Antonia Forest Quotes

“The misery is compounded when they discover that Removes are not even allowed to play netball.”

“Nicola and Lawrie offer to take a shortcut through a farmyard in order to get the campfire lit. Unfortunately a haystack on the farm is found burned down later that afternoon and the twins are the prime suspects.”

“Half term with the family gives opportunity for the elder Marlows to laugh at the twins’ failures. Nicola takes advice from her eldest brother, Giles (a lieutenant in the Navy), that she should concentrate on what she is good at - being bad!”

″ Lois Sanger, their Patrol Leader, should be the one to take responsibility but instead twists the story to make herself look good. After an agonizing Court of Honour, the twins are asked to leave the company.”

“Nicola makes an inauspicious start to her career at Kingscote School when she drops her leaving present, a penknife, out of the train and pulls the communication cord so that she can jump out to retrieve it.”

“When she gets there, she realizes that she has not enough money for the return ticket and that she has no idea where to find Giles. Eventually she tracks him down and, although he is singularly unimpressed with her, he does at least put her on the train back to school.”

“A few weeks later, when things are particularly miserable at school, she remembers his advice. She takes the train down to Port Wade to visit Giles and his ship.”

“Twins Nicola and Lawrie arrive at their new school determined to do even better than their distinguished elder sisters, but things don’t turn out quite as planned.”

“She and her twin then suffer the indignity of being placed in a Remove form, when all their sisters have always been in A forms.”

“Since there is nothing else they can do, they join the school Guide Company and hope to shine there. All goes well until a hike down to the beach is planned.”