Except for the classroom block poking out the back, the private girls' high school could have been an upmarket Edwardian home set in spacious grounds. The administration block, a double storied wooden building of 1890s vintage was surrounded by a small flower garden and an expanse of immaculately kept lawn. The grounds surrendered to modern demands by having a car park and a ramp that provided accessed to the veranda. Double glass entry doors also looked an intrusion into the classic style and a complete contrast to the colonial windows that decorated the front facade.

It was eight fifteen in the morning on the first day of the first term and everywhere girls, most dressed in blue school uniform, wandered around the grounds waiting for the commencement bell. Year 9s gathered in groups and gazed in wonder at the seventeen and eighteen year old young women while Year 10s pranced around, swollen with their own importance. They were, after all, not the youngest at the school any longer and had seventy-five Year 9 s to look down on. The present roll of three hundred girls stretched the facilities to the limit with classes squeezed into buildings designed for two-thirds that number. Numerous temporary buildings dotted the grounds but plans for a new teaching block had, once again been delayed by the Queen Anne's Board of Trustees.

A white limo swung up the drive, screeched to a stop outside the administration block and a well dressed woman stepped out and straightened her business skirt. She walked indoors and waited by the glass window while the office assistant dealt with two other people in the short line.

"Can I be of assistance?" Ellen McIntyre inquired.

"I know this is frightfully late but I heard there were three vacancies in the Year 9 intake and I'd like to enrol my daughter."

Ellen frowned. "This is quite irregular," she began. "The enrolments closed in September last year."

"I realize that," the woman continued. "It's just that I've only arrived in Dunedin from Auckland where I had Penny, that's my daughter, enrolled in a girls' school. Due to a sudden change in circumstances I've transferred here and wish to keep my daughter at home." She spoke in a confident educated voice and handed a business card across the counter. "My name is Mrs Lynn McKendrick. Perhaps I could speak to Mrs Barnsley, Queen Anne's School's principal."

Ellen swallowed. The woman knew all the facts, that was for sure. They did have three vacancies after last minute cancellations and Mary Barnsley was the principal. "I'm not confident at all," she said. "However, I will ask Mrs Barnsley if the vacancies have been filled." They hadn't been but she was not about to reveal this. "Will you wait a moment, please?"

She rang through and read the visitor's name to the principal, listened, frowned and glanced up at Mrs McKendrick. The woman had stepped back from the window and was politely examining paintings in the foyer.

"Excuse me," Ellen said and walked through a connecting door into the principal's office.

"Shall I send her away?" she asked the dumpy white haired woman who had been at the helm of the school for fifteen years.

Principal, Mrs Mary Barnsley studied the card Ellen had handed her and held it up. "Do you know who this is?" she queried.

"Just some pushy woman with plenty of money who thinks she can fling it around to have her own way," Ellen replied.

"It's Mrs Lynn McKendrick," Mary replied. "The Lynn McKendrick!"

Ellen shrugged. "So?"

"One of the top defence lawyers in the country at the moment. She's been in half a dozen high profile criminal cases over the last few years. Earlier this year she was on that Martinwood case. Won it too, I might add."

"Of course," Ellen replied and raised her eyebrows. "I remember reading she had her own marriage split up and had bought into a practice down here." She hesitated. "But that does not mean..."

"I'll speak to her," Mary's voice cut the air like a knife. "Kindly tell Mrs Adair I'll be delayed for ten minutes and show Mrs McKendrick straight in."

"If you wish." Ellen pouted and swished out of the room.

The next morning the Year 9 class girls hardly noticed Penny McKendrick, a tall blonde girl with a joyful smile and warm eyes who joined their ranks.

Across in the administration block that same morning, Mary Barnsley had a meeting to discuss several decisions far more important than the enrolment of one extra pupil. She smiled across her office at the immaculately dressed, bearded man opposite her. The chairperson of the Trust Board, Lindsay Irwin, nodded as he read the letter of resignation handed to him.

"So John finally got through to you, did he, Mary?" he remarked with empathy in his voice. "We'll miss you, you know."

"Nobody's irreplaceable," answered the principal. "It was only your arm twisting which kept me here the last twelve months." She coughed in embarrassment, something unusual for this dynamic woman. "My successor," she continued. "I know I should have no say but I..." she stopped.

"Go on," prompted Lindsay. "You know we speak in confidence."

Mary smiled. "Okay, I'll call a spade a spade."

"You always did."

Mary waved her hand in acknowledgement. "I don't want Sharon selected for the position."

The board chairperson frowned. Everybody expected Sharon Thomas, the deputy principal, to lead the school after Mary's retirement.

"But why?" he asked.

"Because she's a ruthless machine," continued Mary in a serious voice. "Sure, she is efficient but does she really consider the girls and their feelings? My seniors are young woman who'll be going to university next year and she treats them like twelve-year-old kids. Worse still, she has the same approach with the staff. Everything has to be her way." She frowned. "During the last half term, I've had to pull rank on her twice. In one case a staff member was about to walk away she was so distressed."

"Yes," nodded Lindsay. "I heard about that little incident."

"Did you?" Mary retorted. "It was meant to be confidential."

It was Lindsay's turn to smile. "My daughter. Very little slips past the senior girls."

"So it would seem," Mary replied "I know you'll be chairperson of the appointment's committee, Lindsay, so all I ask is that you consider what I said. Okay?"

"Certainly," replied Lindsay and held out his hand.

"By the way," Mary interjected as he walked towards the door. "Have you short listed our new property manager applications yet?"

Lindsay stopped and grinned. The property manager used to be called the caretaker. "There were fifty seven applicants," he said. "We've slimmed it down to twenty. Would you like to see the list or do you want it short listed down to five?"

"I'll see it, now," replied Mary. "This may be the last major decision I make."

"Sure," replied her visitor. "I'll get the info from the car."

After he left the room Mary sat in her comfortable swivel chair and stared across the courtyard. First period had just concluded and everywhere girls, dressed in the school uniform of blue and white checked summer dresses, walked purposely to their next rooms. Dotted between them were the older seventeen and eighteen-year-old young woman dressed in mufti as the seniors were allowed to do. Mary sighed. She would miss them all.

The pile of resumes for the caretaker's position, as Mary still called it, varied from a hand written sheet to a marathon effort of fifty odd pages including photos and rambling paragraphs of the owner's self appraisal. Mary sighed and glanced through them again. Half an hour later she extracted one and stuck her head through the door.

"Can you check on something for me, Ellen?" she asked.

"Sure, Mary," Ellen answered.

"This guy applying for the caretaker's job. He's only thirty-five. Could you discretely ring around and check up on why he left his farm."

Twenty minutes later Ellen was back in Mary's office with a sheet in her hands. "It's all written here," she said.

"Tell me," replied her principal.

"The farm manager said the farm's been in the Goodall family for three generations and after his father's death about ten years ago, Neil inherited it."

"Well, so far, so good. Carry on."

"Next, I rang the local police. In a small town, they know nearly all the locals." Ellen grimaced. "Apparently his wife; Phillipa died of cancer two years ago. After that, he lost interest in the place, put the manager in and moved to Dunedin." She glanced back at her notes. "The plant shop where he is working now speaks highly of him. 'Very dependable and honest,' the manager said."

Mary grinned. "Thanks, Ellen," she said. "That ties in with his references. I think I'll ring this Neil Goodall."