Tag Archives: revenge

Sandra and the Runaway Ballet [1961]

Judy, Lucky Charm, , , , ,
  • Sandra and the Runaway Ballet – Judy: #86 (02 Sep. 1961) – #106 (20 Jan. 1962)
  • Reprinted – Judy: #387 (10 June 1967) – #408 (4 November 1967)
  • Reprinted as Sandra of the Castle Ballet – Lucky Charm: #2 (1979)
  • Art: Paddy Brennan

Plot

Picking up from the Sandra of the Castle Ballet story, Sandra Wilson and the rest of the class are still at the island castle, with the holiday season at a close, Madame Sierra collapses from exhaustion. Her doctor advises her she needs complete rest for six months, so she heads for Switzerland, leaving the school in the care of an old friend, Sarah Lester. She has placed the school in the wrong hands, as Sarah, a good dancer but never a star, is jealous of Madame Sierra’s success and wants to ruin the school. She acts lazy not showing up to practices, she doesn’t teach the girls anything, cancels practices as punishment and they find their dancing getting worse. Knowing that this can’t continue, Sandra comes up with the plan for the class to runaway to London to get jobs on stage for experience and use their earnings for ballet lessons.

Needing money for their trip, one of the girls Marion convinces her father Mr Pickford, who runs the holiday camp, to give them the money to go. As they had been entertaining the holidaymakers he actually had money set aside for them, so he tells them they earned it. There good start doesn’t last long as a policeman sees them board the train and is suspicious and alerts Sarah Lester. When they get of train in London there are more police waiting for them. They split up and most of them manage to evade the police, but 2 girls are caught until Sandra manages to cause a distraction and they get away. They end up at a rough boarding house and while practicing ballet, and disaster strikes when Rose takes a fall when a banister breaks. Rose is badly injured and has to lie in plaster for several weeks, Lois volunteers to stay back and look after her while the other girls go look for work. The girls have no luck the first day, and when they get back seems they missed a caller description matching Sarah. It seems their luck is turning when the caller returns and it is Marion’s aunt with news of an audition, but their luck doesn’t last long as Sarah is on the hunt and tracks them down to the audition. She is determined none of them will be ballerinas. Sandra, Pearl, Alicia and Marion all pass the first part of the audition but when they have to audition with a male partner, Sarah has gotten to him first. Ramon an old friend of Sarah’s makes the girls look clumsy,and they lose out on the part. Knowing where they are now, Sarah will continue to make trouble for them.

Sandra is not giving up so easily, she comes up with an act the girls can tryout for variety theatre. Sarah meanwhile has manipulated their landlady to get them thrown out. They get new lodgings but Rose can no longer stay with them and goes to hospital. The girls have no luck at auditions, but after performing at hospital Sandra realises that they have been too tense at the auditions. They succeed at their next audition when Sandra helps them relax, making them believe they are not being watched. But Sarah is ready to stop them again, she gets the chorus girls that the Castle Ballet girls might replace, to confront the girls. They manage to call police and get to the theatre with a little delay and have a successful performance resulting in a month’s contract.

After nights of being booed on stage, they finally find out that Sarah has been the one making trouble for them, including hiring the roughs to boo them. Undeterred they have now earned enough  money to get lessons from reputable teacher, Madame Bartok. At the dance school they see an old class picture with Madame Sierra and Sarah. Sandra wants to investigate further and tracks down the old teacher, Madame Markus. Nina Sierra and Sandra had been good friends until after an audition for a touring company that they both wanted, Nina got picked and Sarah vowed revenge. Sandra figures out Sarah is ruining their career chances as part of her revenge. Meanwhile, the girls get a letter from Madame Sierra demanding they return to school with Sarah. Not wanting to anger Madame Sierra most of the girls agree to go back with Sarah until Sandra returns and tells them the truth of Sarah’s past.

Taking more drastic measures, Sarah hires some people to kidnap Sandra. They lock her in a boat but Sandra does risky thing of setting fire on oil on the water next to boat and escapes back to theatre when the coastguard come to rescue her. Rose is still in hospital during all this and while she should be walking,she won’t even try as she is disheartened believing she’ll never dance again. Sandra comes up with the idea to spend their money on pavlova ballet slippers to encourage her and Rose does start to recover. With their time in the Victory theatre finishing, Sarah  is up to her tricks again to get them to spend last of their money. Things are looking bad for the girls and then Madame Sierra shows up with Sarah, not listening to their protest, she demands they go back to school. But she slips Sandra a note to trust her, she pretends to leave the girls with Sarah,but sneaks back and hears all her revenge plan. She banishes Sarah and having recovered enough she stays on to teach the girls again. A few weeks later Rose returns, then Madame brings Edmund Lawrence of a prestigious ballet company for the girls to audition for. He chooses Sandra, so her time at the Castle Ballet ends, but she is off on new adventures.

 

Notes

This would be last time Sandra’s story involved Madame Sierra’s Castle school. Of course they don’t spend a lot of time actually at the castle in this story, but the girls are together throughout and show their closeness, when all are genuinely happy for Sandra’s success in the end, which contrasts to Sarah and Nina’s friendship. Sandra being the main character is driving force for moving the plot forward and coming up with solutions, getting them to go to London, helping them succeed at audition, tracking down Sarah’s old teacher. When Sandra is unknowingly kidnapped and the girls may have to dance with her, they concede that no one can dance the part as well, while they don’t give up and make do with a substitute, there is relief when Sandra reappears in time for the performance. Sandra certainly is the star of everything! It is good to see some of the other girls have some character as well though, Pearl and Alicia don’t go along with the rest of the girls who are going to go back with Sarah and we see Rose struggle through her own crisis after her injury.

There are some questionable actions by some of the adults in the story. Mr Pickford is in support of his daughter Marion and the girls scheme, but never tells Madame Sierra the problems that Sarah is causing. Initially they plan to say at Rose’s aunts boarding house but as its full they have to make do with the rougher one, Rose’s aunt never inquires after them. Although we never see Rose’s aunt so its unclear if she was expecting or interested in helping the girls in the first place. Sandra does some risky things such as setting fire near boat, she was locked in, lucky it works out in her favor! The story does keep things exciting and quick-paced. Sarah is a sneaky antagonist, she manages to cause a lot of trouble for the girls in London, before they find out she in the city. Luckily she is exposed for what she has done. While readers probably would have expected that the girls would win in the end, it is more surprising that Sandra leaves the school,ending an important chapter of her life.

I mentioned in the previous Sandra post it was odd that the change of title to “Sandra of the Castle Ballet” was for just a short period. In the Lucky Charm reprint it is called “Sandra of the Castle Ballet” and does have that story arc but the majority of reprint is the Runaway Ballet story. It is interesting that the Secret Ballet/Castle Ballet title was dropped after her first return, and the story titles then changed per story arc, after the Runaway Ballet, the next issue starts with Sandra and the Frightened Teacher. No matter what the title Sandra remained a popular character appearing in different sequels, reprinted stories as well as annuals and picture libraries throughout the 1960s, 70s and 80s.

List of  Sandra stories

Misty 2024 Special

Misty, , , , ,

We haven’t had a new Misty special since 2020, so it was a treat to find out we were getting one this Summer again and helmed by the great Gail Simone, probably best known for her work on  DC’s Batgirl and Wonder Woman comics.

We get 4 stories in this book:

Eleven Lonely Deaths – a true crime podcaster meets a mysterious girl while doing his research at a 50 year old crime scene, where 11 girls were killed by a serial killer.

The Pub at the End of the Road – the mistreated daughter of a pub landlord, has a special gift with animals.

Happy Birthday, Mrs. Parker! – In a care home for the elderly, a nurse has a rivalry with her perfect colleague, but all is not what it seems.

The Cracked Glass – a cracked mirror is the only clue to the neighbours disappearance.

The first three stories are written by Gail Simone. In them the character of Misty takes a more active role, and we actually delve into her past. For a long time in the original comic run, readers would write in and theorize where Misty came from or ask to find out more, but Misty remained enigmatic only giving vague statements about her origins, which often were even more mystifying! It is a treat to see her come out of the mists and tell some of her story, it might not be the story some expected, but it’s certainly an interesting one. In the 2nd story it is more in keeping with the classic Misty, she is more of an observer and storyteller. The 3rd story ties back more into the first one but also lets Misty take a more secondary role in the story. All three stories have those who have done wrong get their comeuppance, some in very gruesome ways and surprisingly the previously ethereal Misty isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty!

The original Misty went to dark places, this does seem to skew that bit darker still, perhaps because the set up for some of the horrors are unfortunately too common place for women; the seemingly nice guy taking photos that are gratuitous or the groping drunk patrons of the pub. While we do see a dark justice served to those in the stories, they have already left victims in their wake.

Complementing Simone’s writing are some great artists; Carola Borelli, Aly Fell and Marianna Ignazzi. They all do wonderfully, but Fell’s work is the standout, with the story set in the 70s, it is a nice nod to the original comic and it really is gorgeous to look at.

The final story, that I haven’t talked about yet is both written and drawn by Letty Wilson. This is more standalone, no Misty features in it, instead we follow a girl, Sam, and her investigation into her neighbours abandoned house. She finds a cracked mirror, which for anyone who has read girls comics knows this is not going to end well!

This is a great special, and I would happy to see this format continue, with Misty telling stories throughout her years . I would highly recommend to Misty or horror fans. It is available for purchase now through Rebellion’s treasury of British Comics Shop: https://shop.treasuryofbritishcomics.com/catalogue/RCS2352P

Amy Beckett Says… [1993]

M&J, , , ,
  • Amy Beckett Says… –  M&J:  #104 (8 May 1993) – #112 (10 July 1993)
  • Artist: Guy Peeters

Plot

After a bulldozer accidentally knocks against the the old entrance archway of the school, friends Fay Davis and Karen Green, notice some strange things happening. Fay feels an eerie chill when passing the entrance way and then some younger school kids start singing a skipping rhyme “Amy Beckett, now she’s free says come on girls and dance with me!”. A prefect, Jane, clears the young girls for making too much noise, later that day their skipping song changes to “Amy Beckett sees it all. Watch out when the oak leaves fall!”.  Fay and Karen don’t think the words make much sense as all the Autumn leaves have already fallen. Then Jane has a lucky escape when Fay saves her from a falling stone. Jane is clearly shaken, but the girls reason that it most have come loose when the bulldozer knocked against it. Fay notices a pattern of oak leaves on the stone, they put it down to a strange coincidence, though they don’t hear the girls now singing “Amy Beckett see it all and she KNEW the leaves would fall!”

The next day after a workman tells the skipping girls to move out of the way, the rhyme changes again, referencing the classic ‘ring-a-ring o’ roses’ nursery song. Fay, who still thinks something strange is going on, is worried when the workmen are planting a rose garden, that the rhyme is referencing it but is temporarily placated when nothing bad happens. She later realises when a builder sneezes and causes some bricks from a pulley to fall down injuring a workman, that she was right something bad would happen just not right in what the song referenced. Karen has also come around to the idea that the girls singing is a threat. Fay and Karen decide to talk to one the young girls they know, Annie, but she claims she doesn’t know any skipping rhymes. Karen theorises the girls are in some kind of trance while singing and don’t remember anything. But their questions have made them targets, the skipping girls surround them singing them to sleep and  in their dreams the ghost of Amy Beckett appears warning them not to interfere.

The girls are not deterred and decide to find out who Amy Beckett was, but when they try to look things up in the library, the reference cards start flying everywhere. They do manage to get a lead on some local history books that may be of use and the librarian tells them they are out on loan to an ex-teacher of their school. The skipping girls are keeping a watch on Fay and Karen, and when they try to go to Mrs Wilkins the next day, they are surrounded by fog, eventually they get to her house. Mrs Wilkins says she is writing a book about the school and shows them her notes, but the notes just repeat the same rhyme “Amy Beckett, now she’s free says come on girls and dance with me!”.  Then her granddaughter arrives it is one of the skipping girls, they find themselves surrounded as they sing “Amy says What is the fuss? Mrs Wilkins is with us!”. As the girls get away from the house, they have some luck when they find the history books in the rubbish bin outside.

At a cafe, when reading though the books Fay comes across a story about a tragedy at the school, but then it appears the book goes on fire. She douses it in water, but Karen didn’t see any flames. The cafe owner accuses them of vandalism and says she will return the books to library herself. We start to get hints of what could of happened to Amy, through the illusions and new rhymes. The girls sing “Everybody in this town says Amy Beckett burns things down!” then at the school the girls see flames they can’t be sure if its another illusion and sound the fire alarm. Annie has set them up to be caught by a teacher as there isn’t a fire. They are given detention to write ten thousand lines saying “Amy Beckett never was bad. But no-one believes her isn’t that sad?”. The lines are magically done, and they are told to give the sheets around the town. Mrs Wilkins is upset by the sheets, claiming it is all lies.More illusions show a newspaper saying “Amy Beckett is innocent” and fire caused by other girl before changing back to normal headline. We are given more information when the skipping girls new rhyme is “Amy didn’t start the fire  – Enid Armstrong is the liar”

Determined to get to the truth, Karen asks her dad who works for local newspaper if they can look at their records. While driving to office, Amy Beckett beckons Mrs Wilkins to step out in front of car, luckily  Mr Green stops just in time, he takes Mrs Wilkins home while Fay and Karen go on to the office. While they aren’t having luck finding information on fire, Karen finds an interesting wedding notice for local teacher Enid Armstrong marrying Ken Willkins. The girls figure out through what they heard in the rhymes and what they  saw on the fake newspaper that Mrs Wilkins was responsible for the fire and now Amy is out for revenge. The girls track down Mrs Wilkins but Amy has got to her first, hypnotising her and leading her to top of the school roof. Amy is about to get Mrs Wilkins to walk off the roof, but at last second has a change of mind and stops her and lets her go free. Mrs Wilkins confesses to starting the fire and blaming Amy who had died saving her. With the truth out the new school extension is named after Amy, to honour her and her ghost can now be at peace.

Thoughts

This was an effective creepy ghost story, the young girls skipping chant makes for an unsettling atmosphere, that sticks in your mind. While the story starts off, with Amy Beckett seeming to have no purpose but to cause trouble, later we find out more about her tragedy. As a ghost she seems quite conflicted, she wants revenge on Mrs Wilkins and wants to stop the girls investigating, but she also wants the truth to be known. At first she is an angry spirit, causing potentially deadly accidents to the prefect and workman for trying to stop the skipping girls, but she just warns off Fay and Karen and later only tries to cause the true fire culprit, Mrs Wilkins, harm. She tries to stop Fay and Karen in their research but then also starts to show them what happened by the false newspaper headline and tries to spread the truth by getting them to pass out papers saying she wasn’t bad. She comes close to taking full revenge on Mrs Wilkins, but as we know in life  Amy was a heroic person, it seems as a ghost she still has some of those qualities in her and can’t bring herself to go through with it. Which is good as she finds the truth is what sets her free not revenge.

While the girls own investigations are often disrupted like in the library and cafe, their biggest clues come from the rhymes and illusions that Amy shows them. It’s interesting that the biggest revelation they find themselves is not about a fire but a wedding notice. I thought that was a nice twist, rather than finding an article detailing a fire that we could figure out from what had happened from what been shown in the story but instead tying the importance of Mrs Wilkins to Amy’s revenge plot. Up to this point Mrs Wilkins could have just been targeted just because she was writing a book about the school, but we learn it is much worse. She started the fire, although we are not given a reason or whether it was on purpose or an accident, Mrs Wilkins was worried about getting in trouble and then blamed the girl who had died saving her. We don’t know what the consequences for her will be, but if she felt guilt over the years maybe now her conscience can be put to rest as well.

The other thing I noticed on this read is perhaps a sneaky reference to another ghost story The Shining where  in the film Jack’s draft of his book repeats the old proverb “All Work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” in this Mrs Wilkins notes repeat the Amy Beckett rhyme. While there have been other evil influence ghost stories, I do find the repeating rhymes, the mystery and that Amy Beckett wasn’t all evil makes it stand out from some others. It is a good read for Halloween and the resolution of the story, with the truth finally coming to light and Amy finding peace, was satisfying.

 

I’ll Ruin That School!

Judy, , , ,

Plot

Unknown to the pupils and staff of Clerkenwell College, an enemy was in their midst. Julie Dean’s father, the former janitor, had been driving to an interview for a new job, following a row with Miss Kane, the headmistress when his car crashed. Julie’s parents were killed and Julie blamed the school for their deaths.

Notes

  • Art:  “B.Jackson”

Appeared

  • I’ll Ruin That School! – Judy: #1509 (10 December 1988) – #1516 (28 January 1989)

Sharon

Judy,

Plot

Sharon Best was a new member of the successful Mordene School Hockey team, whose couch Dilys Hobb was in line the coach the England team. Years before Sharon’s Aunt Kath Beaton had her knee broken by Dilys in a hockey game accident and thus lost her chance to play for England. She had trained Sharon to take revenge for her.

Notes

  • Art: Paddy Brennan

Appeared

  • Sharon  – Judy: #1207 (26 February 1983) – #1216 (30 April 1983)

Eyes of the Cat

Debbie, , ,

Plot

The town of Mumford was being terrorised by a strange cat-woman, who took revenge on anyone who was unkind to a cat. Neither Janet Lynn or her cousin Grace realise that an old statuette now in Grace’s possession was controlling the situation and that Grace was actually the cat-woman who remembered nothing of each episode.

Notes

  • Reprinted and translated to Dutch as “De ogen van de kat” – Debbie Groot mysterieboek #27 (1981).

Appeared

  • Eyes of the Cat – Debbie: #367 (23 February 1980) – #374 (12 April 1980)

The Revenge of Sister Sonia

Tracy, , , ,

Plot

When their parents separated, Heather and Sonia Merton agreed to spend weekdays with their Mom and weekends with their dad. Heather was eager to make the friendly agreement work, but Sonia was bitter and decided to take revenge on their parents any way she could. Realising what she was doing Heather was determined to save what family togetherness still remained.

Notes

  • Artist: Carlos Freixas

Appeared

  • The Revenge of Sister Sonia – Tracy:   #211 (15 October 1983) – #219 (10 December 1983)

My Mother Next Door

Tracy, ,

Plot

Kay Taylor was about to be adopted by her foster parents, the Martins. Then she discovered a new neighbour, Mrs Smith, was her biological mother and she was not pleased. She decided to pay her back for all the unhappy years she had spent longing to be part of a family.

Notes

  • Artist: Rodney Sutton

Appeared

  • My Mother Next Door – Tracy: #173 (22 January 1983) – #188 (7 May 1983)

Teacher’s Pet [1990]

Judy, , , , ,
  • Teacher’s Pet  – Judy: #1574 (10 March 1990) – #1583 (12 May 1990)
  • Artist: Julio Bosch (Martin Puigagut?)

Plot

Anna Norman gets on well in school until the arrival of a new teacher Miss Johnstone. Her new form teacher, starts favouring her immediately, earning Anna the name of “Teacher’s Pet” from her classmates. Even when Anna tries to get in trouble it makes things worse, such as when she is late to class she expects to be punished, like her other classmates were, but “Stoney” Johnstone just lets her away with it, and everyone else just thinks Anna’s taking advantage. When it comes time to elect a form captain Johnstone makes it clear that she thinks Anna has the right qualities for the job and commiserates with her when she lose out to Lucy. No amount of objections from Anna can convince her friends that she never wanted to be captain. It continues to get worse, on a museum trip, Johnstone implies that Anna told tales on Lucy and Anna rues the day the teacher took a liking to her. One good thing comes out of the trip is that her old friend Ros has gotten suspicious of Johnstone’s motives and points out to Anna that everything she does gets her in trouble and perhaps Johnstone doesn’t favour her at all!

Anna puts this theory test by speaking in slang to Johnstone when no one else is around, and gets a more typical “Stoney” response, but in class when she does it, Johnstone suggests she’d be perfect for reading the lead Pygmalion. She enlists Ros’s help to find out why Johnstone is doing this, Ros agrees to help but doesn’t want to get too involved for fear of losing friends. So in secret Ros and Anna start investigating Miss Johnstone, they find out where she lives and theorize that Anna may look like a sister that she dislikes. That theory is soon disproved as Johnstone is an only child. While Stoney is away for the weekend they do more snooping where she lives and gets talking to a neighbour of hers. Seeing a letter in a book she lent the neghbour, they think they have a new clue. It involves the local dramatics society and they think Stoney is upset because she lost out to a younger actress similar to Anna that also has the same name. Again this theory quickly goes nowhere, as the letter actually was Mrs Greys’, the neighbour.

Johnstone assigns Anna to the school disco committee, despite Lucy volunteering, not winning Anna any favours from the others. The theme is to be the 60s, so Anna asks to borrow some of her Dad’s records, but he won’t let his precious collection out of the house, her mom says he had them even before they met (some foreshadowing here!). Then while setting up for the disco, Anna gets in Stoney’s bad books temporarily for playing “Twist and Shout” by the Beatles. Stoney ends up scratching the record in her hurry to turn it off. Wayne, the owner of the record, blames Anna for putting it on. Ros thinks they finally have a clue to Stoney’s past and they must find out why she hates that song so much.

Things look up for Anna, when Ros introduces her to her cousin Tom and they hit it off, but of course Stoney tries to cause problems. Anna then tells her mom that she she is having problems with Miss Johnstone praising her all the time, so her mom says she will have a word with her on parents night. But on the night Johnstone leaves suddenly with a headache before meeting the Normans. Ros who has smoothed things with Tom, reckons that Stoney had a broken romance, and wanted to break Anna and Tom up, though it doesn’t explain why she’s targeting Anna specifically. She soon finds out the reason why, when they get a chance to look in Johnstone’s flat while Mrs Grey is looking after her cat. Anna finds a picture of young Johnstone with a man whose face is crossed out, but she recognises the car in the background. A visit to her grandmother and looking through old photo albums, confirms her suspicions, the man in the photo was her dad! Mr Norman had never made the connection with the name but he was once engaged to Jean Johnstone but broke it off because of her jealousy and moodiness. They contact the headmistress and Johnstone doesn’t even deny it when confronted, she is happy she took her revenge. Learning the truth her classmates are sorry for how they treated Anna, she forgives them easily as she doesn’t want to end up like Stoney holding a grudge for years.

Thoughts

This is an interesting hate campaign story, there are several things that make it stand out from similar stories. Firstly that it is an adult campaigning against the protagonist rather than a peer. Miss Johnstone is in a position of power, she abuses this terribly and has no regrets that she punishes an innocent girl for the perceived wrong doings of her father. She also doesn’t regret ruining her own career because of this. Even without her revenge plan, Miss Johnstone isn’t a nice person, she soon earns her nickname “Stoney” with her tough discipline and hard attitude. We later learn it is not just being dumped that has turned her into this bitter person (although it certainly doesn’t help!) as even as a younger woman Johnstone was prone to jealousy and moodiness. Seems Mr Norman had a lucky escape!

Another thing that makes it stand out, is that it is not clear that there is a hate campaign against Anna to begin with. Other stories have had the “friend” of the protagonist turn out to be their secret enemy, but here because of Miss Johnstone’s strategy it’s not clear there is a hate campaign. Certainly it is a devious scheme, by praising and acting like she thinks Anna is great, she causes trouble without suspicion. It is nearly half ways through the story before her motives are actually questioned. Some of the girls thoughts on why Johnstone is after Anna are a stretch (such as looking like a hated sister) but they don’t have a lot to go on, so they have to think of some reason. Anna was lucky to find the photo and recognise the car and end Johnstone’s revenge. I like that Anna’s parents are supportive too, because often adults in these stories can be dismissive, especially considering Anna’s complaints are “Johnstone’s too nice to her”! While her mother doesn’t think it can be that bad, she does say she will talk to Johnstone and when they find out who she really is, they go straight to the Headmistress.

Anna’s friends are a bit quick to judge her, even Ros at first when she agrees to help, she doesn’t stand up for her in public. This might be excused if she didn’t want to put Johnstone onto their investigation but she also says she doesn’t want to get involved and lose her friends. Although as Ros becomes more convinced of Johnstone’s motives, she does become more active in supporting Anna, even introducing her to Tom, her cousin. I’m sure Anna, as a nice person, would have forgiven all her friends anyway, but it’s good to see it tie in with Johnstone, as she doesn’t want to become a bitter, unforgiving person like her. It brings the story to a satisfying conclusion.

When Harry Dumped Sally (1995)

Bunty, ,

When Harry Dumped Sally 1

Published: Bunty #1950 (27 May 1995) to #1966 (16 September 1995)

Episodes: 17

Artist: Unknown

Writer: Unknown

Plot

Sally Cartwright is going out with Harry Dennis. She’s really enjoying it, but then Harry starts acting as if he’s losing enthusiasm. Eventually he tells Sally he does not want to go out with her anymore. When Sally presses him over it, he snaps at her and tells her to leave him alone, he never wants to see her again. Sally is heartbroken. Her friends, who saw what happened, are sympathetic and tell her to “forget all about the creep!” To all appearances Sally is doing so and her friends admire her for taking it so well. Secretly though, it’s the opposite. Sally has turned extremely nasty over it all. She is thirsting for revenge and out to make Harry rue the day he dumped her.

When Harry Dumped Sally 2

So Sally starts taking every single opportunity to play dirty tricks on Harry at every turn. The trouble is, Sally just doesn’t know where to stop and has no limits at all. Soon Harry’s life is not just an utter misery because things are suddenly going wrong for him and he can’t understand why. He is also getting into trouble with the teachers who think he’s a troublemaker, all because of Sally’s tricks. Many of the classmates also begin to think Harry is turning into a troublemaker and can’t put a foot right, and they become unfriendly towards him.

But Sally never pauses to think about this, much less have any pang of conscience. On the contrary, Sally loves every minute of Harry’s nightmare. And whenever she sees signs that Harry is getting in good with his friends again, she makes moves to crush it and make him unpopular again, and does the same with another new girlfriend Harry tries to acquire.

Sally doesn’t even stop when the rumour goes around that Harry has an enemy. Some of the classmates believe it while most don’t and just think Harry’s trying to blame someone else for his own trouble (notwithstanding that it was a classmate, not Harry, who started the rumour in the first place!). At any rate, Sally never thinks to quit while she’s ahead. She just tells herself to go more carefully whenever she has the inevitable narrow escape now and then.

Harry realises he must have an enemy but seems to be at a loss as to who it is. In fact, he thinks Sally is still friendly with him despite the breakup and even asks to date her again at one point. Of course Sally is just pretending to be friendly in order to make more trouble for him.

When Harry Dumped Sally 3

Eventually, when it is brought to Sally’s attention that she is the only girl in the class without a boyfriend, she finally decides it’s time to forget Harry and revenge and look for a new boyfriend. But at the Saturday market she can’t resist playing one more trick on Harry because she still gets full of anger every time she sees him. When she accidentally knocks over a handbag display, she foists the blame onto Harry. Poor, innocent, hapless Harry gets a telling off from the stall owner right in front of everyone while Sally watches with glee.

Later, Sally spots another boy in the market and takes a fancy to him, but he does not respond to her attempts to attract him. She assumes the boy is just shy – but at school on Monday she discovers it is because she has played one trick too many on Harry! The boy is Darren Walker, who is a new pupil and also Harry’s new friend and neighbour. Darren saw what Sally did in the market and reported it to Harry, so now Harry has figured everything out. Harry tells Sally she won’t have a friend left in the school when he and Darren spread the word, and he is right. Sally finds Harry’s revenge is sweeter than hers.

Thoughts

There is no doubt the title is a take on the movie title “When Harry Met Sally”, but the story has no bearing whatsoever on the movie. It’s a morality lesson on what can happen when revenge is taken too far. The story is also structured to present us with a question: are we still sympathetic with Sally by the end of the story?

When Harry Dumped Sally 4

The breakup at the beginning is set up to make us sympathetic towards Sally, along with the classmates who witnessed it. But does Sally retain our sympathies by the end of the story? Or do we feel she has gone too far and she’s gotten way too spiteful? Do our sympathies switch to Harry and we wish he would catch her out? These are the questions we face as the story develops.

We must say that Harry was asking for some sort of revenge when he dumped Sally. It’s not just that he dumped her; it’s also because he handled it badly, even aggressively. The girls who witness it say he’s a creep and a pig. All right, so maybe he did not really know how to handle it and found it a very difficult thing to do, so he bungled it. As it is, our sympathies lie with Sally and we all cheer when she starts her revenge.

The question is, do we continue cheering for Sally? As Sally’s revenge continues, she does things that go way too far. Making Harry unpopular with the other classmates and even destroying his friendships are too much. But what really goes beyond the pale is getting Harry into trouble with the teachers and blackening his school record, which would in turn get him into big trouble with his parents for things that are totally unjustified. What’s even more disturbing is that Sally has absolutely no conscience about that whatsoever. There are no twinges of remorse that bite some girls in “revenge” stories. On the contrary, Sally loves it every time she hurts Harry, and has no regrets about anything she has done to him. She is glad she has made his life so miserable ever since he dumped her. Her revenge just goes on and on, and becomes protracted and spinning out the story’s length.

When Sally finally decides to stop, it’s not out of remorse or just getting tired of it – it’s the realisation that she needs to move on if she wants to find a new boyfriend. But even after she decides to stop, she can’t resist passing up another chance to strike at Harry because she can’t let go of her anger. And there is little doubt Sally would have seized more opportunities to hurt Harry if Darren had not caught her out.

When Harry Dumped Sally 5

So do our sympathies remain with Sally after this? Or have our sympathies switched to Harry? Does Harry become the sympathetic character in the story and we wish Sally would get caught out? How do we feel when Harry tells Sally he has found her out and calls her a nasty piece of work? It’s all up to the reader. That’s the whole purpose of the story and the way it was structured, including its long length of 17 episodes. The length must have been designed to protract Sally’s revenge and further test our sympathies and feelings towards Sally and Harry.

Whatever our feelings, we know there will be no problems with Sally being dumped in future – because no boy in the class will go out with her. After this, Sally is going to have a reputation among the boys as a spiteful bitch and they should steer well clear of her.