Room 2D

Story from Februs 25 by Colin Weaver When the Birley Institute was built in 1830, the wealthy businessmen who were financing it out of civic pride and the hope of a mention in the Honours List could not agree about its purpose. Should it be a museum, an art gallery or a library? The local firm of architects and builders who had got the contract under The Old Pals Act tried to please everyone, and the result was a queer, undecided mongrel of a building, like an oversized Nonconformist chapel on the outside, and with an interior which was such a maze of galleries and stairways and rooms and passages that a stranger should not enter without a native guide. At least, that is what Mr Mytton told Lucinda. After a month in Birley, the sardonic, middle-aged curator of the Institute was one of the few people she was on easy conversational terms with. The other teachers at St Jude’s were civil enough, but they were obviously suspendin...

Story from Janus 27 by Johnny Chesham Penelope Forster sat in the railway carriage looking out at the Sussex Downs with a resentful expression on her pretty, freckled face. Tomorrow was first day of term at St Elia’s High School for Girls and any minute now she would be joined by all the other schoolgirls reminding her that her freedom was over. She had enjoyed the vac and met a super boy too, but now she was back to all the rules and discipline of a strict girls’ boarding school. As the train drew into the junction she saw hordes of girls in the blue and white striped blazers of St Elia’s swarming about in straw hats, navy blue gym-slips and white knee-length socks, waving hockey sticks and satchels, reminding her all too clearly of the school life she was so tired of. In a flash she saw the answer: ‘Of course,’ she thought, ‘I’ll get myself expelled!’ Why hadn’t she thought of it before? St Elia’s was full of rules and...