Thrills and Chills

Being the seventeenth part of the diaries of Amelia Bourne-Phipps, in her final Autumn term at the Songmark Aeronautical Boarding School for Young Ladies on Spontoon’s Eastern Island. The staff decided Amelia’s year has had enough of sunning themselves on tropical beaches, and ought to know what frost-nip and Trench Paw really mean ….

Tuesday October 29th, 1936

An alarming Monday! We started off yesterday with some Autumn Cleaning, in that all our bedding and such was carried off to the laundry. It seems we will not be needing it for awhile, as we start the cold-weather part of the course which is all outdoors and will be missing even our (jolly hard) Songmark beds. Miss Devinski called us into one of the lecture rooms and broadly spelled out what is in store for us – we are beginning with an extended survival exercise on Main Island, then going further afield.
	Usually we are given a list of equipment to draw from the stores, but from now on it seems we have free choice. Miss Wildford chimed in that we will be responsible for staying warm and dry (as far as we can) and between trips we will be able to make additions to our outfits. The hand-cranked Singer sewing machines are going to be busy, I think.
	Two hours later we stood on the shores of Main Island with ten pounds of equipment, not including tents or other shelters. It did include a can apiece of Maconochie, which makes the perfect emergency food. That is, apart from being fairly nutritious in its own right, being wholly uninteresting it inspires you to go and hunt or gather something else! If we were issued with chocolate bars the chances of them surviving uneaten till a real emergency came along would be slim.
	Another hour saw us walking along the beach past the plantations to the furthest Southern tip of Main Island, the sand spit I have not been on since we swam across from South Island last year. Fortunately we were not required to reverse the route, as the tide was turning and I saw a Native canoe shooting through the tide race at about fifteen knots with its rower hardly needing to work. The weather was rather chilly, and as we got to the distant hooked tip of the sand bar Miss Wildford just smiled and told us to make ourselves comfortable – we had a night in the open to relax in.
	Sleeping out on an open beach is perfectly fine in Summer, but nothing I had planned for now considering November starts this weekend! The wind was getting up, as well. Our Tutor waved cheerfully and promised to return in the morning to see how we got along.
	It is two years since we first spent a night out on Main Island and we have acquired a lot of experience since, but then we were in the forest with plenty of wood for fires and vegetation for shelter. There was a lot less to work with on an empty beach, not even shelter from the increasingly chilly wind – and as the sun went down we held a “Chinese Parliament” to plan our night. Missy K and Madeleine X opined that we would stay warm if we kept moving all night, walking around. The general opinion was they were more than welcome to try – but having been forced to do that on Vostok last year, Maria and I could assure folk they would be in very poor shape by morning.
	There was very little driftwood on the beach, certainly not enough to make a shelter for all of us even if we had canvas to cover it. Li Han was the one with the plan; she spotted a large drift of fresh kelp further along, which she had first considered investigated as a possible breakfast. Furs eat strange things in Kuo Han. A better idea was using it as reinforcing; piling up dry sand as a windbreak has its limitations but by layering seaweed and wet sand we managed to make a rough wall tail-high on me which certainly kept the worst of the night wind out. By the time true darkness fell we were fairly happy with it, and all clustered around the very small fire we had managed to get fuel for.
	As for the rest of it – there was nothing for it but to pack in together as close as possible, and share body heat. I doubt anyone got much sleep exactly; the pile of us rather moved around in the night and one was either squashed in the middle (generally with someone’s elbow jammed into a tender bit) or shivering half-awake on the outside trying to wriggle back in. It is one of the rare occasions Molly was keen to get closer to Prudence and dorm, or indeed anyone with body heat. I am reasonably sure I spent part of the evening with Missy K squashing me, and put up with the crush for the sake of the warmth. It is just as well Maria and Irma are only short-horned and comprise our only bovines; one of our new first-years is an Oryx, and would make an uncomfortable pillow.
	The night was exceedingly long and uncomfortable, and we were all glad to see the dawn. A few minutes brisk run got me awake and somewhat warmed, but we were a tousled bunch to be sure having gone without our beauty sleep. Of all the items of survival equipment we had between us, only Beryl had thought to bring a set of fur-brushes, which she promptly let us use for a shell a go, I.O.U’s acceptable.  Beryl would have been selling life-jackets on the Titanic for “all the market will bear.”
	Memo to myself; the saw back of Molly’s bayonet does NOT make a good comb.
	Breakfast was a matter of what we could find, mostly shellfish. Clams and razor shells are much better as chowder than eaten cold and alive, but most of us grimly ate whatever moved. Only Li Han will happily eat lugworms, though – it seems they are a delicacy in her homeland, and we gladly swapped those we dug up with her for less wriggly food. Ada Cronstein had a severe problem with any of it, as our attempts at surf fishing did not go well and she is only allowed to eat seafood with fins and scales (not having the digestion to live on raw seaweed as Molly and Maria could if they really had to.) I remember that bit from Scripture classes where you do not just leave forbidden things off the menu but go out of your way to actively Detest them and tell them so. Most of my class save detestation for Poi, which the Bible does not even mention.
	Around ten o’clock there was still no sign of Miss Wildford, so another group discussion concluded we had been left on our own resources for our dear tutor to see what we do. We had been told not to leave the beach, but there are ways of interpreting that. For one thing, we now operate on “What the eye does not see the heart does not grieve at” and although brazenly walking back up towards the Polynesian village would probably severely cost us points, there are other possibilities.
	Having noticed a large log rolling in the surf (far too wet for firewood) Helen remembered our reconnaissance of The Beach at Krupmark Island, and how we got close inshore unobserved. Volunteers were called for, and Sophie D’artagnan and Susan de Ruiz swam out to get it. An otter and a Pyrenean Desman are good choices in the water, after all. The rest of us contributed a hefty chunk of our contingency currency and handed it over to them, and concealed on the seaward side of the log they swam up the Eastern side of the Main Island coast, following the current. 
	The morning passed with us consolidating our twenty-person sandcastle and sketching out practice distress signals in the sand before hurriedly scrubbing them before any aircraft came over and took notice. Five of us swam out with the fishing net between them, which is an uncomfortable thing to do where there are sharks in the waters. Fisher furs see enough bait taken that the prospect of being it themselves is not inviting. There were some small fish caught, enough for Ada’s lunch and little to spare, and by mid-day we were looking hungrily at our cans of Maconochie. To be honest it is not a bad meal considering it was mass-produced on a least-price contract in 1918; by that time the Germans were living on boiled turnip and dehydrated vegetables, mostly fodder kale – this being the troops, who got the best available food. What if anything the civilians ate, I must ask Eva. Beef and vegetable stew is luxury by contrast, even if the tins are nearly as old as we are.
	Just when I was contemplating how bad lugworm for lunch could really be, we noticed a Native canoe rowing up against the current, with four of Jirry’s friends putting their backs into it. When they passed us fifty feet offshore there was a splash as a sack was up-ended – one of them shouted the Spontoonie for “Oh dear” but in a rather cheerful tone, and winked as he sat down and returned to his rowing.
	Sophie and Susan had delivered the goods, so to speak – a rapid swim out and dive to the flat coral sand ten feet below the waves showed a silvery treasure trove of food cans that the locals had “accidentally” dropped overboard. In five minutes we had scoured the seabed and returned laden with the spoils, just as Miss Wildford came strolling up with a large Native equine gentleman friend to see how we are going on. From the relaxed look of her, I doubt she pent her night the way we did.
	Of course we had an honest explanation for our find, and she nodded in a pleased manner as she jotted things down in her notebook. It is perfectly acceptable to harvest cast-ashore food and goods, and we could put our paws on our hearts and honestly say none of us had arranged it. Susan and Sophie had of course “gone fishing” but they returned half an hour later the same way looking very well-fed.
	Looking at the various tins, Molly started musing aloud that what the world needs is a range of truly portable and edible outdoor food; something she could sell to Adventurers and make a stab at the military market as well. Tins of corned beef are the usual sort of thing (though Madeleine X says they even tinned cabbages for herbivore rations) and though very solid they are hardly the most interesting diet.
	Beryl’s eyes lit up as she added she had friends who always were on the look out for legitimate investments; she has a share of the “Fish Log” project and relishes the idea of repeating that coup. The rest of us sat around and listened to an ever-intensifying round of “Buy cheap and sell dear” as between them they started working out just how they could make pastefish, manioc flakes and seaweed (the cheapest things in the market) into something one would chose to pack as iron rations. Spontoon has too little farmland to be a major food exporter; there are farms in our Colonies twice the size of its land area and Helen says it would hardly make a Texan ranch, but other small countries have found their market. A rain-swept Scottish glen might hardly be expected to produce world-famous products that millionaires with prairies of barley cannot imitate, but Molly has told us much about “the real McCoy”, which is not actually a brand name of whisky as I once thought.
	Miss Wildford had explained that we would be out till dark, then back to Songmark to stand guard and work on our equipment. As Madeleine X grumbled, it hardly looked like we would be warm and dry again this side of Christmas – unless we made sure of it ourselves. This is surely the idea.
	
Thursday October 31st, 1936

(Written at odd times whenever I get to pass our dorm)

Definitely hard work these days – we have been taking all our usual classes and been living out in the open besides. Even in the Great War troops only spent so long at the front before being rotated back to relatively cosy barns and rest-billets. As Father impressed on me before I left for Songmark, “never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never lie awake when you can sleep.” I had forgotten how truthful the prospectus really was.
	Still, we are all learning to make the most of our chances. In my sailing classes today, one of us handles the boat for an hour watched over by the captain, then the other takes over. We persuaded the gruff old sea-mink to let us take two hour shifts instead – leaving me or Madeleine that long to retire to the tiny cabin and remind ourselves what a mattress and blanket are like. Even pitching on a small boat in the autumn waters, we are out like a light.
	Meals and such are still taken at Songmark, and indeed we are developing extremely keen appetites – even relatively speaking. Poi is shovelled down without any comment except to ask for more, though liberally enlivened with Tabasco or anchovy sauce. The first-years look on in shock and awe; I recall we did as much ourselves at the time.
	Apart from our timetabled work, Helen and Saffina join me in our religious observations. One does not need a temple or shrine to do these in the Spontoonie tradition, after all. We practiced the same “observations” we had made when Saimmi took us out onto Sacred Lake to look for the fragment – and had rather a shock.
	Walking into Songmark through the main gates while holding the “open spirit” exercise, it was as if we had walked into a temple area. All three of us got it right away. I assumed somehow we must have been doing it wrong, but we tried it again, concentrating hard and got the same result. It is as unnerving as testing a brand new mine-detector in one’s own bedroom and finding something – though of course not as unwelcome.
	As far as any of us have seen, there have been no Spontoonie priestesses inside the wire at Songmark (Missy K is Tailfast in the local tradition, but not a devoted temple-goer) and Saimmi has told us a priestess’s duty includes caring for the temples. There is something very odd going on here; someone should be here to tend the site. I remember what the old High Priestess Huakava told us the last time we met, of Songmark’s site being particularly suitable for what it is.
	Saffina’s first thought was that we should ask our Tutors what was here before they built Songmark – but we could tell her that having read the archives ourselves. A pineapple shipping company is hardly a temple. Then again, we could point out reasons not to ask Miss Devinski. Firstly, the priestesses surely know about this. How could they not? Either the staff know, or there is a good reason for them not to be told. If they do know, they would surely have mentioned it to us unless there was a good reason not to. One way or another, we should find out quietly.
	Having noticed the general effect, there was more to explore. I waited till night and it was my turn for gate duty, and then took the chance of the quiet to quarter the area, using all my effort. The overall effect happens to follow the fence exactly, except for one area where the perimeter bulges twenty yards and is outside it. My tail thrashed as I remembered being told that piece of land was bought for expansion just the Summer before we first arrived, and the temple area follows the original boundary. So it is not the effect of the fence, but the other way around – this piece of land was special before the fence line was put up; probably before the pineapple company moved in. I remember reading how some property boundaries in Barsetshire towns are a thousand and more years old; the houses on them have been rebuilt many times but the shape of the plot endures.
	Crossing back to the main gate I walked over the central mound, as I have done hundreds of times before – but not with such effects. My fur fluffed out, as the effect suddenly doubled as I stood on the mound. It is like living unknowingly next to Radio LONO and then buying a radio set for the first time; suddenly you find out what you missed before. The mound is not huge, and I always assumed it was part of an old building. That may be right, but it was probably nothing to do with pineapples!
	I took over Helen’s position guarding the gate and asked her to do the same thing, though not telling her what I had found. She came back ten minutes later with her ears right up, and we confirmed each other’s findings. We shall ask Saffina to triple-check, but it seems quite certain there is something at Songmark that is not listed on the prospectus.
	We were relieved at two in the morning by Jasbir and Li Han – and instead of returning to our welcome beds, trooped out of Songmark to the temporary camp a mile away by the rock face. Everyone else was asleep, bivouacked more or less snugly – we stretched out a tarpaulin in the lee of the rocks and despite everything proved that like our wild ancestors, we can sleep on the ground.
	But I doubt they liked it much, either.

Friday 1st November, 1936
	
A clear, breezy day for our classes; flying the Sea Osprey and our new Junkers 86 in formation to strict time limits is a rather demanding job. It is getting chilly at altitude, and for the first time we have been trying out the oxygen equipment that Superior Engineering fitted last month. 
	It is a frightening thing, running out of oxygen. Miss Devinski took the controls with me as co-pilot and Maria navigating, while Helen, Molly and Prudence’s dorm crowded in the back without the masks. Once we passed twenty thousand feet Miss Devinski called back for them to start jotting down the exact time every half minute on their navigation pads – ten minutes later we were at thirty thousand, and every one of them had passed out! A swift dive revived everyone; the alarming thing being nobody remembered blacking out, and only the evidence of their interrupted records persuaded them it had really happened.
	Mrs. Oelabe was waiting to check on everyone as soon as we landed, and having been given a clean bill of health Belle took my co-pilot’s seat with Prudence navigating and we swapped round otherwise. It is just as they had said – unlike normally feeling sleepy where you can shake yourself awake if you catch it in time, one just tapers off without even suspecting it. Very disturbing! We all vowed to keep a very close check on our equipment and the rest of the crew when we use it.
	The good thing with being a third-year is we have actual free time. Beryl has a new scheme; although our own dorms are stripped bare, she has arranged with one of the first-year rooms to sub-let, much as cramped naval ships have “hot bunks” where one shift gets in as soon as another gets out. She was explaining this to a rather amused Miss Wildford when I landed again; there is nothing actually in our instructions saying we cannot pay Beryl a shell to use a first-year shower and unoccupied bed in the afternoon. Beryl defends the cost by saying most of it goes to compensate “her clients” who are not absolutely sure we have not picked up all sorts of unpleasant insect life while sleeping out.
	There were few immediate takers, but after a week or two Beryl may have something going there. Had Saffina or one of the first-years come up with the idea I might not begrudge paying, but I am not lining Beryl’s purse for her!
	We have been given a fairly free paw with our equipment design, and this afternoon I put together a fairly comprehensive sleeping bag, something waterproof but hopefully not too confining. Molly has a sealed oilskin sack that she is liable to suffocate in if she turns over in the night and blocks the air holes. There are some strange and wonderful contraptions being produced, and we are all cribbing each others’ good ideas as soon as anyone decides they really are good and not a waste of fabric. By the holidays, we should have something efficient worked out. A stroll round Eriksson’s Outdoors tomorrow to study the patented designs and crib any good features will be quite in order; it is not as if we are going to be going into commercial production after all.
	Back to Song Sodas after tea, where Molly and I have our hypnosis-proofing classes. We are keeping up with these till the end of term, though Miss Devinski hints they are not having the effect she expected. We are doing our best, though, and it is difficult to try hard in a trance. At least we get each an ice-cream while waiting for the other to finish, though a bowl of hot soup would be better this time of year.
	A wet and chilly night, where we looked longingly through the fence at our now unlit and empty dorm as we headed up the coast road to join the others in our rather cheerless camp in the rocks. Molly had been rebelliously planning filling her sleeping bag with brushwood and booking into Mahanish’s, but I managed to talk her out of it. Our Tutors have a definite knack of finding such things out; anyway I need to test my equipment. This time next year we might be out in the cold with no friendly roof to sneak under.
	Still, one of Mahanish’s chillies would hit the spot very nicely, and by reputation their beds are rather more comfortable than Songmark’s. After however many weeks sleeping on the ground, we will be looking forward to those again, however austere. Molly’s tail drooped as she reminisced about silk sheets and stag company, and swore she would jump through any number of broken windows again if it gets her back there.
	I certainly know what she means. It should be a longhouse and sleeping mat for me though – as one day I very much hope it will. The disturbing thing is though – I really DO know what Molly means.
	
Saturday 2nd November, 1936

Still pouring down! The good news was my sleeping bag kept most of the rain out – the bad bit was getting out of it in the pouring rain, with no overhead shelter to change under. I got distinctly damp, after all. Jasbir has rigged a sort of umbrella over her shelter which I will copy, and Helen has rigged a canvas awning between two boulders that works just as well.
	Just because we are waking up a mile away in the rain, does not mean we can be late for breakfast; it was a steaming and panting Songmark third year that arrived at eight in a flapping of oilskins, hardly having time to hang up our various bivouacs and tarpaulins in the next room before the cooks started serving. If someone had told me two years ago that I would be ravenously tucking into plain stewed breadfruit (without milk or sugar) and asking for seconds I would hardly have believed them.  Though we appreciate good food more than ever, one is very aware of it being all fuel to the boilers after a night like we had, and will be having for the rest of term.
	Not everyone has such a good design of shelter; Belle looks more like a drowned rat than a bunny, and Madeleine X had the shivers to such an extent Mrs. Oelabe prescribed an immediate hot bath. Poor Adele had a very good design of oiled parachute silk, but when she rolled over in the night it tore open on a thorn branch and she woke up with her feet in two gallons of icy water. At least I am used to the cold and damp – or I was, St. Winifred’s with its chilly dorms and muddy hockey fields seeming a very long time ago now. They say living in tropical climes “thins the blood”, and certainly one hears crusty retired corporals complain about perpetual chill and shivers after forty years service in India. That might be the malaria, though.
	Still, we are allowed hot showers, and made the most of our chance. Prudence’s dorm is on gate guard today, no fun after a night like last, and Jasbir’s is on call. Which leaves us free, and Casino Island beckons!
	This time, we had half a dozen first-years to escort over. Eva Schiller, Meera Sind, Maureen, Svetlana, Nancy Rote and Alpha Zarahoff (at least that was her name on the original list of applicants, there seems to be some confusion.) Eva has decided that it is perfectly all right to study the customs of The Folk (she does talk in capitals sometimes) and it is nothing like being a “swing-kinde” or “edelweiss pirate.” From what she mentions, those are some sort of delinquents they have trouble with in Germany.
	After a fast bounce through the shops (two yards of linoleum and some sponge rubber under me at night should make the wet ground more comfortable) we met up with our friends and rivals at the dance class. Our first-years started in a basic class, while we worked on our interpretive hula with a vengeance.
	It is odd how the years, or generations, of Songmark students all seem to be very different from each other. There are first and third years doing Spontoon dance, but no second-years. On the other paw, the second-years are all into team sports; they are well-regarded as a tough and very competent Kilikiti team, and compete with the best Main Island can offer. I noticed that before, thinking about how my year refuses to organise apart from per dorm. There is talk of our new first years having an actual Head Girl, which I never thought to see. 
	An excellent dance lesson, where some of the Guides turned up. This time of year the tourists are gone, so they have free time while they heal up their tempers and lay in new stocks of patience for next season.  I must say, if the regular S.I.T.H.S team are fit, the Guides are even fitter! There is that nice-looking young mule gentleman, who I hear is much in demand with certain lady tourists for obvious reasons. He may never have what we would call in Europe a family pedigree, but even the most  enthusiastic lady tourist would be sure not to lose hers. By other accounts he is also the island champion Limbo Dancer – an oddly Caribbean custom to find in the Pacific, to be sure. Moeli once told me that most tourists have a rather confused idea of “Tropical Culture” and having seen newsreels of Barbados and such places they assume that Limbo dancing goes along with the climate rather than the culture, and ask to see some. Spontoonie guides will always bend over backwards to accommodate a tourist – in this case, literally.
	I did overhear some of them (in Spontoonie) talking about heading overseas for a cultural exchange visit. Now is the time of year for it, with the beaches less inviting and the jungles dripping wet. Tillamook and Rain Island were mentioned, and I suppose anyone exchanged from there would still prefer the Spontoon climate! From what I have seen and heard of Tillamook, it has a climate similar to Vostok with clinging sea fogs and the like. Good for growing redwood trees rather than bananas and pineapples.
	Thinking of which, at luncheon there were Spontoon bananas on the menu today! Apart from cooking plantain (which is hardier) the plantations on the South side of Main Island are just warm enough to grow dessert bananas, though they are usually cut green and ripened indoors. An excellent change of diet, and one the Althing can save its shells from otherwise having to import.
	Back to Songmark to work on our equipment, again. Prudence and co. have put together a sort of four person shelter/sleeping bag, which looks cosy. I saw Molly’s ears going right down at the sight, and she shivered at more than contemplating a chilly night. Naturally Prudence has no objection to the rest of her dorm sharing such close quarters; if nothing else the body heat would be more than welcome. That is all there will be, I expect; despite what Madeleine X originally thought, none of those four are romantically involved with each other. It would make for rather a distraction while studying, and disrupt daily life for the others in the dorm. Whatever anyone says about Prudence, she has a large ration of Northern common sense.
	The rain happily stopped before dark, but on the shaded North-facing side of the island it was decidedly less than tropical. Actually it was the best night’s sleep I have had in our temporary camp, thanks to my new sleeping mattress system. Hurrah for linoleum, the wonder of the age!

Sunday 3rd November, 1936

One difference with last Sunday is that despite breakfast being served at the same time, all of us were up and back at Songmark an hour early. A nice lie-in is one thing in a bed, but quite another in a cramped and rather clammy bag where one’s ribs carry the impression of all the rocks underneath. Even Maria was up bright and early – or at least, early. She has slept in far chillier places she says, Alpine huts and the like – but those have at least basic beds and good eiderdowns.
	We are finding out that sleep is like air and water; things one takes for granted until they start to run short. Molly grumbles that a few bottles of medicinal brandy would improve matters; certainly furs having to sleep in the trenches in the Great War always had a rum ration.
	Fortunately breakfast was hot and substantial – banana mash, served with coconut cream. It is the nearest breakfast to hot porridge these islands traditionally provide, and very welcome on a cool morning. Even the first-years were tucking in very happily. Madeleine X was in expansive mood for a change and told of the great culinary dates of her home town, such as when the new Beaujolais wine or the first oysters of the season are rushed into the shops. “Les bananas nouveaux est arrive” does have a certain ring to it.
	Out to South Island with Saffina and Helen; Saimmi has something in mind I think as regards testing Eva Schiller, and for the time being she is staying behind. Of course, as the new High Priestess of all Spontoon she has a lot more to do these days, and we are only grateful she still gives us her time on Sundays.
	Helen is blunter than I am, and straight away reported what we had found at Songmark. She recalled almost the last things Huakava said to us, about how what is there will prove useful when the time is right. Of course, we did not actually ask Saimmi for an explanation – but the situation rather led that direction.
	Saimmi was silent for forty minutes while she led us to the top of Mount Topotabo, and bade us sit on a sort of shelf twenty feet across that looks as if it was carved out of the living rock in ancient times. She had us join her in two of the rituals, then turned to face us.
	Oh my. There are more sorts of exams at Songmark than the ones where you sit down with pencil and paper. Saimmi congratulated us on passing this one. I objected that I had not been looking for anything at the time, and just happened to be using the right ritual (which we learned weeks ago) in the right place at the right time. She nodded, and made the cryptic remark that that was exactly the point. It seems we have already started on the path of the Warrior Priestess. 
	One hardly thinks of High Priestesses sending off telegrams and couriers, but she mentioned there are surviving Polynesian traditions on Ponape and elsewhere, and she has arranged for one to fly over and give us instruction. Some of the amphibian folk who live around Ponape have the strangest reputations, not that we place great store in long-distance reputations having seen how “custom” works around here. And the Albert Islanders are still cannibals in theory, though perfectly nice folk one could trust to cub-sit.
	A further ritual followed, and then we descended the familiar route down the stream past the Spontari Guest House where we stayed nearly two years ago and first discovered there was more to these islands than the tourist brochures show. The Guest House has been enlarged and re-painted recently; I have heard its owners the Tanoaho family have been very successful in selling scrap metal to the Cipanguan traders. Considering much of Cipangu’s export is things like nice silk and pottery, it seems rather one-sided that they spend so much of their national money on rusty scrap iron. “Money for old rope” as the saying goes.
	An excellent luncheon followed with the Hoele’toemi family; it might have been rather embarrassing to see Mrs. Hoele’toemi bowing to her own daughter if we had not known just how significant a High Priestess really is. We are absolutely grateful that Saimmi is still teaching us, what with everything else she has to do and nearly two hundred other full Priestesses to look after! 
	Saimmi had one suggestion that we very happily fell in with; these days we are not sleeping in beds or wearing any delicate clothing, so oiled fur would not stain them. Having oiled fur means being soaked to the skin is not nearly as uncomfortable, and one stays much warmer even when wet. Saffina helped us make our Spontoonie toilette, and was very keen on following suit. Alas, that will have to wait till the holidays.
	Thinking of which, Saimmi tells us she has heard very disturbing rumours that may mean another trip like our almost disastrous Cranium Island trip. Of all people, Eva Schiller has volunteered some information – that Fragment we recovered from Cranium Island and exchanged with her uncle for assistance, is no longer safe out of the way in the Antarctic where we hoped it would stay. Eva says Professor Schiller had completed his studies, determined it was now powerless and sold it with official permission to “a private buyer.” Apparently there is little interest in Berlin for artefacts with flat batteries.
	That is certainly bad news, although it could be worse. “Private Collectors” probably do not have Government resources behind them – indeed, there is only one Government that publicly expresses an interest in such things and they are busy tracking the original Ring of Wotan and Horn of Heimdal right now. One wonders if in a few thousand years similar folk will be questing for artefacts such as the Pipe Wrench of Ponape of the Mystic Steel Carving Knife of Sheffield? On the other paw, there are a few people and societies out there who know exactly what they are looking for and have all the money needed to buy in buy expertise and muscle. We had better be there first with more of both.
	It is certainly an insight into Eva Schiller, too. I am sure Beryl would be proud of her; her Uncle determined the Cranium fragment was drained and worthless to him, but still sold it – and Eva effectively sold the knowledge, though not for cash. That is the sort of investment/profit deal Beryl worships; at least with her worthless share deals she paid a few pennies for them. Saimmi has mentioned that no Spontoonie priestess has taken a proper look at Neu Suden Thule, and noted it might be something we are suited to later on. This could happen; Maria has influence with similarly inclined folk on Vostok through her Uncle, and we certainly learned a lot on that trip being “Miss Inconnutia and party.” If we get the time and opportunity we could try and do the same further South; we are learning about cold weather already and that would be a real final icing on the cake. Helen commented sourly that we might as well ice the cake as everything else would get iced up.
	It was rather a wrench to say farewell to the cosy longhouse with its cheery fire-pit, bottles of date wine and soft sleeping mats promising a good night’s sleep, and head out into the dusk with the clouds already gathering. By five we were back at Songmark with the junior years much interested in the state of my fur and Helen’s, and determinedly tucking into a large hot meal before heading out into the larger, chilly night. 
	Although at least ninety percent of the food we eat at Songmark is local produce, we are issued with some emergency supplies that can be made up just with boiling water and are rather more advanced than Main Island can provide. In our packs we each have an emergency hot ration of “Buckhorn’s ever-smooth instant semolina – with the patent milling process that frightens the lumps away!” A fine hot dessert in a minute and all British too, hurrah!
	
Wednesday 6th November, 1936

No opportunity to write these days – we have not set paw in our dorms for two days and the only time we have to “relax” it is out in the cold and damp of the rocks. Though I have waterproof notebooks, the inside of a sleeping sack is rather cramped to use them. Having tried holding the diary in one paw, the pen in another and the flashlight in my teeth, I prefer to wait till daylight. It was rather odd last night, seeing fireworks rising from over Meeting Island in a rather fine display; one hardly expects the British November 5th to be celebrated out here. I have joined in with Helen and Molly on their July 4th, which initially rather puzzled them. I gently broke it to Molly that otherwise, Chicago would be a British responsibility. Her ears dipped, but she conceded the point.
	Our Tutors gave us the instructions at the outset that we could not put up any structures there we could not carry away with us; after a few windy nights half the dorm have started to “interpret” that in their own ways. I am sticking to the letter of the law and improving my waterproof sleeping bag, but others have entrenching tools and are digging in away from the wind. As Beryl points out from the bottom of her four foot mousehole, she is not putting up any sort of structure, as a hole goes down. Most of us have fathers or family members who had four years experience at such things (or one and a half, for Molly and Helen and their countryfurs) and the idea naturally springs to mind.
	Molly and Maria have built a very neat little wood-shored dugout, and ask why I am not joining them. After all, Father being a General in the Royal Engineers, my earliest kittenhood had a background of scribbling in crayon on the backs of obsolete fortification plans, logistic draft orders for duckboards and drainage pumps and such. On the other paw, there is a fine line between stretching the spirit of one’s orders, and cheating. Miss Devinski has enough to look at me down her muzzle for as it is, and (from her point of view) good reason. Besides, I am learning a lot about outdoor shelter my way, and anyone can dig a hole. It would be an interesting study to an anthropomorphologist to see who has gone underground; mice like Beryl one might expect, but Susan de Ruiz has not and is a Pyrenean Desman, and her remotest ancestors lived in holes in banks. Likewise, both Maria and Irma Bundt are well dug in, and one never sees Hollywood films about cave bovines. They need such a big hole, for one thing.
	It is rather like tales of the Royal Flying Corps, where on some forward bases pilots had to sleep underground and still look after their aircraft in banked-up earth shelters. We are expected to be showered and presentable (soaking wet is acceptable) at Songmark for breakfast at half past seven every weekday, and out on the runway in flying kit an hour later. This takes a lot of organisation, and it is amazing to see how well it all comes together. Then, we have been two years at Songmark, and are (I suppose) no more of a motley crew than other years before or junior to us. 
	I think some of the first-years are looking definitely worried. Knowing that those of us on gate guard might have to get up at two in the morning, spend five hours patrolling Songmark’s perimeter vigilantly, then jump into fairly high performance aircraft for a taxing morning lesson and spend the rest of the day at sports – well, there is no denying it is gruelling. The Prospectus is at least honest, and anyone who expects an easy ride has only themselves to blame. The second-years can at least look back and note how far they have progressed already, and for most of them (not just Red Dorm) they are never going to admit to us being inherently more capable than they are. “Anything you can do, we WILL do better”, as Liberty Morgenstern paraphrases it.
	Maria reminisces sometimes about her home life before she came here, of parties till dawn, sleeping till noon then madcap adventures in fast cars and faster aircraft. She admits she would probably not be in one piece by now if even still alive, had she kept that up. A few times a year she hears sad news from Italy of friends who have cut a mountain road corner in their Bugatti Type 59 just a little too tight, and similar tragedies. Songmark has saved her life in more ways than one, she says – she might have been a somewhat pampered playgirl when she first arrived here, but no longer. Of course her journalism rather suffered awhile from our move outdoors; though our dorms were Spartan they were at least dry and had tables to work on and light at night. She has got around that by hiring one of the young pups living near Songmark to look after the waterproof suitcase with her papers and folding typewriter in the day, pick it up first thing in the morning and drop it off at her dugout at dusk so she can work by lantern light. It is making her appreciate short, tightly worded articles, she says.
	Not surprisingly, some of us are taking to outdoor life less well than others. Li Han is definitely struggling; she is the smallest of us and comes from a very warm climate. Jasbir is holding up well considering her warm homeland of Utterly Pradesh, and so is Carmen from Mixteca. Poor Adele almost suffocated when the side of her hole caved in on top of her in the middle of the night, which nobody else has had problems with in this hard soil. The big surprise is Madeleine X, who one might think would be “euro” enough to have fairly warm blood. Mrs. Oelabe always checks her extremely carefully, and (Madeleine says) is undignified with a core temperature thermometer. Three times now Madeleine has been ordered to soak in a hot bath for half an hour before rejoining us. I could wish for that prescription, without the shivering fits and the thermometer.
	All in all, a busy existence. We are the first year our Tutors have done this with, as before they have put set limits of a week or so on trips with hard living. Lucky us, as Helen growls ironically. I can see the advantages this way round; anyone given a set date can just keep counting the days and not make long-term plans. We are more or less told this is our future, and we should get ready for it. It would be like sending troops out on a year’s fixed tour as the losing side did in the Grand Chaco War in South America. The British Army tradition always was that folk sent out knew they would not be returning till wounded or victorious, which gives an incentive. (Carmen says the trouble was the “modern” side employed fashionably qualified psychologists to draft up the drafting plans, instead of folk of common sense who know how people think.)
	One of the advantages is we are left substantially on our own, with very light supervision. By now our Tutors know that we can look after ourselves and each other, and what they are marking us on is how well. Any fool can be uncomfortable, as Father often told me. Nobody is likely to freeze to death on Spontoon, even if laid out unconscious on a wet and windy night. At least, none of us are, though none of us are reptile or amphibian folk. For whatever reason, none of the folk accepted for Songmark are cold-blooded and there are surprisingly few birds considering we are an aeronautical school. None in my year anyway, just two in the second year and one graceful swan maid in the first. It might be that really high-speed flight damages feathers; they are breakable while however windblown our fur gets it can always be brushed smooth again.
	Just to really rub in the contrast between our former lives and this outdoor part of the course, Molly and me are still attending Madame Maxine’s. The difference is almost painful, going from scented steam baths and fur cosmetic lessons to a muddy hillside in the wet darkness an hour later. It is all useful stuff; though Molly would either be thrown out of a regular finishing school or leave of her own accord by the nearest escape route, she happily takes to these lessons and says she is looking forwards to putting them to good use. It is still a mystery who is paying for them; I imagine Mr. Sapohatan but that hardly explains why Molly and not Helen gets the experience, or why our Tutors gravely disapprove though do not stop us. Helen with a hair perm. Hmm. Still, it is no more unlikely than Molly submitting to such primping.
	That was Monday night, and it is six thirty on Wednesday now. Back to the North Coast! Ten minutes to write after tea is about all I get these days, happily Lexarc shorthand is speedy and I do not have to lock my diary away the way Maria does. Folk like Beryl would be liable to teach themselves my old teacher’s patent shorthand just to crack my diary; she is certainly a hard worker on her own projects such as learning that exquisite copperplate writing one sees on legal documents and bank notes. Happily, I have taken care never to mention just what system I write in, and Beryl would have to find a second-paw out of print Lexarc guide somewhere to even recognise it, let alone start to translate it.
	Still – it does not do to put temptation in fur’s way. I can just about trust Beryl with the traditional burned-out match. Only, of course, until the day I see there is a market for them.

Friday 8th November, 1936

A hard, chilly week where we seem to have spent half our time in the cockpit for advanced classes (plenty of aerobatics, only about two years later than we hoped on our first arrival.) After a long day of flying and maintenance work, it would be so good to relax with a warm bath and tuck into bed with a flight manual or such while the rain hammers down on the window. Oh well, there’s always next term to look forward to, assuming our dear tutors have not come up with something even worse for us by then. If we do not get to Neu Suden Thule on our own account I can believe we will probably be sent there as part of the course. From what Professor Schiller let slip, there are archaeological surprises to be found down there that any museum would be staggered to see.
	As with last week, Molly and me finished up with our anti hypnosis course with Mr. Sabass over at Song Sodas. He has been rather baffled with us, but seems to have gone away and done some homework since last time. At least, he was asking us if we had been involved with any religious customs apart from the Spontoonie ones recently. What he is seeing is not exactly hypnosis in the usual sense, but something of a rather different flavour. I would have thought Saimmi would have been the one to spot that sort of thing, to be honest. Mind you, she did say last time there was “a shadow over me” and could not approve of Jirry and me getting Tailfast. 
	This Sunday I will have to summon up my courage and ask about that again. Helen has already pencilled it into her diary, and Mrs H says both Marti and Jirry will be there on Sacred Island for us even if they have to fly full-fare from Hawaii to get there on time. All rather assuming I still qualify, that is. Once I wear that shell locket around my neck once more I will surely be able to turn away temptation. The trouble is, these situations are never predictable enough for me to spot in time to avoid. They just Happen – which is nothing that should happen to a third-year Songmark girl, let alone someone getting the training Saimmi is providing us. Molly reassures me I am becoming more and more qualified as an Adventuress, but that is not the sort I am aiming for. She thinks of it rather as one has to be ”trained on type” to fly a new aircraft model – and certainly we have both added to our qualifications in this past year.
	Actually Molly did quite well tonight, having beaten Beryl to it for once in some friendly racketeering. Our Tutors look us over for contraband as we leave the Songmark compound every night and we are forbidden from leaving the general area, in which there are no shops; the only commercial premises are the sawmill, the bicycle factory and the fish tanning sheds, none of which are very inviting. Having seen how Maria arranges to have her papers and typewriter delivered every day, Molly forwarded some cash to have three bottles of local pineapple brandy dropped off in a cache she then “discovered” and proceeded to offer us for only ten percent over Mahanish’s prices. I could see Beryl’s ears droop; our enterprising mousie would have charged us at least double and she has no chance to do that now with equally unscrupulous competition having jumped in ahead of her. Molly says all’s fair in love, war and commerce. Li Han stuck her tongue out at that and retorted with a few choice remarks about the last century’s commercial Opium Wars (not our finest hour) but still bought a glassful herself.
	Well, we have tried most Spontoonie delicacies and I could hardly object to supporting the local economy. Madeleine X sampled some and pronounced it as far inferior to the famously rough French farm “marc” made out of used grape skins, but that did not stop her buying a second tumbler of it. Just as we determinedly swallow three-finger poi these days knowing we will need the calories when the wind gets up at three in the morning, I dutifully handed over fifty cowries of my allowance to Molly for a generous double tot of “cask strength Eau de ananna, special reserve 1936” before bedtime. It warms the ears and tail, at least long enough to get to sleep. Though I hardly like to write home and tell Father what some of my allowance is being spent on I am sure he would understand if I told him we were out in trenches in the winter with no fires and no spirit ration.
	Actually, I have drunk worse. Unfortunately that was only slightly worse; the bootleg bathtub gin I bought in the Gilbert and Sullivan Islands, and put to far better use removing fur dye. If this “Goddard Club” the S.I.T.H.S. are forming need a volatile fuel sourced locally, I know what I can recommend they use! The international gourmet community will not miss it, and anyone who drinks a brew that rough and prefers it, has probably had far too much already.

Saturday 9th November, 1936

Dear Diary. Our Tutors have told us so many times that the most dangerous part of an adventure is just when you are congratulating yourself for having got clean away with it. I thought I had brushed the muck of Krupmark off my shoes in August, and especially so by the time I came back from the Albanian East Indies. I had a rather worried two weeks looking at my calendar, indeed. When I read in the newspaper last month about Lord Leon and Lady Susan Allworthy having been brought to justice, a Crown Colony and Justice (in that order) I was sure that whatever happened back on Krupmark was all over and I could forget it as rapidly as possible. Except of course to not merely triple but quadruple-check any hard-luck stories in future. How could I guess that both Allworthies and their maid Judy had carefully rehearsed to tell me the same story of Leon being an almost imprisoned invalid, from convincingly different viewpoints? I should have done, as our dear Tutors would have doubtless told me if I had burdened them with the details.
	I passed the post room on the way to breakfast and spotted the tastefully muted tones of an Empire series stamp in my pigeonhole. The return address on the back was a solicitors in Singapore, which is a respectable place and is surrounded by the famous Malay Straights, as upright and fastidious a people as the planet holds. I was all eagerness to open it as I waited for the breadfruit mash to be served – but by the time I had finished the first few lines, despite all our privations and deprivations I no longer felt hungry.
	I remember all too well signing that document with Leon Allworthy, a genteel and gentlemanly wolf of excellent family (as I thought at the time) where he had honestly acknowledged any possible half-wolven kittens as his own, and that he would make provision for them. It looked like a good and prudent idea at the time, and I was so grateful he was being so considerate that I signed it on the spot. I had worried later on about that document being used to blackmail me, especially after I heard about the Allworthies’ demise. Molly says on Krupmark Island the news of a death or long-term imprisonment throws the locals into a shark-like feeding frenzy, with armed raids and their former property violently changing ownership several times. Someone presumably had all Lord Leon’s papers – but the letter from Singapore is not blackmail, more an embarrassment of riches I do not want to recall earning.
	(Editor’s note: letter carefully pasted on the facing page of the diary.)
 
45 Kao Hsung Street, Singapore
 
Dear Miss Bourne-Phipps,
You may have heard through the press of the untimely demise of Leonard, Viscount Allworthy
last month.  I and my firm represent the estate of the late Lord Leonard, and I am taking
the liberty of contacting you regarding the disposition of said estate.
Lord Leonard made a noncupative will in my presence with other witnesses present at his
home nearly two months ago.  Lord Leonard was in the habit of establishing such a bequest
periodically, owing to the precarious nature of his health.  In this case, Lord Leonard
acquainted me with a contract signed by him and yourself.
Based upon his noncupative will and the spirit of the agreement signed by both of you, and
acting as the attorney-in-fact for Lord Leonard, I declare that you are the sole heiress to Lord
Leonard's title, estate and business ventures.  Lord Leonard was the de facto head of Ironclad
Millworks, a major supplier to His Britannic Majesty's military forces, and was in regular
contact with the board of directors.
I await your word as to any future action regarding the disposition of the estate and the firm,
but permit me to be the first to greet you as Viscountess Allworthy of Barrow-in-Furryness and
in closing,
I remain,
Your obedient servant.
 
Nathan Gulph, Esquire
Senior Partner, N. Gulph and D. Vower, Solicitors
 
	Oh my. It is as bad as if I was trying to clear my name with Home and suddenly Iosif Starling publicly announced I had won the Order of Lenin for services rendered to the Communist Party. There goes my reputation! There are “gold-diggers” around who by repute would do anything to get hold of a Title, even more so if it could be got without the inconvenience of having the benefactor about as husband or anything else. By the date, this is not something Lord Leon thought up at the last minute in prison in the Gilbert and Sullivan Islands – it was made the week after I left, when the original document I signed might have been needed. Being an international exile, he could do nothing profitable with his title – except pass it on as an act of dark humour. I know enough about inheritance to be sure I cannot just send it back, such things are registered! And at the exact date it was registered, I could not go before a Priestess or a court with a star-nosed mole and swear Leon had no cause to think I just might be providing an Allworthy heir.
	Ow, in a word. Ow with knobs on, as Prudence says in her interesting Lancashire dialect. What on earth am I going to do about this? An actual gold-digger would take comfort in the fact that the title itself is stainless, and indeed although there have been many rather blood-soaked Earls of Barsetshire in centuries past there have been no shortage of claimants and indeed pretenders eager to be the next one.
	Just ignoring it is not a good idea. There are too few such titles to go unnoticed, and reporters do love a good story. I could pass it on to someone distantly related to the Allworthy line could I find them, but doing so would mean acknowledging it was mine to give. The last time anyone refused a seat in the House of Lords, it took an act of Parliament to confer the title on someone else – hardly inconspicuous. From everything that came out in the newspapers, one can quite understand why Lord Leon chose to live on Krupmark. Despite all its dangers, it was the safest place in the world to hide from extradition or even bounty-hunters, considering murder was one of the least of his crimes.
	I had already told everything to Jirry and Saimmi, which is a comfort; it is not the sort of surprise I would want to spring on them. Unfortunately they do not have the background to advise on this sort of problem. My ears went up a notch as I thought of someone who has, and who I can trust to the hilt. Maria, of course! Though her own family is as Proletarian as Liberty or Tatiana could wish for (a fact that causes them much grinding of teeth) she has been brought up in high society with a traditional grounding in Italian culture steeped in the public squabbles of nobility. She has a rich fund of stories with precedents and pitfalls to learn from, I know. Her Uncle may be Leader, but Italy still has a perfectly good (theoretically) ruling King and many of the better families are perfectly happy to pledge support to Il Puce even if he is a blacksmith’s son.
	Actually, Helen and Maria had been watching my expression as I read and were not surprised when I asked them for some quiet advice. What Helen may miss in terms of old-world social qualifications she more than makes up for in rugged common-sense, and three heads are better than one (an unwise thing to say on Cranium Island, to be sure.)
	Maria has already heard one half of the story from me, and knows me well enough not to suggest “take the money and run.” If only this had happened to Beryl, how happy she would be! Beryl would liquidate all the family assts (to a legally blameless heir the frozen bank accounts and such would be open again), sell off  everything, throw everyone off their land, close all the factories and sell the title as a piece of empty paper to whatever munitions magnate or retired brewer wanted to buy it. This has happened before, and is part of what gives gold-diggers a bad name.
	As Maria promised to think it over, I had another nagging doubt about the whole business. Whatever Lord Leon’s crimes, he just might have been trying to do the right thing by me; I can never know. It had been Lars who pointed out I was probably the only Good Girl on Krupmark Island – which I have to argue with these days in all honesty, but I know what he means at least relatively speaking. I doubt there were many girls in the Krupmark area with the background and pedigree Leon had been raised to expect to someday marry – and if there had been any I can hardly imagine them wanting anything to do with him had they known the facts. It is a rather uncomfortable feeling. Even though I was totally deceived about the situation, I have to admit everything I did there was absolutely of my own free choice and not for a penny of profit. I doubt that happened much to Lord Leon in recent years.
	Helen asked bluntly if I had still been carrying an Allworthy cub/kitten right now I would want to get rid of the title. She had guessed that answer, no – but not for myself. One is brought up with a sense of duties, after all, and tries to do the right thing. Lord Leon was presumably raised the same, whatever crimes he may have committed later on.
	It was a hard problem to put aside even for a morning, but we had more immediate things to do and the world does not stop for my troubles. Out to Casino Island and our dance classes, escorting some of the first-years who have earned Passes. The rest have to sit and work, read or rest up: at Songmark one may well be exhausted, terrified or shocked, but never bored. Even at weekends there are never enough hours in the day and our Tutors firmly believe the Devil finds work for idle paws. Not that they say it in so many words, of course.
	Svetlana was complaining about the early starts even at weekends; it seems she had a rather similar life on Vostok to Maria’s old Italian one in terms of living “actor’s hours.” Still, someone with as much ballet training as she claims to have should be used to hard work.  Madeleine X has done some of that herself and told us about the tendon-stretching hours a day practicing on the bar; it certainly has helped matters in self-defence classes. One who can do the splits without a twinge can almost redefine “high kick.”
	Maria whispered that if Svetlana does the splits in a grass skirt as traditionally worn, both she and the audience may get more than they bargained for. We have advised the first-years to wear bathing costumes underneath, as home-produced attempts at Spontoonie costume may look right but be prone to “in-flight structural failure” like my poor Flying Flea #6 when it hit that pocket of turbulence over the vicar’s ornamental carp pond.
	Still, we had a fine dance all morning, and I had almost pushed my predicament to the back of my mind pending Maria or myself thinking of a neat solution. Even with airmail, it is four days round trip to Singapore and I was telling myself I had at least that much grace before any new developments could happen.
	As our Tutors say, the dangerous bit is when you think the danger is over. When I got back to Songmark I saw Miss Devinski and Mrs. Oelabe standing in the guard room with a soberly dressed bloodhound gentleman carrying a briefcase. Miss Devinski said not a word. She pointed at me, then in the direction of Song Sodas – when Molly, Helen and Maria moved to join us she gave them a look that needed no amplification. 
	I felt definitely alone as I walked the hundred and sixty paces to Song Sodas, feeling my friends’ gaze on my back and three sets of paws tramping in measured paces behind me. I have asked Mrs. Hoele’toemi about Song Sodas, but though she remembers it being a company headquarters and counting-house when she was a kitten, just how it became part of the Songmark estates she never knew.
	Everything seemed to have been arranged for me, which was disturbing in its own right. The side door was open, and one small room had the door wedged open awaiting me. My tail was drooping somewhat as the three walked in behind me and closed the door – and it was not improved when the bloodhound introduced himself as Mr. Van der Valk, a Meeting Island lawyer acting on commission – and bowed as he addressed me as Viscountess Allworthy. My ears and tail drooped like wet dishrags.
	Things went definitely downhill from there. I protested that I had no idea or ambition to carry that title – at which he pulled out a memorandum book and Miss Devinski asked Mrs. Oelabe to examine my tail. I rather regretted having the gold loop reattached at Madame Maxine’s after taking it off at Saimmi’s “investiture” – after all, I was still hoping that at least part of what I had heard about it was true. There is very little that can be done about “insurance” on Krupmark, but in some respect that was how it had been billed.
	Oh dear. This Mr. Van der Valk had been apprised of certain things by telegram; airmail may take four days for a round trip but the wire services do not. He had some more documents that had been appended to the front of the one I signed – and in the same handwriting and ink, with the single page I signed now being numbered as Page four.  It is just the sort of thing we are expressly told to look out for. The pages I never saw have phrases such as “due to the lack of legitimate legal and religious facilities on the island I perforce inhabit” and “knowing that Miss Bourne-Phipps is not legally free” – which is true enough, as our Songmark tutors have legal guardianship and can veto any major decisions. They never stopped or disapproved of Helen and me getting Tailfast to the Hoele’toemi brothers, or even Prudence with Tahni.
	Oh dear, squared, cubed and to the fourth power, as Susan de Ruiz would say. The documents more or less say I accepted an inconspicuous “engagement ring” since anything more would have drawn unwelcome attention (true enough) and he could not risk leaving Krupmark which has nowhere legally recognised at doing better. Which also seems to be true enough; they have a Church but I doubt any services held there bear much relation to the usual rituals. Miss Devinski just asked one question; was all this of my own free will. A yes or no answer, she added, was required, and “but” would not be part of it. Well, the Allworthies might have lied, but I refused to, and the reply had to be “yes.”
	Having seen the wire ring and gold bead around my tail-root for himself, Mr. Van der Valk bowed again and took his leave, promising his firm and his clients would be in touch. That left me with Miss Devinski and Mrs. Oelabe listening in somewhat icy silence. Very quietly, Miss Devinski “suggested” I tell them the whole story.
	I think my ears are still blushing. It had helped to have already confessed to Jirry and Saimmi, but they are Spontoonies and see things rather differently. At the end of it, Miss Devinski gave a rather theatrical sigh. After a few minutes’ silence she leaned forward and congratulated me on my ennoblement, and asked when I would be leaving Songmark to see to my Estates.
	I tried my best to explain, but Miss Devinski can be very single-minded at times. Most times, actually. I think she would have been far happier if I really had planned all this as a daring coup; as it happens I do seem to have picked up some advantages – and at no real cost. Beryl would have thought of it as a major triumph, I am sure. Our dear Tutor turned to Mrs. Oelabe with a mischievous smile and asked if she thought it worthwhile to amend my Songmark details to Mrs. Amelia Allworthy. Although nobody claims we have any sort of marriage license, the same is true of millions of people who are acknowledged as being mates.
	Pleasantries aside, Miss Devinski shook her head and asked for the second time this year if I thought it was any use with my carrying on at Songmark, as I seem incapable of learning the important lessons. Well, I can see what she means. There is little point, she carried on, in me being excellent at my technical studies if I use them to blunder into this sort of situation. Her ears dipped as she indicated just what certain people would pay for a Songmark graduate, and she has no intention of signing my certificate just to have me captured the week after. 
	Considering some of the things I willingly did to conceal my presence with her brother from Lady Susan, I can quite understand what she means. Their maid Judy always had a good and sensible reason ready for anything, be it gloves I could not scratch through or the rather extreme measures I had to take not to yowl the place down. It was jolly uncomfortable to wear, but so is an oxygen mask and I could quite see the point. Had the Allworthies decided to show their true colours at such a time, I could have hardly put up much of a fight. (Memo to myself; never again wear anything I can’t take off by myself. And beware of places where they just happen to have such things on the shelf, for however plausible a reason.)
	I confess I came near to losing my temper, but kept calm as I replied that I had little to be sorry for. The last time I was threatened with being thrown out it was for supporting Molly against those pirates attacking the Parsifal – and though she can have me expelled Miss Devinski cannot and will not persuade me to ever abandon a friend. This time round – I had presented the facts on Krupmark as they had appeared to me. I am not Tailfast right now, by no choice of my own, and anything that happened between me and an apparently persecuted invalid was sympathy and a hatred of injustice. Miss Devinski can kick me out but will not change my mind about that, and I had nothing to lose by telling her so to her snout. I admitted I was deceived, but defended my reasons. I felt like asking if I would make a better or worse Viscountess Allworthy than Lady Susan, but felt that might be pushing my luck rather too far.
	Miss Devinski shook her head, and looked at me hard for another minute. It was bad enough, she declared, having to consider failing Adele for her misadventures on Krupmark as well as me; Adele has the dice permanently loaded against her and things happen to her regardless of how good her planning and preparation. I have no such excuse, she says. She named two conditions for me staying in Songmark – that I never remove that tail wire again till I graduate (to remind me the next time I fall into a situation) and to cure Adele’s problem. That had been a request before, but now it is an order.  With that, she dismissed me.
	It could have been worse. I could be packing my bags right now, but having nowhere to go except South Island – until my name is cleared back in England I have no more chance to get there without being arrested than the previous holder of the title.  Being innocent unlike Lord Leon does not change matters. It was a nasty hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach to think that in far-off Barrow-in-Furryness * people might have heard and be celebrating having me come back and put things to rights. Whatever might be wrong I hardly know, but if I have to accept the title I will have to take responsibility. As if I did not have enough to worry about!
		
•	Editor’s note: A medium sized industrial town on the edge of the Lake District, Northern England. The scenery is considered most attractive – if you prefer dry docks and foundries to hills and woods.

Sunday 10th November, 1936

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I had discussed everything with Helen, Maria (who says I should take the title and the duties) and Molly (who says I should take the money and run, or rather stay right here.) Helen is rarely judgemental about my adventures but says I got off lightly considering, both with Krupmark and with Miss Devinski. Then, she has been Tailfast for well over a year and never gets into the sort of situation I fall into.
	One thing she was positive about is trying to help Adele. We dropped in on her dorm after breakfast, and made no secret of the fact that Adele and I are in danger of being thrown out – me because of the particular Adventures I keep finding myself in, and Adele due to the consequences of her incredible bad luck. Susan de Ruiz brought out a thick notebook she has been compiling since Adele joined her dorm, and announced that it was NOT luck, in the usual sense of the word. She has mathematical proof, she says, that Adele’s problem cannot be explained by any possible set of coincidences. If someone throws a string of six unlucky “snake-eyes” with dice then wins and loses normally the rest of the day, that would be an unlucky coincidence but well within the limits of probability. If the dice always throw nothing but ones, one knows there is something seriously amiss with the dice (generally because Beryl sold you them.)
	I had asked Adele before if she had objected to telling the others about her family really being treasure-hunters, and about that burial mound in Alaska they “investigated” on the grounds that the tribe responsible were extinct. Cause and effect seem quite clear here; she has been suffering (rather unjustly) ever since. On the other paw, she says she will live with it rather that risk anything being re-targeted on her parents. I had not noticed any curse obviously attached to her as I did with my friend Angelica and her aircraft, but that had been a Spontoonie traditional curse and I am probably more attuned to that than an Amerindian model.
	Anyway, instead of taking Eva with us to see Saimmi, today we brought Adele along. She usually goes to Casino Island on Sundays (there is no Absolute Anabaptist church on Spontoon) and was keen to see just what we actually do in the Native religion. Considering her own religion does not accept the existence of curses, not surprisingly they have not been able to do much about hers. Madeleine tells me colonial medical doctors on Madagascar had a similar problem; according to the Natives nobody ever died of disease or old age there. All deaths were regarded as being due to enemies employing witch-doctors, which made practicing medicine rather difficult.
	Saimmi was in a good mood, having apparently added a new holy site to the island. I had no idea how such things were done. She showed us – a most surprising sight, at an even more surprising site. I had not been past Maria’s old church since the congregation dismantled it intending to build a Calvary there – although I had heard folk had put those plans on hold, I had not heard exactly why.
	Bamboo grows fast and well on Spontoon, but I had never seen anything like this before. Where the Chapel of the Sacred Heart had been there was now a grove that looked as if it had been there for a century, with solid stalks fifteen feet high and as thick as my wrist even at waist level. More of a sacred grove than Sacred Heart, as I could detect without even touching it. Saimmi mentioned that various folk had tried to clear it, but without success – and when the villagers refused to let them try and burn it down due to the risk of fire spreading, an impasse had been reached. Saimmi admitted it was none of her doing, and that she had learned much by studying one of her own newer Priestesses.
	Saimmi is certainly the most open-minded religious leader I have ever heard of, except possibly Archbishop Crowley and he bluffed his way to the top. Not many such would admit there is much they do not know, and call in specialists from outside as required (I hardly count Eva’s government and all the mystical research and artefact hunting they get up to.) She demonstrated the ritual of seeking attached spirits, which covers curses as well. Trying it on Adele, I could certainly see that something was there, if not what. The different styles have a particular “flavour” to them, which is very hard to describe but easy to recognise when you see them. It is like trying to describe the scent of hot engine oil to someone who has lived their whole life in the middle of the Albert Island jungles.
	Well! Our Tutors always say the first step in beating a problem is seeing just what you are up against. Saimmi confirmed what we expected; this is more a Northern shore of Main Island thing, with totem poles rather than Tikis in the culture. She promised to make enquiry for us.
	We dropped Adele off on Haio Beach while Saimmi took us through our classes and exercises. Next week this Warrior Priestess arrives on the boat from Ponape. It seems she is one of the types who originally settled the Spontoon group (till the disaster that we know of) and her folk retain many strange secrets. It should be jolly interesting, I am sure. Saimmi has already taught us all the defensive rituals she used on Cranium Island; should anything happen to her we will be able to pass them on. They will definitely be needed when the main Fragment from the bottom of Sacred Lake is brought up, she tells us. Indeed, there is a contingency plan filed at the Althing for a “Civil Defence Exercise” that will involve totally evacuating the villages nearby and clearing the area completely of all but those involved. 
	Raising the main fragment is a job hopefully for next year; it will be a risky enterprise but not nearly as bad as risking having someone else bring it up first. Once it ceases to be “buried in water” as the old carvings on Casino Island put it, all sorts of things are liable to happen. Just look at the fate of Cranium Island, after their very minor fragment ceased to be “buried in fire” as soon as the volcano became dormant! From what information survives, it seems the Cranium Island piece was the smallest, then the Krupmark one, and the main piece is still far under Sacred Lake but within the reach of a modern deep-sea diver. We have seen those final carvings hidden under the pathways in “The Tub” – they are a frightening thing to read, all the more so for their hasty incompleteness. Nobody who carved them lived to get off the islands, Saimmi says – they were inscribed  by apprentices in the hours after the disaster while the senior Priestesses gave their lives getting the three Fragments separated and out of range of each other. Without those apprentices we would know even less about what really happened to Spontoon five hundred years ago – the fact that the sacred coconut trees still will not grow here, is the very least of it.
	I can quite understand why the Euros sometimes think the Spontoonies an ungrateful bunch; on the face of it the original Plantation owners should be thanked for bringing these islands back to life – and all the workers who came here from all across the Pacific were volunteers, besides. To anyone who knows the facts Saimmi has revealed, things are rather different. The islands had been in quarantine for reasons the Plantation owners could not understand, and indeed in a few more centuries might have been safe to inhabit. Suddenly there were people arriving that the Polynesians could not stop, bringing themselves and their families unprotected into the equivalent of a plague spot or a battlefield drenched in mustard gas. The surrounding Polynesians admitted their responsibility and steeled themselves for sacrifice – it cost the lives of a generation of their holiest just to make the islands minimally safe, and that was for strangers. A very few furs had been living on South Island in areas that had been less affected or better protected by still-functioning Tiki rings, but the islands had been almost empty and for very good reason. Even the pirates had never stayed onshore for long.
	Back to pick up Adele and luncheon at the Hoele’toemi household! This is always a treat, and Mrs. H was pleased to welcome Adele especially when I hinted that I would be doing my best to help her. Exactly how, I will have to find out when we get to the North Coast and talk to the Priestesses who wear bark cloth rather than grass skirts. 
	It was rather odd to sit around the Hoele’toemi fire pit talking in English again. Helen and I speak Spontoonie quite well, though with our accents no Native will be fooled for long. But with Adele there it was only common courtesy, and the Polynesians are greatly concerned with such.
	My ears drooped considerably as I left, thinking about all my new troubles. I had almost reconciled myself to not seeing Barsetshire again – if I could never go back, my family could understand my having to stay out here and becoming Mrs. Hoele’toemi. This will not mix with being Viscountess Allworthy, with responsibilities and duties back in England. At Spontoon, we are told and taught to shape our lives the way we want them, not the way others impose circumstances. Right now I could use a hint of how to do that!
	Back to Eastern Island, looking slightly enviously at the brightly lit windows of Songmark’s junior dorms as we checked in with Miss Blande at the gatehouse. As Maria has said, two years ago when she was complaining about the beds and the food she had no idea how well-off she really was. One sees charities raising funds for holidays and such for the underprivileged young in cities; Songmark works more like a foundation to cure the over privileged. At least, anyone who can afford to come here soon learns the joys of a simple life. Liberty Morgenstern says the same about Communism with its “re-education work cadres” for the bourgeoisie, with the difference that we volunteered for this. I think by now she has stopped calling the rest of us “pampered tools and parvenu parasites of the bourgeois” as she realises how hard all the beds are and that our Tutors do not really sneak off and feast on caviar and lobster as we tuck into our Poi, the chorus of “It’s good for you!” ringing out in commiseration to the junior years.
	Actually, some of Maria’s newspaper articles are attracting a lot of furious attention from Red Dorm. Liberty and Tatiana have come prepared to tackle most things and denounce official propaganda, but Maria has a rather stealthy line in just announcing inconvenient facts. Her Uncle actually did publish a distinctly Socialist magazine, “Avanti!” until barely ten years ago, which Liberty finds hard to stomach. He does keep stealing their thunder, with calls for “national social unity against parasites and criminals.”  That is exactly the sort of thing Liberty says too; having Il Puce beating New Haven to the punch must be hard to bear. 
	Back up to the northern coast, for another chilly evening. The one advantage is that we get plenty of time to sleep, always supposing we are not on gate duty. Our Tutors are probably having us observed inconspicuously, so we are keeping to the rules and making sure nobody breaks them too fragrantly. Missy K is well padded enough to stay warm, but grumbles she would stay a lot warmer with her fiancé in her burrow. Technically she is a Spontoonie off Songmark property, and would not be breaking any Songmark rules by bringing him over – but if one of us can, we all would want to. 
	The nights are definitely long, and there is not a lot to see on this side of the island. Radio LONO is above us on the hill, and with a good pair of binoculars one can see Superior Engineering brightly lit up and working late on a Pan-Nimitz flying boat that seems to have engine trouble. The odd thing here is the bicycle factory, an Althing-owned business that makes both sturdy models for going to market and finely-tuned racing frames from Vostok magnesium alloy. What is odd is they are working night shift, and the night shift are all very recognisably Spontoonies by their dress and fur style. Every evening they come in and we can see them wheeling the jigs and such out of storage, then before dawn swapping production again. I mentioned it to Helen, who suggests we quietly ignore whatever they are building when they are definitely not assembling bicycles from the light alloy stocks.
	All in all, an interesting day. One thing we have noticed is that those of us who change coats with the seasons have started to grow our Winter patterns a month earlier than last year. My own is getting rather thicker, and with oiled fur I can imagine getting used to a grass skirt all year round. The Spontoonies on Main Island grow up that way, and are of course quite used to it. One thing tourists remark on is the locals’ wonderful fur, and make not-so-quiet enquiries about what they use to get it that way. Though the Spontoonies are happy to sell them bottles of “Traditional Native herbal fur treatment” the real secret is fresh air and sun on uncovered pelts. We are certainly getting plenty of that!

Tuesday 12th November, 1936

Two weeks of living outdoors has been certainly an interesting experience. Some of us have quite taken to the idea; certainly Irma Bundt and Susan de Ruiz say they are very happy with swapping the comfort of a bed for two extra hours sleep a night. That is the advantage; one cannot study textbooks inside a sleeping sac and the nights are getting decidedly long. Another six weeks till Solstice! Helen is looking forward to renewing her Tailfast locket.
	I must confess I hardly dared ask Saimmi last time if I now qualified – I had the excuse of Adele being there to see to, but that was hardly a good excuse. I can hardly bear the thought of Saimmi saying “No” again even though she has not said anything about the issue recently. Then, I have not explicitly asked. Not being Tailfast does not mean Jirry and I cannot wed on Casino Island, but I want to do things properly.  I am sure the Reverend Bingham would be pleased to see me back again; it is quite awhile since I attended his church.
	Out today in definitely choppy waters for my sailing classes. The seas are quite empty this time of year with no tour-boat or pearl fishing traffic, and only the regular runs of freighters breaking the horizon. We noticed some of the Rain Island Naval flying boats scouring the area to the North, but thought little of it as handling the sails in gusting winds took all our concentration. 
	Just when we were three hours out and almost in sight of Orpington Island, we saw something very strange on the horizon furthest from the shipping lanes. There had been aircraft flying around but too far off to identify; one of them dived steeply and at about five thousand feet started trailing a thin plume of smoke. I was about to shout an alarm, not that there would be much point in looking for survivors with the speed that aircraft looked like hitting the water. But just as I opened my muzzle the distant dot pulled out just above the sea and two seconds later the plume of smoke detached and leaped ahead of it in a thin grey line that was soon lost on the horizon. The aircraft gradually gained height and flew off.
	Had it been Helen with me (a small boat in choppy waters being the last place she ever wants to be) I would have pointed out what I had seen. With Madeleine X, I was certainly not going to let on. There is a definite dividing line between students who are taken on certain adventures on Spontoon and those who are not, and Madeleine is definitely a “not.” After three years we have had our opinions and deeds weighed pretty thoroughly, I think. Our Tutors may be euros on paper, but they are as trusted as any Euro we have met, considering the directions they point some of their students in.
	It was not till I was in the cabin snatching two hours precious sleep in a bed on the way back that I guessed what I had seen. It might have been a rocket had it been “switched on” the second it broke free from the aircraft – but it was switched on in a high-speed dive and was burning while its parent aircraft presumably settled down and lined up on a target. I read every issue of “Jane’s Aviation Weekly” and all the other aviation journals Songmark subscribes to, and know of only one thing that would fit. We saw that Leduck engine the S.I.T.H.S. were testing last year, and it looks as if it is in live firing trials now. Not something I will be telling Madeleine!
	I know it takes years to get any really radical new invention into squadron service in peacetime; I saw the first Leduck engines flying nearly two years ago, launched using that old gunpowder cannon by the S.I.T.H.S. That school has some very interesting classes, and I will quietly ask Meera about their “Goddard Club.” Then, the fact they are manifestly a school project is excellent camouflage; spies such as Soppy Forsythe are attracted like flies to secret Government installations in the jungle but might walk right past a team of high school students and their class project. It looks as if the prototypes are now in actual test with air launches. Just what is the bicycle factory making at night, when they switch over production with a very different set of manufacturing jigs?
	Despite actually having more sleep in the field than we usually do in the dorms, I was out like a light the minute my head-fur touched the pillow, and only woke up when we got back to Eastern Island. One quite understands how every soldier and sailor one sees on a train is fast asleep; it is a talent we are picking up that may prove very useful in the long-term (just as long as we do not apply it to the classrooms.)
	Back for more flying in the Junkers 86: I was very happy to be Adele’s co-pilot as she has a natural flair I can only envy. This time, I was under the strain of my regular flying duties as well as running the rituals Saimmi taught me; it is like concentrating on taking someone’s pulse while doing difficult algebra at the same time. I managed to get one very clear reading though; when Adele loses contact with the earth her bad luck stops, as rapidly as switching off a light. When she lands again – back it comes. In more ways than one she has a pair of unlucky rabbit’s feet.
	It was a splendidly bright afternoon for November, with rain-washed air and visibility right out to Orpington in one direction and Albert Island the other – those two are easily a hundred and twenty miles apart. But the view downwards was something that suddenly became rather urgent, as I grabbed the plate camera and called to Miss Windlesham to look – entering through the channel between Main and South Island, two long shark-like shapes clearly visible though several fathoms underwater. Submarines!
	Although the R.I.N.S. regularly has a submarine visiting at Moon Island their policy is to sail in on the surface with flags flying, unless they are on exercises. All scheduled exercises tend to be known to our Tutors, so we can stay out of their way. Miss Windlesham was on the radio straight away, and had Adele circle us over the area until we had to come in to refuel.
	I had expected to see the Moon Island base spring to life with a squadron of Osprey patrol aircraft in the air within minutes; they look impossibly stubby but they do carry depth charges as well as their recoilless cannon. Although I heard the base acknowledge our Tutor’s report I could see no patrol boats or aircraft urgently heading out, so possibly the new arrivals were not unexpected.
	An hour later, we had landed and been debriefed when a very exuberant Madeleine X bounced in with her tail wagging like a pup. She reports there are two big French submarines showing the flag just off Moon Island, with an official delegation hoisting the tricolour flag and the band striking up the “Marseilles.” They are the latest model with a pair of giant 20 cm cannon* , she says – the “Surcouf” class of which they have fifty hulls laid out under construction and half a dozen already on trials following the launch of the first in 1929. Apart from their guns being more accurate than torpedoes, these submarines can surface suddenly a mile from land, put twenty shells into a dockyard or oil refinery then vanish before anyone has a chance to act. Their spotter aircraft can even look over buildings and headlands at targets invisible from sea level; one can certainly see the advantages.
	It is not that far from the French Sandwich Isles, but it is the first time we have seen the French here in force. I know they have a giant submarine base underwater at Clipperton Island right on the trade route, but they rarely visit this part of the Nimitz Sea. After all, though Malaya is vital for tin and rubber to us and the Dutch East Indies provide the Dutch Empire with all its oil and much of the money, France is not going to be brought to her knees if anyone seizes Tahiti. Still, visiting fleets show the flag where they feel like it and it may be that Spontoon was just due for a visit.
	When she heard about the fast firing 20 cm cannon the submarines carry, Molly flushed to the ear-tips, her tail locked sideways and she excused herself for ten minutes. It was bad enough last year with the defence exercises and the anti-aircraft guns; I felt like whispering to Madeleine that if the crew came ashore with Molly around they should remember not to leave the keys in the ignition. It would be far too much of a temptation. The mariner the submarines were named after, Robert Surcouf, was a pirate after all.

* Editor’s note: 203 mm, actually. If Molly had kept a diary it would read more like the technical log of a firing range, but occasionally featuring more stags of ill repute.

Thursday 14th November, 1936

Hurrah! One of the things about fleets showing the flag is they entertain notables. Spontoon being a small place with not so many dignitaries, they all got shown around on the first day and the Althing must have made some sort of deal with the Flag Captain to let other interested parties aboard. The S.I.T.H.S. had two classes of their best shown around, and at breakfast Miss Devinski announced that our highest ranking dorm of each year could take the tour after lunch!
	There was a stampede to check the latest rankings on the notice board; generally we only keep track when there is a definite reward to be had. My ears drooped when I noticed we were currently running third; Jasbir gets the ticket and Prudence and co. are a point ahead of us (usually it is the other way round.) As to the second year – I could hardly believe it when I saw Red Dorm are current leaders! When we usually think of them as “capable of anything” we imagine bank raids and the like.  The first-year winners I do not really know, except for that shrew who Saimmi says is from Cranium Island and needs careful watching. The only first-year dorm who have earned a name for themselves so far are sarcastically called “Crusader Dorm”, led by Nancy Rote with Eva, Maureen and Svetlana. It seems Miss Rote fancies herself a sleuth.
	I had to break the news to Molly, who was resigned to the fact she would probably not get invited to order “ten rounds per gun rapid fire” even had we been ahead on points. Thinking of which, although our Tutors are generally reticent until a section of the course is over how and why we are marked down – I asked Miss Devinski if she thought Molly and Maria digging in for shelter was officially cheating. After looking at me thoroughly for half a minute, she simply said “yes.”
	It is always hard at Songmark to know just how far the rules will go – on the beach exercise the first night we had been told to shelter any way we can, which was not our instructions when we were sent to inhabit the Northern coast. Considering that in Jasbir’s dorm Irma Bundt is doing the same and they are still in the lead, they must have a depressingly large total score. I did not ask if my current misadventures have pulled us down, but Miss Devinski does occasionally address me as Lady Allworthy. I think she is being ironic. 	
We were helping the first-years again this morning, starting off with the unenviable job of being rescued by them. That is, we trouped down to the docks by Superior Engineering which is quiet this time of year, dressed in our oldest overalls and took turns to dive into the jolly cold water. There would follow a cry of “Fur Overboard!” and a first-year would dive in afterwards and drag us to shore. Having tried it myself, this is not as easy as the films suggest. It was good luck for a change that I was rescued by Jessica, the only water-bird in the year. As one might expect, her “swan-dive” was textbook perfect and she hauled my limp form up onto the beach in a creditable time.
	Poor Adele almost drowned – the hefty canine girl sent into rescue her slipped on the takeoff, fell short and landed on top of her! Luckily Sophie D’artagnan was there a few seconds later, as Adele was knocked out and breathed some of the Nimitz Sea before she was hauled up to the beach and was carried off to Mrs. Oelabe at the staff bungalow. Definitely I will have to see what I can do for her at the weekend.
	(Later) It is a pity indeed we missed the submarine tour, from what Jasbir says it was very impressive. More fun than Adele’s underwater trip, to be sure. Madeleine X is naturally fuming at having missed the chance to meet some “civilised furs” – any deckhand from the slums of Monmartre being well ahead of us in culture, according to her. She squarely blames Adele for letting the side down. Actually it might be a good thing Adele was left off the trip – her curse manifests itself on water as well as land. She is not at all clumsy, and would not accidentally blow the ballast or anything like that – more probably she would switch on a light that through a bizarre design flaw and a hideously unlikely maintenance error had been connected to the scuttling charges.
	Memo to myself; do not dig up any Red Indian grave mounds for profit, even if the tribe who built it is supposedly extinct. You never know what hundred-year-old shaman has been adopted by the tribe next door as last of the line, and has a curse he always wanted to experiment with given the right target.
	Jasbir has one of those buttonhole cameras that she managed to sneak onboard, and half an hour later was passing round some holiday snaps that the newspapers would love to have (but they won’t get them. She is not Beryl, and destroyed the negatives.) The Surcouf’s own spotter aircraft was unfolded and flying all day much to the delight of the crowds. None of us were invited to fly it, which is a shame – that would be an entry in the logbook few people could match!

Friday 15th November, 1936

Another damp day, with the French slipping their anchorage after breakfast and heading out past us through the Northern channel surfaced to clear the sand bars and shallows. Our Tutors pulled us in and gave us an assignment to write, about what the fifty Surcouf class boats could do in the Pacific. Oddly enough submarines are boats to their crew, which any other class of naval ship would find highly insulting. I was not the only one to spot she did not say boats exactly the same, but of the same basic model. Then, the Royal Navy has the wildly successful “M Class” subs in their hundreds in both the original Surcouf-type twelve inch gun form (the French cribbed the idea from us) and converted to aircraft carriers. Adding a mine-layer type and a troop-ship variant of the same hull to launch sixty raiders ashore some dark night would surely be easy enough, and rather hard to counter. There is cargo accommodation for forty prisoners on the existing model, after all. One imagines Vostok or somewhere doing it with saboteurs and publicly denying it.
	Anyway, it is hard to be alarmist. That is to say, having seen what is already in these waters, the threat is alarming enough and exceedingly real! We have not seen the big Japanese aircraft-carrying subs around here, but they are in the books and Rumiko has told us much about them as her Father designed one of the special folding interceptors they carry.
	Rumiko is a definitely strange girl, being exceedingly Japanese except the rest of the Japanese do not admit it. Her family were outside the home islands in the seventeenth century when Japan cut itself off almost totally from the rest of the world – merchants and such citizens living overseas at the time were not allowed to return for fear of cultural infection. Her family have an estate on Okinawa, and have a purely Japanese lineage to be proud of (they only ever married other exiled pedigree families.) She is the last of her line and carries the family swords which were generations old when Japan cut itself off; female Samurai were one thing that vanished after her family started exile, and they kept to the original tradition. It is very strange to have a country that can neither accept nor deny your claims to be a Citizen. I am starting to feel the same way myself.
	Our Tutors have started the careers part of the course with us in earnest; they have been dropping hints since Spring and now we have to work seriously on the problem. Helen and me cannot just wave our tails airily and say we are going to sow taro plants and raise kittens on South Island for the Hoele’toemi family. There is a lot to being an independent Adventuress; raising funds, keeping them, running ventures at a profit – many starting firms have put all their money into a shiny new aircraft that then crashes uninsured and takes all their hopes with it. 
	I am sure a lot of what our Tutors are teaching is from bitter experience; certainly the next lesson we learn after raising the money is dealing with people intent on taking it off you. The original Song Airways folded when the only male in the team flew off with his secretary and all the portable assets, almost wiping out Songmark before it had even started. Mrs. Hoele’toemi remembers the scandal and says his name was Irving; not a name our Tutors have ever spoken.
	Thinking about it, that disaster may have influenced the school in more ways than one. From what Huakava told us the last time we ever met, the Songmark site is particularly suited to lady Adventuresses – and all our active Tutors are unmarried. Our Miss Pelton resigned when she became Mrs. Voboele. Mind you, she has other things to do now with one child to look after and another due in Spring; she could hardly be expected to be running round after us all day the way Miss Wildford does. What else our dear Tutors do in their free time is nobody’s business, but it does look more respectable on the prospectus that they are single and can devote all their time to looking after us. I have recently heard more about Miss Wildford before she joined Songmark, and if half of it is true she could star in her own pulp adventure magazine! Some of it would have to be printed on Spontoon, and post offices of various nations would not let it through customs.
	We had a new experience of our own today, teaching the first-years some basic self-defence. This makes sense in that it is one against one (more unequal struggles will happen later) and saves having to look for twenty equally qualified instructors. The Songmark course certainly evolves over the years, and this is the first teaching we have done as opposed to guarding and shepherding. As ever, we can see how our Tutors are dedicated to getting the best course for us given the money; many of us have plans to teach what we know when we return home, rather than use it all on personal careers.
	Missy K was grumbling that it is making a rod for our own backs, making it harder for us when we have to track down and bring in erring students. Helen pointed out that strictly speaking we get sent after second-years, unless the second-years fail to find a junior. That has not happened in awhile. The prospect of helping first-years put a few more bumps and bruises on Red Dorm and all in the line of duty, was a great encouragement to us all. Helen is a model of common-sense; she has what the pulp magazines call “street smarts” and never finds herself in the sort of situations I do. On the other paw, not having had my education she has a rather lesser veneration for Doing The Right Thing. These two facts may be related.
	Although it is listed prominently on the prospectus, it comes as something of a shock for some of our new arrivals to find themselves remorselessly pinned down while they find out what a tail hitch and triple hammerlock feels like (jolly uncomfortable, to be sure.) This could do unfit people some real injury in terms of muscle strains and such, which is why this year they have the first month dedicated to fitness training before any serious self-defence lessons take place. I was allotted Svetlana, just my luck! She is an inherently powerful wolverine and a trained ballerina, and it was like trying to pin down a conger eel. When she wriggled free the first time she laughed and admitted that on Vostok they train all Citizens of good family in the militia even at school, and I would have to try harder. A “Double Nelson” hold knocked the smile off her muzzle though, and she admitted she still had much to learn that they did not teach her in Tsarogorod.
	Svetlana is certainly a dangerous girl. The month after we left Vostok she saved the Grand Duchess’ life from two Bolshevik assassins (whether local Mensheviks or infiltrating Starlingists, nobody discovered.) They were both armed, and she was not – the newspaper accounts say she hit one so hard she broke her arm and knocked him off the roof before he could throw the bomb at the parade, then disposed of the other “by time-honoured means.” I am not quite sure what that means, but Svetlana has a disturbingly large set of teeth and wolverines have a reputation that way. Anyway, the Grand Duchess waved her wand (well, her cheque book) and granted Svetlana’s wish to go to Songmark. Who says dreams don’t come true these days?
	Today’s lessons were quite fun in all, though there were quite a few minor injuries with bumps and bruises. The day finished up with us all escorting the first-years to Main Island to watch a fine Native wrestling match which was greatly enjoyed by all. If there is an equivalent dorm to Prudence’s in the first years, I have not noticed it. One surprise was seeing Beryl’s friend Piet Van Hoogstraaten competing in the lightweight class of Samoan wrestling; for a rat he is certainly impressive. With the sort of costumes they wear, it is very plain just what Beryl sees in him. I suppose it is decent training for his rowing team on days like today when the waters are definitely too rough for those racing skiffs to stay afloat.
	Another advantage of Main Village is the public baths; after our exertions on the self-defence mats (and for many of us, our musk glands responding to watching the wrestlers) it was a great relief to hear we were allowed an hour to soak. Bliss! The last time I soaked in anything larger than the single narrow Songmark bathtub was in the Shepherd’s Hotel with Molly and Lars after hunting down those slavers. Happily this time the water was not turning pink around us with blood as we picked out glass splinters, but this time we did not enter the building through a broken window.  Molly is eager to repeat that experience provided of course she gets to repeat all of it including the next morning with Lars. Then again, there are things Molly likes that way and I do not – I do not mind in the slightest being called an old-fashioned girl.
	All good things come to an end, and all too soon it was time to shepherd the first-years out. Nothing ever goes smoothly though – Prudence’s dorm were enjoying the view as one might expect (anything more with a junior is absolutely Not Done)  when that sleuth girl Nancy Rote pointed at Belle and announced she recognised her from before term started, pretending to be a Spontoonie with a tourist. Miss Rote seemed quite irate at being fooled. Today of course she could see enough of Belle’s fur pattern to confirm her suspicions.
	I have had quiet words with Belle about that deception before; for two summers in a row she has kept company with a “school ma’m” from her own state in the Bible Belt while being quite convincing as a Native in her dress and speech, between long overnight trips “guiding” her. Not that there is anything wrong with us wearing Native costume, and I have played “fool the tourist” often enough myself – but I do not extend the joke to being pen-pals with them all year round. If she likes her friend that much she should be honest with her.
	Belle replied smoothly that she really is a Spontoonie legally right now, like the rest of us, and has never lied as she has never been exactly asked where she was born – any tourist looking at a girl wearing a grass skirt and oiled fur tends to jump to conclusions. Belle then winked, and commented that she may be unconventional but she is not the first Songmark girl to be married to a fellow classmate – she commended Nancy for setting the precedent.
	Quite a few jaws dropped at that little bombshell. Looking closely I had noticed Miss Rote does wear a ring, but it is not the traditional gold and I had not thought much about it. It is strange though, in that the rest of us are not allowed jewellery in term-time; we spend a lot of time handling mooring-ropes and such, and have been shown awful photographs showing how rings can catch in runaway ropes and rip one’s finger clean off. Or rather, very messily off. A rapid survey of the other first-years found a matching one on the ring finger of that Cranium Island shrew who is in another dorm. She looked slightly embarrassed but rather proud of herself when the rest of her year noticed the fact.
	Well, that’s one for the books as they say. I know Wo Shin is married, but her husband is rather more conventional, although not her species – and Missy K has been Tailfast since before starting Songmark, with an agreed two-month notice to defer a year if any family complications ensued courtesy of her fiancé. At least that is one thing that Miss, or I should say neither of the Mrs. Rotes will need to worry about. Mind you, I would not bet too much against it considering one of them IS from Cranium Island …
	
Saturday 16th November, 1936

A clear day for November, and getting decidedly chilly. Next week we will start out on even cooler climes – though not before we make a cooler climb, for a few days perched up on top of Mount Kiribatori. It is the only place in Spontoon that ever sees frost, by all accounts. Then, it is ten thousand feet high. There is snow on top of Hawaii, which is further South than us and I know mountains on the Equator have glaciers if they are tall enough. A useful subject is Geography; without it one might not be able to recognise an isthmus if one needed one in a hurry, or even be able to decide if you are a Euro or a Native. A pressing concern to me, these days.
	Some of my year take a run around the coast road first thing to get the warmth back again after the long nights; we join Jasbir’s dorm in half an hour of fast hula. A folding gramophone is not illegal under our current rules; they were carried to enliven the tedium of trench dugouts in the Great War after all. Something by the SponTones is always welcome; one can hula to that or dance it as modern swing as the mood dictates. It loosens stiff muscles and such ready for the more compulsory exercises later on, and gets us in a mood to tackle whatever they give us for breakfast. I dream of kippers, bacon and eggs, though to be honest the breadfruit mash is very warming and we swallow it so fast it hardly hits the sides on the way down. 
	Several dorms of the first-years were asking us yesterday what it took to be a really successful Adventuress. According to the films, the key is being able to handle a rough-house, speak any language needed  and control any sort of vehicle on land, sea and air. There is some truth in that; one of the actually useful hints in Beryl’s mostly fraudulent pre-term “Songmark guide” listed such Saint T’s inspired  gems as always hitting people with metal chairs if available, not wooden ones that do less damage. Charming, I must say. The most useful things I can recommend them is to keep supremely fit, eat anything remotely edible without complaint, and remember that most of the time, other people are one’s greatest asset. Not in the sense Beryl means of selling them a bridge or a sheet of Christmas gift tags pretending to be valuable shares, but it is far easier to make friends than compel folk to do what one needs. Many of the earliest explorers of Africa and Asia went in with little more than the clothes they wore and a knack of getting along with people. Even Molly had to admit that the nineteenth century “Maxim-gun diplomacy” is rather expensive next to a kind word. A smile can get you further than a Maxim gun – though Molly points out our Tutors insist we always have a good Plan B.
	One wonders how folk such as Tatiana and Liberty Morgenstern would fare on their own. I can hardly blame them for absorbing their national politics but they should have learned by now not to go broadcasting it at full volume. Not unless they were somewhere folk were checking up on their dedication, anyway. Ioseph Starling is generally to be found near Red Square and Comrade Trotsky at Number Seventeen Pancho Villas, Mixteca City – two places it might actually be wise to go preaching to the converted. As far as Spontoon goes, I remember Tatiana’s revelation last year as she decided just why the Spontoonies were defying the Dialectic and not following what she believed was the natural progression to a Worker’s State – “they aren’t real workers, they’re Kulaks, every one of them.”  *
	As an interesting contrast, I have yet to hear Eva standing up and denouncing anybody. She has her Chancellor’s portrait on the dorm wall (behind thick Perspex since Liberty threw ink over the first one) but does not go about singing that Horst the Weasel song, though she certainly knows the words. Then, I do not stand up and sing “God save the King” here every morning myself as we did in Saint Winifred’s – which does not mean I have forgotten the tune or reject the sentiments. I have noticed various first-years coming to ask her about her homeland’s new politics and religion (actually the two are mixed in a surprising way) and she seems to answer them fairly and without pressing pamphlets on them, unlike Liberty. As her uncle reminisced of his trips deep into Tibet with the Ahenerbe, a medical pack full of new sulpha drugs may be expensive – but the arcane data you might get after winning the friendship of a High Lama by using it, may be beyond price.
	Out to Casino Island for our dance class; with many regrets Meera had to resign from the classes as she is now in the S.I.T.H.S. “Goddard Club” which has been contracted to supply record-breaking rockets for the Solstice celebrations. Fireworks, the official form says. She was top of her class in chemistry at Roedean, which is something the local school definitely want her for. It is a big contrast with how my brother described “stinks” at school – from his description the idea was to mix lots of coloured powders and acids together, and the worse it smelled the more successful the experiment. Having an existing and currently underused medium-scale fuel works by the airfield that supplied the custom mixes used by the Schneider Trophy racers is a big advantage. I imagine they will not be launching from the airfield though; somewhere like the tip of one of the big sand-spits on Main Island would be safer, with most of the rockets falling into the sea for hopeful recovery. Unlike aircraft, rockets do not make gentle landings! I imagine the Marleybone Hotel might object if one of their experiments arrived in the glasshouse suite without a reservation.
	Our own dance practice went very well, with the S.I.T.H.S. having responded to our challenge by getting in an Albert Islander for inspiration. Copying our Orpington Island style would be just trying to catch us up, and they evidently want to get in ahead of us. They found out they had chosen the wrong one to set against us though, as the pretty jungle cat was one of the grand-daughters of the old chief we met in Spring, and remembered us very fondly from our trip there rescuing the Sturdey brothers. She reminisced that even their bravest warriors had refused to do what we did and go after the Sturdeys in the taboo areas; being obliged to protect a guest was one thing, but nobody really wanted to save them. It would be nice but probably over-optimistic to think the Sturdeys have learned their lesson about managing people; “we are paying them” does not mean “we own them.” Well, not on Spontoon anyway; although we do hear disturbing things about what happens on Kuo Han.
	All in all, a very successful dance class. This time of year, nobody is running across the beach for a swim after the strenuous exercising, and the air in the showers attached to the Dance School was absolutely thick with musk. Molly suggested jokingly that Beryl ought to concentrate and bottle it – but the rest of us shushed her. Beryl does not need more ideas like that.

•	Editor’s Note: Kulaks being the Russian peasants who were actually making a decent profit, owned or rented land and saw no good reason to collectivise the farms they had invested their lives in. Ioseph Starling realised that having contented Capitalist, land-owning Workers was a subtle and complex contradiction for the Revolutionary Dialectic, which he solved by the subtle method of confiscating all their crops and having most Kulaks starve to death. Problem solved, dialectic triumphant!

Sunday 17th November, 1936

One thing I can be certain about our dear Tutors is they are very good at surprising us. It was just about the false dawn this morning when Miss Blande and Miss Devinski arrived blowing whistles and ordering us to “fall out” for a kit inspection. It was raining, too. Happily we had taken great care with disposing of such things as empty pineapple brandy bottles, which are the sort of things I expect our Tutors are looking for.
	My own humble bivouac was unceremoniously shaken out and patted down by Miss Blande while I looked on standing at attention. Having passed muster, I was just about to roll it up for the day when Molly twitched her ears urgently and tossed me something hard in an oiled silk bag while both tutors were intently looking down Beryl’s dugout. I rolled it up securely in the bivouac bag just in time for them to emerge and go over Molly’s shelter as if they expected to find the Fire Gem tucked away in there.
	If anyone had anything incriminating discovered I did not notice it; Maria’s typewriter passed muster though Missy K lost a few marks as the Tutor noticed evidence of a charcoal fire (we are not allowed fires on this part of the course.) Then, a Songmark third-year should be good at concealment even though it is not on the printed prospectus. Our Tutors have never confiscated Molly’s subscription to “True Crimes” with its pull-out sections showing extremely practical advice on hiding and smuggling goods, though Molly always comments that we should never entirely trust their tips as Police and Customs certainly read the same articles.
	After a stressful start for a Sunday, breakfast was more than welcome. Breadfruit mash with coconut, very nice. Each dorm gets through about a gallon of it, with Missy K compensating for being the only dorm with three rather than four members (I never have understood that; it is not a matter of maximum numbers per year as unlike us the junior years all have five dorms of four apiece and any departures are made good rapidly.) Looking at the laden breakfast table rapidly empty, one can see why the Althing seem to like Songmark; almost everything we eat is bought locally and even the replacement uniforms are Spontoon-made of Ulàul cloth. Certainly, the money we all pay for Songmark fees stays quite close to Eastern Island. If Father Dominicus is wise he will follow suit.
	As arranged, Adele joined us and we headed out for a water-taxi to Main Island. This time we went somewhere we have hardly been to since Spring, the plantation areas on the North-East side where they have the land crabs. They also have towering totem poles with piled-up carvings of species one hardly associates with Polynesia; moose, beaver and musk-oxen rather than Komodo Dragon, bat or civet cat.
	Our contact awaiting in Chikloota Village was a coyote lady about ten years older than us, who introduced herself as Clear-Skies Yakan. She was in a bark cloth skirt rather than the Pandanus palm version, but her fur was combed in the recognisable priestess pattern. Saimmi was busy elsewhere this morning but had briefed her on us and Adele, including the true story of Adele’s parents. 
	It is certainly a mixed party; Helen and myself as “Euros” who are taking up the local religion, Adele who is Euro but suffering from the effects of a similar tradition, Clear-Skies who is a native practicing it every day and Saffina who even the Spontoonies must admit rather stretches their definition of the term “Euro” except that her mother was one. Clear-Skies is a Spontoonie priestess with a different slant, which is why we were here rather than on South Island. According to tradition, the Amerindians are named after the first significant thing their Mother sees outdoors after the birth. It is just as well the idea has not gained popularity in England, or there would be a lot of people regretting being called Drizzling-Again-Dammit, Train-Broke-Down, Number-Fifteen-Tram or Battersea-Power-Station. 
	Clear-Skies took us out to a shrine on a headland looking out over the beach where one of those big statues of the rain-goddess points a very precisely built bowl out to sea as if inviting the clouds to come and water the islands. Fortunately the clouds had already made their daily contribution, and the weather was quite nice as we sat respectfully by a large totem pole and Clear-Skies brought out her “medicine bag.” This was not the sort of first-aid kit we carry, although in spiritual terms it could have much the same effects. Saffina was nodding in recognition; her own religion in Ubangi-Chari makes much use of charms and “fetishes” as aids to concentration and reminders of rituals. Something like a religious cue-card, by all accounts.
	It was really quite interesting, though I doubt Adele made much sense of the morning. Then again, Susan de Ruiz made little sense of Adele never managing to drop a slice of toast butter-side up, in whatever double-blind test she could devise. We helped Clear-Skies with the full “commune Spirit” ritual without mentioning exactly what we wished to contact – and whatever was nearest (associated with Adele) should show up. I did not see anything, but apparently Clear-Skies did, as she was studying something intently just in Adele’s shadow.
	As Saimmi had thought, there is a definite curse on our classmate, and it is of Amerindian style. I know Maria can spot any Italian designed car or aircraft even if she has never seen one of that model before just by the design style, and this is a similar spotting by style rather than specification. Clear-Skies got a good look at it; it is laid on Adele “as long as she shall be on earth or water”, as ancient designs of curse did not consider aircraft. Well, we guessed that much from its effects. Actually getting rid of it might be rather troublesome; although she cannot be sure Clear-Skies got the definite impression of some ancient shaman putting everything he had into it. He or she might well have not lived to notice that it was Adele and not her parents that was actually hit by the curse.
	Adele is booked to come here for her future Sundays until we can fix her problem; the rest of us had to head back to meet Saimmi so she stayed on Main Island with Clear-Skies. It was surprising to discover we were not the first Songmark students to stay in the village recently; of all people Liberty Morgenstern spent some of the Summer with Clear-Skies’ aunt on their farm. Hopefully Adele will be better company for the Yakan family.
	A hasty luncheon in Main Village was followed by a trip back to South Island. Saimmi is a very busy girl these days, and we are just grateful she is still able to train us. As arranged we met on the South Fluke, where we had seen the Natives Of No Island – and we had quite a surprise when we met Gha’ta, the Warrior Priestess from Ponape.
	Gha’ta is a species of girl I have never seen on Spontoon before. I have seen amphibians of various types (Constable Brak is a regular sight on Eastern Island), but I had only seen Gha’ta’s kin in the carvings on the monoliths on Casino Island, the ones the missionaries tried to chisel off. She is green-skinned, but scaly like a fish rather than a frog despite her very froggy head. Having huge eyes on top of her head would make wearing Euro style hats rather difficult. It is very hard to tell how old she is without fur, but she was certainly a very energetic fish-frog and not at all like the aged last survivor of her tradition we had expected.
	It was quite a privilege, I must say. Sitting alongside Saimmi, learning with her some new techniques and rituals that have probably not been used here for centuries. Gha’ta assures us that the earliest Spontoonies would certainly have known them, as her own people have records going back much further than we would believe possible. The actual dates she gave I assume were a ritual exaggeration like saying “from time immemorial.” 
	One thing I know already about being a Warrior Priestess, is it will be an exhausting job. In some ways it uses inner strength rather than sophistication; it s just as well we are all fit. As the mad scientists in all the pulp comics say in response to any problem, “Turn up the voltage!” All well and good, but we pay the power bills.
	I had been wondering what sort of accommodation Gha’ta had been given to fit her rank, but it seems the Althing will not be bothered by any strain on its hospitality budget. When we had finished, she waved her flipper (she would be hard-pressed to use a typewriter, or a bicycle for that matter) and waded back out into the Nimitz Sea. Presumably the Natives Of No Island are acting as hosts.
	While we rested up, I steeled myself to formally ask Saimmi if she would consider me suitable to be Tailfast again with Jirry next month. It is something I need to know, one way or another. She nodded, and motioned for me to relax – and when I noticed things again, the sun had sunk noticeably lower over Main Island. What Saimmi actually does is not hypnosis, at least not in the way Mr. Sabass proofs us against.
	Hurrah! Saimmi gave her consent, so in just over a month Jirry and I have a date on Sacred Island, along with Helen and Marti (and probably Prudence and Tahni, much to Helen’s discomfort.) Oddly enough, Missy K and her fiancé have never been Tailfast although they are both Spontoonie born and hardly of the “Euro” persuasion as are some native furs on Casino Island. 
	Although we would have liked few things better than a proper meal with Mrs. Hoele’toemi, the sun was almost down by the time we hurried past Haio Beach and we had to head straight for the water-taxis. Ah well, no doubt Saimmi will spread the good news and we will have plenty of time on South Island in future. 
	On our return to our bivouac at the Northern coast of Eastern Island, we found Molly and Beryl in an equally good mood. It seems their Sunday “religious” trip to the Temple of Continual Reward was more than usually rewarding; they have nailed down finance for developing their Adventure Rations. Molly was demonstrating a “fireless cooker” that goes with every can, and will not strictly speaking break the rules on our being forbidden fires on this stage of the course. She had a small flat can like a sardine-tin that she added three spoonfuls of water to (seawater will do, or even less drinkable fluids that one will never be short of) and it angrily hissed,  soon bringing a tin mug of camp coffee placed on top to piping heat. Although she has yet to work out the all-in-one meal, she says she has the money-spinning idea to make it palatable no matter where in the world an Adventurer might be.
	All well and good, but quicklime is nasty stuff and personally I do not like the idea of it leaking in my pocket or bursting in my cockpit. I just hope she can find a way of sealing it properly.
	Helen muttered that you could sentence Beryl to be hung and she would be selling tickets. Certainly she has a sharp eye for a profit. I remember back in Barchester there was a convent of nuns known as the Poor Clares – if Beryl ever joined a convent I expect it would be the Rich Clares, taking vows of eternal solvency and acquisition. She was speculating once that she ought to found a charity raising funds for the rich; they generally like money just as much as the poor, and she argues it is far better to have a millionaire than a peasant grateful to you.
	Having pulled off a successful deal did not persuade Molly to give her pineapple brandy away free or even at a discount; one forgets sometimes just how she was brought up and what paid for her Songmark course. A celebratory glass of pineapple brandy was cheap enough though (Beryl grumbles Molly has priced it too low to be worth under-cutting, what with the risks involved) and we all toasted our good fortune. Maria is rather left out, but she was happy enough for Helen and me.
	It was pitch dark when we got the brandy out; the idea of Miss Devinski watching us from the top of LONO hill with her big binoculars is never far from our minds. I must say, after the very wearing day and the relief of Saimmi giving me a clear pass, the one drink went right to my head. I had unrolled my bivouac bag when I felt the contraband Molly had passed to me first thing in the morning, and offered to return it. She smiled and whispered that she had a replacement already, as Lars has a new pair every year and it was only right that I should share the other half of the set with her.
	Rather mystified, I retired to my bivouac to investigate like a kitten reading under the sheets with a torch. I should have guessed from what Molly had said; Miss Devinski has such a “down” on Lars that the idea of Molly carrying one of his antlers as a keepsake would not go down at all well. I had better keep it safe till I can return it to Lars, or if I am Tailfast first return it via Molly. Tailfast necklaces of one’s own fur have definite binding rituals cast on them, which is why it is a disaster to lose one. If anyone got hold of one of Lars’ antlers, they could work quite a ritual using it! Part of one’s body, even shed pieces such as fur, are about the most affective binding ingredients possible. I can see why Molly wanted to keep it close to her.
	Of course, there could be other reasons for that. Molly is a practical girl and unlike in our dorms in Songmark, out here in the bivouacs we do have some privacy. 

Monday 18th November, 1936

A room with a view! Actually I am writing from the same bivouac shelter, pitched nearly five miles West and two miles higher than our previous camp. No more pineapple brandy though, and Maria has had to say farewell to her typewriter for awhile. Strictly speaking she could have taken it, but it was that or two days’ weight of food supplies and she grimly swapped it for tins of Maconochie. We must be eating up a lot of the supply of those old tins, plus eliminating the occasional leaking or bloated one we throw out strictly uneaten. Beryl suggests as there are already charities raising funds for the Deserving Poor, we collect the tainted cans for the Undeserving ones.
	Being a third-year has its hectic moments, in fact a lot of them. Miss Wildford cycled up just at dorm, blew her whistle and told us we had eight hours to shift camp over to the top of Mount Kiribatori. Ten thousand feet to climb with our packs on! We would not be returning to Songmark to pick up supplies first, so she suggested we start jogging. Naturally, those of us who had dug in had to refill them first “so no cubs fall in”. Considering there is a thirty-foot cliff just next door, any cub who gets this far should be careful about falling off things and into things.
	Not being allowed to return to our rooms meant not resupplying with anything including money. Suddenly we had water taxis to pay for, and a lot of I.O.U’s were written to Molly especially by those of us who had been spending their ready cash on her pineapple brandy. I had just enough shells with me for the return fare, and Helen retrieved a brass cartridge case of small change she had buried near the ferry dock for such emergencies. Beryl was generously offering to lend money, but we know her interest rates. Saint T’s might or might not have economics on the timetable but that school certainly teaches a lot about aggressive financing – Ada Cronstein says if it was on the American East coast, it would be called a Poison Ivy League school.
	I was quite grateful not to have a deep den to refill and replace all the turf exactly as we found it; naturally Miss Wildford stood over the trench owners and let nobody start out till their part of the camp was restored. About a quarter of us joined me in the first rush down to the docks leaving the rest shovelling earth and probably cursing in a ladylike manner. There was no hot breadfruit mash for breakfast either; once landed on Main Island we persuaded our fastest runner Li Han to sprint ahead at top speed to the Polynesian village with our remaining money and arrange some food while we followed up carrying her pack between us. So we had fruits and roast fish to munch along the way; in some cases the villagers sold us their breakfasts hot off their own hearths. They have time to cook another one, unlike us, and tourist shells are hard to come by this time of year. 
	It is a good thing I have climbed up to the peak before, as the proper route is not one that looks obvious nor is it marked on the map. Bear far South of the village, cross over to the far side of the ridge and only then pick up the path that zig-zags up the steep but practicable West side of the mountain. We had not been here since Professor Schiller and G-U-U made the first ascent of the sheer Eastern face, with most of their pitons invisibly sabotaged. I never did discover if anyone found out who did that. Similarly, someone tried to explosively sabotage those ether drums Professor Kurt von Mecklenburg und Soweiter was using for his composting power station; I never found out about that either. Mr. Sapohatan tells us what we need to know and no more, as is reasonable. Maria suspects his rival Doctor Maranowski, but he is still in business and his methane pits bubbling away; had he been implicated I think the Althing would have revoked his license at the very least.
	However fast we travel around here, our Tutors are always well ahead of us. We found Miss Blande sitting in a comfy hoop tent with her stopwatch and notebook ready to time us arriving. She also had one of her gentleman friends for company; that Spontoonie Great Dane who we met in the lifeboat exercises. I think some of us were rather disappointed when they took down their tent and departed as the last of us arrived; of course that “shadow-play” with the tent wall and lantern last time was the sort of accident one never sees twice, and they could have no idea it was visible to us. I think.
	The summit of Mount Kiribatori is very nice to rest on for an hour on a hot day while looking at the tour-boats far below, but it is rather forbidding to spend the night on. There is the consolation that we do not have to be in class an hour later, unlike our previous camp. Maria turned up in the last bunch of us having just filled in her dugout; she hauled her entrenching tool up the ten thousand foot climb and we all learned some new Italian words when she discovered there is about two inches of soil covering solid rock here. Digging into the summit is a matter for dynamite, not spades. I had noted Miss Blande’s tent was the mountain sort that is held down with stones along the groundsheet, not tent pegs.
	It was an impressive evening, and decidedly chilly as the sun went down. Two degrees colder with every thousand feet climbed, is the rule – and it was hardly tropical by the coast. Just our luck to have clear skies; admittedly it might have been a howling gale with us worrying about getting blown over the edge in the night, but no doubt that is being saved up for another time. Still, we prepared for anything and carefully weighed our shelters down. Molly suggested that a parachute would be a useful precaution – anyone running full speed off the edge of the cliff probably would get enough time to properly open one. As if anyone will ever try a stunt like that!  It is as insane as jumping off a bridge, unless in despair at having found the title deeds to it Beryl sold you are not worth the sixpenny revenue stamp.
	Still, it is a very different experience (more’s the pity) from my first trip up here with Jirry nearly two years ago. Then, a Pandanus palm windbreak and some very welcome company was quite enough to keep warm. It is a great relief to know that in a month I will be Tailfast once again, and be able to proudly comb that marking into my fur for all to see and the significant folk to recognise. 
	Cold Maconochie stew for supper; we are allowed fires but are camped a thousand feet above the tree line and nobody really wanted to make the return trip. It is proving a useful lesson in how much things weigh; having hauled everything two miles vertically in a day over very rough tracks and narrow forest trails, one quite grudges the weight of every empty tin. Irma Bundt and a few others had the bright idea of leaving their inessential kit down in the Polynesian village to be picked up later. Of course, there are some things one cannot leave lying around. It must be a worry for stags who live in places where native rituals really work and actual body samples such as shed fur and claw trimmings can be made use of; I can imagine he has to weight any unwanted shed antlers with rocks and drop them in the middle of the Nimitz Sea. Which Molly would think rather a waste.
	
Wednesday 20th November, 1936

Back to Songmark, after two windswept nights camping at an altitude my dear Flying Flea could never reach. In fact I had the opportunity to test that today, as we were all flying again and every aircraft was busy. 
	After half an hour we noticed we no longer had the skies to ourselves; ten biplane fighters came up to fly a creditable formation about three hundred yards off our port wingtips. It was Father Dominicus’ girls, the Ave Argentum, showing us their form. I could see Molly just ahead of me making a strange gesture in the empty air behind the windscreen – I was trying to recall which rude one she was using, when I suddenly recognised it from that Great War film “The Medium Parade” by Howard Huge. If our dear Tutors had equipped the Tiger Moths with machine-guns, Molly was cocking the guns ready for action.
	Of course we are honour bound not to do anything unfriendly or dangerous; the reputation of Songmark has to be upheld (and despite some of the roughnecks we attract, on paper at least we are an aeronautical school for Young Ladies.) So we kept to our formation and our piece of the sky, knowing the eyes of our Tutors were on us from the control tower. I doubt we have anything to fear directly from the Ave Argentum; they do not seem the sort who would go in for sabotage even through third-parties hired for the job. But as for setting us up to be tripped up by our own actions – that seems more likely. Maria has told us much about the Jesuits, who have as slippery a persuasive or coercive technique of making an opponent stumble with her own momentum as any Sumo wrestler.
	I was quite glad to land and leave the skies to our rivals. It is unnervingly like our encounters in the skies West of Vostok last Christmas; every day the Vostok and Soviet air forces patrol their sides of the invisible frontier, the giant bombers and airships flying racetrack patterns at their holding points with weapons primed. There is going to be an accident one of these days; someone will not notice the changing wind blowing them over the frontier, or a paw will slip on the trigger. All in all, it is just as well Father Dominicus had the surplus ex-French “Armee d’Air” biplanes disarmed. Molly has wistfully speculated they still have the propeller equipped with interrupter gear for machine-guns and imagined restoring them to their original state. All very well, as Helen pointed out, until one considers who they are liable to be aiming at.
	On our return to Songmark, Miss Devinski called us all together and I could see her ears pressed right down. For half a minute we all wondered silently what we had done (Beryl looked angelically innocent; she is good at that) and sighed in relief when she snapped out that we had been issued a “friendly challenge” at an aerobatics contest with our rivals. Father Dominicus had publicly announced the challenge via the Spontoon Mirror, before asking our Tutors about it.
	Rather a clever move, when one considers it. If they lose, they have a whole swarm of reasons handy – the disruption of moving to the far side of the globe, unfamiliar weather, new aircraft and everything. They have little to lose by losing, unlike us, and it would look just as bad if we refused to compete.
	Miss Devinski wrinkled her snout and read the details of the challenge, which certainly seem fair to me. Three pilots from each school, to be judged on their aerobatic feats by the Schneider Trophy committee – an impartial bunch who are probably itching for some action this time of year, having rested since the August “Speed Week” and with so long to wait till the 1937 racing season starts up. A lot of tails and ears went up as we realised it is surely a job for third-years, namely us!
	Even more challenging, is the fact that the Ave Argentum put even their first-year students into aerobatics as soon as they have mastered the basics. It is flashy, good for impressing the crowds, no help at all in running a successful Adventuring career (barnstormers are ten a penny anyway) and a major factor in the original Spanish school casualty rate. So they are wisely playing to their strengths.
	Well!  I would bet a month’s allowance that Adele is one of our team, but there are two others to be chosen. Calling for volunteers would be fairly pointless, as we would all jump at the chance; even Maria is very happy to play along. Miss Devinski dismissed us, assuring us that we would meet the challenge head-on. I am certainly up for it, given the chance. Being beaten would be awfully embarrassing though.
	Maria is very keen to write up the competition for her own journalism course; her Uncle started off in papers. Of course, these were not quite like the Daily Elele. She has a photograph of him sitting at his desk with a large black flag on the wall embroidered with skulls and daggers; on the desk is his traditional glass of milk (hot in Winter, cold in Summer), a loaded pistol and three grenades. When other newspapers argued with him he did not sue them but duelled the editors – although it may say something about other Italian newspaper editors that five of them accepted. *
	The disadvantage to our Tutors of our camp on Mount Kiribatori is we can hardly attend classes at Songmark as well; at least the North Coast camp was only half an hour away. Our next piece of hardship will be even nearer home, and both more and less comfortable. No digging in for Maria this time; we are going to be living in and around our aircraft on the airstrip! This is something Miss Blande assures us all Adventuresses have to do at some stage, whether to keep guard on the aircraft or through lack of accommodation elsewhere. I doubt it will be as easy as unrolling a sleeping bag in the back of the Junkers 86. As ever, we are not being told how long this part of the course will last – it certainly encourages us to make thorough preparation, as we may be out till the end of term.
	We had an hour to work on our shelters, and the crank handles of the sewing machines never stopped turning. This could actually be another career possibility; Eriksson’s’ Outdoors on Casino Island sell equipment but do not design and it themselves. It is something to think about. Of course, you would need a public record of impressive expeditions before your name on the label really meant anything; next to someone like Captain Spalding the African explorer we would have no chance.
	Thinking of our careers talks, Beryl is looking very pleased with herself. She has been saying for awhile that her most artistically satisfying career would be to travel around the world causing Mysteries, but the profitability looked uncertain. Now she says she has worked that part out, but she is not telling anyone (except our Tutors, who are a hard act to impress.) Still, it is better than her other idea of founding an Academy teaching the daughters of international fugitives from justice how to outwit the police. “Antipol” was her suggested title for the establishment; something short, catchy and sure to appeal to those whose main enemy is Interpol. The Ave Argentum say that is what Songmark already is. 
	Memo to myself: it cannot be denied we do have folk such as Beryl, Molly and Red Dorm onboard. It is a good thing I was brought up to be law-abiding, or I would start wondering if we could put their undoubted bad talents to good use, pointing that direction. Molly has not quite given up on being a Good Girl, but says she would rather do something well than badly, and she would not be good at it.

* (Editor’s note: quite true. Some people would rather pay the fee of a doctor rather than a lawyer.)
	
Friday 22nd November, 1936

A busy time of things! The first and second-years are probably cursing us for taking all the flight time on the Tiger Moths; we are practicing our aerobatics before the Tutors decide who will go up against our rivals. Adele, for certain – unless she is off injured again. In Spontoon, they may have some rather unusual insurance claims. Can one get insurance against being cursed? Adele is the second person I have come across with the problem, so there should be some customers.
	We have been guarding our aircraft round the clock, sleeping under the wings. Runways and hangar floors are jolly hard, and we almost wish we were back on Mount Kiribatori where there was at least some turf under our bedrolls.  There is the advantage that we are back for meals again, and hot showers and bathrooms are within range. One thing the Adventure books never mention is how useful a shovel is especially for a protracted stay; by the second morning on the peak Maria had almost stopped cursing having carried it all the way up. Another good thing about living on the airfield is the chance to scavenge for spare parts. The old compressor on that waste oil blowtorch Jasbir’s dorm built for heating our baths breathed its last this week, so we are reduced to bathing in pairs.  That is, one bathes, one furiously pumps at a manual blower! This is awfully hard work, and by the time one is finished at the pump one needs another bath. Rather rough on anyone who just had one and then starts pumping the stove blower for a dorm-mate; this might go on all day if we had the spare time. Whoever gets the electrical system working again, we have voted to award a bottle of Nootnops Blue.
	Despite everything, we are managing to have some fun. Being on the airfield, Mahanish’s is five minutes walk away and as we are “patrolling” one or two of us at a time can extend our patrol to cover it. I cannot see Miss Devinski being really convinced by the cover story of us pursuing suspicious characters, but happily we have not had to explain it to her yet. And the food there is an awful lot better than we generally get at Songmark.
	Molly is experimenting in her free time (what we have of it) with her new self-heating cans. They have to be cheap and effective; grains of coral rock calcined to quicklime shows more promise than the fine powder she started off with. Everything else she has tried is either too dear or too nasty – the test with potassium oxide blew the can up and scattered boiling caustic sludge everywhere. Not something I want in my tent or cockpit. 
	Madeleine X is actually rather good at aerobatics, having flown solidly for years before staring at Songmark. She tends to hold up French style and élan beyond all else; one can do something perfectly well and still have her look down her snout for lack of refinement. I reminded her that it was French style and élan that had their troops starting the Great War in bright red trousers, with the (more expensive) officers also clad in white gloves just to be really conspicuous.  Still, they had not been up against anything but spears in a generation. We had just digested the unpleasant lessons of the Boer War by then and dressed our troops in khaki, and the field-grey clad Germans were presumably just naturally efficient.
	Molly and I went out as usual to Song Sodas, where Mr. Sabass “signed us off” as proof against ordinary hypnosis and opined there was nothing more he could do for us. We asked Miss Blande why nobody else is getting this treatment, which ought to be jolly useful to an Adventuress as by repute Songmark graduates find themselves in all sorts of tight spots. Her muzzle wrinkled somewhat, and she growled that we should have the sense by now to know why we needed it – and it is not something the average girl should need, let alone a Songmark third-year, having the sense not to get into those situations.
	I assume they are talking about Lars, though Mr. Sabass had admitted that whatever he could see in me was not hypnotic influence. I reminded Molly to ask Lars about it next time she saw him; by her last report Lars is away on another “Import-Export” mission somewhere far afield. 
	Back to the airfield, to guard our aircraft. For those of us with a head for heights and no tendency to roll around asleep, a favourite perch is on the wing next to the engines of the Junkers 86. As it flies till evening most days the engines are still giving out heat for hours, and the scent of hot oil one soon gets used to. Besides, it makes a good vantage point ten feet up to look out over the airfield in the starlight (there are few night flights this time of year.)
	Poor Adele was in what everyone thought was the safest possible place, under the aircraft, when she had an unpleasant awakening. The oil purge lines had been checked after the aircraft landed, but there must have been a vapour lock in the pipe. When the engine cooled completely the lock disappeared and the purge pipe started to siphon itself  empty around midnight. Guess who was directly underneath. Madeleine X was under the opposite engine but was quite undisturbed – except by Adele, who had about two gallons of used engine oil over everything.
	Madeleine being notably unsympathetic, it was up to us to lead her back to Songmark looking less like a bunny than like an oiled seagull, and fire up the bathtub with the duty Tutor’s permission. Not exactly the most peaceful night for any of us; it took an hour and three bars of mechanic’s soap before we could even see what colour her fur was again. Definitely, her curse is not wearing out in time, rather it seems to be gaining in experience.
	
Saturday 23rd November, 1936	

It never rains but it pours (especially on Spontoon in late November.) Apart from the challenge of the Ave Argentum aerobatics contest next weekend, we read in the Daily Elele that the Althing is sponsoring a “World Nations Day” on December the first, and some of us are sure to be invited to help. Maria says most of the embassies are liable to go along with it, as they have little to do in the off season and all get sent crates full of “information material” to distribute locally. Most of it gets given to schools, though not quite ending up as the subjects for the lessons intended; I have seen some very nice papier-mâché models in the classrooms around here.
	Helen muttered that it was the Althing’s bright idea to keep all the diplomats busy trying to upstage each other, giving them less time to poke around where they should not. There may be much in that.  Still, it should be interesting to see. Spontoonies meet all sorts of tourists and travellers, but mostly they are too interested in the exotic delights of their holiday destination to talk much of home. Except to loudly demand of the Polynesians a cheeseburger/hot dog/cheesecake “that any damn greasy spoon back home could gimme quick as skat.”
	Still, we had at least one Saturday as normal. Out to the dance classes and a fine skirt-shaking show-time! Mrs. Motorabe was quite impressed by our performance with the “souped-up Orpington dance” (Chicken soup?) we won the prize with, and had us step through the moves at about half speed for the benefit of the other students. There are no patents on hula; you can bring in something new but are expected to share it after getting the benefit.
	This time of year the Guides are not busy showing the delights of the island to tourists, so they are doing their own “refresher training”. Both male and female guides have to keep in top condition for their various duties, and a morning of shaking a tail at energetic hula is perfect that way. It is how Molly met Lars, after all.
	For the first time this term, we managed to get to the cinema after dance class and catch a double bill of the Barx Brothers. “Simian Business” was hilarious, with Blotto, Wino, Dipso and the relatively sane Stinko in the jungle being paid to (hopefully)  catch a legendary furless ape for the zoo. Molly tells me there was a fifth Barx brother, Narco, who was with them in their vaudeville career but left before they started in films. I believe that; what I do not believe was Beryl’s innocent-sounding comment that all the exotic drugs of the orient were first introduced to Europe by his explorer ancestor Narco Polo.
	On the way back, I happened to be looking at the Northern tip of Moon Island when there was an alarming sight – a long flame sprang up, easily twenty feet high. A few seconds later there was a muted roar like a blowtorch. It lasted about twenty seconds, and yet the fire and crash boat that is always moored ready with Chief Lodis never moved to investigate. Most odd. 
	The explanation arrived at teatime, when a very excited Meera Singh came in with her fur smelling like a Schneider Trophy aircraft. Those planes drink stranger fuels than high-octane petrol. She came fresh from the Goddard Club, where they have the peculiar notion of turning a rocket upside-down to test it. The idea, she explains, is to measure the thrust and similar vital statistics while on the ground and with sensitive instruments that do not have to be light enough to fly. Once they have it running reliably and know the thrust (they are using a glorified weighbridge) they can start thinking about their engine leaving the ground.
I must say, it is rather over-done for fireworks. I can hardly imagine kittens running home from the shops on November the Fifth towing trailers of wood alcohol and red fuming nitric acid to put up a rocket or two.
Thinking of celebrations, we returned to find our bath heater fixed! Amazingly, it was one of the first-years we had to thank and quietly award the big bottle of Nootnops Blue. That Cranium Island shrew put the air blower together; it seems she is a compulsive tinkerer who has grave difficulty walking past any mechanism without wanting to improve it. In this case she has … though Jasbir’s dorm have run the new blower very successfully for three baths and confess they still cannot understand exactly how it works.

Sunday 24th November, 1936

Quite a scattering of Songmark furs today – Maria off to her Embassy on Casino Island to talk about the coming Exhibition, Adele and Eva off to see Clear-Skies Yakan about Adele’s curse, and Helen, Saffina and me heading back to South Island to see the warrior-priestess.
	I must say, Gha’ta is a very … distinctive fur. If one calls an amphibian a fur, of course. We met her again on the tip of South Fluke, which is about as far from eavesdroppers as one can get on South Island. There is no cover for two hundred yards, unlike being in three-yard jungle where one never knows who is listening behind a tree.
	Being a Warrior Priestess is a jolly uncomfortable thing. The nearest equivalent is starting an engine by plugging oneself into the mains; it is a matter of how long one can grimace and take it. Gha’ta explained that there are very few furs who are old in this tradition; not just because it is hazardous (though it is) but it needs youth and strength to handle it. Rather like manning an artillery piece rather than running an engine, there is so much more energy involved if things go wrong. It is part of the tradition that went awfully wrong five hundred years ago. Gha’ta says her mother was at home near Ponape at the time and felt it very clearly.
	Although she speaks Spontoonie very well, I can tell it is not her birth language. I assume she meant it was tradition that her distant mothers, meaning ancestors, recalled the event.  Obviously nobody lives a tenth of that time, however healthy a life they lead.
	Still, Gha’ta warns us about all the dangers and is very strong on protective rituals. She says we could have handled what we met on Cranium Island now without Saimmi, though that fragment was almost drained of its power. I still shiver thinking about that; from the spot I picked it up I could see a lot of bones of folk who did not have my protections in place. What is on Krupmark and under Sacred Lake will be a lot worse.
	Although the waters are definitely chilly this time of year, we followed our new teacher out across the lagoon to the reef where there was company waiting. Saffina was most impressed; it is only the second time she has met the Natives of No Island, and Moeli introduced her husband and cub. It must be hard on Moeli to have a child who is “out there” somewhere; though she knows the rest of the family will be looking out for dangers, she is not suited to a permanent life at sea. 
	There was one very puzzling thing; we were chatting about our flying exploits with the water folk, and distinctly got the impression that some of them had already flown themselves, and not as passengers either. How on earth could they fly an aircraft, with legs (or rather flukes) like that? Still, watching the children playing, it reminded me their reflexes are quite amazing and they could probably fly rings round most furs if they only had a suitable aircraft. That is one of the things we definitely do not ask about.
	Back with Moeli for luncheon at the family longhouse; she is exceedingly fit and tells us she is looking forward to her second cub in the Spring. Certainly she is a model of cheerful Polynesian family life, however non-standard the family is. Anthropomorphologists would give their tails to have swum along with us today.
	It is always relaxing to stay at the Hoele’toemi longhouse – which might seem odd as nobody could call it peaceful with neighbours, cousins and kittens everywhere. Everyone takes care of the kittens crawling around, making sure they stay out of the poi pots and the fire-pit. Even at meal-times, one might say the youngest kittens dine anywhere available. Moeli evidently believes in letting nothing go to waste.
	Mrs H is very pleased to hear that Helen and me will be Tailfast next month; she joked that with Saimmi now as High Priestess and Moeli’s family arrangements being as they are, she was getting worried about having grandchildren who could sit in a longhouse with her. Jirry will be back in a few weeks, hurrah! Certainly in time for the holidays, let alone the Solstice. Marti is back already, which meant Helen vanished off with him as soon as the meal was finished.
	Helen is definitely planning on two more Tailfasts and then becoming Mrs. Helen Hoele’toemi. She jokes she wants to have wet ink on both her Songmark graduation papers and her marriage license. Definitely not as some tourists are presumably doing this time of year, giving the Spontoonie Department of  Births, Marriages and Deaths some trade in theoretical marriage licences for lady tourists who have enjoyed the hospitality of the islands with a little too much enthusiasm.
	Thinking of legal problems, I took the chance to sit down with Mrs H after dinner and ask her advice about my problems with (hopefully NOT) being Lady Allworthy. After all, the title and such is no use to me out here, and I am sure someone back in England would want it. It would be definitely dishonest to touch a penny of the money if I am not going back to earn it; presumably the Allworthy estates have suffered quite enough from having absentee landlords already.
	I must say, Mrs H is quite a fount of wisdom. She agreed I should do something soon, and came up with a useful name. It seems there are a few old furs remaining who stayed on after the British forces withdrew, without becoming Spontoonie citizens as such. There is the Chief Magistrate, a Judge Poynter, who has a reputation amongst Spontoonies for absolute honesty and is still in office though he must be well over the retirement age for most other professions. Mrs H had some fascinating stories to tell of him, and indeed he should be well aware of my case having been on the expedition that brought Leon Allworthy to justice at last. So in some (perfectly right and proper) ways he is responsible for my predicament, and may be inclined to help.
	That will have to wait till next weekend, if indeed we have free time then. The flying competition is set for Wednesday, subject to weather conditions. This time of year, it might not clear until Friday.
	An excellent afternoon, and one of the only occasions we ever get to relax. That is to say, it was strenuous with the Warrior Priestess training and elsewhere for some of us, but nothing like the stresses of Songmark. Helen reappeared as we were getting ready to leave, rubbing her neck-fur but looking utterly relaxed. I think she will cope with domestic life (in between adventures) perfectly well.
	Back to Songmark to find our Aleutians trip is on the timetable! We are heading out on December 2nd, and returning on the 13th (we hope.) Quite a few tails drooped at the prospect. Still, we will be back before the end of term. I remember seeing how shattered our senior year were last year on their return; that may explain why our tutors are hardening us off slowly as one does with plants before taking them quite out of the hothouse. Spontoon in Winter is a lot warmer than Barsetshire, but one can see why the tourist season finishes in September.

Tuesday 26th November, 1936

Yesterday was quite a red-letter day for my dorm – our Tutors have picked the teams to compete against the Ave Argentum tomorrow, and apart from Adele (who was what Helen calls “a shoo-in”) they have chosen Maria – and me! 
	Miss Devinski pulled us all in and gave us the news; she noted that we would be given every fair advantage. That is, as much final practice on the Tiger Moths as we wanted, excused heavy duties and night guard shifts, and even sleeping indoors if we wanted until the competition is over.
	We very happily took the light duties and the flying practice complete with “flight breakfasts”, but I decided to stay outdoors and with some grumbling Maria agreed. We are sleeping perfectly well in the open air now, and it would feel wrong to have clean sheets and (admittedly rather hard) indoor beds while Helen and Molly were still sleeping on tarmac or concrete. I am glad Maria agreed; she certainly likes her comforts but has learned to live without them. Anyway, we will do our share of guarding the aircraft through the night; now if ever is when any sabotage would be expected.
	Maria was musing that although our rivals are not likely to personally creep into the hangars with a monkey-wrench, someone may pass the word in a receptive ear. If caught, she says the saboteur would be found to have personally placed large bets against us, giving a clear motive and keeping our rivals’ reputations unblemished. The world is certainly full of devious people – that being so, it is always good to have some of them on your side.
	Although we usually get twelve hours a week flying time in our log books, we have done as much in the past two days as we get the final polish on our act. Adele will lead the formation, and I am more than happy to follow her. Molly suggested we gain a surprise advantage and run the Tiger Moths on ten percent nitro-methanol; she was roundly howled down by everyone else. The day of an important competition is not the time to start radical experiments. 
	I am certainly enjoying the preparations, as although it is awfully hard work this is just the kind of thing I imagined when first starting Songmark. I even get three days on the full flight breakfast; ham, sausage and eggs with white bread toast and butter. Much better than breadfruit mash, good though that is. No doubt Miss Devinski will make us sweat it all out again in some hideous chore if we let Songmark down.
	
Wednesday 27th November, 1936

Quite a day for our scrap books – and quite a “scrap” it was, as the Royal Flying Corps would have called it. Up at the regular time, in to Songmark to shower and dine well. Though Maria and Adele are not carnivores by ancestry they tucked into the flight breakfast very happily; it certainly helps curing the sensation of butterflies in the stomach.
	I had not met the Schneider Trophy committee before, having missed Speed Week the last two years adventuring in Krupmark. It was a peculiar feeling to realise I never will see it again as a Songmark student. They were all eager to view an off-season competition, and we met them all and our rivals on the airstrip as the airfield mechanics checked our aircraft thoroughly. Maria had warned that a good ploy for the Ave Argentum would be to sabotage one of their own aircraft, secure in the knowledge that independent judges would spot it; a drop of acid on the control wires is said to be the done thing and is difficult to spot.
	Anyway, we all passed muster and were given a pep talk by the head of the Spontoon Islands Racing Association (SIRA) who organise the races. There has been a lot of interest in this competition, more so than just a friendly wager as we have in our dance contests against the S.I.T.H.S.  Apart from that, it will be rather a change for the committee to judge aerobatics. Schneider Trophy aircraft are not known for their manoeuvrability and do not take kindly to being made to try; as witness that Gee Bee racer the ground crew have nicknamed “The Spinning Incinerator”. With an engine that size and a minimal airframe, it is only too eager to swap ends in flight.
	Once in the cockpits we stopped thinking about anything but our routine, concentrating on following Adele through the skies. I was hardly taking notes at the time, so I will have to paste in Missy Aha’s article and let that speak for itself:

Aces Medium High!
Today the skies above Eastern Island echoed to six medium-performance aircraft being pushed to their limits as a team of our well-known Songmark Aeronautical Boarding School faced off against the new Casino Island based “Ave Argentum”,  competing for aerial supremacy over Spontoon skies.
	The teams looked well matched; the familiar Tiger Moths against the ex-military Potez designs that the books say can beat them by thirty miles an hour. The two flight leaders, Adele Beasley for Songmark and Beatrice Esparanza for Argentum,  certainly had a fight on their paws. Significantly, nobody was talking at all about the two schools’ very different approaches.
	First off, Argentum took the lead with a formation loop right off the runway! All the commentators say you should never DO that; the SIRA team were applauding but looked horrified. The display almost ended very rapidly as the Potez aircraft skimmed about a yard above the runway on the bottom leg. Songmark took off in a more textbook-approved style, then dipped over the Eastern end of the runway and performed a “3-way burst” with absolute precision.
	Argentum responded with a synchronised outside loop that had the watching pilots (and the wing roots, mechanics assured me) groaning in sympathy and straight into a line-abreast Immelman turn,  a very tight formation just over the Radio LONO mast. Songmark rejoined then split three ways, executing ten precise snap rolls then re-joined with split-second timing to fly almost wing to wing before Beasley led them into a spiral dive and they split again heading out exactly South, East and West (North would have gone straight into LONO hill.) Her wing-mates Inconnutia and Bourne-Phipps are not strangers to these pages, but though they are usually found in the hula dancing pages they seem just as adept in a flight suit as a grass skirt!
	Ten minutes of absolutely riveting flying finished with Argentum coming in level over the runway at almost full speed before suddenly dropping their flaps and dive brakes, “throwing out the anchor” in a very dramatic way! The tyres were smoking as they hit the runway two thirds down its length in what looked like a perfect combat landing. But it wasn’t! The pilots around me were saying the Argentum is more used to grass fields in Spain which have a lot more rolling friction than the smooth pavement on Spontoon, and although her team-mates pulled up with smoking brakes within a plane length of the end of the strip, Miss Esparanza ran off the end! Nobody hurt but one wooden propeller that was scattered over the beach; one watching Argentum scholar behind me muttered that Miss Esparanza would spend the rest of the day on all fours having to pick up every splinter – with her teeth.
	Just to add insult to injury, the Songmark team landed with wingtips almost touching by a paw’s breadth, in a formation abreast that you’d need a theodolite to spot any bend in. 
	The judges took about one minute to make their minds up. Though it is more involved than their usual checking the stop-watch, with the dangerous start and landing mishap they had little to argue over. Songmark are declared a clear winner!

I have to confess I did not see the opposition’s landing, being too busy lining up properly for our own. That went without a hitch, and by the time we had switched off and taken our helmets off the judges had made their decision – by the Songmark cheers I did not have to wait for the newspaper to tell me who won. Very gratifying.
	Typically, Miss Devinski just came over and gave us a brief nod. But from her, that is worth more than some folks’ ticker-tape parades. It was a definite relief; I found I was shaking by the time I got out of the cockpit.
	Adele fell over the landing chocks again. It was not her fault, a well-wisher had run up with them and dropped them in just the wrong place while he asked for her autograph. Definitely her curse is still following her, and looking vengeful after her success in the air. It will be harder for Miss Devinski to fail us after this, but Songmark tutors are famous for successfully doing very hard things.
	Winners or not, we had to spend the next half hour in our maintenance overalls putting the aircraft away and checking the bracing for any signs of excess strain. Maria had some rigging to do before we could hand the Tiger Moths over to the second-years.
	Miss Devinski did relent enough to excuse us our daily poi for supper; instead we were given half an hour to wash and prepare then the whole year was cleared for an evening at Mahanish’s – “legally, this time” as she put it.  We did not really expect our occasional “diversions” off sentry duty would go unnoticed, though nobody has mentioned them before. Then, the theme of Songmark is that one can do anything as long as you work hard enough for it. I remember in our first year our tutors showed us that tunnel through the fence the departed Senior year dug. I rather get the impression they knew about it while it was in use – and had anything been bungled they would have been down on the third-years with a vengeance.
	This may be why they put up with Beryl. She does what she does, rather well. Nobody has exactly thrown up their paws in horror remembering that dorm of our first ever graduates, who became Air Pirates. One almost gets the impression the Tutors would be much happier if we became successful smugglers rather than failed airline pilots.
	Certainly, to the victor the spoils. That is, we are hardly “spoiled” much on this course, and with the fees Songmark charge it always comes as a shock to first years seeing the menu. Tonight things were different, with Songmark footing the bill. Emperor prawns Phall, lovely stuff! I thought so at least, though Maria commented that strength of curry would bleach my fur white. She conceded it must be very healthy, as any germs would stand a better chance in boiling nitric acid. I am certainly grateful that I was acclimatised to it back in Saint Winifred’s; eating a Phall strength curry needs breathing control much like some of the self-defence techniques (and Maria says it would be a decent self-defence in its own right; all one needs to do is breathe in an assailant’s face afterwards.)
	
Friday 29th November, 1936

The fruits of success never last long at Songmark; we are back with everyone else on night shifts and no more “flight breakfasts” till next time.  After all, we are trained at aerobatics and from our Tutors’ point of view winning was just what we should have done; around here one gets no medals for just meeting expectations. Miss Esperanza really did have to search the area on all fours and pick up every splinter of the broken prop with her teeth. What our Tutors would have done with us had we lost, is something one could lose sleep speculating about. 
Maria is very happy that she can write off to her Uncle with success to report; not that one failure would have her reassigned to running supply flights to contested Ethiopian dirt strips forever. If she fails to graduate from Songmark (not that it seems likely, unlike Adele or me) things would be very different.
It was interesting to overhear Beryl and Adele at luncheon; though they spoke very quietly they underestimated feline hearing. Then, mice and rabbits both have such good ears they tend to underestimate others. Rather alarming – I know Adele was on Krupmark Island over Summer, but I did not know Beryl was familiar with its unsavoury denizens. Beryl was saying something about Adele having made a useful contact that could be invaluable even if she is thrown out. Beryl’s idea was to have Adele sent over there in certain circumstances, then Beryl puts together a rescue after awhile and they split the money between them. Fortunately Adele’s curse does no damage to her wits, as she was having none of it. Anybody relying on Beryl to rescue them and expecting Beryl to hand over money afterwards, is comprehensively doomed.
Having finished our course of hypnosis proofing, it would be too much to expect that we have the time off as leisure. It seems very long ago and a cosy memory that we would finish our evening meal and retire to our (fairly) well heated dorm and leaf through the aeronautical magazines and the Daily Elele, with (fairly) warm beds to retire to while the rain hammered down outside rather than dripping down our necks in a leaky bivouac.
	We need our sleep now, having spent last night on gate guard. This time I was on with Susan de Ruiz, who had a good deal to add about Adele’s curse from a mathematical standpoint. It must be very strange to be Susan and eagerly look forward to the latest mathematics journals as Molly used to with Film Frolics. Interestingly, she says she has been given some local challenges by the S.I.T.H.S for the use of their advanced classes. She does not know exactly what the project they want it for consists of, but it involves some very tricky dynamics and calculus that she can do in her head like other people can hum a tune. It is not every girl who does quadratic equations for fun.
	Hmm. I have never heard of the Spontoonies being into research for the sake of it. I think it is more than steam-engine science.

Saturday 30th November, 1936

Our last Saturday on Spontoon for awhile! We have read up the reports from the previous third-years Aleutian trip, and determined to enjoy ourselves while we can. The fact that our Tutors have spent so long “hardening us off” outdoors first must mean something, and a very uncomfortable something we expect it to be. Fortunately all our outdoor equipment is already in good order; this weekend the third-year rooms reeked of neat’s-foot oil and dubbin as other dorms embarked on a final frenzy of waterproofing and reinforcing.
	We are apparently as waterproofed, and hypnosis proofed too, as we are liable to get. Molly was speculating a supply of “hundred percent proof” would be useful to lay in stock, but the chances of smuggling it onto the aircraft are slim. On Monday we assemble all our kit, weigh it and it all goes into the aircraft hold – where our Tutors have ample time to sniff out any contraband on the long flight. Miss Devinski may be a yellow Labrador but it is commonly believed she must have bloodhound ancestry somewhere along the line.
	Anyway, Jasbir’s dorm joined us on Casino Island for a fine morning of dance and socialising with our friendly rivals. This time round, half a dozen ducks turned up en masse. There are of course the usual mix of avians around, but this flock were definitely birds of a feather, namely Orpington Duck-cult members. None of us have forgotten our trip to Orpington, and our tangle with them there! Evidently they had heard second-paw about “some Euros doing the Orpington sacred dances” and had come along to see if the horrid rumour was true.
	Actually, I think we gave them quite a shock. Three shocks in fact; one of them recognised us from our performance at the festival where we allied ourselves to Namoeta and her Chicken-Spirit friends against them, plus we have the dance down as accurately as they could wish, and we have our “license”, in terms of our Chicken-Spirit talismans! Had they been crested birds, they would have been more visibly crestfallen.
	I have to admit, I admire their bravery. Even when they saw we were Songmark third-years and outnumbered them, they were evidently intending to try and throw us out if we had made a mess of the sacred Orpington dances. Although our Tutors would have much to say about gratuitous and excessive use of the self-defence skills they taught us, the Duck-Cult has a certain reputation around Spontoon and I think we could have ruffled a lot of their feathers before that disturbed Miss Devinski too much. 
	Happily the occasion did not arise. I could see Helen improvising with doing some of the dance moves with hand and foot claws unsheathed, and both Maria and Irma Bundt though vegetarian by species could account for a good deal of pressed duck.
	One thing about our hectic schedule; just having a few hours away from it is such bliss! I think we are getting that look around the eyes that rather frightens some first-years (and members of the public.) Being able to relax at The Missing Coconut with a hot coconut punch after our dance and shower was heavenly; all the more so as we expect the next weeks to be hellish. Literally so, Maria says; she has read Dante and says there is more frozen than incendiary inferno (although as she also says there is an endless supply of each, it is hard to think where she gets the figures from.)
	Back to a distinctly chilly airstrip, where our class of Young Ladies (patent. Pending) is laired like a pack of wild animals, facing outwards around our aircraft with patrols always restlessly moving around. Some folk pooh-poohed the idea at first, but stopped when Molly’s suggestion sunk in, “what if we were on Krupmark?” Maria’s military training manuals have a lot to say about this kind of thing.
	
Sunday December 1st, 1936

December already! Although it might be frosty in Barsetshire by now, it feels quite chilly enough as we squirmed out of our sleeping bags on the hard airfield and exercised or danced the warmth and flexibility back into our limbs. Certainly, our breath was hanging in clouds before the sun came up and we trooped out for a very welcome hot shower and hot breakfast back at Songmark.
	As before, Adele vanished to Main Island with Eva (Eva being a first-year would not get a pass to go on her own) to have her curse looked at and spiritually poked and prodded. Although most Euros would not take such things seriously, Eva does so. She may not be a fennec fox but whenever local religions are discussed she is certainly all ears. That legend of the world’s primal religion having a shrine somewhere in the Nimitz Sea almost had her drooling on the floor; at home she is a junior member of something she calls the Tooler society * who love quaint folklore like that.
	On South Island we met Gha’ta again who taught us much that now makes perfect sense. But we had to have seen the Cranium Island fragment first, and the carvings hidden under sand in “The Tub” on Casino Island that were hastily chiselled in the final hours. Definitely we were glad Eva was well out of hearing range! The prospect of her trotting home to her Uncle (and her beloved Chancellor) one day and explaining exactly what was done and how, is enough to make anyone’s tail shudder. We would be quite safe with (say) Liberty Morgenstern finding out, as her Government pours scorn on “peasant superstition”. As Maria says, what you don’t know about can bite you where you’re not looking. Having troops pouring across a frontier is something armies understand and can try to tackle – but triggering something like the Event of five hundred years ago deep in a rival’s territory would be the ultimate in “unconventional warfare” – you might not understand it as an attack, let alone prove who was behind it. It is a jolly good thing Eva is obsessed instead with antiques such as the Horn of Heimdal that the Vanierge keep.
	An exhausting trip, though not in the way our trots through the sand dune with pack exhaust us. We were very glad to get back to the Hoele’toemi household as ever and hear some good news – Jirry and his father are back this week! Of course we will miss them, but that is par for the course. A third-year Songmark girl is like a cross-channel swimmer; keeping one’s head above water is the main priority, and any fun along the way is a definite lucky bonus.
	In three weeks time Helen and me will stand on Sacred Island with Marti and Jirry, winding rings of our partners’ tail fur for the priestess to bless – hopefully Saimmi. Whatever happens in the next three weeks, there is that to look forward to. Short of our aircraft crashing, us getting avalanched etcetera, Albert Island invading and similar unlikely emergencies, we will be there and Tailfast. I expect Prudence and Tahni will too, but I would have quite spoiled Helen’s good mood by reminding her.
	Mrs. Hoele’toemi says she has been to Meeting Island and spoken to the good Judge Poynter, who seems very eager to take on my case. I still wear that gold loop around my tail-root, and there is no denying that I was on Krupmark and the events that happened there. Mrs. H tells me the best bet is to prove the will that made me Lady Allworthy is invalid under British law – it seemed cast-iron enough to me, but that is how lawyers get wealthy. Just my luck that I am heading out tomorrow!
	On our return, we had a surprise. Miss Blande intercepted us at the airfield and announced we had our dorms ready and waiting for us, and one night of nine hours unbroken sleep if we wanted it. Cheers all round! Of course, the more cynical or experienced in the class had their ears starting to droop about five seconds later. When the Tutors give us a light, digestible luncheon one just knows there is a marathon run or a swimming epic about to be sprung upon us that afternoon. Giving us a long, comfortable final night before the trip is equally significant – we will probably eat a hearty breakfast tomorrow, too.
	An hour later we were showered and just about to head downstairs to eat when we discovered there was one of those other little surprises our dear Tutors love – a snap kit inspection! One has just enough warning to stand by the bed looking innocent, and not a second to hide anything. Which is the idea.
	Miss Devinski is now exceedingly unhappy with us. Finding that souvenir Lars shed this Autumn rolled up in Molly’s sleeping bag made her quite irritated. She would have been far happier to discover Molly had taken up a hobby of collecting fully armed pet land-mines. But that was nothing to her reaction when she found the other one similarly hidden in my bivouac bag. She just looked at me for half a minute, snarled “Well, Miss Allworthy, you do live up to your name.” turned on her heel and stalked away. Helen did not even get searched.
	Oh dear. It would be less uncomfortable if she had just shouted at me – but then, as Father says, Sergeant-Majors who shout all the time find out their troops acquire an immunity to it. Having her find out about Leon Allworthy was bad enough,  but he was at least far away on Krupmark. There is an instant and irrevocable Standing Order about Lars that would have anyone kicked out of Songmark for letting him on the grounds, and for a minute I thought Miss Devinski was about to extend that to include his antlers. I had no intention of bringing mine into Songmark, but with the rapid changes of plan tonight I had no time to make any other arrangements.
	Well, they say “the condemned fur ate a hearty breakfast” indeed, and perhaps tomorrow we will find out. It would be adding injury to insult if they served us Poi out of spite; we seem to be condemned enough as it is, anyway! 
	Hopefully by the time we get back from the Aleutians, Miss Devinski’s temper will have cooled off. I am sure everything else that goes on the trip will.

(And it did. As recounted in “Gone with the Wind-chill.”)
	
*Editor’s note: Amelia presumably didn’t know that’s how you pronounce “Thule.” Despite having an Antarctic colony named after it, “Thule” does NOT rhyme with “cool.”