Fairytale?

Chapter 6- Such Food For Thought

We'll not let its follies grieve us,
We'll just take them as they come;
And then every day will leave us
A merry laugh for home.
-

Though it almost ended what was left of her mental fortitude, Sanya passed her exams. She even got the second-highest mark in the English Language paper (damn the perfect tenses), though the gladness at that was mildly offset by the number of red marks there had been in her French and physics and chemistry and maths and civics papers.

It was the last week of June, and the second last week of school- she didn't understand why the children weren't just let home the very day the answer papers were done being shown- and there was no work to be done. Classes were free, except for the few teachers (*cough* Mamzelle *cough*) who had started the work of the next year- students were allowed to go into town every day- and the weather was warm.

So warm that a rumour went around the third form that, because of the war, earth was transforming into hell.

Sanya told Bonnie, very loudly, at breakfast the day after the rumour passed on to the rest of the school, that 32°C wasn't very hot, and they ought to come to Calcutta someday, where temperatures in the summer were frequently in the early 40°s.
(She did not know if that was true- but she did know that India, just like Rihaaya, was tropical, and much warmer than England, so she figured that the numerical temperature was much higher.
Besides, it had got people to shut up about the hell-earth.)

She sang quietly to herself ('Sleepy Lagoon', by Dinah Shore) as she walked to the swimming pool, her towel slung over her shoulder and a bathrobe covering her swimsuit. Most didn't bother with bathrobes in 'such heat', they came down in just their swimwear.

To each their own, but Sanya- 'chakla' though they might all call her- had always suffered from irrational meekness when it came to her body.
And her everything else.

The water glinted in the sun- it was barely late afternoon, which was when the pool was generally empty- and Sanya sighed happily, as she reached the pool.

No matter the weather, or the world, it was always so refreshing and soothing to be in a water body- the water rolling over your limbs, and losing yourself in the strenuous swims- and especially when no one was around-

"Oi, Rainsford!"

Drat.

Sanya had just taken off the bathrobe, and she had the urge to just jump in the pool, without heeding the voice or turning around to acknowledge it.

But she was trying to behave.
School was almost at its end, then she would have a glorious month or two in Finchley, with Edmund right there and being able to kiss him and hold his hand and 'do stuff' with him on a bed instead of in a forest- though she didn't mind the latter- and the food at Grandmother Rainsford's house was much better than school food, too. The fact that she wouldn't see her classmates till September, was certainly an additional plus.

So, she turned and was faced with Ms. Earnshaw, the games mistress.

Ms. Hollis Earnshaw did not like Sanya. This was because, upon finding out that her middle name was Catherine, she had asked her if she had read Wuthering Heights (which was the third book Sanya had read in this world, after The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and The Picture of Dorian Gray), the female protagonist of which was Catherine Earnshaw. Apparently, it was a very common 'joke' question, and not one that she liked.

Sanya adding, "At least it isn't Hollis Heathcliff," had just made things worse. In her defence- Ms. Earnshaw was strikingly attractive, and her muscular arms had thrown her slightly off the plane of sanity.