High Jinx at Lowewood

As I have noted in previous posts, Jemima was feeling in a particularly mischievous mood, in time for going back to start the new school year. And so events on the first day proved this out.
I'd painted my nails the night before in various fetching shades of blue, but claims that I'd shut both sets of fingers in the car door fell on deaf ears and resulted in the loss of house points during uniform inspection in assembly. I was, however, rather glad that I had chosen not to don my "One Tough Cookie" knickers, complete with a large picture of the Cookie Monster on the rear, and had instead opted for navy knickers, albeit frilly ones.
Assembly also contained the worst piece of mischief Jemima has ever been responsible for, but more of that later.
To class, where the first lesson was etiquette, and apparently, "Let the servants do it" was not the right answer to every question posed, much to the confusion of Jemima and Sylvie, who thought it *should* be the answer.
Over the holidays, Jemima had purchased animal noise boxes (that make noises when you turn them over), and several times we managed to open our desks and set them off all simultaneously, simulated a farmyard in the classroom.
We had also been challenged by someone to call each other on our phones in class and answer. My answer of "I'm sorry, I can't talk now, I'm being shouted at", was particularly good, I'm told. As this was in RE, with the ever strict Reverend Jenkins, I'm not quite sure how I got away with that.
The last lesson before lunch was biology, with new teacher Mr Brown, and we had an interesting lesson on plant reproduction, including dissection, though being docked house points for "inappropriate wielding of scalpel" was vastly unfair.
Jemima was dealt with during the day for an incident in the school holidays: bringing the school into disrepute with excessive drunkenness. I was informed that 3 glasses of wine for ladies at dinner is plenty. Pointing out that I'd only had one and a half did not go down well with Miss Cavendish (not helped by my repeatedly calling her "Sir"!)
And so the day continued, via flavoured condoms, water, coins and paper cups and games (where Jemima's grass allergy meant that she ended up being sent back inside) to prize giving and detention.
It was deemed in end of day prize giving that despite our generally good behaviour during that day (seriously, who were they teaching?! Don't think it can have been us!) we would all be caned for our behaviour in assembly that morning.
So, now we come to Jemima's master stroke. In assembly, we sing the school hymn, the name of which I can't quite recall at the moment. Jemima's inspiration was to replace the CD of the hymn in the CD player with a CD of "The Internet is For Porn" from Avenue Q, and have half the school do the female lines, and half shout "for porn", up to the first chorus. All the girls agreed it was a master stroke, and played along. So when the time came for the "hymn", the strains of the replacement rang out and we all managed to get through with straight faces, despite the look of shock reflected on the teachers faces. The Head was not impressed, and called the school anarchist (amazingly, not Jemima) out to the front for questioning, at which point I confessed. We were told that it was obvious we were all in it together, so would all be dealt with in detention. I tried to claim I'd bullied them all into it, but he wasn't buying it.
He then said "Let's try again, shall we?" which was not quite specific enough for Jessica, who, in a stroke of utter, unplanned genius, played The Internet Is For Porn again. We were laughing a bit more this time. He then instructed us to sing without music, so Jessica started us singing "The Internet Is For Porn" AGAIN! By this point, we could barely stand up we were laughing so hard. Mr S was the only keeping even a remotely straight face. Rev J had disappeared behind his hymn sheet, which was shaking suspiciously. And so it was that we left assembly victorious, even though we knew the price would be paid later.
And so detention arrived. I was sent to Reverend Jenkins. In deference to my (Eliane's) recent offness about all things whacking related, Jemima only got 6 strokes. However, the evil so and so pointed out that every single girl in the school was now receiving the cane because of me. Ouch. That one hit home. Afterwards, sitting on the stairs, waiting to get back into the dorm, I could hear sounds of whacking reverberating around the school. And counts. Of more than six. At which point I started to feel really mortified and burst into tears. Jemima had not planned on everyone else getting more than her, when she had been the ring leader. A generous extra six from Miss Cavendish in the dorm, plus hugs all round reassuring that the joke was worth *much* more than 12 strokes, and they would do it all again in an instant, restored Jemima's equilibrium.
So, staff, were we sorry for "The Internet is For Porn"? Ahem, yes. Of course. Terribly sorry. Won't do it again. Snigger.
But as always, thanks should go to Miss Bellend and Mr S for their wonderful hospitality and hosting. They were, as always, stars, and it was a fabulous day.