6 Down in the Pool
As usual the girls settled down very quickly for the new term. The summer term was always such a lovely one. There were so many things to do—and for those who liked swimming, the magnificent pool, that lay in a great, hollow of a rock down below on the shore, was a source of the greatest delight.
Those who wished could go to bathe before breakfast, and every morning, once the pool had been declared warm enough for swimming, girls ran down the steep cliff path to the swimming-pool. They wore their bathing costumes with a wrap round them.
Most of the girls loved the pool. A few didn’t. Those who hadn’t learnt to swim were afraid. Those who didn’t like cold water hated the pool. Gwen, of course, was one of these, and so was Maureen.
The new French girl also hated the very idea of the pool. She went to watch the girls there once, and squealed² in fright if a splash of water so much as reached her toes!
“Suzanne! Don’t be an idiot!” said Miss Potts, who happened to be in charge of the swimming that day. “If you squeal¹ like a silly first-former I shall make you strip off your clothes and go in. I can’t think why Mam’zelle doesn’t make you.”
Mam’zelle, of course, never would make anyone go into the pool if they didn’t want to. She detested³ it herself, and so did the second French teacher, Mam’zelle Rougier, Suzanne’s aunt. Neither of them understood the craze for games and sports of all kinds that they found in English schools.
“I go back,” announced Suzanne, at the next splash, and she turned to go up the sloping way to the cliff on which the school was built.
“Oh no, you don’t,” said Miss Potts. “You stay here. Even if you can’t be persuaded to learn to swim, you can watch the others!”
“Police?” said Suzanne, with a blank expression on her face. Miss Potts wished fervently⁴ she had Suzanne in the first form under her for just one day. She was quite certain that Suzanne would never utter that infuriating word again!
Gwendoline and Maureen were made to swim, of course, though it still took them ages to make up their minds to get into the cold, clear water. They waited till everyone else was in, because it was simply extraordinary how many accidental pushes happened to them when Alicia or Moira or Betty came by. If there was one thing Gwen hated it was to enter the pool suddenly without warning!

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