After lunch Jane and I had a stroll around the grounds but we soon found the strange sight of two females amongst so many boys made us the centre of attention in a way that was not entirely comfortable. No-one made any really nasty comments for there were several teachers and even more prefects patrolling but even they couldn’t stop the stares. It was like being two goldfish in a glass bowl. We also wondered what had happened to the other girls that were supposed to start with us for we hadn’t seen them.

An early return to our common room seemed a good idea. This was situated on the first floor of one wing of the main building up some stone stairs and along a short corridor. We had taken no more than three or four steps along the top corridor before we were stopped by a prefect who told us he didn’t think it was a good idea for us to go back to the common room for another half hour at least, although he refused to explain why.

We had been told the prefects at Binghams Grammar School had certain powers and that they could award a limited range of punishments even to sixth formers so it seemed a good idea to comply with his request even though he had not actually ordered us not to return to our common room.

Jane and I contemplated going back downstairs and into a small garden quadrangle where there were four wooden park style benches for use by staff and sixth formers only. Before we could, a boy who had also joined our lower sixth from another school emerged from our common room. He looked rather dishevelled and his white shirt stood out by being very inadequately tucked into his trousers.