Christine Mason’s cousin Netta is sent to study in Factory Street School with her. Netta had been the top pupil at her school and doesn’t give anyone a good reason to like her at her new school.
Erica Morning’s life is complicated by the presence of Amrita Dar, daughter of Indian Fakir. Amrita claims to be Erica’s “slave” and has an awkward habit of making her “wishes” come true.
Shirley Smith, is school Captain at Tenbury School. She is supported by her best friend, who helps her especially against any tricks by jealous vice-captain Daphne.
Other Appearances
Julie Fraser and Wendy Page were once inseparable friends but when they fall out after they get new pets. Julie gets a dog, Patch, and Wendy gets a kitten, Silky, so when their pets don’t get along a “war” develops between them.
Plot
A Four Marys story where Cotty catches a viral infection which causes her to lose her hearing. Her parents want to send her away to a special school to cope, but with the Marys support, Cotty convinces them that she can stay on at St. Elmos. The girls start to study sign language, Cotty learns to lip read, the school changes the tv to have subtitles and Creef makes sure to write things on the board. Mabel and Veronica are also eager to help out as they feel responsible as Veronica purposely sneezed on Cotty. They are unconvinced when the Marys tell them its completely unrelated. Even though the snobs are being friendly and trying to help, they end up causing more trouble for Cotty. Veronica tunes Cotty’s violin before a concert causing great embarrassment to Cotty, who can’t hear its out of tune. They also annoy Cotty to an extent, that she insists she can go meet the others on her own. This is bad luck as a fire drill goes off while she is on her own.
Of course Cotty’s parents arrive and are not happy; if it was a real fire Cotty could have been killed. So Cotty has to leave. The new girl that takes her place is Mary Smith, and though its not the same as old times, the girls do get along well with Smithy and they start their usual adventures, rescuing puppies and fundraising. Just when things seem to be settling in Smithy’s father gets a job in Australia and she has to move. The Marys are disappointed and worried about who her replacement will be. They are surprised to find Cotty back. Turns out the deafness was just temporary. The snobs are dismissive of her taking advantage, so back to their old ways and everything is back to normal.
Thoughts
This is one of the many PSL books the Marys were featured in. There was about 15 of these PSL stories. This was also a book with a Four Marys symbol, that was used before but not regularly, the last 3 Four Marys PSL books all had this symbol.
Interestingly Cotty nearly leaves St. Elmos for a music academy in another story in the weekly issues. She is also replaced by a girl called Mary but she isn’t as nice as Smithy is in this story. In fact she becomes friends with the snobs. It could have been interesting to see one of the Marys replaced permanently, though shocking as well! Smithy doesn’t get much time for characterisation but appears to fit in well with the group
Cotty seems to pick up lip reading quickly which can’t be that easy. Also lip reading is made harder that phonemes can often be visually the same. Adjusting to a new disability would take more time than depicted in this story, but it is nice to see the effort the girls and the school make, to help with the adjustment. The snobs trying to be nice is amusing, they are even happy when Smithy joins up. It’s a story that concentrates a lot on the girls friendships, and even if the snobs make things difficult, there is no antagonist here. Strangely, even though it is Cotty that is having to adapt to her new life, the story is shown more from the other Marys perspective. There is the time where Cotty decides she has enough of Mabel and Veronica and goes to practice music on her own, but other than that it’s mainly the other girls making the effort to ensure Cotty is settling back in and then getting used to Cotty being gone. Of course, everything is back to the status quo by the end of the story.
Plot/Thoughts
Jane Cook is happy when she finds out her friend Claire is moving back to the neighbourhood, but Claire seems to have changed in her time away and has it out for Jane’s family. She starts out with small things, such as knocking over Jane’s books so Jane misses the bus, of course she acts all nice afterwards claiming it was accidental. It’s not just Jane she’s making trouble for though, Jane’s Dad’s car gets scratched and Claire causes Jane to break her Mum’s favourite teapot. After Claire turns the class against Jane, Jane is determined not to get tricked again and also get to the bottom of why Claire has changed.
When Jane’s cousin Andy comes to stay, his dog goes missing, Jane believes Claire has something to do with it she confronts Claire. It seems Claire has mistook Andy for Jane’s brother Mike. Jane begins to wonder if Claire has something against Mike in particular. After a trip to a funfair, Claire appears to be getting more dangerous, nearly pushing Claire’s Mum out of a ferris wheel carriage, while pretending to have vertigo.
Claire’s little tricks have now become more psychotic as she actually tries to injure some of Jane’s family. While out riding with her cousin Jenny, Claire startles the horse causing Jenny to fall off and get injured. She reveals to Jane that her change seems to be something to do with her sister Sara/Fay. ( It seems the writer/editors, had a hard time keeping track of Claire’s sister’s name. In issue 1697 it is Sarah, then in issue 1704, she is called Fay and in 1707-1708 she is back to being called Sara, though without a h!)
Continuing on the road of nearly killing the Cooks, Claire invites them over to the house while her parents are out. She acts all nice for a while, then pops out. She leaves the central heating on full blast, then locks all the doors and windows so they can’t escape.
Luckily Claire’s parents come home in time. Meanwhile Jane has discovered that Claire’s room is covered with pictures of Sara. (Jane describes it as a shrine, creepy much!?) Later Claire confirms that she is making the Cooks pay for what they did to her sister. Jane not having any idea what that could be, is happy that her brother Mike is coming home from college so she can talk about Claire with him.
Claire is excited her sister Sara is coming home too, she boasts a lot about her. Mike goes cycling on his new bike but Claire cuts the breaks, even though Jane can’t prove it. So another kill attempt, the girl is seeming like potential bunny boiler material! After the accident Jane remembers that Mike and Sara had been on an adventure holiday together a few years ago. Mike is reluctant to tell her the story, but does eventually.
His version of the story is that him and Sara were friends, but then she started to tell everyone they were engaged and Mike didn’t know how to handle it. (So I wonder how much of a casual “friendship” this was, either way Sara is delusional to announce their engagement. Seems this family is full of issues! ) So Mike not wanting to embarrass her waited til he was home and wrote to her saying he wasn’t ready for that sort of thing. I would think so, as Mike is just in college now and the holiday was a a year ago how old were they when Sara created this engagement? I’m guessing way too young to be planning a wedding.
So Jane tells Mike what has been happening. They go to see Claire. Sara is home and they are surprised to see her in a wheelchair. Turns out Sara had an accident on her horse a couple of weeks after Mike’s letter and Claire has blamed Mike and hated his family since, because its rational to hold a vendetta against the entire family over what she perceived Mike did wrong. Anyway Sara knows it was just bad luck, and she was over the Mike break-up at that stage (would have been nice if she told Claire that!) Claire’s upset at this revelation.
In a few weeks everyone’s feeling better and apparently there are hints of Sara and Mike getting together, yep because nothing is more attractive than a delusional girl and her psychotic sister, that nearly killed you and your family. Seriously hope Claire got some professional help, her obsession with her sister and basically attempts to kill people isn’t something that should be that easy to get over in a few weeks….in the real world at least!
Orphans, Valerie Dean and Teresa Jones, are determined to remain great friends for ever. But when they are fostered, they discover that their families are bitter enemies. Val and Terry, are sent to separate schools, and when both are picked for the athletic teams, they are determined not to compete against each other.
Lucy Peters and Jenny Bates had always been best friends, but trouble started when a new family moved into the house between theirs. The Smiths had a good-looking teenage son, called Guy–and both Lucy and Jenny were determined to have him as their boyfriend!
A Group of pupils from an East London Comprehensive were on a school trip to Wales. After trouble at a village disco, an “Open Day” at the community centre was arranged to ease the tension between the locals and the visitors from London. Carol, one of the London girls, had made friends with a local boy, Liam.
Sally Carstairs and Caroline Blake had been best friends all their lives, so when Sally won a scholarship to her mother’s old school, the girls were certain a it wouldn’t come between them.
