St. Phillipa's School for Troubled Girls

Elizabeth, Juliana, Guinevere, Helena and Loretta were all, in their own ways, perfect young women, all with differing extreme smarts and unimaginable beauty, following the life paths that Mother and Father approved of. Marrying into high class, posh and wealthy families, with husbands and fathers-in-law’s working in high paid, revolutionary positions and wealthy lineage.

Due to my family being wealthy and high class, my entire life has been privatised, with the best tutors, highly expensive tuition fees in private schools and a houseful of staff Housekeepers, Nannies, Gardeners and Butlers. From nursery all through to University, my sisters had successfully finished their educations and had all entered the life of Marriage. All of my sisters had already started their own families with having at least 2 children each so far. I am the only one left in School, I am ten years younger than my youngest older sister, Loretta. Being the youngest of six girls, I was the family disappointment.

When I was 14 years old, my extremely strict and unforgiving Mother, Father and Uncle sent me to St. Phillipa’s Finishing School for Troubled Girls. This was due to what had happened over a period of one half term whilst I was at St. Juliette’s Grammar School. I had been caught cheating on tests, I had got my nose, tongue and belly button pierced with my friends, I was caught several times by several members of staff ditching classes, smoking weed and cigarettes in the bathrooms and kissing boys and girls in and around the school and having sex in the back of the bike sheds, with the boys from my school and the public school around the corner.

St. Phillipa’s Finishing School for Troubled Girls is located on a large plot of land in the English Countryside, within a large old mansion. The ballrooms, dining rooms and drawing rooms on the ground floor have been changed into classrooms, the kitchen has been updated and upgraded to modern utensils and gadgets and the grounds were very well cared for, with beautiful fountains, a long stone clad driveway and the front gate, painted black with intricate twirling steel bars, had a large P above it which splits as the gate is opened. The entire grounds were surrounded by a six foot tall brick and stone wall.

There were three outbuildings on the property, one was a stables, with three horses and two ponies, another was a large studio, one half of the studio, the upstairs, was used for crafts and the other half, the downstairs was used for dancing and the final was a large greenhouse, for fruits, vegetables and flowers, which would be used for making, breakfast, lunch, dinner and for using within flower arranging classes.

The bedrooms were set up on the second and third floors of the mansion, floor two was for the students. Eight of the large bedrooms have been set out to house seven girls, a further three large bedrooms have been set out to house six girls, an additional two large bedrooms had been set up to house four girls and the remaining two of the large bedrooms were set out to house three girls each. Three medium sized bedrooms were set out to house two girls and the final four small bedrooms were set out to house a single girl each. Each of the sharing rooms had their own large bathroom and the single rooms shared a bathroom. The third floor was set out for the staff, they all had their own bedrooms, containing a private bathroom and a dressing room.

The day I was sent away, my Parents and Uncle sat me down and told me about Finishing School. I was so angry and upset, I trashed the hallway, pushed everything off of the table and broke the vase, sending dirty flower water all over the rug. I screamed and shouted at my Parents and Uncle for doing this to me, not giving me a chance to say goodbye to all of my friends. I swore at them and ran to my room where I found the entirety of it completely packed up. Everything I owned and loved was packed away in boxes, bags and suitcases, even the walls had been painted over in white. I screamed and cried at what they had done to my room, as I fell to the floor Mother came in to tell me as I improved in behaviour and grades at St. Phillipa’s Finishing School, I would earn back my things.

Everything that I was allowed to have was packed in one large and two medium suitcases. My Father and Uncle dragged me, kicking, screaming and thrashing, into the car as my Mother watched, emotionless, from the front door. As I was being buckled into my seat, my Mother began walking to the car along with the housekeeper, Johnathan, who was carrying my suitcases and placed them into the boot. Our driver, Karlsten, turned the ignition and rolled up the divider to block out my screaming. My Mother, Father and Uncle also got into the car and buckled themselves in.

As we drove to my new “home”, I finally began calming down watching the countryside turn to cityscapes and back to countryside again. Fields of roses, tulips, corn and pigsty’s, grazing cows, sheep farms and horses rolled past as Karlsten drove us further and further from my actual Home. My Mother finally spoke as we reached St. Phillipa’s gates. She explained that we were here and that she would be getting updates every month on how my learning, behaviour and etiquette were progressing, which would allow me to get my things back, allow me to have visitors during the holidays or even be able to come home during holidays.

Rolling up to the from of the School building, a woman in a long black dress and black boots, was waiting outside the closed doors, a further two, both in blue dresses with white aprons and matching blue boots, were waiting at the halfway point of the stairway and at the bottom of the stairs was a girl, around my age, dressed in a pale yellow dress and white shoes. Karlsten stopped the car, turned off the engine and got out of the car, he opened the boot and placed my suitcases at the bottom of the stairs before opening the car door to let my Mother out. My parents and Uncle got out of the car before I was told to get out.

As I was getting out of my seat and jumped down from the car, the lady at the top of the stairs began to walk down, introducing herself to my Guardians.

“Good Evening, Mr and Mrs Huntington and Mr Franklins. I am Ms Winters, Headmistress of St. Phillipa’s, welcome to my Finishing School for Troubled Girls.” My parents and Uncle greeted her as they usually did, with overexaggerated politeness and ingenuine enthusiasm. The headmistress looked around my Guardians to look at me, still in my old school uniform.

“Miss Huntington, I presume.” I ignored her and began walking away from the car, towards the fountain. My mother screeched at me, startling the girl and two women on the stairs. I turned towards my mother and screamed, stuck out my tongue, put up both middle fingers and then turned away again, watching the water trickle down a section of the fountain. Less than a minute later, a hand grabbed my bare arm, nails digging into my skin and drawing blood, I was whipped round, and my Mothers angry face was less than an inch from mine.

“You will not ignore Ms Winters; you will introduce yourself and you will do it politely and with a smile.” She hissed, spitting a little on my face. I yanked my arm from her, spat at her and wiped my own face. I walked up to Ms Winters, took my cardigan from around my waist and put it on to cover my mothers nail marks and faked a smile.

“Ms Winters, I am Yaz Huntington, the family disappointment. I hope my Mother’s insanity did not frighten you.” I turned back to my Mother smirking at my comment before walking to my suitcases, thanking Karlsten for looking after my things and dismissed him back to my Guardians. My Mother shook with rage, seething at my introduction of myself and corrected me.

“Yazmine Huntington, you are not a common girl, you will use your proper name.” I rolled my eyes and sat on top of my large suitcase. My Guardians were dismissed by the Headmistress and went on their way, my Mother glaring at me through the window and my Father and Uncle shaking their heads in disgrace at the horror show that had just occurred. I was introduced to the two women in blue and white, Mrs Jessop and Ms Langley, the school nurses, one of which, I think Mrs Jessop, gently cleaned and dressed the wound on my arm. I was also introduced to the girl in Yellow, her name was Jessica Long, and she was my buddy, she was the newest girl before me, and had been at St. Phillipa’s for three weeks so far.

“Yazmine Huntington, please follow me, I shall take you to the food hall for some dinner and then I shall show you to your room. And, please, do not forget to get your bags.” The Headmistress gestured up the stairs and then began walking up them, I picked up my suitcases and followed her. She opened the large double doors to a beautiful foyer and pointed to an area where I could leave my suitcases. As I put them down, I saw the label that my Mother had put on them, she had written Failure on each suitcase.

My Mother called me a failure, but it was her fault. She was the one who ignored and neglected me, she was the one who forgot about me, she was the one that made my Father and Uncle act as if I were invisible. She was the reason I was like this. She was the one who beat, battered and abused me, screaming and hissing at me and destroying my psyche. I wasn’t scared of her anymore though, I had got past that point and was glad to be out of that house.

I wasn’t mad at the fact that I was going to boarding school, or that I didn’t have a chance to pack my own things, but I was upset at not being able to have a choice in where I went, not having the opportunity to say goodbye to my friends and my sisters and most of all I was upset at how even when I was not going to be home, my Mother was still controlling how my life was going to play out.

I ate a little of the lasagna that I was given and we moved onto my room, I had already met Jessica, but I was also sharing with one other girl, who had been there for three years so far, her name was Kelsie Jenkins and she was two years older than me and Jessica. My suitcases were already waiting on my bed, which was under the window and there was a notebook waiting for me on my desk, with my initials on it, a small slip of paper tucking inside the front page explained that the notebook was to be used as a diary or journal, to document my feelings and time at St Phillipa’s. Ms Winters left me to get acquainted with my roommates, and for me to unpack my things, where I would find out what my Mother had allowed me to have whilst I was here.

I opened the large suitcase and was greeted with all new clothes. All skirts and dresses were full length in navy blue or black and all shirts and blouses were full sleeved in white or ivory, the shirts buttoned up to a stiff collar and the blouses were scoop necked and had a large fringe from the left shoulder to the bottom right of the top and another to meet the middle of the first fringe on the blouse up to the right shoulder. There was also two sets of ballet outfits, including plain black full sleeve leotards and full length black leggings. There was only two pairs of actual trousers, but they were for horse riding, in thick brown material and I got two full sleeve tops for horse riding too, along with a jacket in d deep purple and a black horse riding cap. It also had my cardigans and coats inside, three button up cardigans and two tie up cardigans in black and one long open cardigan in white, I was given a full length button up green winter coat and a lightweight full length zip up green waterproof coat. They were nothing like what I normally wore, boring and conservative as well as stiff and shapeless. I looked at them with disgust and disappointment, tutted at my mother’s choice and flung the suitcase away from me.

The second suitcase, the first of the wo medium cases contained the shoes, underwear and socks that had been picked out for me. All of the bras were extremely boring, in plain white and nude, with no detailing, all of the underwear were the most boring and plain panties I had ever seen. I scoffed at how boring they were. I was also given all sets of pure opaque navy blue, black and white tights, some were less thick for the summer, but they were still completely opaque. There were three pairs of daily shoes which were black dolly shoes, there was also a pair of ballet shoes in the stereotypical pink with long silk laces, one pair of wedge heals and one pair of horse riding boots in brown. I rolled my eyes at the boring options I was given for footwear and underwear and flung that one on top of the large suitcase.

The final and second medium suitcase contained my favourite purple fluffy blanket, two sets of my red pyjamas, one full length trouser and short sleeve top set for warmer nights and one full length trouser and long sleeve top set for cooler nights, the same again in purple and grey, my fluffy black and gold dressing gown and my favourite purple fluffy heart cushion which matched my blanket. This suitcase also contained all of my personal hygiene items, my brushes, both hair and tooth, toothpaste, deodorant, hair bands and sanitary products. The last thing in the suitcase was a pack of pens, all black ink to be used to write to my sisters, guardians and friends.

Within my first month of being at St. Phillipa’s, I had begun to make new friends with the girls within my classes. I got along the best with the girls in my room, Jessica and Kelsie, we all called each other by our nicknames in private, Jessi, Kel and Yaz, but as it was a rule to call all girls by their full first names or by their surnames, we did so in classes.

The only thing with having been at St. Phillipa’s for a month now was, I hadn’t had my period in six weeks, which for me was actually not too uncommon, due to the stress of my family and my medical condition, my periods were somewhat irregular, however, I would always check at the six week mark, just to be sure, considering my fondness for the male form. The nurses at St. Phillipa’s, who I had met when I first arrived were extremely nice and helpful. Mrs Jessop being my favourite as her hands were not as cold as Ms Langley’s were, so I went to her for a test.

St. Phillipa’s Finishing School for Troubled Girls was about to be home to their first pregnant girl that was actually going to keep the baby. They had girls who had been pregnant before, but they had either had a termination or put their babies up for adoption, but I was keeping mine.