Rose's Challenge Read online

  Rose’s Challenge

  Rose’s world is changing. At last she can go to a proper school where she makes a best friend, learns more than just embroidery and even gets to play a proper cricket match. But at home, Mother is dangerously ill, Father is worried about Federation, and Aunt Alice is getting in more trouble than ever…

  Join Rose again on her adventure in the third of four stories about a Federation girl who’s determined to do things her way!

  Puffin Books

  For Brian

  With illustrations by Lucia Masciullo

  Puffin Books

  Life for Rose has been different ever since Aunt Alice arrived. While Mother can’t bear Aunt Alice’s modern ideas about women and voting, they’ve inspired Rose to fight for her dreams. Now she’s allowed to go to school for the first time instead of learning at home with a horrible governess. But will Rose be too far behind to ever catch up? And will anyone want to be her friend?

  Contents

  1 First Day at School

  2 Friends and Foes

  3 Mother is Ill!

  4 The Big Game

  5 Christmas is Coming!

  6 a Brand New Year

  7 Win or Lose?

  ROSE gazed up at the tall iron gates, and then down the driveway to the big two-storey stone building that was St Swithin’s School for Young Ladies. She couldn’t believe she was actually here, about to start her first day at school!

  John urged the horse forward and the buggy rattled towards the school, pulling up in front of the tiled steps. Rose jumped straight out.

  ‘Thank you, John. Will you be back at three o’clock?’

  ‘Yes, either me or Tommy.’ John smiled. ‘Good luck, Miss.’ He clucked at the horse and drove away, not wanting to hold up the two carriages that were coming in behind him.

  Rose made sure her new straw hat was on straight, took a deep breath and climbed the steps. The hallway was full of girls in white blouses and long skirts who chattered like galahs and giggled together happily. Rose’s eyes widened – so many girls, just like her!

  Martha and Edward had both told her that school was boring, but she refused to believe them. How much more interesting to be here rather than sitting at home with a governess, learning French verbs and wrestling with embroidery.

  In all her excitement, though, Rose hadn’t thought about what it would be like to be surrounded by several dozen strange girls, many of whom were staring at her curiously. She was starting school so late in the year, and surely they would all have made friends with each other already? Suddenly she felt all alone and very small as the girls swept past her so confidently, and she took a hesitant step back towards the front door.

  ‘Come along, girls,’ a woman called. ‘The bell is about to ring.’

  Indeed, it did ring just then, and within a minute, the hallway had emptied, leaving Rose wondering what she should do next. A woman poked her head out of the room on the left and said, ‘Are you the new girl? You’d better take your hat off and join us in here.’

  Rose did as she was told, stopping short inside the doorway when fifteen pairs of eyes focused on her, all fifteen faces bright with interest. She shrank back against the wall. What if they thought she was stupid? What if she said the wrong thing, or nobody liked her or …

  The teacher, whose small round spectacles were perched right on the end of her nose, smiled at her warmly. ‘Don’t be nervous. You must be Rose McCubbin.’

  Rose nodded, not sure her voice would obey her.

  ‘Then you’re in the right class, my dear. I’m Miss Capstan, your teacher. Youre one of our youngest pupils, so I shall seat you next to … Abigail. Abigail?’

  A girl at a desk near the window stood quickly. ‘Yes, Miss Capstan.’

  ‘You’ll look after Rose, won’t you?’

  ‘Yes, Miss Capstan.’ Abigail smiled, giving Rose the courage to thread her way between the desks to the spare seat. Abigail’s blonde hair was pulled back into a tidy knot and her blue eyes sparkled.

  I hope she’s as nice as she looks, Rose thought.

  She sat down and was about to say hello when Miss Capstan clapped her hands.

  ‘All eyes on me, girls. Now, as usual, we’ll begin the day with a poem. I shall write it on the board and you will copy it, then we will learn it and recite together.’

  Rose knew what a poem was - she’d read plenty in the Cole’s Funny Picture Book that Aunt Alice had bought for her. But the poem that Miss Capstan wrote on her blackboard was very different. It was called a sonnet, and was by William Shakespeare. It took Rose ages to copy the poem neatly. At home, Miss Parson had made her write with a thick pencil and she wasn’t used to a pen with a nib. Despite her great care, there were still three blots of ink on her page. Even after copying it out in the booklet Miss Capstan gave her, and reciting it several times, Rose still wasn’t sure she understood it.

  ‘Don’t worry, Rose,’ Abigail whispered. ‘Miss Capstan will explain it to us in a minute.’

  Rose smiled at her gratefully. Thank goodness Abigail was there to help her.

  Miss Capstan did indeed explain, although Rose wasn’t convinced that you could love someone in so many ways, as Shakespeare said. Wasn’t one way enough? All the same, Rose had enjoyed the discussion. How different it was to learning alone.

  But then they moved on to arithmetic, and it was even worse than Rose had feared. While the others could add and subtract and multiply vast numbers, she was unable to add much past 100, and had never learned her multiplication tables. Rose hunched in her seat as Miss Capstan checked her page. But instead of scolding, the teacher said, ‘You’ll soon catch up, Rose. It’s just practice.’

  By the time the bell rang for morning break, Rose felt as if her head was going to explode. Still, she also felt a buzz of excitement. She was learning! And this was only the beginning.

  The girls were allowed half an hour to walk in the garden and have a drink of lemon cordial or tea if they wished. Rose followed Abigail to the dining room for some cordial, and then they went outside, first putting on their straw hats.

  ‘How old are you? ‘Abigail asked.

  ‘Eleven,’ Rose replied.

  ‘Me too! Where did you go to school before this?’

  ‘I didn’t. I had a governess but she left.’ Rose’s cheeks grew hot. ‘I couldn’t do any of those sums, you know.’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you if you like,’ said Abigail. ‘I learned at home, too. My mother taught me herself before I came here.’

  ‘What other subjects do we study?’ Rose asked.

  ‘This morning it’ll be geography, and then history after lunch. And today we also do physical exercises, which is mostly marching around or running races. Other days we have singing and nature walks, and needlework. I just hate needlework!’

  ‘So do I,’ Rose said. ‘I’ve been embroidering the same horrible doily for about three months.’

  Abigail screwed up her face. ‘I’m supposed to be embroidering a lace collar but it looks like a dog ate it.’

  The two girls giggled, and went to sit under a shady tree. ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ Abigail said. ‘I’m going to university.’

  A pang of envy jabbed through Rose. She had thought she would like to do the same, but perhaps she was already too far behind. ‘Wouldn’t university be wonderful?’ said Rose. ‘But also I want to travel all around the world.’

  ‘If you were a classical scholar, you could visit all the historical ruins,’ Abigail said.

  Rose nodded – she didn’t like to ask what a classical scholar was. Maybe she’d ask Father.

  It seemed to Rose that she’d only just started talking to Abigail when the bell rang. They weren’t allowed to ev
en whisper in the classroom. Hopefully she could sit with Abigail for lunch and talk some more. Perhaps it doesn’t matter that I haven’t had a friend before, thought Rose. Perhaps friendship is as easy as talking and spending time together.

  In geography, the class was learning about mountains and glaciers – just the kind of facts Rose loved. She learned many new words, such as alluvial and igneous, and tried to write them neatly, but the pen just would not behave.

  Miss Capstan walked up and down the aisles, checking everyone’s work, and stopped to watch Rose writing. ‘I think this is the first thing you need to work on, Rose,’ she said, after a few minutes. ‘Does your father have a pen and ink at home on his desk?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  ‘Then I shall write him a note to ask if he’ll let you practise with them.’ She gave Rose a small book with line after line of perfect script in it. ‘I’d like you to copy one page per night from this, and bring your work to me each day so I can see if you are improving.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Capstan.’ Rose was embarrassed to see that the book was for Grade One pupils. Was her writing really so bad? Right at that moment, as she was forming a nice big ‘g’ for glacial, the nib stuck and ink splattered across her page in tiny dots. Abigail looked across at the mess and giggled. Rose gritted her teeth. She would practise then, every night, until she could write a perfectly clean page.

  Before lunch, they went outside again for physical exercises, but first Rose had to wash the ink off her hands.Then she joined a row of girls from her class who were swinging their arms and lifting their knees high while the teacher chanted, ‘One, two, three, four, waiting at the kitchen door.’ The girls answered her: ‘Five, six, seven, eight, now we’re at the garden gate.’

  After this warm-up, they ran races across the lawn, and then quietly walked all the way around the school building to settle down again. Rose won two of the races! She was glad she was in her usual dress and pinafore – the older girls who were in long skirts and blouses struggled to run without getting caught up in their clothes. The more daring simply lifted their skirts, not caring if they showed their stockings. How much easier it would be if we had pants like Aunt Alice’s, Rose thought. But even here, long skirts and dresses were what young ladies had to wear.

  Lunch was soup and then cold slices of meat and salad. Rose sat quietly at a table with Abigail, listening to the girls around her chatter. The older girls seemed to talk only about new dresses and hats, just like Mother and Martha. But the younger girls near Rose had a fascinating argument about their favourite books – much more interesting.

  When Abigail declared that Treasure Island was one of the most exciting books ever written, Rose grinned at her and nodded. She really was a kindred spirit!

  In the afternoon, they studied the history of Great Britain. Rose had missed the early centuries, but Miss Capstan lent her a book about the period. ‘I can see your reading is excellent, Rose, so you should be able to cope with this. I’m sorry to give you so much work to do at home.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Rose said. ‘It’s wonderful to be finding out all these interesting new things.’

  And it was! She couldn’t wait to get home and tell everyone. Well, everyone except perhaps Mother, who often said Rose talked too much at the dinner table.

  It turned out that Mother had a headache and ate in her room, so Rose was free to talk non-stop all through the meal about Abigail and all the things she’d learned.

  ‘Did you know there were glaciers in New Zealand?’ Aunt Alice asked.

  ‘No.’ Rose jiggled in her seat. ‘Have you seen them? Are they huge?’

  ‘The Fox Glacier is like a river of ice. It’s spectacular.’

  Father nodded when Rose mentioned her pen problems. ‘You may use mine after dinner, Rose,’ he said. ‘Practice makes perfect.’

  Martha said little, smiling at Rose’s excitement, but Edward’s scowl grew bigger and bigger.

  Finally, he said, ‘It’s just boring old school. What are you getting so excited about?’

  ‘You might hate school,’ Rose said, ‘but I love it.’

  ‘Now, now,’ Father said, ‘I’m sure nobody hates school. Let’s all go to the sitting room. I want to read my paper.’

  Rose skipped ahead of everyone and sat on the chair next to the lamp. If Father was in the mood, he would read items out of his newspaper, and she wanted to know about current world and Australian events in case her teacher asked questions.

  Father put on his spectacles and unfolded his paper, reading the headlines. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ he said. ‘Edward, are you learning about the moves towards Federation at school?’

  ‘Yes, Father.’ Edward sprawled back on the settee, biting at his thumbnail.

  ‘Good. Those darned Sydneyites are still moaning. I haven’t forgotten that their Premier called us a “cabbage garden”. Anyone would think Victoria is a backward foreign country, the way they carry on.’

  ‘Don’t they like us?’ Rose asked.

  ‘They don’t want the government of the new Commonwealth to be in Melbourne.’ He humphed and flapped the newspaper. ‘Well, it certainly shouldn’t be Sydney. Nothing but money-grubbers up there.’

  ‘Then where would it be?’ Rose said.

  ‘There’s talk of creating a new city halfway between here and Sydney,’ said Father. ‘I suppose it would be a town, to start with, but it would be our capital.’

  Rose leaned over to see what Father was reading. ‘It says an earl is coming from England to be our first Governor-General. What does that mean?’

  ‘He’s the Queen’s representative,’ Father said. ‘He will choose our first Prime Minister, and he’d better pick aVictorian, is all I can say.’

  Martha was threading embroidery cotton onto a needle. She smiled at Father. ‘Are you and Mother going to Sydney for the proclamation?’

  Rose had heard plenty about this – there was going to be a special ceremony to join all the states together.

  ‘We’ll have to see if we receive an invitation first. Your mother has already chosen a new dress to be made, but there’ll be few Victorians invited, I wager.’ Father glanced at the clock. ‘Rose, hadn’t you better start your pen work? I’ve left you a new nib and bottle of ink.’

  ‘Yes, Father.’ Rose went into the study and had to stack Father’s huge leather chair with cushions. She found it much easier to use the tricky pen when there was no teacher watching her.

  Martha came in to see how she was going. ‘That’s good, Rose.’ She tilted Rose’s hand a little. ‘See, if you hold it straighter, the nib doesn’t stop on the paper so much.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Rose examined Martha’s face. ‘Are you feeling better this week?’ Martha suffered with awful headaches.

  ‘Yes, although I do miss not going to school now.’ Martha had graduated from her finishing school with commendations for dancing and music, and a special certificate and prize of a set of watercolour paints for her art.

  ‘I’ll tell you everything that I’m doing,’ Rose said, ‘and you’ll feel just as if you’re still there.’

  Martha laughed. ‘I’m not clever like you. Politics and history aren’t interesting to me. I’d much rather be down by the river, painting or drawing.’

  ‘When I travel around the world, you can come with me and paint all the exciting places we visit.’

  ‘That’s an excellent idea,’ Martha said. ‘Now, it’s your bedtime, so off you go. You need plenty of sleep so you can do your schoolwork tomorrow.’

  In bed, Rose kept her lamp on and opened the history book Miss Capstan had given her. The pictures were disappointing, just a few drawings, but Rose was soon caught up in reading about how the Romans had lived in England hundreds of years ago. Just think – there were still lots of Roman ruins all over the countryside there! One day she’d go and see them, too.

  EVERY day at school, Rose discovered a new subject. In science, Miss Capstan talked about species and what mammals
were. Even a huge whale in the sea was a mammal, not a fish. When they went on a nature walk, they found larvae and talked about how they became butterflies and moths.There seemed to be nothing that Miss Capstan didn’t know a lot about, and Rose longed to be just as clever.

  While she loved school and was good at some bits of it, Rose soon realised how much she’d missed out on while she’d been studying with Miss Parson.When they had an arithmetic test and Rose was bottom of the class by a long way, she couldn’t stop the tears of humiliation that escaped.

  ‘We’ll see where you are at by the end of the school term, Rose,’ Miss Capstan had said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  But Rose saw the frown on Miss Capstan’s face as she walked away. What if Miss Capstan decided she wasn’t ready for school? What if she was sent home to work with a governess again until she was ready? A huge lump formed in Rose’s throat. She couldn’t bear the thought of having to go back to having someone like Miss Higginbottom.

  There was only one thing for it. Rose decided she’d spend every night studying the subjects she’d missed, and she’d ask Aunt Alice to help her with her arithmetic. Rose was determined to stay at this wonderful school, no matter what.

  She also had another special reason to stay – Abigail! She’d worried that Abigail was only friendly to her on the first day because Miss Capstan had told her to be. But on Tuesday Abigail brought sweets to share just with Rose, and she always chose Rose as her partner for walks and class work. She was quick to help Rose when she was stuck on a problem, and by the end of the week, Rose felt as if they’d been friends always. At night, lying in bed, Rose felt so happy about her new special friend that she could barely sleep.

  On Friday, Rose got the biggest surprise of all. In physical exercise after lunch, while Abigail and some of the other girls played tennis on the grass, Rose was able to play cricket! She was the youngest and the smallest, but she soon proved herself to be a handy player, and was allowed to bowl.