When I arrived on Friday night of my first Muir College, I had butterflies in my stomach. The College sounded like good fun from what I'd read in prior newsletters, but as an American girl I still felt out of my depth going to a proper British school with uniforms and, of course, rather different consequences for misbehavior than I was used to. At my old school I wore jeans every day, didn't have to call the teachers "Sir" or "Ma'am," and you can bet that the phrase 'six of the best' had never fallen on my ears! I had of course been interviewed by Miss Prim, and I'd gone to one Saturday day course, but I still felt very unsure of myself. For one thing, I'd only ever had the cane once (6 strokes from Miss Prim) and it was a very eye-opening experience to say the least! I was worried that maybe I wouldn't be able to take what these strict British teachers would dish out. And the other girls -- would they be welcoming? Or would I be the odd girl out, what with being both a new girl and an American?

So as I walked through the front door of the College, I had to take a deep breath and overcome the desire to dart off and hide in the bushes instead. I decided to try to project an air of self-confidence, and tried to remind myself that America is the greatest country in the world and of course I'd be able to hack anything these British girls could! Thankfully, the other girls were really nice, straight-away. It took them a bit of time to understand that my name is "Hope Kelly," not "Kelly Hope" but even before dinner started Daisy, Carrie, and Sarah had invited me upstairs to their dormitory to exchange presents. (Luckily Miss Prim had told me of that tradition and I had some chocolates to exchange.) It ended up being a gathering of most of the girls, all of whom went out of their way to be friendly. It also helped that I was paired in a dormitory with another new girl, Vicki, who was extremely nice.

I liked the tutors, as well, although I was a bit wary of them. At dinner the first night, Professor Savage, the headmaster, was sitting next to me and seemed to have a good sense of humor, although it was at my expense on one occasion. I'd never eaten boiled cabbage before, but tried it and then, after finishing, said sarcastically 'I love boiled cabbage; I don't know why it's not more popular in the states, it's fantastic!' Professor Savage just smiled at me knowingly, and before I knew it he had asked the maids to give me a huge second helping of cabbage and supervised while I ate it all.

Fortunately, that was the last time I had to eat anything I didn't like over the weekend. I successfully escaped porridge, mushrooms, peas, and Brussels sprouts, and even managed to avoid eating any of Saturday night's fish dinner by using the old trick (maybe they hadn't heard of it in Wales?) of chopping it up to pieces and pushing the different pieces around the various parts of my plate. (Some adults think I'm a finicky eater but I just think I'm discerning!) Caroline Morris, who must have inherited her sharp eyesight from her formidable aunt, appeared to know exactly what I was doing with my portion of fish. I was counting on the principle of solidarity -- girls against the tutors, right? -- so I was pretty shocked when I heard Caroline loudly telling my tutor, Matron, that I wasn't eating my fish! I managed to divert attention away from the actual fish by asking if what Caroline was doing was an example of a new term I'd learned -- "wind-up merchant" -- and in the resulting discussion about differences in American and British slang, one of the maids who was not a wind-up merchant took away my plate without commenting on all those chopped up fish bits. (Thanks again, Beverly!)

I got to know the other tutors a bit better on Saturday, when they taught lessons. I admit I was surprised at how well-presented and designed the course material was! Professor Robertson taught a very interesting series of lessons on Shakespeare's Henry V where we learned about the differences between the play and the real history of Agincourt. Professor Savage taught us about rainbows, and the new tutor, Dr. Best, taught a course called 'sequences and series.' I thought it would be super boring, but it included material about rabbits breeding (of course the Muir girls were too well behaved to make jokes about that -- well, with the exception of Sharlotte, Jane, Caroline, Sarah, Daisy, and Carrie, of course) and even cryptology! We learned how to do a simple code and the other tutors couldn't figure it out! Mr. Jones taught us about nutrition and metabolism. He is Carrie's tutor and seemed so strict that he made me really nervous, so I made sure to behave myself in his class, that's for sure! (At one point in the weekend there was a mention of the basilisk, a mythical animal that kills with its gaze, and I thought to myself that the creature had nothing on Mr. Jones' glare!)

The classes were so interesting that I didn't have much of a problem behaving myself. The one time I ran into trouble was in Dr. Best's class. He was frightfully strict about raising one's hand before speaking, and while we were covering the subject of compression as it related to encrypting codes, I raised my hand with a question. Dr. Best sort of nodded at me, so I started talking, and then he accused me of speaking out of turn! Well, I wasn't having any of that -- we Americans know our rights! (No taxation without representation, and all that, you know.) So I explained to Dr. Best that I had quite sensibly interpreted his non-verbal communication toward me as a sort of code -- a compressed way of communicating to me that I had permission to speak. I was shocked, I tell you, when Dr. Best seemed to think I was cheeky and wrote a note in my book for speaking out of turn and answering back! But I wasn't too worried about any consequences. In contrast to that scary Mr. Jones, the tutor assigned to me, Matron, seemed really nice, quiet and sort of reserved. I was sure she'd be very easy-going with respect to the notation from Dr. Best or any other issues I might have. I had noticed some canes and other scary looking implements in her office, but figured they must have mostly been for show; someone with that kindly a face wouldn't need those!

After the first day of lessons, I waited outside Matron's office. When she called me in, I strolled in nonchalantly; after all, my conscience was mostly clear, particularly when compared to that rabble-rouser Jane Molyneux, to whom Matron was also a tutor. I still didn't know Matron that well, though. So I thought maybe I'd break the ice by telling her how, in the states, the ladies in the nurse's uniforms were called 'the school nurse,' not 'Matron,' and then maybe she'd find it amusing when I told her how our nickname for our school nurse at my American school was "The Wizard of Gauze." I suppose I could have tried this conversational gambit, but she had me over her knees for a spanking almost the minute I walked through the door, so mostly all I said was 'yes Matron' and 'no Matron.' But although she had a strong arm, I got out of there only with that spanking (and, okay, a demerit for wearing non-regulation knickers) so I figured I must be right -- Matron's canes were only for show.

Saturday night I got in a bit of trouble, owing mainly to two things: (1) some of the senior girls (I won't identify the guilty parties but Sharlotte and Jane would be good guesses if you want a hint) had smuggled in alcohol, and of course as a new girl I felt I had to fit in by doing a couple of vodka shots before dinner; and (2) fish was served for dinner. As we had learned earlier in Mr. Jones' class, alcohol is the only substance absorbed directly from the stomach into the bloodstream, but it helps to have a full stomach. Well, I wasn't having any of that fish (see above) and I guess the green beans and potatoes in my stomach didn't soak up enough of the vodka (or the negligible amount of wine I'd had), because eventually I became a bit tipsy. The consequences didn't seem too bad -- mainly because Jane Molyneux was so excited at winning the quiz game after dinner (she and the new girl Vicki had a great battle, and both beat all the tutors -- ha!) that she hit the bottle even more vigorously than me. By the time we went up to bed in the dormitory, Jane was, as we say in the states, 'a total biscuit.' Although I think Jane distracted attention away from me by periodically yodeling out "Ole, ole, ole, ole" like at a soccer match (yes I know you all call it football but I'm not doing that), Matron was not so distracted that she failed to notice when I inadvertently let loose an obscene word. We in the US of A call use of this particular word 'dropping the F Bomb' but Matron described it succinctly in my book as "F-Word." I was still determined to get on good terms with Matron -- as insurance policy if those canes weren't just for show -- and notwithstanding my temporary lapse in language we then had a lovely chat about hockey before I (slightly unsteadily) made my way back to the dormitory.

I felt pretty good about heading into Sunday with only three demerits. I got a nasty shock, however, when the headmaster looked at my book during afternoon tea and told me I was on defaulters. I'd thought that it was three demerits in a day that got one put on defaulters,' not three over the whole course! (I'm pretty certain that wasn't well explained at the outset, but didn't think Professor Savage would feel that was relevant so kept my views to myself.) Things continued to go down hill after tea, when Dr. Best gave us a test and I did the worst in the whole class! I only got 3.5 right out of 12, and then he knocked off two more points off my score -- once for talking out of turn and once for laughing at one of Charlotte's remarks. (I spent approximately 37% of all classroom time over the weekend giggling at Charlotte's remarks, but that time Dr. Best caught me.) That nice Sarah Robinson, who was marking my paper, tried to get me an extra point for my answer to one question as to the sequence of traffic lights in the UK. Unable to answer because of the blatant anti-colonial bias inherent in the question, I sensibly wrote: "None, if the bulbs are burned out." Sarah argued my cause like a champion barrister but Dr. Best would have none of it. Sarah did manage to do me a good turn in the next lesson, when she graded my examination in nutrition and metabolism and kindly (and at risk to herself - this was Mr. Jones' class) gave me three correct marks for questions where I answered in ounces (which we Americans have loyally adhered to as our system of measurement) rather than the grams called for by the question. This ensured that I did not embarrass my nation with a poor performance on that test, at least.

I admit that later that afternoon I stood outside Matron's door, waiting to see her as my tutor, rather more concerned about the Headmaster's defaulters' to follow. Matron was my new hockey buddy, after all! Kindly, even gentle, she looked to be. Well, so much for my powers of discernment. Thirty seconds after I came through the door, I was over Matron's knee for a spanking. I rose and assume I was through -- after all I'd only had one new demerit since she'd seen me yesterday -- but the kindly expression on her face had vanished and she looked quite stern. As she informed me that "little girls" do not use a certain word, I noticed with alarm that she was brandishing the cane (the one I assumed was "for show") as if she had had considerable practice in wielding it.

She looked sufficiently intimidating that when she said I would get "six of the best" I managed to narrowly -- oh, so narrowly -- bite back the impulse to ask whether I might "plea-bargain the sentence down to 'six of the mediocre.'" And there was nothing mediocre about those strokes -- Matron has a forehand like Serena Williams! (Maybe if Matron were to play Wimbledon England might win it again, for a change -- just kidding!) But, at least I was done, I assumed -- there was nothing more in my book to merit punishment.

But Matron has a pretty good sense of timing, I'll give her that. I was fidgeting a bit, poised to rise after the caning, when she sort of drawled out . . . "About last night." My heart sank, as she continued: "It's fair to say you . . . overindulged in alcohol a bit, Hope?" "Yes, Matron," I admitted. "You'll get one stroke with the tawse for each time you asked me what position I played in hockey, then." I laughed rather weakly, as all of a sudden I vaguely recalled that by the time of our lovely chat about hockey, I'd been having some short-term memory issues. I had asked her that question several times, hadn't I? But how many? By the time I'd counted out the sixth stroke, I blurted out in alarm (and through gritted teeth): "Matron, I couldn't have asked you that many times, could I?!" I think she laughed -- it was hard to concentrate -- and she responded: "Four or five times. But six is a nice round number, don't you think, Hope?" (Under the circumstances I felt constrained to agree.) Thankfully, I guess Matron felt I'd learned my lesson at that point -- and she was right, believe me -- because she sent me scurrying off for Headmaster's defaulters.' And although I met him with a mouth dry from apprehension, thankfully perhaps there was some evidence of Matron's attentions on my bottom because Professor Savage let me off with six with the tawse instead of the cane. (I'd have said 'thank heavens for small mercies' but at that point it felt like a large mercy!)

The rest of the time went by in a blur -- assembly, dinner, and the rest -- until Caroline called Vicki and me into her dormitory for an exchange of 'presents.' Now, you'll have to understand -- I was incredibly impressed by how smart the other girls were all weekend. They'd aced Dr. Best's test, written wonderful stories about rainbows, and knew simply everything in the quiz games we played. But they were not terribly subtle conspirators. Vicki and I had noticed whispering all day, and I'd been in the bathroom five minutes before and heard someone outside the door saying "three of us to each girl." And, of course, we'd already exchanged presents, so the pretext for all gathering in one room seemed a bit thin. But Vicki and I wanted to be good sports, so we trudged in for the 'gift-giving ceremony' with a pretty good idea that the 'presents' we'd be getting would be of a distinctly different variety from before. Even so, we were still not prepared when suddenly we were grabbed and tied over the bed with our arms behind our back and our legs restrained, while the other girls had some fun squirting us with water and smearing toothpaste on our bare bottoms (there were also some nominal 'spanks' that felt more like taps). The other girls then scampered off, leaving us tied up. Apparently the Girl Guides (Girl Scouts?) in the UK don't teach a knot-tying course, however, or maybe it was just that Vicki had Houdini qualities, but she managed to have both of us untied in a jiffy. So by the time our tutors and the Headmaster came in, we had already gotten ourselves in pretty good order, although we were still a bit damp and smelling of toothpaste.

And of course I know I for one didn't mind being initiated into such an enjoyable institution as Muir College. I appreciated how welcoming everyone was to their 'colonial cousin,' and hope to return again some day. No doubt I will do much better now that I have learned Matron's canes are not just for show . . .