The Chalet School and the Island Quiz

Answer: There is a problem with the drains.

Several girls at the Chalet School, including the Maynard triplets, have fallen ill with a throat infection and the drains at the school are thought to be the cause, and need a complete overhaul. As a result, the school is forced to relocate, as the entire building will be undergoing work, and Miss Wilson, Madge Russell and the Maynards have had to look for a new building to house the school in. They are looking at buying a place called Halsden House, but the sale falls through. Luckily, the problem is solved when Commander Michael Christy, a friend of Jack Maynard who owns the appropriately titled Big House on the island of St Briavel's, offers his home as a new building for the Chalet School, as he and his family are moving into a smaller house.

Joey also discovers that Jem and Madge are going to a tuberculosis conference in Canada, and not only taking their younger children with them, but also plan to take Margot as they feel it would be good for her health. Joey is upset about being parted from her daughter, but Jack manages to talk her round. Len and Con, meanwhile, will have to board at the school on St Briavel's.

Answer: Stepsisters

Dickie (real name Delicia, after an ancestor) is the daughter of Commander Christy and his first wife. Commander Christy remarried, and Caroline, his second wife - who Dickie calls Mother Carey - has a daughter, Cherry, from her previous marriage, making her and Dickie stepsisters. Dickie also has a younger half-sister called Gaynor, who was born after her father remarried.

While Dickie is willing to show the girls around the house and befriends Gay Lambert, Jacynth Hardy and other girls in their form, she warns them that Cherry is upset about the school moving in and may be unfriendly. Cherry is disabled due to infantile paralysis, and has also become very shy and wary of strangers.

Answer: Miss Norman

Miss Wilson is glad to have Miss Norman back at the school, as she and Miss Annersley are wary about hiring staff who are unfamiliar with the school's traditions after all the problems the school had with Miss Bubb, the temporary headmistress who appeared in 'Gay from China at the Chalet School'. Miss Burnett and Miss Linton are also both leaving to be married. Miss Norman had been employed elsewhere when the school relocated to Guernsey, but had to move to Worcester to be nearer her mother after her mother became ill. After her mother's death, Miss Norman had written to Miss Annersley to ask if she could have her old job back.

Miss Norman returns a week later and reminisces with the other mistresses about the time they had in Tyrol, although she is still bitter about Joyce Linton's cruel treatment of her in 'The Chalet School and the Lintons'. Mlle de Lachenais and Mlle Berné arrive and say that they have been having trouble with Annis Lovell, and that Annis was rude to Mlle de Lachenais. Miss Wilson is angry and goes to have words with her, and Miss Annersley orders her to apologise at Abendessen, but Annis refuses. She is put into isolation until she apologises.

Answer: Kester Bellever

Kester Bellever is a naturalist and owns a bird sanctuary on the nearby island of St Brandon Mawr. He is a friend of the Christy family and, as it turns out, also met Jack Maynard in hospital during the Second World War while he was having shrapnel fragments removed. He later gives a lecture on seabirds at the school and gives the Sixth Form a guided tour of St Brandon Mawr. Miss Linton recognises him during the trip, and also figures out that the little girl with him is Cherry.

Cherry has to use crutches because of her disability, and Annis - who has been allowed on the trip, on condition that she is supervised by prefects - wades into the sea to retrieve one when Kester accidentally drops it. Jacynth Hardy and Kathie Robertson, the prefects supervising Annis, recognise Cherry after remembering what Dickie told them about her. Annis, who has thawed out after helping Cherry, buys one of Kester's books on the shopping trip and later apologises to Miss Annersley.

Answer: "Who cheats at sums?"

Impertinent Questions is a card game played with two packs of cards, where the dealer draws a card from a pack and asks a question, and the player who has the same card has to claim the question and then ask one themselves. Mary-Lou and Verity-Ann Carey learn to play the game while visiting Joey, and teach it to their form. Phil, Mary-Lou and Ruth are already in a bad mood after being told off by Matron for not making their beds properly, and not having enough time to do their mending. Kathie Robertson has to supervise them while they finish it, and is not happy about it.

The game of Impertinent Questions is light-hearted at first, with all of the other questions above being asked, but takes a nasty turn when Phil asks, "Who cheats at sums?", an obvious dig at Ruth after she got caught looking at answers in a maths class. Ruth is upset, Mary-Lou and Vi both defend her and Phil argues with them, calling Ruth a teacher's pet. A fight breaks out and Miss Annersley walks in during it, and the girls involved are all put into isolation. Miss Annersley also bans the game, makes the girls pay for the damage they caused and has them supervised during their free time for the rest of the term.

Answer: A set of rowing boats

Joey drops hints to the Sixth Formers that she has a present for the school and they speculate on what it might be. It turns out to be a set of boats, one for each school house, plus the staff house, St Hild. Joey invites the school down to the beach and presents the boats to them, and explains that she and Jack bought one boat; Madge and Jem bought another; the third was crowdfunded by several Old Girls; the fourth was a joint purchase by the Ozanne, Chester and Lucy families; and the fifth is a present from Gwensi and Ernest Howell.

Girls from each house are called in turn to row the boats to shore, while Miss Wilson, Miss Linton and Miss Cochrane take the St Hild's boat. The girls who know how to row take turns in the boats, and Dickie later helps teach other girls how to row, as she has plenty of experience herself.

Answer: Nursing

Kathie Robertson and Nancy Canton talk to Annis' form about her and Tom tells them that Annis is in a bad mood because of a letter she received from her aunt. Tom explains Annis' back story: her father is lost at sea and his cousin, her aunt, was appointed her guardian, and she and Annis lived in a seaside town. Aunt Margaret moved from one boarding-house to another after falling out with the owners, and Annis went to a local day school, but Aunt Margaret sent her to the Chalet School because she was misbehaving. Annis has been hoping to spend the holidays with her friends and is awaiting an answer, but when Aunt Margaret writes back, she tells Annis that she does not want her staying with the Maples, and to not mention it again.

At Kathie's suggestion, Tom, Bride and the rest of Annis' classmates try to include her in conversations to stop her feeling lonely, and Dickie is gentler with her than she is with the other girls during the rowing class. Aunt Margaret wants Annis to teach, but Annis decides to go into nursing as it means she can leave school at sixteen, and if she gets a post at a hospital, she will no longer need to depend on her aunt for money.

Answer: She gets lost in fog.

Annis competes in the school regatta in the Senior single oars race, and she uses her improved rowing skills to escape from the school in the St Hild's boat the following morning. She plans to row to Liverpool, then travel from there to the USA and get a job there, inspired by a story she heard about Cherry wanting to run away from home. Unfortunately, Annis does not take the tides into account and ends up being swept into the Wreckers' Race, a particularly dangerous area. She is then caught in fog and loses an oar, and has to try and search for land. When she hears surf breaking on rocks, she realises she is near land and jumps out of the boat onto a rocky ledge. She is forced to climb up the cliff to safety, as the tide is rising. She later finds out that she has landed on Vendell, a nearby island.

Annis finds a rusty old ladder and manages to climb up to a ledge, where she faints. When she wakes up, she realises that there is grass above her and tries to get up, but screams in pain. Kester Bellever hears her screams and comes to find her. He bandages her injured ankle and takes her back to his cabin.

Answer: Via a BBC radio broadcast

Annis faints again and wakes up to find Cherry in the cabin with her. Kester gives her soup and sends Cherry to look for eggs while he hears Annis' story. He explains to Annis that he was recording a segment for the BBC Children's Hour on Vendell, doing a Q&A session with Cherry about seabirds, and that he interrupted an interval to broadcast a message that Annis had gone missing from her school and was safe on Vendell, and would be brought back in due course. Annis explains about the letter and although Kester thinks she was mad to do what she did, he is also sympathetic and appreciates that Annis was desperate. Cherry comes to keep Annis company and the two share a bed.

Kester takes Annis and Cherry to St Briavel's in his motorboat the following morning and Commander Christy meets them there, and gives them a lift to the school. He tells both Annis and Cherry to face their fears instead of trying to get around them. A group of teachers, Matron and Joey meet the party, and Joey and Miss Annersley tell Annis that her father is alive and safe, before Matron puts an exhausted Annis to bed.

Answer: Penny Rest, a boarding house

A month later, Joey goes to visit the Christys and tells them the story of how she encountered Captain Lovell and Annis' evil aunt. Mike, her youngest son, has been teething and Joey has had very little sleep, so the Maynards go to Penny Rest, a family-friendly boarding house in Cornwall, for a week. Margaret Bain is one of the guests staying there, and Joey notices that she is looking upset and asks her what's wrong, but Margaret rudely brushes her off. Joey is writing a letter to Madge in a small alcove in one of the rooms when she hears a man saying that he has come to have it out with Margaret, and when she hears Annis' name mentioned, she realises he is Captain Lovell.

Joey does not want to reveal herself and hides in the alcove while Captain Lovell and Margaret argue, but is forced to come out when the topic of finances comes up. She talks to Captain Lovell afterwards, and later runs into Margaret. When Margaret tries to make excuses for her cruel treatment of Annis, Joey tells Margaret in no uncertain terms what she thinks of her. It is also revealed that Margaret had been embezzling money left for Annis. Annis will be staying on at the Chalet School, but will be spending her holidays with the Maples when Captain Lovell is away at sea.