Finishing Touches Read Online Free PDF Page B

all in serious trouble.
Beside her, she could feel Laura trembling with the effort not to break into hysterical giggles.
    ‘I couldn’t, Reverend Mother,’ their classmate said.
    ‘Why not, pray?’ Reverend Mother Patrick enquired coldly.
    ‘I’ve forgotten the words,’ Aileen said weakly.
    ‘Repeat it!’ came the stern command.
    ‘It’s a bit . . . vulgar . . .’
    ‘Immediately, if you please.’
    Taking a deep breath, Aileen stood up straight, and, ever the actress, flung her head back and with perfect diction repeated every word right down to the final tra la la. 3S listened in
horrified admiration. A muscle jerked at the side of Reverend Mother Patrick’s mouth, but otherwise her face seemed carved out of stone.
    ‘Disgraceful. I’m shocked! Shocked at such vulgar unladylike behaviour. That girls of Saint Imelda’s should behave as you have is unthinkable.’ Her gaze swept over the
class like a cold shower. ‘You will apologize to Mother Perpetua and carry out whatever punishment she gives you and you will, all of you, come to school tomorrow morning. You will spend the
morning in complete silence, studying in the library. Another offence like this and you will all be expelled. Dismissed!’
    Despondently the girls of 3S filed out, aghast at the thought of spending a precious Saturday morning in school. They were even more devastated to find that they had to write out the words of
the hymn they had been singing one hundred times. That was Mother Perpetua’s punishment.
    In the big parlour, Reverend Mother Patrick wiped the tears of mirth from her eyes. She had never seen Perpetua so angry. That Aileen O’Shaughnessy was a hilarious character, just the sort
to give the bumptious choir-nun a run for her money. Pride comes before a fall and Mother Perpetua had plenty of pride. No wonder the girls made up such parodies. Heaven knows what they said about
her
. Reverend Mother Patrick had been running a school long enough to know that girls would be girls. Composing herself, she glided out of the big parlour, then began to walk as briskly as
dignity would allow.
The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins was being dramatized on the radio and she had been following it. It was coming to an extremely exciting part that she didn’t
want to miss. Glancing right and left, she saw the corridors were empty. With a sigh of satisfaction Reverend Mother Patrick slipped through the door that divided the school and convent and headed
up to her private sitting-room.
    The nuns’ garden was a haven of tranquillity. The lilac and cherry-blossom were in bloom and along the pathways beds of pansies and a host of other flowers lifted the
heart. The cares of the world always seemed to be left behind when one entered the nuns’ garden. No-one would ever dream of larking around there – that was an unspoken rule in Saint
Imelda’s. Boisterous behaviour was fine in the schoolyard and classrooms but the nuns’ garden was a place of peace where the nuns walked around saying their Rosaries silently to
themselves, the only sound the rhythmic clicking of the big wooden beads as they slipped through their fingers.
    It was lovely out there at lunchtime that day. Usually Cassie and Laura went straight out to the basketball or volleyball courts to have an energetic game before classes resumed, but today, by
common consent the two girls made in the direction of the nuns’ garden, their shoes echoing along the polished wooden corridor that led from the refectory. In common with the whole of Class
3S, Cassie and Laura were very fed up about having to come to school the following morning to carry out the punishment for Mother Perpetua, but Cassie sensed that what was bothering Laura was much
more serious than even this great disaster.
    They emerged into bright sunlight and walked slowly towards one of the wooden seats that dotted the garden. The wood was warm against their thighs as they sat down and Cassie felt a sense of