A Girl Called Geraldine Trivia Quiz

Answer: 10

From youngest to oldest, the Trevennor children are Elizabeth (aka Betty), Geoffrey, Sheila, Cecil, twins Bernard and Jill, Larry, Helen (aka Nell), Margaret (aka Peggy) and Paul. Sheila, Jill and Nell are all pupils at St Peter's School, while Peggy has recently left. Charlotte Challenor is a cousin of Reverend Trevennor's father, and she and her sister Alicia have been looking after their great-niece Geraldine after her parents were killed in a tornado (she is named after her father Gerald). Because Geraldine is twelve, Charlotte and Alicia do not want to take her to Madeira with them, but there are no other relatives to take her in, so Charlotte writes to the Reverend to ask him to look after Geraldine while they are away.

The Trevennor children later shorten Geraldine's name to Gerry, hence the title of the book.

Answer: Playing the piano

Climbing a tree would be extremely unusual for the sheltered Gerry! Her old-fashioned great-aunts have raised her like a little Victorian girl, with her usual leisure activities being things like sewing, going for boring walks and playing the piano, at which she is genuinely talented. She is also expected to only speak when spoken to, and wears old-fashioned dresses with her hair in ringlets. When we first meet her, she is practising the piano and thinking about how much she wants to play with other girls like her, as there are very few children locally, and the local children don't come from the same background as her.

Gerry falls asleep on her trip to the Rectory. When she wakes up, she meets Margaret, who she initially thinks is a fairy princess.

Answer: Pal

Gerry gradually meets the other Trevennor children and Paul teases her, asking her to give him a kiss in return for carrying her into the house, which frightens Gerry. Paul apologises and asks Gerry to be pals (Gerry has no idea what 'pal' means, but agrees). Throughout the book, he calls her his 'pal'. The other Trevennors generally get on with Gerry, even if they find her a bit weird (such as her horror at Cecil wanting to be an actor, a profession her great-aunts see as immoral), with one exception - Jill, who is jealous of Gerry's friendship with Paul.

Paul plays the organ at church and is a talented violinist. All the Trevennor boys except Geoffrey play string instruments (Cecil plays the viola, Bernard plays the cello and Larry plays the double bass). Paul also later bonds with Gerry over music when she accompanies the boys' playing as a string quartet. Sheila plays the piano, but badly, while Margaret is a very average piano player and Nell and Jill are not musical at all; Nell is a sports enthusiast and Jill is very academic, hoping to become a doctor.

Answer: "That's the freak who's living with us."

Nell is angry with Jill for her continued rudeness to Gerry and tells Gerry that she's happy to help if Gerry has any problems. When Jill calls Gerry a freak, Rosamund is shocked and tells her that Gerry can hear her. She goes to speak to Gerry and introduces her to her sister Con, who's Gerry's age. Gerry also meets Allegra and Francesca, two of Rosamund's sisters, and a girl called Muriel Hatherley who is Gerry's age. (If you've read 'Seven Scamps' or 'A Head Girl's Difficulties', you'll recognise the Atherton sisters.)

When Gerry gets to school, she has an interview with Miss Catcheside, the headmistress, who gets the shock of her life when she discovers that Gerry has only played croquet and La Grace (a game where the players throw a hoop back and forth) and has very limited knowledge of maths. Miss Hamilton, Gerry's form mistress, gives her some tests to assess her educational level and also gets a surprise at the old textbooks Gerry has been using, though her French is excellent due to her having had a very good French tutor.

Answer: The Fifth Form keep bossing them around.

Gerry goes for milk and biscuits at break and is introduced to other girls in her year, including Lillie Tomson and Sylvia Newton. Sylvia's twin sister Stella is angry because Alicia Brett, Captain of the hockey Second Eleven and a particularly unpleasant prefect, has been patronising her and ordering her around because the previous hockey fag, Mary, was always forgetting things. (A fag is a younger girl who runs errands for older girls.) She suggests the younger girls go on strike in protest against the Fifth Formers' bossy behaviour, although Marcia Compton, the Head Girl, interrupts and asks for Gerry before they can discuss it further.

Kitty O'Connell, another girl in Gerry's year, invites her to join a secret society, who are putting on a play of their own. They ask Gerry to play a haughty princess and Gerry bases her character on Alicia. Tessa Donati, an Italian girl, is impressed with Gerry's precise way of speaking as most English girls are too slangy for her to understand. Kitty brings up the strike again, but Marcia appears and orders them out onto the hockey fields.

Answer: She goes into Gerry's room and attacks her.

Gerry is woken up late at night by Jill shaking her. Jill goes into an angry rant at her, telling Gerry she hates her, that Larry and Nell are being mean to her because of Gerry, and that Gerry is doing Sheila out of an invite to the Comptons (even though the Comptons themselves want Gerry to come). Gerry calls her a 'silly, bad-tempered, spoiled little girl' and Paul is woken up by the two girls fighting; Gerry has even punched Jill in the face and given her a nosebleed. Paul is angry with Jill for treating a guest badly and refuses to kiss her goodnight. The next day, he asks them both about what happened and Gerry apologises, but Jill does not and is upset when Paul walks off with Gerry.

Jill deliberately makes herself ill by walking around the house at night and giving herself a cold, meaning that she can't go to the Comptons'. Nell, who is friends with Marcia, and Gerry go to their house and Gerry gets to ride in a car and go to the cinema for the first time, and develops a liking for Marcia after seeing her outside the school environment.

Answer: Firefly, the Trevennors' pony, gets spooked by a drunk man.

Firefly is feeling a bit frisky due to the Comptons' groom feeding her (Larry forgot to tell him not to) and is faster than usual on the way home, but gets spooked when Jem Gough, a local man who is a notorious drunk, suddenly comes out of a ditch. Firefly bolts and Nell and Gerry hang onto the carriage for dear life while Larry does his best to get the mare under control. When they get to a hill, Firefly begins to tire and walks at her usual pace. The Trevennors are home late and all three of them are in a state of high anxiety, and Larry faints while Nell and Gerry are both crying. Mrs Trevennor praises Nell for her bravery in protecting Gerry.

Larry is ill the next day, worrying that he and the girls could have been killed and blaming himself for the accident. Margaret brings Gerry in to talk to Larry and he calms down.

Answer: No

Gerry agrees to copy out the strikers' manifesto, which they send to the prefects. The prefects are furious at this display of defiance, and both Marcia and Nell are surprised that Gerry is involved; Marcia is particularly concerned that Gerry has no idea what she's getting into, as she's a new girl. She calls a prefects' meeting to find a solution and the prefects write a letter to the juniors, asking them to come to a meeting to discuss the strike. Gerry is one of the Third Form delegates, taking Kitty O'Connell's place after Miss Hamilton punishes her with extra mending. In the meeting, she brings up one of the juniors' complaints, about having to report to change shoes, and Nell is angry with her.

Marcia dismisses the other girls, but keeps Gerry back and asks Gerry why she's involved, and Gerry replies that if the rest of her form are striking, she has to as well. Marcia is secretly impressed at Gerry's loyalty. The prefects get their own back by calling off all games practices and banning the juniors from using the library until the strike ends, and they have Miss Catcheside's support. Jill claims that the delegates backed down and apologised to Marcia, but what actually happens is that the delegates call off the strike because they feel cancelling games practice is unfair on the school. They do, however, request that the Fifth Form do not ask them to fag for them.

Answer: Jill

Paul tells the others that Birkett's Pond has frozen over and Jill wants to go skating, although Paul is unable to come as he's got organ practice. Paul gets a visit from Mr Maitland, the curate, who tells him that the pond might not be safe to skate on, as a thaw is coming; he tells Nell to tell the others, but she is doing homework and only half-listening, and forgets. The next day, Jill goes out to skate on her own, but the ice breaks when she skates on the pond and she falls in. Luckily, Gerry overhears Paul and Margaret talking about the pond being unsafe and runs after Jill, taking a hockey stick with her. Jill is clinging onto the ice and Gerry holds the stick out to her. She thinks Jill is dead and screams in terror. The Trevennor boys, Farmer Birkett and Mr Maitland are all nearby and rush to the pond, and between them, they get Jill out.

Jill is very ill as a result of her fall into the pond, but one upside is that she and Gerry finally make friends. Jill feels guilty about her mean behaviour to Gerry, sends a message to her via Elizabeth, and the two girls apologise to each other. Gerry then swaps rooms with Nell and shares with Jill. Mr Maitland also proposes to Margaret after rescuing Gerry. In school prayers at St Peter's, Miss Catcheside praises Gerry for her quick thinking.

Answer: The Water-Babies

There are two plays in the school concert. The Lower Middle and Lower School are doing Charles Kingsley's 'The Water-Babies', with Gerry playing a sea fairy and Allegra Atherton playing Ellie, while the Senior School are doing Laurence Housman's 'Prunella', with Nell playing Pierrot. The rehearsals go very badly ('Chalet School' fans playing this quiz will be getting déjà vu, as this happens in 'Chalet School' books all the time!) but the plays themselves are fine on the day.

Gerry is promoted to Form IV B. Miss Hamilton leaves the school to be married to Mr Lorrimer, a maths teacher at St Peter's Boys' School. Gerry's great-aunts also write to the Trevennors, asking them to let Gerry stay on with them until she leaves school, as Alicia's doctor has told her that she cannot return to England on health grounds. The Trevennors agree, and essentially adopt Gerry. Alicia and Charlotte also pay for Jill to study medicine, as money is tight for the Trevennors, and Gerry stays on at St Peter's, much to her relief.