Teaser – “Inez of the Upper Fourth” – a Saint Clare Summer Saga

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This summer in Mija’s Room, I’ve come back to to Saint Clare’s School for Girls. Here’s a teaser of what’s to come, starting, hopefully, later this week. 

Saint Clare’s School for Girls. 

Where you eat what you’re given.
Where the prefects are as sharp as their pens.
Where the staff only agree on one thing: a clever girl is dangerous —and must be managed.

Yet Saint Clare’s School is for clever girls.

Enter Inez de Vries.

At fourteen, she is a strategist in a gym-slip—a third-generation legacy.
She’s read the rules.
She understands the masters’ and mistresses’s expectations.
What she hasn’t learned—yet—is the code the girls keep among themselves.

This isn’t a redemption arc.
Not a story of downfall or triumph.
This is an end-of-term report. Inez’s portfolio. Her folder.

Inside are the essays no one wanted to mark.
The memos no one was meant to read.
And a perfect curtsy, well-timed, and offered not to the Headmaster,
but to the young woman wielding the Head Girl’s hairbrush.

Bring your best pen.

Press your shirt.
Straighten your collar.
Check your tie.
And wear your badge properly.

You are seen. Always. Even the silences.

…That, at Saint Clare’s School, is and eternally has been the final word.