Flaws, Faults and Foibles Trivia Quiz

Answer: Darrell

Darrell Rivers is the heroine of the series. The books begin with her arrival at the school as a shy first former and follow her through the years until the sixth form where she is a mature and dignified head girl.

Darrell is a good all rounder - she works hard and excels at both academics and sports and is a friendly girl who gets on with most students. She is head girl of the fourth form and the author of the pantomime in the fifth.

Her temper first shows itself in the first book where she slaps Gwendoline in the pool and shakes Sally at half term, she has a tussle with Ellen over test papers in the second form and a confrontation with young June in fourth form which temporarily loses her her position of head girl.

She does, however, have the ability to recognise this fault within herself and always apologises after she has had time to calm down and tries hard to learn to control herself which makes her a true Blyton heroine.

At the end of the series she is all set to go off to St Andrews College in Scotland with Sally, Alicia and Betty and has high hopes of becoming a writer.

Answer: Sally

Sally Hope is another new girl in the first form with Darrell. In the beginning she is very sullen and sulky and doesn't want to make friends with anyone and then we find out that she was an only child that has been sent to boarding school because her mother had a baby. Sally's jealous temperament makes her believe she is no longer loved until Darrell helps her clear this up. The two are best friends for the rest of the series.

Sally is a very calm, responsible, thoughtful and loyal girl who is also good at both sports and academics. She is head girl in the second form and sports captain of the school in the sixth form.

She controls her jealousy remarkably well but it does rear its ugly head in the third year when she comes back to school six weeks late and finds out that Darrell and Alicia have teamed up while she was gone as Alicia's best friend Betty was also away sick - but Sally is back and Betty isn't and Alicia isn't giving up her friendship with Darrel until she is!

Answer: Mary-Lou

Mary-Lou is a character in all six books. As a young first former she is a quiet, timid girl who is scared of nearly everything - water, insects and the dark to name a few. After Gwendoline holds her under the water in the first book - the reason she gets slapped by Darrell - Mary-Lou hero worships Darrell and follows her around and tries to do everything for her.

Her admiration and loyalty to Darrell are what finally cause her to overcome her fears - she jumps in the deep end of the pool when she thinks Darrell is in trouble and she goes searching for evidence in the dark to help get her out of trouble proving that real friendship overcomes everything.

Mary-Lou has the leading role in the fifth form pantomime of Cinderella and is leaving to train as a nurse at the Great Ormond Street hospital at the end of the last book.

Answer: Daphne

Daphne Millicent Turner is one of the new girls introduced in the second form. She is a beautiful young girl who claims to be the daughter of a millionaire. She is immediately latched onto by Gwendoline but Mary-Lou also likes her and offers to help her with her school work.

Daphne is really very poor and has no money or nice things so she begins to steal them from her classmates and others. When she is afraid of getting caught she bundles all the empty boxes and purses and puts them in a box to post. Mary-Lou takes the box to post for her in the middle of a gale and gets blown over the edge of a cliff. When Daphne finds out that she has gone she goes out to find her and manages to stop her falling any further by joining their belts together and holding onto her for hours.

Daphne has to admit she was the thief but Mary-Lou asks the girls to give her another chance and, because of her heroism, they all agree. She and Mary-Lou remain best friends throughout the rest of the series.

Answer: Mavis

Mavis is the only main character that we don't meet as a new student. She appears in the third book and we are told she came to the school the term before. She has a fantastic voice and plans on training to be an opera singer but she is very unpopular with the other girls because of her vanity about her talent.

Her conceit leads her to enter a talent show in the nearby town and she sneaks out at night to compete. She misses the last bus back and has to walk back to school in the rain and ends up exhausted lying in a ditch in the rain until she is found.

This ruins her beautiful voice and she is told she mustn't sing for at least a year. Mavis, without her voice, becomes a much nicer person and a normal schoolgirl. She regains her voice in time to be the chief singer in the fifth form pantomime and leaves before the last book to go to music college.

Answer: Bill

Wilhelmina Robinson, known as Bill, is one of the new girls in the third year. She has seven brothers and has always been taught by their tutors so an all girl boarding school with lots of rules is completely new to her. She is horse mad and brings her horse Thunder to school with her.

All she is interested in is being with Thunder and her teachers start to punish her by forbidding her to go to the stables. Bill openly defies them which leads to even more problems.

Her big lesson comes when Thunder becomes seriously ill in the middle of the night with colic and her form teacher helps save his life. Bill turns over a new leaf and becomes a responsible student throughout the rest of the books.

Answer: Ellen

Ellen Wilson makes her debut in the second form as a scholarship girl. The problem is that she is so overworked from studying to get it that she is now exhausted and has permanent headaches which make her very snappy with the other girls and stops her work from being up to standard.

Alicia openly accuses her of being the second form thief and Ellen decides that if she is going to be accused of something then she will do something and sneaks downstairs at night to search for the test papers. She is caught by Darrell who ends up wrestling with her on the floor in one of her infamous loss of temper episodes.

Ellen becomes seriously ill with worry and stress after this and is hospitalised. Once the headmistress finds out what has happened she decides to give her another chance and Ellen becomes a cheerful friendly girl once she stops being so stressed. In the following book she has already been moved up another year.

Answer: Irene

Irene appears in all six books and plays quite a prominent role but her last name is never mentioned. She is an extremely gifted girl in both music and maths but pretty much helpless at everything else. She is forever forgetting and losing things and loses track of the time and never knows where she is supposed to be.

These things are all forgiven in the name of genius and she is a friendly, generous girl who has very many positive character traits.

In the second form Blyton creates the perfect friend for her in the new girl Belinda Morris who is a talented artist but also completely scatterbrained. The pair finally get the chance to shine in the fifth form pantomime where their talents are put to great use.

Answer: Alicia

Alicia Johns is another very prominent character in the series, one that is very popular among all the girls except those who she thinks are weak who fear her sharp tongue and quick wit. She has a very malicious side and can be quite cruel to those she scorns. She was also very jealous when both Sally and Darrell were made head girls and tried hard to undermine them.

She is a very unusual Blyton character because, despite all these faults, she remains one of the heroines of all six books. She is also exceptionally clever at academics and loves sports and playing tricks on the teachers.

Alicia has two big lessons - one in the fourth form when she fails the School Certificate because she catches the measles and comes to understand how hard life is for people without her clever brain; and the other in the fifth form when her cousin gets expelled and she must learn how to humble herself to someone else for the first time in her life.

Answer: Gwendoline

No 'Malory Towers' quiz would be complete without Gwendoline Mary Lacey. Gwen is a new girl at the same time as Darrel and Sally in book one. She has been tutored at home by a governess and a mother who both completely adore her and spend all their time telling her how beautiful and wonderful she is.

Poor Gwen is totally unsuited to life in a rough and tumble boarding school. She can't swim, hates other sports and is way behind in all her lessons. Gwen never learns not to lie, tell tales or to have any interest in anyone except herself.

She is a very shallow girl who wants to be friends with people who are beautiful or important. In the second form she latches onto Daphne when she falls for her tales of wonderful riches but turns on her the minute she finds out she isn't rich. Third form brings both Mavis with her wonderful voice and Zeralda, an American girl who thinks she's an actress. When both of these girls lose their talent they lose Gwen very quickly too! Upper fourth brings the Honourable Clarissa Carter who Gwen befriends and then actually misjudges her as a nobody when she really is a young lady from a very influential background. In the fifth brings a change with a new girl latching onto Gwen! Maureen is just as self obsessed as Gwen and the other girls set them up and Gwen detests her but just can't get rid of her.

The sixth form has Gwen at her worst telling everyone how she is going to go to a Swiss finishing school - despite her father saying he is unable to afford it. All term she tells everyone how much she hates her father and all the arguments they had but then, in true Blyton style, she is finally brought down by an urgent summons calling her home as her father is on his deathbed. She makes it home in time and her father manages to survive but will no longer be able to work. Gwen's dreams for the future are gone and she will have to get an office job and help the family. Darrell receives a letter from Gwen saying that she will try to be a better person.