Presumptions and Preconceptions

Chapter 1

Everybody knows that rich people don't send their children to public school. Unless of course, they have no other option.

In the hilly town of Terrigot, 'Elderberry High For the Elite' served their needs. Their children wore uniforms of silk, woven with the same ancient techniques that weavers on the silk route used, so many centuries ago. Their badges were hand embroidered, by only the very best of seamstresses, and their tartan plaid skirts and ties came from the very heart of Skotland.

People like Clara Baienet simply did not believe in institutions such as private schools. It wasn't that it was a capitalistic venture. She simply did not believe in anything she could not afford.

She attended her ecological society meetings without fail, to formulate campaigns against tourist cars coming up the hill to spend a day picnicking at the numerous viewpoints they had. Not being able to afford a car herself, she could not see why anyone needed one. They could use the bus, never mind they'd have to spend three hours trekking uphill to see anything but rocks and dense forest cover.

She did not believe in owning a house. Why have a place for yourself when you'd get bored of it in under a couple of years. Houses needed constant maintenance. Children could learn to take care of themselves after a while, but houses - they needed babysitting. The minute you finished mending a broken handle, and thought you could take a rest, than a pipe would spring a leak. There was no point in owning something, if you had to take complete responsibility for it.

The same went for husbands. Marry one, thinking he was different, and he would turn out the same as everyone else. After her third failed marriage, Clara had just about given up. Now she just moved in with whoever she was seeing. Whenever she felt the need for a change, she moved out, leaving behind both man and house.

Not that this was quite an easy task - there weren't that many single (or divorced) men in a small town, and one on a hill top at that. That too, men who were amenable to her dragging two girls along with her.

Clara's abandonment policy did not extend to Alice and Jenny. She was a reasonably good mother, and her daughters' futures were a question of considerable importance to her. Which is why she believed that they had to live their lives as she saw fit.

Last year, she had moved in with Joe Foster, the local plumber, and his three children - two boys, and a girl. There had been difficulties of course, his children and hers not getting along, but now, after a long struggle, they had got them to accept each other. Too much struggle, she sighed, for a family situation they were going to leave in a while anyway. Yet, her girls were happy with it for the time being.

'Mrs B, come take a look at this!' said Merry, Joe's son.

They insisted on calling her that, though she'd often asked them to call her Clara, like her daughters did.

'Eat your breakfast first, young man. You'll miss the train.'

There was a single train that took the people of Terrigo to the plains where they worked in the textile factories by the river.

'But this is so interesting. Elderberry's burnt down,' he said.

'Burnt?'

Clara left her dishes half-soaped in the sink, and sat herself down at the breakfast table. She read the headline with satisfaction. There was a large black and white picture of the school, as it had been, and one in colour, of the blackened exterior.

'It doesn't look too bad,' she said.

'They caught it before it spread to the stables or the dorms. No one's hurt, since it happened at night, but no one knows how it started. The police is going to undertake an enquiry.'

'The police?'

Clara had no high opinion of the police. She did not disbelieve in them in theory, but she had been Humphrey, the constable in-charge's classmate, and she knew the extent of his brain capacity.

'Never mind the police, Mrs B, but what are the kids going to do?' he asked.

'Oh they'll be alright. I expect their parents will find them somewhere else to go. Don't worry about them, finish your porridge, or you'll have to hitch a ride to work again.'

Clara was happy that the universe had validated her disbelief in private schools. Now all she had to do was find a new place to go. Perhaps she would get her own place this time. She suspected that Joe was getting rather too attached to her. That wouldn't do at all.