MORNING SUNSHINE filtered through the woodland trees, making light beams dance upon the opposite wall of Dorm Wonder. The sounds of birds chirping and occasionally squawking mingled with sighing breezes that made curtains flutter.

"What's that smell?" Pirouette Wrangely said as she suddenly sat up in bed. Her chosen spot was not nearest the window for the centre of the room had a look of privilege to it, a certain separation from others and well away from the door of course. After all anyone could wander in over there. In spite of this she had not counted on such an unfamiliar proximity to nature.

"That's fresh air," the Nordeyer girl replied, her curly blonde head nestled deeply in her pillow. Even in the speckled light of the early morning her healthy outdoor tan seemed to glow.

"And pinewood," added Meresinth from her own spot between Pirouette and the balcony.

With that the Perfecta girl went to the window and promptly closed it. She then pulled from her hand luggage a bottle and sprayed the air around her.

"Bugs get everywhere," she said by way of explanation and then, having returned to her bed resumed unpacking the enormous quantity of clothes and accessories no servant had appeared to do for her the previous evening.

It was their first morning at the new school and of course there were no lessons yet. The day was divided into getting to know the place with tours of the grounds, rooms and curiously enough the rooftops on the itinerary.

Everyone else soon became absorbed in their own arranging of personal items in the growing light and Vetta placed a picture of her parents on a side table. She was content with the bed nearest the door for no one else seemed to want it, caring little it might be the noisiest location. Anthera had chosen the one next to her, both being on the opposite side of the room from Pirouette. She looked at the picture of Vetta's parents and smiled. Then she produced a somewhat smaller picture crowded with pale figures that might be her own parents and two siblings and placed it upon her own dresser top with a nod of mutual understanding to her dorm mate. The other bed next the window was inevitably claimed by Dolly Bloomen, who as soon as she was almost fully awake and disregarding what happened earlier went straight out of the window onto the balcony to look at the view. It quickly became apparent there would be a conflicting tension between the two girls about the window which made Vetta sigh to witness.

"We are here to learn to adjust to sharing space with others," she said to Meresinth at an angle from her as each admired the belongings of the other scattered upon the floor.

"Some need more space than others," came the half-whispered reply.

"My tablet!" Vetta squealed just then, having found this vital piece of equipment in a bag she had not searched up to then. Remembering what the lady in Port Angel had said, she quickly reset her personal locator to Frangea grid references and time zones only to discover her altitude was currently higher than the highest point in Poldorama. This immediately made her feel a little faint.

A prefect burst in just then unannounced.

"Right you lot, ablutions first, then walking shoes and hats," she said with military authority. "You will be given a morning's tour of some of the gardens and playing fields of Miss Plazenby's. Should give you a healthy appetite for lunch. Any questions?"

"When do we go into battle?" Meresinth said, raising her hand and keeping a straight face as she spoke. The prefect squinted at her, noting the braid of hair.

"Arbornica," she said under her breath as if this explained matters. "Battle commences on day three."

Vetta looked suitably alarmed.

"Relax," the Meditia girl said, her glasses sparkling in the slanting sunlight as she stood to attention by her bed, having taken up this position as soon as the prefect had entered. "She means the battle against ignorance, in the classroom."

"Quite right," Pirouette chipped in as she sidled to the bathroom door cunningly to ensure she was first to freshen up. "We must fight ignorance wherever it appears, which in this sad little land is probably very much everywhere." With that she disappeared and the sound of running water could be heard along with a slight shriek.

"Some kinds of ignorance have a way of following you around," the prefect said with a smirk. "Colour-coded water temperature controls need to be interpreted not through the logic of prettiest first. Twenty minutes, people," she added as she turned on her heel. "Great hall at the bottom of the hour sharp, dressed for a long and weary walk."

The door was slammed behind her and Meresinth sniggered.

"One two, one two," she repeated, her voice getting quieter, "and... she's gone."

***

LUNCH IN THE great hall would be a one off affair for the first years after their gruelling amble walk around the buildings of the school, which included warnings about boundaries and local dangers.

"Although there are no land mines in this area," Miss Dubbers the sports mistress and dedicated hiker said casually as the girls in their dorm groups were led through shadowy forests, "there are mines. That's why it is important to keep to the marked amble trails. There's plenty of them so quite frankly I do not know why anyone would wish to stray. And you there! No climbing of trees. We are ladies."

Dolly Bloomen paused in her scrambling motion up a pine, looked down upon the teacher and then reluctantly slid back to earth with a crunch.

"Thought I saw a squirrel," she muttered.

"Squirrels can be quite safely viewed from the ground at any time of day and possibly by night for I have heard there are some species which actually glow in the dark," Miss Dubbers admonished the energetic Wonder girl. "And they are not to be killed on any occasion," she suddenly said turning round quickly on noticing another first year poised to throw a sharpened twig like a spear up into the foliage above.

"Sorry miss. My weapons were confiscated when I first arrived and I thought this might be a good opportunity to keep in practice," came a sullen explanation from the dark-skinned girl whose hair was tied in a complex whorl of tight braids that must have taken her ages to do, much to the admiration of several other girls present, especially Meresinth. Her one braid was effort enough.

The sports mistress glanced at her notes.

"Toglak? From Mangoria?" she said and the other nodded. Mangoria was a great open grassland where wild horses roamed and the people of the land hunted across its wide open spaces in mobile hordes. Throwing sharp things accurately was taught from the saddle-cradle up.

"Here in Frangea," and the way Miss Dubbers said the name confirmed her as Frangean-born, "we do not hunt defenceless creatures for sport. The occasional vermin cull using deadly force is necessary, but otherwise we let the wildlife thrive as best it may upon the slopes of Mount Syzywyg."

"Will that be in the curriculum?" the hunting girl asked, brightening at the thought of a vermin cull.

"Definitely not," and here Miss Dubbers ended all further conversation by raising her flag and marching her charges down slopes, across fields and into gardens where flowers ranged themselves in orderly fashion in the morning sun. A bit of botany, a slightly dangerous fight with bits of gravel on the various walks and then the sharp whistle from the guide ended matters.

"Lunch!" was all Miss Dubbers said, and it had been all that was required.

***

VARIOUS SPEECHES and introductions of mistresses and one or two masters who held classes, were given during the 'Feast of Greeting' as the schedule called this first informal lunch and then a group of older girls sang a song and welcomed the new girls with a round of applause that actually made some of the first years blush.

"How thrilling! There is to be a midnight procession as part of the first night of the new academic year," Vetta said, scrolling through her school information feed when the girls had returned to their dorms for an afternoon nap. "Everybody has to wear purple robes with hoods so we all look alike. It symbolises the fact we are all the same and start from the same point."

"Well I shall wear a particular shade of purple," Pirouette said smugly, "to distinguish myself. After all, we do not actually all start from the same point."

"And we all get to carry identical candles," Vetta added, not being dampened in her enthusiasm for the ceremony by the other girl's opposing comments.

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"No doubt Pirry's candle will be longer, or wavy or something to extinguish, I mean to distinguish her also," Meresinth could not help adding her own take on the matter. It was clearly becoming apparent she was fond of witticisms.

"Please refrain from calling me Pirry. My name as you know is Pirouette Wrangely," the girl sniffed.

"Sorry, don't get in a spin if I said it wrongly," came a smart retort. The puns were too good to ignore and the other girls sniggered in their sleeves. All except Vetta, who blinked and smiled and seemed content with matters either way.

Dolly Bloomen yawned. It quickly became apparent there was a trade off in her demeanour. Being very fit and sporting and spending a lot of time out of doors in the sunshine, though she actually came from the cold northern land called Nordeyer, meant she expended vast amounts of energy in short bursts. Then came moments when she had to recharge her batteries, and this meant lots and lots of sleep.

"Well, I'm going to take advantage of nap time if we are all going to be traipsing around the school at midnight," she said, stretching. "And I'll take full advantage of the lie in we've been assigned next day too. I'm a sleepy soul." With that she fell down upon her bed fully dressed and it was as if she had been switched off like a robot or something for to Vetta's amazement she began snoring almost immediately.

This made the others girls quieten down also, except for Pirouette, who was lecturing the somewhat quiet bespectacled girl in the middle bed opposite hers.

"It's a shame you wear glasses," Pirouette said to her in helpfully tragic tones. "You are reasonably pretty. Why haven't your parents offered you laser correction?"

"There is nothing wrong with my eyes," Anthera replied resentfully. "These spectacles make them stronger," and she gestured as if she could see a long way off.

"If I lose anything," Pirouette replied without missing a beat, "I shall be sure to call you."

Meresinth gave Vetta a look but the Poldorama girl was already composing herself to sleep so she could dream of all the exciting days ahead at Miss Plazenby's. It was thus quite a startling moment indeed when she was woken by a scream elsewhere in the building.

Everyone crowded into the corridors and older girls were shushing the chattering voices and appealing for calm.

"Did someone step on a snail?" one of the twins was heard asking, making some girls cackle which lightened the alarmed mood somewhat.

"No," came the measured tones of a third year who had taken command of the corridors on the top floor. "It appears one of you silly newcomers saw a shadow on a balcony and thought it an intruder. I might remind you girls the rooftops are accessible from the balconies in your rooms but that until instructed otherwise no one is to venture up there. It was probably a second year fooling around, trying to give you lot a fright."

"Well, she failed," came a mutter from the girl Vetta remembered on the coach, a fierce-looking character with dark eyes and a mass of black hair that seemed to swirl around in the slightest breeze. The Poldorama girl thought differently from this menacing individual. She had in fact been most thoroughly frightened.

A tour of the building, including the rooftops, was conducted by several mistresses later that day and the evening meal was a riotous affair as school rules were not yet in force. When Dolly realised the boisterous twins were from Nordeyer like herself this seemed an excuse to start a bun fight that became general. Even Vetta ventured to throw a bread roll once in a moment of daring but it bounced off Pirouette's head when she was looking the other way so that the guilty culprit hid under the table until the meal was over.

***

THERE HAD BEEN four founders of Miss Plazenby's Extremely Exclusive Seminary for Girls and this fact created some curious conversations among the newcomers that evening as they prepared for the strange ritual to come.

"So many finders," Meresinth said with a laugh. "Makes you wonder why the place kept getting lost."

"Because it's so full of losers," Pirouette said, examining the supplied robes with a grimace. She rummaged in her packed side cabinet and selecting one of the loose fitting garments she began spraying it with something. Everyone stared in awe at the result as the tint of the robe seemed to change before their eyes, becoming richer, deeper and with an added sparkle.

"What?" Pirouette said with a half-smile on her usually disdainful lips. "Just a little spritz of Frabrilicious to spruce up mundane shades. An absolute necessity in lands that are anywhere but Perfecta." She shrugged the garment on over her head and the fabric positively glowed and sparkled like a totally new thing. It even rustled with a slight musical sound.

"Anyway," Esper said, shaking her head. "I believe a founder and a finder are two quite different things."

"Yes. One creates something and the other steals it, claiming it as their own," the Meditia girl observed knowingly.

"Finders keepers, founders weepers."

"They are like starters. Perhaps there had been a number of false starts and everyone had to go back behind the line and wait," Dolly Bloomen added a sporting perspective to proceedings.

"What are you talking about?"

"The first founder, it says here, was a man," Esper interceded quickly, referring to the school literature with greater scrutiny. "Some professor of scientific endeavour apparently and he originally brought boys to the school. Then one day the headmaster disappeared under mysterious circumstances, someone stole the great bell in the tower and the place was abandoned as cursed or something."

"Excellent! That'll teach them to bring boys to Miss Plazenby's."

"She wasn't even born then," Anthera clarified.

"Then the place was purged and purified and it was thought maidens pure of soul would be safe in such an accursed place."

"Were they?"

"I suppose so, only very few ventured to try their purity. The replacement bell broke into two pieces and the second founder withdrew funding. The last to leave was a pupil with visionary dreams."

"She returned and founded the school anew?"

"No, she founded an asylum for dream weavers. A lot of sleeping and lie-ins went on there."

"Sounds really good," Dolly said.

"The place only became a proper school when a very rich lady decided to invest in it a hundred years ago. Built all the buildings we see today. Replaced the bell and created a prospectus of such intense gentility no ghoul or accursed demon could possibly interfere."

"The Distinguished Ladies' Seminary," came a knowing response.

"That's the one."

"So what happened to it?"

"Too expensive."

"So it became the Extinguished Ladies' Seminary," was the inevitable rejoinder from Meresinth.

"Then came Miss Plazenby to rescue the ailing establishment with lots of her own money and a funny gleam in her eye."

"It'll go the same way as the previous one I reckon."

"Why?"

"Even more expensive."

***

FINALLY THE event Vetta had been most looking forward to nearly the whole of that second day, the midnight procession, was set in motion. Robes were donned and everyone crowded into the dimly lit corridor at the head of the stairs. Thanks to the low light level and riotous behaviour of many of the excited first years Pirouette's specially treated robe managed to be overlooked in the bustle. Even the melodic rustling was successfully masked by the twins performing an impromptu slap fight which resumed every few seconds. Wisely the Perfectine kept herself discreetly hidden when the year head scanned over the girls to make sure they were ready, ensuring everyone had a lighted candle as they lined up to begin the procession.

"Girls," she announced. "We are about to take part in a ritual that has been held at Miss Plazenby's for over a hundred years. It symbolises those early days of education for girls in Frangea, those pioneering days when there were those who opposed feminine education for all they were worth. Thus the pupils of that challenging time dressed in robes similar to these, hiding girlish looks behind costumes that bespoke solemn dedication to the pursuit of knowledge above all things. We shall process along a fixed route, making a circuit of the school and when that is completed we shall throw off these garments and glory in our femininity with a loud cheer. Everyone ready? Then follow me."

With that the stately woman, dressed in her own voluminous robe and holding an even bigger candle, marched down the stairs and along corridors through the confines of the building with the others in close and silent attendance, except for a slight melodic rustling most could not identify the origin of. They were of course the only girls allowed out after midnight because of the ritual, the other years being all tucked up in bed, though no doubt watching from windows whenever the procession, sparkling with its candles, passed outside for part of the journey.

Vetta, in spite of the draped hood, glanced this way and that in excitement at the solemnity and profound quiet of the dim surroundings. It was because of this eagerness to see everything that she noticed a figure appear to sneak in at a window while they crossed a long and winding corridor on the ground floor and tag along at the back of the group. Vetta shuddered, then sighed in relief when she saw they were dressed in similar robes. Then she shuddered again for the figure drifted to one side and picked up a silver statuette from a nearby pedestal as the line passed by, concealing it in her costume. It was at this point she noticed the fact the robes were shaded like those of Pirouette Wrangely.

"Thief!" someone suddenly shouted without warning before Vetta could investigate further and the procession broke up in chaos.

People ran this way and that and it was all the mistress could do to calm everyone down and reassemble the procession members.

"Who shouted out then?" she said sternly to the girls crowded together.

"I did miss, for I saw someone steal something," and Anthera Malabona stood forth. Though in the same robes as the other girls, her large spectacles identified her readily.

The mistress was only half-listening for a quick head count made her realise one girl was missing.

"The culprit appears to have run off," she said.

"No miss, she is among us still," Anthera said dramatically and everyone gasped.

"Who?" and the mistress frowned.

"That one there miss. She took some silver thing from the corridor and hid it in her costume," the sharp-eyed bespectacled girl from the Wonder dorm said, pointing. "I recognise the different shade of her robes. She's not one of us."

The year head pounced on the girl as everyone drew back from the accused figure. In a moment the gown was wrestled off her, revealing a protesting Pirouette Wrangely.

"What is the meaning of this?" the mistress said, beating out the robe and finding no purloined item within. The clothes of Pirouette underneath the robe did not conceal anything either.

"Perhaps she swallowed it," Dolly suggested.

"Get her to cough," someone else added.

While everyone seemed absorbed in this strange little drama, the forgotten missing girl was having her own adventure. The initial shock of the alarm had made Vetta scurry down a side corridor where she quickly found herself alone. She doubled back in fright, and there she saw as she returned, by the light of her wavering candle, a figure furtively clamber over a window sill and out into the night. Before the mysterious person had disappeared she popped her head back in to check if all was clear and her hood had fallen back. Her eyes fixed upon the affrighted Poldorama girl a moment, then she smiled, winked and finally was swallowed up by the darkness. Vetta did not recognise her, but she knew she would if she saw her again, for her hair was an astonishingly vivid blue in colour.