
Pippa was as good as her word. She was a model schoolgirl all day. So much, in fact, that the others feared that her outrageously good behaviour might arouse suspicions. During the first lesson, which was English, she came third in the end of term spelling test and came dangerously close to being accused of cheating. At the morning break, seeing Sister Martha struggling with a pile of textbooks, Pippa held open a door for her and offered to carry some of the books. Sister Martha, knowing all to well what Pippa was capable of, declined the offer and warily stepped through the door, looking for all the world like she was expecting a bucket of water to land on her head at any moment. She even kept it up at dinner, thanking the dinner ladies and remarking on how appetising the food looked. The head cook immediately threatened to send Pippa to the Mother Superior’s office for being cheeky and took quite a bit of persuading that her praise had been genuine.
The last class before the afternoon break was chemistry. Ten minutes before the end of the class, Pippa put her hand up. “Yes Pippa, what is it?” asked Sister Catherine, the Chemistry Mistress. “Please sister, the Reverend Mother wants to see me at afternoon break and I don’t want to be late. May I be excused now?” This seemed perfectly plausible to Sister Catherine, who knew that Pippa spent much of her time outside the office. “You will have plenty of time, Pippa”, she said, “Why do you need to go now?” As if by magic, tears started to flow from Pippa’s eyes, which deeply impressed her co-conspirators. “But Sister”, she sobbed, “the Reverend Mother said that I had to be right on time and properly dressed, or else I would get extra punishment”. Sister Catherine took pity on the crying girl, realising that for Pippa, extra punishment, would almost certainly be on top of a good spanking. “Okay Pippa, run along then! And if I were you, I’d straighten your tie and pull your socks up”. The grin on Pippa’s face as she went, left Sister Catherine wondering if she had just been had and she resolved to check later, whether Pippa really did have an appointment with the Mother Superior.
When the bell went for afternoon break, the other three girls rushed back to their classroom, only to find Pippa sitting in her chair, with her feet up on the desk in front of her. “Close the door”, ordered Pippa, immediately taking charge. Rebecca shut the door, which ten seconds later opened again. It was Sister Teresa. “Come on girls, you’re supposed to be outside getting some fresh air”. “We’ll be five minutes, Sister”, said Fiona quickly. “Well all right”, said Sister Teresa “But no longer! I expect to see you outside in five minutes”. And with that she left.
“What does Sister Dominique do when we are reciting verbs?” asked Pippa, almost absentmindedly. The other three looked confused. “Where does she sit?” asked Pippa. “I know!” said Hannah, “she always sits on the front desk”. “And how does she get up onto the front desk?” said Pippa, as if she was teaching a particularly dim class of girls. They could all picture the scene. Sister Dominique, who was quite a large woman, always took a short run up, before jumping up to land, seated on the desk. It was her little quirk, she always did it. The girls used to joke amongst themselves, that the school had purchased reinforced desks, especially to take the weight of the leaping nun. “I’ll show you”, said Hannah, stepping back to start her run up. “I wouldn’t advise it”, said Pippa quickly, depositing a handful of screws on the desk in front of her. “I think that you had better leave the demonstration to the sister!” Immediately, the three girls inspected the front desk. From underneath you could clearly see the holes, where the screws had once secured the legs to the desk. Fiona pushed the desk gently. It was surprisingly stable. “Are you with me?” asked Pippa, who was dropping the screws out of the open window into the flowerbed below. “Are we still the Untouchables?” One by one, the others nodded in agreement. “We had better get outside” said Fiona. “Sister Teresa will be looking out for us”.
The four girls rushed outside into the playground, where they immediately found Sister Teresa, who was on playground duty, studying her watch. “I was just about to come in and get you”, she said. “I hope that you haven’t been getting up to any mischief, have you girls?” They all did their best to look as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. “We were just talking, Sister”, said Fiona. “As long as that was all you were doing”, said Sister Teresa. “Now run along”.
By the time they reached the gazebo, Fiona, Rebecca and Hannah were beginning to have second thoughts about their prank. “We could put the screws back in”, suggested Rebecca. “I don’t think that we have enough time to find them in the flowerbed”, Fiona pointed out “and if we get caught putting them back in, they will think that we are unscrewing them anyway. I don’t really want to get caught with a screwdriver in my hand!” “Not much chance of that”, said Pippa. “I put the screwdriver back in the Janitors toolbox before you arrived and I just saw him driving out of school”. They all looked at Pippa. “You mean to say, you had already taken the screwdriver back before we had agreed to it all?” said Fiona. “I knew that you wouldn’t let me down”, said Pippa defensively. “I’ll take all the blame if you want”. The other girls knew that if the Untouchables meant anything, they were all in this together. “No Pippa”, said Fiona, “We are all part of this, but can we agree that this will be the last trick?” Everyone agreed to that, so it was decided that the desk was to be the Untouchables, finest and last hurrah.