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The House of the Silver Sword / Suzette of the Silver Sword [1963-1968]

Diana, , , , , , ,
  • The House of the Silver Sword–  Diana: #01 (23 February 1963) – #07 (06 April 1963)
  • Suzette of the Silver Sword – Diana: #86 (10 October 1964) – #93 (28 Nov. 1964)
  • Suzette of the Silver Sword – Diana: #178 (16 July 1966) – #186 (10 September 1966)
  • Suzette of the Silver Sword – Diana: #212 (11 March 1967) – #219 (29 April 1967)
  • Suzette of the Silver Sword – Diana: #264 (09 March 1968) – #275 (25 May 1968)
  • Art: Don Walker (series 1-2), Jesus Redondo (series 3-5)

Plot

One of the first stories to appear in the Diana comic, although only 7 episodes long, it returned for a further 4 series. The story follows a promising young fencer, Suzette Jamieson. In the first series The House of the Silver Sword, 14 year old Suzette is determined to become a great fencer like her famous ancestors. Her teacher advises her she shows promise but needs more that 1 lesson a week if she wants to win the Championships.  Suzette knows this won’t be possible as her parents struggle to afford what they do provide, but then a letter from her Aunt Claire arrives. She has invited Suzette to stay with her,  as her mother has described her as bossy and bad-tempered, Suzette isn’t sure about the offer, but her parents tell her it is a good opportunity. Her Uncle Henry, a famous fencer will be able to give her daily lessons during her stay. Meanwhile at Beaugarth house, Aunt Claire and Uncle Henry are discussing Suzette’s arrival. Aunt Claire wants to make sure their home and the famous silver sword that has been passed down through the generations is left to a true Jamieson. Her other niece, Glenda, has been a disappointing swords-woman in that regard. Glenda overhearing this, starts scheming against Suzette as she wants the fortune for herself.

While Glenda acts nice to Suzette, two serious accidents happen after her arrival, the canopy on her bed falls down and sharp piece of metal is left in her glove. Luckily she escapes both incidents unscathed. Her Uncle Henry is much kinder and softer than Aunt Claire but also no fool, right away he suspects Glenda of having a hand in the accidents and tells Suzette, but she can’t believe someone would be so spiteful. Glenda continues her campaign against Suzette, she slashes a painting of ancestor and sets Suzette up to take the fall. Henry clears her name by proving she couldn’t have reached so high. Then on the day of the qualifiers she sends a fake telegram saying Suzette’s father is ill and she needs to return home immediately, luckily a train mix-up means Suzette finds out her father is fine and gets to compete in the heats for qualifying for championship. As a last desperate attempt Glenda throws Suzette’s fencing gear in a duck pond. Glenda is exposed, although Suzette has to go to competition in the soiled gear. This leads to mockery by the other competitors, and she has a run in with her biggest competition, Moira Parr. Despite these obstacles, Suzette goes on to win championship and weeks later Suzette now the owner of the silver sword also has her portrait added to the Jamieson collection at Beaugarth House.

When Suzette returns in the sequels the stories are now known as Suzette of the Silver Sword. In the 2nd series Suzette’s father’s business is failing, and she has no choice but to sell her silver sword for some money. As she is about to sell it she sees a young girl, Wendy Carstairs, being terrorised by some toughs. Suzette scares them off and is offered a job by Mr Carstairs as companion to his daughter, he also buys the silver sword but says she can use it any time and he would also like her to teach Wendy to fence. Since moving to the house, there has been a campaign to get the Carstairs out. Wendy who has already lost her mother, is a very timid and scared girl, Suzette helps protect her and also build up her confidence. Suzette helps fight off the gang attacking the house several times, and also does some investigating. Finally they pretend to leave the house for good and see that the gang had hidden stolen jewellery in the house which is why they wanted the Carstairs out. While waiting for the police Suzette and Wendy  keep the gang occupied. Mr Carstairs in gratitude says Suzette can keep the silver sword and the money from the reward for her father.

In the third series, Suzette is in Austria, to compete in a Fencing Contest. After a minor bus accident she gets separated from group and comes across a girl being attacked. She saves the girl, Annalise and is invited back to castle where she lives with her guardians, the Wagners. Suzette is told Annalise is due an inheritance but only if she can prove she is a good swords-woman like her ancestors by taking a test on her 16th birthday. Annalise while technically good, has been put off by the attacks and then the appearance of the Black Swordsman, a fencer dressed all in black who Annalise thinks is the ghost of a man who killed an ancestor 100 years ago. While Suzette certainly doesn’t believe in ghosts, it does seem he has knowledge of the castle with an ability to disappear quickly (it turns out there are secret passageways in the castle). In discussion with the Wagners, it seems the likely culprit is Annalise’s cousin, Rudolf, who will inherit everything if she fails her test. Suzette spars with the black swordsman several times and also with the return of the men who attacked Annalise the first day she met her. Suzette comes up with the idea to pretend Herr Wagner was badly injured in one of these skirmishes, this finally gives Annalise the motivation to fight back. Together they take down the Black Swordsman and his hired men, and reveal that it was Rudolf behind the mask. Annalise does well on her test and has proven herself honourable and brave, deserving of her inheritance.

In the 4th series Suzette is hired to teach  a group of actors to fence for the parts in the play “The Three Musketeers”. The lead female is Sara Lawrence but someone uses her fear of spiders against her shocking her and harming her voice. Suzette first suspects her understudy Joan may have a hand in it as she has the most to gain, but Joan is quickly cleared. The next likely suspects is one of the men playing the musketeers, especially after an accident at fencing practice where the swords button is removed. The “Spider Man” continues to strike at Sara, and also Suzette to stop her interference. She is lured into a trap where she is bitten by black widow spider, but luckily is found and brought to the hospital in time. After another encounter with the Spider Man, Suzette narrows her suspects down to two, Tony who plays D’artagnan or John who plays Porthos. After nearly drowning at the hands of the Spider Man, Suzette helps set up a trap luring him out with Sara’s return to stage. She catches John in the act of trying to attack Sara, but with Suzette’s swift actions, John is bitten by his own spider. John had attacked Sara to get revenge on her father who had paralysed his sister in a car accident. Then they reveal Sara is still safe and it was her understudy pretending to be her. For the actual show Sara is able to return and have a successful performance, sharing applause with Suzette for all her help.

In the 5th series Suzette is forced to be bodyguard to Julie Diamond by her crook father when he kidnaps her parents. Things are dangerous as rival gang run by  Costello wants to get Julie as revenge on Diamond, but Julie does not know any of this so is quite annoyed to have Suzette around all the time. Julie meanwhile wants to star in an ice show, which makes Suzette’s job more difficult but she convinces her to audition in disguise under a pseudonym. Julie proves she can get the part without her father’s name. Julie makes the mistake of trusting her friend Rod, he plans to betray her for money, but Diamond gets to him first. He tells Julie he paid him off, but actually has him locked up in part of the house. Suzette has some sympathy for Rod after seen he has been beat up, but he tries to use her sympathy to escape. He is foiled but now Suzette is more on her guard. When Julie’s disguise is accidentally exposed at a rehearsal, Suzette has to join the show to protect her. It all comes to a head when Costello’s men come to ice rink and attack, a fight breaks out between the two gangs while Suzette tries to protect Julie. The Costello gang are defeated but one confesses it was revenge for Diamond taking jewels that Costello had robbed. Diamond goes to jail and the Jamieson’s are released. Suzette attends the ice-show and ca friendship has grown between her and Julie, se knows she wasn’t aware of her father’s criminal activity and will continue to be there to help her of her own free will now as a friend.

Thoughts

When reading the first series, it seemed like a standard story of a jealous relative trying to make protagonist look bad while acting nicely to their face. It is not a story that I thought would spawn many sequels and yet Suzette continued to have adventures, although very little in common with the first series. She is of course and an accomplished fencer, which comes in handy, but her inheritance, Beaugarth House, aunt and uncle aren’t even referenced again after the 2nd series.  Instead she ends up finding herself  with mysteries to solve and young girls to protect. There are some common threads across some of the series such as Suzette happening upon girls being attacked is an occurrence in 3 of the stories, (although in the last series it is a set up by Mr Diamond to test her) and her teaching 2 of the girls fencing, but all the stories stand on their own. It’s funny in the first series Suzette seems a little naive, not believing her cousin could be so nasty, whereas in later series no-one if above suspicion for her, perhaps her experience made her less trusting.

While the first couple of stories were fine, personally I think the stories got stronger later, the fifth story is my favourite. While she is still a fencer, they don’t feel the need to make that a big point in the 5th story, Julie has no interest in learning fencing unlike Wendy and Annalise in the earlier stories. In the 4th series it makes a change to have Suzette unknowingly teach the antagonist about fencing, and Sara who she protects is a singer. In the fifth series they go a step further, the only time fencing is used is for defense, Julie has no interest in fencing but proves herself an excellent skater. It is nice that the friendship grows between her and Suzette, as she starts of a bit antagonistic towards her. This story also has the most stakes, as Suzette’s parents are kidnapped so their well-being is dependent on her doing a good job body-guarding Julie.

Diana had high quality paper and really gives the artists to show their range, Don Walker in the first 2 series really can show his range with more shading.  The first series goes into more particulars about fencing, I am not that familiar with the sport but the stances do look convincing to me, so I believe Don has done good job depicting the sport. I do like his work, but Jesus Redondo is really the best on this series, though that may be in part due to him given more interesting things to work with in the later series. It is interesting to see this earlier style of Jesus, while recognisable as his, it is a lot more subdued than his later work.

 

The Big Hand

Judy, , ,

Plot

Millie Munro, trained by her guardian, Mrs Peters, is to take part in the County Junior Tennis Championships. She plays badly until she becomes the possessor of a racket known as the Big Hand, once owned by Champion Juliet Hambro. Harold Scales, the crooked coach of the reigning junior champion, does everything in his power to stop Millie’s progress.

Notes

  • Art: Ian Kennedy

Appeared

  • The Big Hand – Judy: #474 (8 February 1965) – (?)

Mississippi Meg

Judy,

Plot

Meg Marlowe and her mother are operating the showboat, “Natchez Belle”, becauseMeg’s father is in hospital, after an attack by Silas Cracow and Matt Gruber, who own the rival showboat, “Mendoza”.  These two men hire a professional gambler, Cornell Butler, to set the “Belle” on fire, but instead he starts a small fire on their own boat!

Notes

Appeared

  • Mississippi Meg – Judy: #271 (20 March 1965) – #284 (19 June 1965)

A Foster Must Do It!

Judy, ,

Plot

When Meg Foster’s grandfather dies, he leaves £1000 to her father on condition that a Foster climbs the dangerous north face, in the Alps. If this condition isn’t fulfilled, James Foster’s cousin, Gilbert Beck, will inherit the money. Beck secretly engineers an accident to Meg’s father and she realises that, to claim the much-needed legacy, she must climb the north face herself. She joins a party led by Nigel Brand, a noted mountaineer. Gilbert Beck has plotted with Chris Palmer, another member of the party, to make sure that Meg doesn’t succeed.

Notes

Appeared

  • A Foster Must Do It! – Judy: #256 (5 December 1964). – #262 (16 January 1965)

Lessons from Linda

Judy,

Plot

The arrival of young Linda Prescott as a second instructor at Durfield ice rink is bitterly resented by the other coach, Miss Sloggers, many of whose pupils transfer their lessons. She is determined to get rid of Linda and, at every opportunity, secretly makes trouble for her. Meanwhile Linda makes friends with Jenny Ward, a little girl who shows great skating promise but who cannot afford lessons. Linda tries to help Jenny and her other students, unaware of Miss Sloggers scheming.

Notes

Appeared

  • Lessons from Linda – Judy: #242 (29 August 1964) – #248 (10 October 1964)

Who is Astra? (1983)

Picture Story Library, , , , , , , ,

Published: Mandy PSL #62

Reprint: Mandy PSL #211

Artist: Kim Raymond

Plot

Esther Blake is having a hike out on Storm Peak with her father and brother Tom. Suddenly, a storm comes in without warning and lightning strikes Esther. Her condition almost kills her several times in hospital, and she has to be revived by artificial respiration, hovering between life and death.

When Esther returns home she starts having nightmares of her family being cruel towards her. They force her to do all the work while mocking, bullying and beating her. They sneer at how she has to do everything by hand, with no modern labour-saving devices to help her. She is dressed in rags and the house is shabby and run down.

Then Esther’s cousin Astra arrives to stay. Everyone marvels at how she could be Esther’s twin, except for the colour of her hair. Esther notices how she and Astra are virtual mirror image opposites. Astra even has the same scar on her left arm that Esther has on her right. Hmm, doppelganger alert here?

What the story pays less attention to verbally, but can be seen in most of the panels, is that Astra is wearing a star-shaped necklace. Meanwhile, Astra is making odd remarks about things she should not know about that have Esther becoming suspicious of her – in a worried sort of way.

In true doppelganger fashion, Astra is soon causing big trouble for Esther. She plays sly tricks to get Esther into trouble with the family and then sweetly telling them, oh please, please, don’t blame Esther. What makes it so easy is that the family always seem to instantly believe the worst of Esther despite Astra’s sugary sweet attempts to convince them otherwise – as if they were being poisoned or under a spell of some sort. And while they are harsh with Esther, they make a big fuss over Astra and what a sweet girl she is.

It’s exactly the same thing at school once Astra starts there with Esther. Astra’s tricks and everyone oddly assuming the worst of Esther all the time soon get Esther into big trouble with the teachers and losing her friends. Esther’s performance begins to suffer, both academically and athletically, and it’s not just because of Astra. Esther feels oddly tired and unwell and can’t understand why. Esther is soon pushed out of the sports teams while Astra takes her place. Everyone comments on Astra’s sporting performance being just like what Esther’s used to be (another clue?).

By now Esther has realised that Astra is pushing her out of everything and deliberately turning everyone against her. But she soon finds trying to speak out does no good with everyone just assuming the worst of her all the time.

Meanwhile the nightmares continue, but now they seem to be more than just nightmares. In one dream, the evil family chase Esther into brambles and thorns. When Esther wakes up she finds scratches on her arms and legs that were not there before. In another dream the abusers force her to scrub the floor until her hands are raw, and she still has to scrub. Next morning, Esther finds her hands look and feel exactly that way. She also suspects that Astra knows the contents of the dreams.

Then Esther dreams she is back on Storm Peak, and being hit by lightning. Astra and the evil parents come up behind her. Astra jeers that they have come for her, and eggs them on to carry Esther off. Esther breaks free of them but gets hit by lightning. When Esther wakes up, she is surprised to see Astra looking white and scared for a change. She realises Astra is scared because she knows about the dream.

Realising the dream means something, Esther heads straight to Storm Peak first thing in the morning. As she climbs up the peak, she sees Astra has followed.

Astra explains that she is the evil side of Esther. The lightning accident caused her to come in from a parallel universe where everything is the opposite of what it is in this one. Her plan is to take Esther’s place in this universe and drive Esther into the other universe, where the abusive versions of Esther’s family are waiting. Sure enough, they start appearing and Astra urges them to take Esther.

But Esther doesn’t think so because there is something different about Astra this time. Next second she realises what it is – Astra does not have her necklace. When Astra sees this, she screams that she’s lost her protector – “He-elp!” (Oh dear, Astra, left the house in too much of a hurry, did you?) Then lightning strikes both girls. Esther falls unconscious. Presumably because the protector is missing, the evil parents grab Astra and ignore her pleas for them to take Esther instead.

When Esther regains consciousness she finds everything is back to normal. All trace of Astra has disappeared and nobody but Esther knows anything about her. It’s as if Astra never existed at all. Esther concludes it must have been a dream or something. But later, Esther gets a nasty shock when Mum turns up Astra’s necklace while spring-cleaning. Dream – or what?

Thoughts

Evil doubles that are created to cause trouble for the protagonist until the protagonist finds the way to destroy them are not new in girls’ comics. But this one goes way above the usual doppelganger format because it’s got so many other well-established, popular formats thrown into the mix as well: the Cinderella theme, abusive guardians, the scheming troublemaker, the evil influence theme, and the regrettably less-used theme of the alternate reality. What’s not to like about this story? It brings together so many of the DCT themes that are always so popular on their own. Together they make for a really intense, exciting and crackling story where the protagonist is attacked on all sides from the threats posed not only by the evil double but also by the other themes listed above.

The scheming troublemaker who pushes the protagonist out with nasty tricks was one of the most frequent themes at DCT, but this version really catches the eye because it has supernatural elements attached. There are hints that Astra is exerting some evil influence on everyone to make them act so negatively towards Esther. We suspect this even more so once it is revealed that Astra’s necklace has powers of some sort. And it’s not because the antagonist is just spiteful or jealous as most troublemakers usually are. It has a far more sinister purpose – to weaken Esther and soften her up for transportation to the alternate reality while Astra takes Esther’s place.

However sinister the undertones of the scheming troublemaker scenes, they don’t hold a candle to the night terror dreams. These are truly the best moments of the story and what make it truly frightening. It’s even more terrifying when we find out that this is actually the fate that lies in store for Esther if Astra succeeds. This makes the climactic scene of Esther struggling against the evil guardians all the more electrifying – and it’s not just the lightning.

Ironically, the nightmares of the evil guardians also add a sympathetic element to the evil Astra. When we see what life is like at home for Astra through Esther’s nightmares we can certainly understand why Astra wants to escape that universe. But we are not going to have her throw Esther into that hellish universe in her place.

Here the Cinderella theme of girls’ comics gets turned on its head. Instead of some talent helping her escape her misery and getting a happy ending, the Cinderella gets thrown back into that life of abuse and drudgery. We may feel a pang of pity for Astra there. Yet we still want her gone and are relieved she is back where she belongs – because unlike the protagonists of the Cinderella stories, she is evil.

Paula and the Wasps of Terror / Paula [1966]

Diana, Spellbound, , , ,
  • Paula and the Wasps of Terror –  Diana: #187 (17 September 1966) – #196 (19 November 1966)
  • Reprinted as Paula  – Spellbound:  #22 (19 February 1977) – #31 (23 April 1977)
  • Reprinted and translated to Dutch as“Paula” – Debbie Groot Mysterieboek #7 (1978)

Plot

Paula Spencer is a brilliant young violinist, whose career is derailed after an accident. After her first big concert, while driving home, the car suddenly starts to fill with wasps. Her father, Sir William Spencer, a high court judge, loses control of the car and they crash. Paula’s music instructor is killed in the crash and her father is left badly injured. Paula injures her hand, and her father worries he has ruined her career. In order to help her father, she is determined to play violin again, but the injury to her hand isn’t the biggest obstacle she has to overcome, it’s her new fear of wasps  (spheksophobia). What she doesn’t know is her new teacher Mahsud Krishnan is using this fear against her as he has a vendetta against Sir William.

Krishnan sprays flowers near Paula with a powder that attracts wasps, and places a wasp in her violin case. When Paula can’t go on playing for her father because of the wasp, he relapses due to worry of her ruined career. Paula’s fear gets so great, she does not want to leave her house, she practices her violin in a boarded room, which does seem to help with her progress. This does not make Krishnan happy though, he suggests she makes a recording for her father, only for a wasp to appear in the middle of the recording. He plays an edited version to Sir William making it sound like Paula hates the violin and can’t have it near her. This causes Sir William to have another relapse. Paula does find an ally when she is assigned a young physiotherapist, Hilary Dewar, to help with her recovery. Not only does Hilary help with  Paula’s hand, she also wants to help her overcome her fear of wasps and is the first to suspect someone is working against Paula.

Hilary finds out Paula’s violin has golden acacia scent on it which attracts wasps, and she also listens to the tampered recording, so now they know someone is out to get Sir William. For first time Paula is able to play for her father without problems and Sir William shows signs of improvement. Paula’s confidence grows especially after Hilary gives her a wasp repellent spray, but again it is tampered with and ends up attracting wasps while she plays for her father and she ends up with several stings on her hand. Later at home, Hilary convinces Paula the spray is safe, but when she uses it to kill a wasp, she accidentally gets spray in Krishnan’s eyes. He is angry thinking he is blinded, and his motivation for being against the Spencers is first hinted at, as he says “first my brother and now me – thanks, to the Spencers!” (Really at this stage, Hilary who overhears this remark should be able to figure out who is behind these attacks!). There is no permanent damage to his eyes and so he is able to play his next trick, sneaking a queen wasp into Paula’s violin case. Hilary drives them into a lake to escape the wasps.

The hospital is to have a concert, and not only is Paula going to play violin at it, she also gets Krishnan to teach her to play the sitar after hearing him play. The Indian music is not the pleasant surprise for Sir William that Paula had planned and then wasps attack and Paula does not want to play her violin piece. Krishnan convinces Sir William that Hilary is at fault for letting Paula play tennis, interrupting her studies, so he tells Hilary she must leave. This leaves Paula alone and vulnerable, to Krishnan’s schemes. Luckily Hilary still wants to look out for Paula, so she stays close by, keeping a watch on the house. This is very fortunate when Paula’s is chased from the house by a swarm of wasps, Hilary rescues her and takes her to stay in a yacht. She is going to keep her safe until they find out who is trying to harm her. Hilary asks Paula, why her father would be sad when hearing Indian music, she guesses it may have reminded him of her mother who was killed in Delhi. Meanwhile Krishnan is still working against the Spencers, telling Sir William, that Paula is missing feared drowned! This causes him to collapse and doctor’s fear he won’t recover.

Paula is contacted and is able to play the violin over the phone, rousing Sir William from unconsciousness. A week later, Paula is asked to appear on a televised concert with Krishnan conducting. Things start off well until she is attacked by a wasp again and runs off stage. Hilary talks to her and points out someone is using her to harm her father. Paula covers herself in wasp repellent and returns, concentrating only on making her father well again. As the camera’s were able to cover up Paula running off stage, Sir William is indeed happy to see Paula do so well. Meanwhile Hilary has continued with her investigation. She has found out that Mahsud Krishnan’s brother, Akbar, tried to assassinate Sir William but shot Mrs Spencer instead and was sentenced to life in prison. Krishnan’s tries one last attempt to get at Paula, by handing her flowers with 3 queen wasps. Hilary knocks the flowers out of his hands and also knocks the vial containing the wasp attraction liquid that Krishnan had been using. It splashes over him and he is attacked by a swarm of wasps. He makes it to water, but is taken to hospital to be treated for bad stings and shock. With their enemy now revealed, even more good news follows, as Sir William is well enough to return home. Paula also has overcome her fear of wasps with the defeat of Krishnan, and they can all enjoy her playing “The Wasps” by Vaughn Williams.

Thoughts

As I’ve mentioned in other posts, Spellbound gained a lot from the Diana comic, including some reprints and I can see how this would be a choice for a reprint.  Krishnan is quite devious, and while the reader knows he is behind the attacks, his motivations are still a mystery that needs to be solved. What makes this story stick in my mind more, is the wasps, as who wouldn’t be unsettled by the thought of being attacked by a swarm of wasps! I find it little odd that Spellbound shortened the title of this story to the plainer “Paula” considering “the Wasps of Terror” would be fitting with the comic’s themes and would evoke a certain image in readers mind. The art itself does portray the wasps as terrifying, as Paula so desperately tries to escape them.

The art, the wasps as a threat, Paula’s fear, Sir William’s life in jeopardy, Krishnan’s schemes and mystery of why he is doing this, all work well for the story. What doesn’t work so well, is that the characters can be quite frustrating at times! Firstly, Sir William being so devastated by possibly ruining his daughter’s career, while understandable to a degree, it seems like an over reaction that any falter by Paula and he’s convinced her violin days are over. Also though he is in a weak state, it doesn’t seem like anyone’s explained she has developed fear of wasps that is what is stopping her playing, not her hand (or if they have explained, he hasn’t listened). Secondly, is how slow people are to suspect Krishnan! Quite early on (in episode 4) Hilary suspects someone is out to get Sir William through Paula, while she eventually figures out who’s responsible and why, it seems to take a long time to get there. You would think it would have to be someone close to Paula to be able to spray her items with the scent that attracts wasps and with the tampered recording that Krishnan gave to Sir William, he should be a suspect. But even after Krishnan’s mention of his brother and implication of Spencers wronging him, he is continually allowed to teach Paula and play at concerts with her. Possibly as we don’t know all of Hilary’s thoughts, she may have been doing more secret investigations into him but couldn’t do anything against him until she had solid evidence, but if this is the case it doesn’t come across well in the story.

Another observation I had was the Spencers are a wealthy white family and to have an Indian as a villain, at a time when colonization of India hadn’t long ended, stands out to me. As these comics in general had a majority of white protagonists, it’s a shame that when other people were represented it was often in the role of a villain. There is an Indian doctor that appears in one episode, that lends Paula a sitar, but has no role other than that. Aside from that I am curious about Krishnan’s brother, while we know  that he is what motivates Krishnan’s act of vengeance, we don’t know why he tried to shoot Sir William in the first place. While that may be a question that would have been too much to get into for a short story aimed at young girls, it is still interesting to muse about such things when reading it today.

I think the strongest part of the story is Paula’s fear of wasps, which comes from a traumatic experience, and while Krishnan had nothing to do with that, he does use it to his advantage greatly afterwards. He does get a taste of his own medicine as he is attacked by wasps and left in shock. We don’t learn what happens to him after that, but I do wonder if he develops a fear of wasps as a suitable punishment! Paula’s fear is perhaps a bit quickly overcome in the end, but knowing that most of the wasp attacks were because of another person’s actions, it would make sense that when that person is gone, to feel less threatened.

The Double Life of Debbie

Tracy, , ,

Plot

Debbie Hart was in trouble for not attending school so she was being supervised by Mrs Bonnington, known as Bonny, a voluntary social worker. But Bonny’s home and lifestyle were very different to Debbie’s, which led to problems, this was not helped by Bonny’s daughter, Liz,  who was out to get rid of Debbie.

Notes

Appeared

  • The Double Life of Debbie – Tracy: #72 (14 February 1981) – #83 (2 May 1981)

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.