Three Go to the Chalet School Trivia Quiz

Answer: Artists

Clem and Tony Barras have frequently moved from place to place, as their parents are artists and their father in particular likes finding new places to paint, and have recently moved into Polquenel, the little Cornish village where the Trelawney family live. Mary-Lou's mother and grandmother disapprove of the Barras family because of Mr Barras' nasty temper and bad language, and Clem and Tony being 'wild' and potential bad influences on Mary-Lou.

The lease on the Trelawneys' house is up and Mrs Trelawney's doctor thinks she should live somewhere different as she is prone to colds, so the Trelawneys plan to move to Howells village where it is warmer, and Mary-Lou will also start school there.

As it happens, the Barras family are also leaving, to go to London and then the Hebrides.

Answer: She talks and behaves like a Victorian child.

Verity-Ann has been raised by her grandparents and taught by an elderly governess, with little interaction with children her age, and behaves in a very old-fashioned way as a result. She speaks very formally and does embroidery in her spare time, rather than playing with her classmates when she joins the Chalet School. Mr James, the family solicitor, has daughters at the school and thinks Verity-Ann needs to mix with girls her own age.

He is somewhat freaked out when she tells him that she disapproves of modern girls because they are 'frequently rude and forward, talk slang, and are disobedient and unladylike'.

As Verity-Ann's mother is dead and her father is absent, and Mr James' house is too small for her to live with him, she is sent to board at the Chalet School.

Answer: She crawls through a hole in a hedge.

The Trelawneys move into Carn Beg, a house which happens to be next door to the Maynards' house. Mary-Lou goes exploring in the garden and the gardener shows her which apples to pick. She spies a hole in the hedge between the two gardens and hears children's voices, and sees Anna, the Maynards' Tyrolean maid, the triplets, Stephen and Charles Maynard playing in the pond. Mary-Lou makes the hole bigger and crawls through, tearing her dress, and talks to Anna and the children. Anna mends her dress and tells the children Tyrolean fairytales, and Mary-Lou plays with them.

The triplets tell her about the Chalet School and their cousins, the Bettanys and the Russells (one of whom, Josette, turns out to be in Mary-Lou's year).

Answer: Trilingualism

If you've read the books set in the Tyrol, you may remember that because many of the pupils were French, German or Austrian, the Chalet School had a policy of speaking different languages on different days, alternating between English, French and German (Sunday was a free-for-all). Miss Wilson tells the school that they will be bringing back French and German days during the school week, with Saturday (after 11 o'clock) and Sunday being days for any language.

Although the school is predominantly British because of its move, there are still a couple of Tyrolean girls who are daughters of former pupils. Mary-Lou picks French up very quickly, to the surprise of her classmates, though Verity-Ann struggles with languages.

Answer: He pours custard over his father's salad.

Earlier in the book, Tony puts crabs in his father's paint box, and only escapes a beating because Clem intervenes and offers to clean the box out. Unfortunately, when the Barras family move to the Hebrides, Tony is not so lucky. He pours custard on his father's salad, and Mr Barras beats him so badly he can't sit down without a cushion. Mrs Barras is disgusted and tells Mr Barras to find schools for the children, as the only school on the island is a tiny Gaelic-speaking school. Tony is sent to a boarding school in Yorkshire, which he enjoys, and Clem goes to the Chalet School, though Mr Barras has to beg Miss Annersley to let her enrol.

Answer: She overworks so that she can be moved up a form.

Mary-Lou, along with Doris Hill, Lesley Malcolm and Vi Lucy, is near the top of the form league table and is hoping to get promoted to Lower Third, while Clem is in Upper Third. As Mary-Lou has been taught using old-fashioned methods, she has a lot to unlearn and begs Clem to help her with her maths and geography late at night. Mary-Lou becomes tired and moody, and the teachers are concerned. During a staff meeting, an upset Clem bursts into the staffroom to ask for help, as Mary-Lou is feverish and talking in her sleep. Miss Annersley and Matron believe it is the result of overworking. Mary-Lou is put into the school san for a few days and banned from doing lessons, and Miss Annersley tells her and Clem not to study past 8pm.

Answer: False

Mary-Lou's father is an entomologist, and she has not seen him for most of her life. When Mary-Lou gets out of the san, Joey takes her aside and tells her that news of the Murray-Cameron expedition in Brazil has been lost, and only two of the party have survived, neither of which is her father. Verity-Ann's father, a cartographer, is in hospital, as is Dr O'Brien, the other survivor. Mary-Lou barely remembers her father and feels guilty for not crying over him. Joey understands and says that her feelings are perfectly normal, but that her mother and grandmother will be upset and that she will need to support them. Mary-Lou asks her mother to tell her about her father, and later discovers that her father sacrificed himself to protect his friends, instead of running away.

Answer: Black Beauty

Peter Young - whose real name is Clement, and for whom Clem is named - is a friend of Mr Barras and a portrait painter, whom Clem has never met. He takes Tony out in Liverpool and Tony writes a letter to Clem about it. Peter invites Clem to meet him in Armiford and bring a friend, so Clem takes Mary-Lou.

They go to see 'Black Beauty' in the cinema, and meet up with Miss Linton, Janie Lucy and her daughters. Janie takes an instant liking to Peter. Mary-Lou almost cries at 'Black Beauty', but manages to rein herself in as she doesn't want Tony thinking she's gone soft!

Answer: She refuses to sing German carols.

Verity-Ann refuses to speak German unless asked to by a mistress, and calls Germans 'most unpleasant people'. The other girls can't believe it. As the school Christmas concert is coming up, Mr Denny holds a rehearsal for the girls to learn the carols. One of the carols is in German, and Verity-Ann refuses to sing.

As she has a very distinctive voice, Mr Denny notices, and neither he nor Miss Burnett, who is supervising the practice, can get her to sing. Miss Linton, Miss Annersley, the other girls and even Joey try to talk Verity-Ann round, but she refuses to give in and is almost kicked out of the concert because of it. Mary-Lou and Vi put a stop to the other girls trying to pressure Verity-Ann, and at Clem's suggestion, a group of them plan to ask Mr Denny to let her sing but excuse her from German carols. Luckily, Verity-Ann's father comes to school to see her, and manages to talk her out of her refusal to speak or sing in German.

Answer: Miss Linton

Peter is working on a picture called 'The Shepherdess', with Miss Linton as the main focus and a group of girls, including Verity-Ann, Mary-Lou and Clem, as attendants. Before the holidays, Clem is in a bad mood and Mary-Lou finds out that Peter and Miss Linton have become very friendly and gone on dates together. Miss Linton comes into the girls' room to tell them to go to bed, and Mary-Lou asks her if she's waiting for Peter's picture to be accepted at the Academy. Miss Linton is embarrassed and refuses to say anything when asked.

She later sends for Mary-Lou and Clem, and shows them her engagement ring, but asks the girls to keep it a secret as she doesn't want to wear the ring in public until term ends. She becomes Gillian Young later in the series.