2 comment(s) so far. Please add yours!
How to Read “Inez of the Upper IV”
The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will retain the texture of handwriting, rendered in a cursive-style font. Readers are invited to step into the role of archivist, assembling the story from these traces, and imagining the lives that fill the gaps between pages—the tensions, the alliances, the secrets too dangerous to write down. Not everything will be explained. But Inez is watching. And she remembers.
Forward: Staffroom Transcript: The Inez de Vries Meeting
If you’ve been following the events of the past week at Saint Clare’s, you already know that one essay—unwritten, then written in defiance—has ignited more than just the usual hallway gossip and that the cast of characters is growing.
It began with a missed geography assignment. It escalated with a detention essay that raised eyebrows, a “contract” punishment scheme, and a growing file of staff memos that read less like documentation and more like dramatic monologues.
Then Matron added her own notes—unsentimental, cod-liver-scented, and unbothered by anyone’s feelings.
Now, finally, the meeting. The transcript below was taken by the Headmaster’s secretary and marked confidential. It includes commentary, interruption, and at least one very pointed biscuit refusal.
If you have ever been in a meeting where nothing was resolved but too much was said— this may all sound rather familiar. Please feel free to add your thoughts on what you’re seeing between the lines, where you’re thinking this may go next.
CONFIDENTIAL TRANSCRIPT
Staff Meeting Regarding: Inez de Vries, Upper 4th
Date: Thursday, 15 June 1955
Time: 4:00 p.m.
Location: Saint Clare’s Headmaster’s Library
Transcribed by: Miss Edith Simms, Secretary to the Headmaster
For: Headmaster Stephen Lewis’s Files Only
Present:
Mr. Stephen Lewis (Headmaster)
Mr. George Green (Geography)
Miss Anne Kelley (English and French; also assistant housemistress for Inez de Vries)
Mr. Bertram J. Johnson (Latin and Classics)
Miss Elaine Clark (Modern History)
Matron Patricia Rowntree (Head Matron, Infirmary)
Mr. Lewis:
Yes, well—thank you, everyone, for coming. I realise this may seem an elaborate convening for a single Fourth Form girl, but the situation appears to have developed… contours.
Before we begin—Mrs. Frobisher has sent up tea, and a tray of those ginger biscuits the kitchen’s trialling. I encourage fortification. As I was reminded repeatedly during the war, an army marches on its stomach—and I daresay this staff does as well.
Now then—George, I believe you were first to raise the matter?
Mr. Green:
Raise it? Headmaster, “it,” as you say, landed in my lap. de Vries failed to submit her geography essay. When questioned, she claimed—quite breezily—that it was in her dormitory. In fact, the essay did not exist. She absented herself from my lesson and ignored a summons from Matron when I sent for her return.
Eventually, I found her in Miss Clark’s classroom, participating in that class as if nothing had occurred.
Miss Kelley: (evenly):
You sent the girl to the dormitory. How then do you find it surprising she left your lesson?
Mr. Green (stiffly):
I think the reasonable expectation was that she would retrieve the paper and return promptly.
Mr. Johnson (mildly):
Did you say that? How was the girl to know?
Mr. Green (teeth clenched):
It was clearly implied. That she failed to intuit my implication is, I think, rather the point.
Having finally located the girl, I confronted her—an hour later—and she admitted the paper had never even been written so her leaving my classroom was entirely a ruse, as I had suspected from the start.
de Vries’s attitude was evasive, her responses were unsatisfactory. Insolent, even, given the circumstances. I promptly administered six strokes of the tawse to her hands. This was, I might add, was a mild punishment, entirely within school guidelines and should not have been unexpected. That she chose to turn the matter into an epic for her detention essay is another issue entirely, but also indicative of her poor character and relevant to this discussion.
Miss Kelley:
Was a record of that punishment entered in her file?
Mr. Green (after a beat):
Not yet. I’ve been—preoccupied.
