Listening for Lions: Chapters 11–12

With no thought of my dignity I climbed up on the backseat so that I could have the last possible look at Stagsway.

On my first day at school, Miss Ethelward, the headmistress, took me into her office. She peered at me from glasses pinched onto her nose. Her hair was pulled back into a skimpy knot.

I was soon floundering about in the deep waters of mathematics and Latin verbs, but it was the discipline that sank me.

When you get close to a lapwing’s nest, the little bird makes a great commotion to lead you away so you won’t notice its young.

Later I saw her and another girl looking my way and giggling. I heard the words gauche and ingenue.

Later I saw her and another girl looking my way and giggling. I heard the words gauche and ingenue.

There was some interest in me when it was learned that I had lived in Africa, but my dismal performance in class, and then my resolve to work hard and improve, did nothing to help me make friends.

I walked into Latin class one morning to find on the blackboard a picture of my parents in a kettle over a fire with horrid caricatures of Africans dancing around the fire.

“Thank you, Rachel,” Miss Ethelward said. “That was very instructive, although you would have done well to omit your last words. What one says in anger is seldom worth saying.”

Still, for just a moment I saw that fleeting smile that Miss Ethelward guarded so carefully.

Her favorite scene was from Hamlet where it says “Enter Ophelia, distracted.” Nora went around reciting Ophelia’s words, “White his shroud as the mountain snow,” as if she were truly mad.

While gathering raspberries for Mrs. Nessel, I frightened the grosbeaks from the brambles with my conjugating.

While gathering raspberries for Mrs. Nessel, I frightened the grosbeaks from the brambles with my conjugating.

As the crow flies we were close to the sea, and there was always the excitement of some seabird wandering off its course.

Loosestrife and grass-of-parnassus and bog myrtle grew along the rivulets, and dragonflies and hummingbirds buzzed around me.

Loosestrife and grass-of-parnassus and bog myrtle grew along the rivulets, and dragonflies and hummingbirds buzzed around me.

It was plump, well-fed, and all white except for a reddish brown mane. Its ears were twitching, and it gazed at me coyly from under its forelock.

A moment later it was cantering away across the field, and though I had seen it for only a few minutes, I felt a terrible loss at its leaving. I don’t know what it was, but there was something about the ghostly pony’s appearance that reminded me of Valerie, as if she had come to tell me she had forgiven me for taking her place.

“I wouldn’t want to be useless all my life.”
“Useless! I should think not. You have shown a great aptness for the scientific study of birds. When the society moves here, you will be of the greatest importance.”

In my last year at Ditchley Nora played Katherina in the school production of The Taming of the Shrew and urged me to try out for the part of Bianca.

Often he slept the day away; sometimes he seemed not to recognize me. Even the magic words Hylocichla guttata pritchardi would not rouse him, but still I sent my notes of sightings of the little thrush on to the society.

It was a bittersweet time, for I longed to speak of all the things I loved, our little house with the rain beating on our metal roof, visiting the Kikuyu shambas, calming the fears of the mothers when they brought their children in to be inoculated, the thrill of hearing the roar of a lion at night when I was safe inside our house.

It was a bittersweet time, for I longed to speak of all the things I loved, our little house with the rain beating on our metal roof, visiting the Kikuyu shambas, calming the fears of the mothers when they brought their children in to be inoculated, the thrill of hearing the roar of a lion at night when I was safe inside our house.

“The moment I heard, I went at once to the society with a request to recognize your grandfather’s discovery. You will be pleased,” he said, “to find your careful notes substantiated your grandfather’s sightings and made the difference. We voted. Hylocichla guttata pritchardi is quite official now. It will go down in the books.”

Miss Lothrop looked shocked. “A young woman? Oh, I hardly think that would be suitable. Even if the mission could reconcile itself to sending a woman doctor, which I doubt, she would have no idea of the rigors of running a hospital in Africa.”