Plot
Lucy Maxwell was unhappy at her new school, Eastbank Ladies College, where she felt the other girls were snobs who looked down on her. Lucy’s only “friend” was another new girl, Juliet Martin, but Juliet was in fact a spiteful troublemaker who was secretly turning the other girls against Lucy.
Notes
Appeared
- Secret Enemy – Nikki: #112 (11 April 1987) – #123 (27 June 1987)
The premise is similar to “False Friend” (Mandy). Not to be confused with the Bunty serial of the same name (where a sly girl takes advantage of a naive rich one).
I wonder how this one ended? The Mandy version ended up with the troublemaker making a slip – knowing about a fake telegram (which she of course sent) about a family emergency when she shouldn’t have known about it – which gives her away and she is expelled.
I have no record, Muffin, of a story called ‘False Friend’ in MANDY. I don’t have every issue but I have taken comprehensive notes on those I don’t have during a number of visits to the British Library over the last few years. I would therefore appreciate it if you would give me the starting and finishing issue numbers and dates of the serial, so that I can see whether or not the entire story falls within a couple of batches that I have bought recently but not got round to logging in to my collection, or in a run of issues that are not in the British Library’s bound volumes of MANDY, some of which do appear to have been stolen.
Perhaps the Nikki story “False Friend” was reprinted in Bunty.
There is also a serial called ‘False Friend’ in NIKKI. It runs from 169 (May 14 1988) – 182 (August 13 1988).
The Nikki story “False Friend” does seem to be the one you are remembering Muffin, it does end with the friend slipping up about a telegram
http://girlscomicsofyesterday.com/2011/08/false-friend-2/
As for Secret Enemy ending I don’t have the last episode but before the last episode Lucy does discover Juliet has been causing her trouble, she tries to expose her by recording her on tape, but Juliet won’t slip up so easily and takes out the batteries before hand.
It is definitely the one that was reprinted later. Perhaps it was reprinted in Bunty, not Mandy.
An irony is that Lucy did not want to leave Mill Street Comprehensive, where she was very happy and had lots of friends, in order to go to Eastbank Ladies College, a boarding school where she felt there would be a load of snobs. Her mother, who has just accepted an offer from Aunt Marjorie to pay all Lucy’s fees and expenses at Eastbank, insists. Juliet Martin starts at the school on the same day as Lucy, who thinks she will be a friend. Juliet thinks she is going to have some fun with Lucy, who she looks on as a “common little brat”.
It isn’t long before Lucy discovers that the teachers look down on her previous school, and Lucy has to point out that the reason her French isn’t up to much is that she was in the Spanish stream at Mill Street. The teacher considers Lucy to be impertinent, and tells her that if she wasn’t new she would have given her 1000 lines.
The problems for Lucy of course are that rumour spreads like a bush fire, and that Juliet’s lies and hypocrisy are believeable because there are so many of them. It takes Lucy a good while before she begins to suspect that Juliet might not be quite the friend she has appeared to be.
Juliet plants a necklace that she has told another girl is worth £50 into Lucy’s desk, where Lucy finds it, but as she takes it out, Juliet takes a flashlight photo of her with the necklace in her hand, making it look as though she has stolen it.
The tables start to turn when Fiona, another pupil, has to go back to the changing room to replace a lace in her tennis shoes, and overhears Lucy begging Juliet not to get her expelled as she will carry on doing everything Juliet tells her to do, but she also overhears Juliet saying , “I suppose I could let you off for now. Did you do that English Grammar for me?” However, when Fiona tells Lucy that everything will be okay from now on as she is going to tell the others, Juliet shoves Fiona violently down some stairs, knocking her out.
When Lucy goes to the hospital to see Fiona, she is told that Fiona has been sent to a hospital nearer to her home. Lucy tells her that if Fiona is well enough to be moved, she is well enough to write and tell everybody about Juliet. As far as Juliet is concerned, Fiona had concussion so the doctors will think she is just rambling. She goes on to say that she has everybody fooled, and if Lucy doesn’t do as she says, she will show the photograph to the Head. Unfortunately for Juliet, the Head is actually standing right behind her and has overheard everything. Juliet tells the Head that the photo proves that Lucy is a thief, but the Head, having overheard their conversation, tells Juliet that she is not prepared to believe anything she says. She expels Juliet but makes her confess all her nastiness to the class.
Thank you for the information Derek. Wow, the ending sounds a bit complicated and contrived.
I think that if we were being fair, Muffin, a huge number of serials for girls and for boys could be described that way, but isn’t it basically just the way plots develop?
Often the case in girls comics.