Every Girl’s Guide to Deportment

Millicent, Duchess of Sutherland by John Singer Sargent
Thanks to Museo Nacional Thyssen Bornemisza

Title: Every Girl’s Guide to Deportment 

Author: not known 

Publisher: not known 

Source book: Dust Up at the Crater School by Chaz Brenchley (Crater School #2)

Ellen-Stephanie, previously known as Steve, runs away to school on her camel Mabel… Look, this is Mars, still land of prospectors and adventurers, and poor Steve has grown up in the Dry, entirely surrounded by men. She’s now 14 (in earth years) and it’s time for her to learn to be a girl. What was her father thinking?

And we are never told, can her father afford the school fees?

Anyway, Bob, or Bobby (never ever Wilhelmina) Tucker, is an expert on etiquette. Her mother has been writing a column called Martian Manners in the Arean-Messenger since before Bob was born. So she’s found Every Girl’s Guide to Deportment (donated to the school library by an old girl with a sense of humour), and Ellen-Stephanie is walking backwards and forwards with the book balanced on her head. Perhaps Ellen-Stephanie might find it more useful to read the book.

And also, perhaps Ellen-Stephanie (what was her mother thinking?) will allow her friends to call her something less cumbersome, like Ellie. We shall see.

Also mentioned in Dust Up are what look like two books aimed at schoolgirls: Polly Saves the Day, and Melanie Meets Her Match. Charm once read that the chill of a ghost story comes from the character of the ghost, not the temperature outside. She thinks it might have been in one of these books. 

It is a bit odd that ghost stories are traditional TV viewing at Christmas time (in Great Britain anyway). The Christmas celebrations in Dust Up are on Mars where the seasons don’t match up with seasons on earth, and this Christmas it’s going to be hot. Oh dear, Charm knows scary ghost stories that take place in the summer, and her creepy stories cause her form mates to have nightmares, and even sleep walk!

If you are feeling a bit confused by a girls school story set on Mars, take a place in the queue. But know that these books are very much influenced by the Chalet School series by Elinor M Brent Dyer.

Mrs Robert Harrison by John Singer Sargent 
Thanks to the Tate