The Exploits of the Chalet Girls Quiz

Answer: Maria von Eschenau

Thekla is a distant cousin of Marie's, a fact which Marie isn't happy about as Thekla is a huge snob. While Marie is Austrian, Thekla is German, as a result of Marie's great-uncle marrying a Prussian woman. Her father is in the Junker class - a Prussian army officer class, to which Otto von Bismarck also belonged in real life - and has brought her up to look down on everyone who isn't like her.

She is disgusted to find that Marie is mixing with 'the daughters of shopkeepers', and the younger girls aren't sure what to make of her.

Answer: She spits on the floor.

Bianca gets increasingly annoyed with Thekla not being able to specify what kind of book she wants, as exercise books are colour-coded for each subject. When Thekla says she wants a blue book, Bianca assumes it's for German and asks for a note from Mlle de Lachenais, which Thekla does not have.

Thekla tries to grab a book and Bianca accidentally pushes a door into her, and she loses her temper. She calls Bianca a 'Schweinhund', spits on the floor and then throws herself on the floor, much to Joey's disgust.

Answer: Miss Stewart hurts her foot.

Cornelia and her friends are picking berries when Cornelia falls down a hole, and is unable to climb out. Miss Wilson keeps her company while Frieda and Marie get help, and a local mountaineer gets her out of the hole and Frieda takes her home. Later, the prefects are picking flowers and Thekla criticises Marie for letting her hair down and using her ribbon to tie a bunch of flowers together, and when she refuses to accept flowers from Carla von Flügen, Marie snaps and the two have an argument which culminates in Marie shaking her. Later in the walk, Thekla sits down as she is too tired to move and is not used to going on walks, and Miss Wilson has to threaten to leave her behind before she eventually gets up.

She also refuses to drink the milk offered in a local hut, and becomes very thirsty as a result.

Answer: Herr Laubach

Joey has never been good at art, and she is banned from art classes after getting on Herr Laubach's nerves one too many times. She drops her rubber, breaks the points of her pencils, makes lines that are impossible to erase, and the end result is so terrible that Herr Laubach throws Joey's art equipment at her. Joey walks out of the class and refuses to come back, and Herr Laubach complains to Mlle Lepāttre. Joey takes extra maths instead, which she hates.

The actual incident is briefly mentioned in the book, rather than actually happening onscreen (so to speak), but in the Girls Gone By Publishers edition, a short story by Katherine Bruce at the end of the book imagines how it might have gone.

Answer: They take it apart and try to fix it.

Margia Stevens, Cornelia, Hilda Bhaer, Berta Hamel, Elsie Carr and a few others decide to deal with the clock by taking it apart and fixing it. Cornelia gets a book on clocks out of the library, and the girls dismantle the clock, boil the parts and clean them, and put it back together. Louise Redfield becomes suspicious when she sees the usually lazy Cyrilla Maurus reading a history book, but Joey dismisses it.

However, the girls are found out when the clock starts chiming and refuses to stop at breakfast the next day, and Thekla says that Margia had something to do with it. Unfortunately for her, the clock stops just as she says this, and the Middles are in deep trouble.

They think Thekla - who wasn't involved in the clock mending - told on them and ostracise her, despite her protesting that it was an accident.

Answer: Frieda Mensch

Frieda is chosen to play the Sleeping Beauty because of her long golden hair. Joey is her prince. Ilonka is in the 'Sleeping Beauty' tableau, but plays the queen. Biddy is Jill in a depiction of 'Jack and Jill', and Cyrilla is the little girl in a tableau of Sir John Millais' 'The North-West Passage', with Louise Redfield as the old sailor.

Other tableaux include the 'you dirty boy' advert for Pears' soap, with Frieda as the old woman and the Robin as the child, and 'The Golden Staircase', featuring Joey and friends, toy instruments, and Madge's new portieres. Both Madge and Jem find out the hard way that the girls have been using a lot of their things, including a lovely yellow tablecloth from Wanda's family! The girls also have a snowball fight and a quiet religious Sunday in.

Answer: Evadne Lannis

Evadne and Cornelia have previously had a row at breakfast when they were trying to kick each other and got caught by Miss Wilson - with the added punishment of Cornelia missing the Saturday night fun for using forbidden slang - and Mlle de Lachenais keeps their class in over break for misbehaving in French.

The girls keep saying sentences along the lines of 'I hate winter', and Mdlle gets fed up with it and refuses to let them have any break until they can each give her ten original sentences on winter. Finally, Evadne is doing an experiment in science class and discovers some black powder left out by Carla, and mixes it with acid.

When she puts her crucible on her bunsen burner, it blows up and she gets burned. Luckily, she is not seriously injured, but her clothes are torn and the explosion shatters the windows.

Thekla makes a snotty comment that this is why girls shouldn't learn science!

Answer: A snake

Joey thinks the shape Ilonka's lead makes is a coffin. Frieda thinks it is a train, which means Ilonka is going to travel. Margia, in a bit of uncanny foreshadowing, thinks it's a torpedo and that there will be another war (bear in mind that this book was originally published in 1933), and Ilonka will be on a ship that gets torpedoed. On a more cheerful note, Miss Annersley interprets the lead as a treasure chest, and a sign that Ilonka will be rich.

Thekla also reluctantly has a go, and gets a circle, which Marie interprets as a ring.

Answer: She sets her petticoat on fire.

Miss Nalder and Miss Durrant manage to jump all twelve candles without putting any out, but Mdlle de Lachenais puts all of them out, and Joey knocks three over in one go. When Thekla has a go at the game, she happens to be wearing a frilly petticoat, despite Matron having banned her from wearing it, and it comes loose and catches fire. Joey tries to come to the rescue by drenching Thekla with a tub of water while Miss Wilson and Miss Stewart are trying to beat the fire out, much to the annoyance of Miss Wilson, who reminds her that as a Guide, she should have known the correct procedure.

Other games include bobbing for apples and picking out ears of corn.

Answer: The Spirit of Christmas

Simone plays the Spirit of Christmas, who also acts as a kind of narrator, and she is accompanied by her servants Mistletoe, Holly, Christmas Tree (Thekla), Candle (Cornelia), Snapdragon (Evadne), Carol, Frost and Snow. Thora Helgersen, a Norwegian girl with a very deep voice, plays the landlord and sings a duet with Joey. Frieda plays a medieval woman, and the Robin plays Love, while Carla is Peace and Sophie Hamel is Goodwill.

Despite a terrible rehearsal, the pageant is a success.