A Little Princess: the Alternate Ending- Boy’s Academy

Chapter: Introducing Sara Crewe and the Boys

The lights came down on the silent house as if it was some kind of morgue. No one dared to open their mouths when Miss Minchin said it was time for them to go to bed. When the lights went down, so did everything else. Sara Crewe, who had been in the house since she was a young girl, lay up in the cold damp cot of the attic. Her hair was damp and sweaty from a day’s hard work and her hands and feet almost seemed swollen. She laid there, sixteen years old, staring up blankly at the ceiling, wondering what might happen to her if she never found a way out of there. Everything had been taken a way from her when she was younger.

After the death of her father, everything she owned was taken a way and she became a servant to Miss Minchin’s boarding school for girls. All of the girls that she had grown up with were either taken back home to be with their families or still there. And the new girls that arrived had so much hatred for her, that it didn’t make sense. They didn’t even know her.

All Sara could think about as she stared up blankly at the ceiling was how everything had gone to pieces for her life. She had been such a wonderful story teller, able to shock the smallest of people with her imagination. Now her imagination was dead and every time she thought about telling a story, it would die mid-on. But she still thought about her father; she could still see his face freshly in her mind as if he had never gone at all.

Sara turned over in her cot with only a damp blanket to warm her. She was cold and numb and the only thing she could think about was escaping. She had tried that before and it didn’t end very well. She’d almost fell off the roof of the boarding school and gone tumbling to the ground. She’d almost been arrested. With her father dead, she had no place to go. And now, on Miss Minchin’s behalf, a boarding school for boys has decided to team up with Miss Minchin’s boarding school for girls. They would be living in different sectors of the school. They would have access to the entire school during the day and no access during the night. It didn’t matter; boys were messy. And that meant more work for Sara Crewe and her best friend, Becky.

Becky had been there longer than she had and had taught her every rule that she needed to know if she was going to stay on Miss Minchin’s good side. She crept through the loose board in the wall and into Sara’s room. She walked over to Sara and climbed into the small bed next to her.

“There’s a mouse in my room.” She said, lowly, her long hair was tied back into a messy ponytail.

“Okay.” Sara whispered. She closed her eyes and tried to get sleep, knowing that she would be welcoming the new boys in the morning and having to serve them breakfast. They would all eat breakfast at one table, but would not be allowed to associate with one another.

The Next Morning

Becky and Sara were both woken up before they had really gone to sleep. The new boys would arrive around seven in the morning and it was their job to set the breakfast table before they arrived. As Becky and Sara set the table, the girls were reading in the reading room near the fire. What they were reading was not clear to Sara or Becky because they were no longer able to participate in the teachings. Sara listened with open ends as she placed the beautiful bowls and plates carefully on the table. She had practically been doing it since she arrived, so she quickly got the hang of things.

Becky playfully crossed her with a smile. Her shoes were too small for her and her dress was too big. Sara twirled around Becky holding a fork in her hand and pretending to sing in it. Becky laughed silently. They couldn’t risk getting caught by Miss Minchin. They both traveled to separate ends of the table. Becky tossed a spoon to Sara and she caught it in between her index and middle fingers.

“Close one.” She whispered.

Becky’s eyes widened and she immediately went back to work. Sara could feel someone behind her and she had a feeling on who it was. She turned around to see Miss Minchin standing in front of her. A frown was posted on her face and her rapidly graying hair was tied back neatly into a bun. She was wearing a grey dress like she had just come back from someone’s funeral and her heels were too big for her feet. She was nowhere near an attractive woman at all.

“Good morning, Miss Minchin.” Sara did a curtsy.

“I thought I told you that we were having porridge this morning, Sara.”

Food for the devil, Sara thought. “I don’t remember you saying,”

“Quiet!” Miss Minchin cut her off quickly.

Becky kept her mouth shut because she knew better.

“We are having porridge this morning, so take all of the forks back and leave the spoons! Hurry, they will be arriving any moment.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Sara turned back to the table as Miss Minchin left the large dining room. She walked around the table, picking up the forks as she went along. “Hurry!” she mimicked when she reached Becky. “These forks aren’t going to pick themselves up, are they Sara Crewe? You are not a little princess any more.”

Becky laughed and helped Sara pick up all of the forks that they had wrongfully placed on the table.

Later that Morning, while all of the girls were placed at the table, Miss Minchin was talking to the head man of the boys boarding school and laughing as if they had known each other all their lives. Becky and Sara listened from a distance, laughing at the way old woman Minchin was flirting with Dr. Elric. She was giggling and laughing like a young girl.

As the boys gathered in and walked in a straight line to the dining room, the two girls ran to the kitchen to get breakfast started right away. They watched quietly though as they boys walked so calmly to the dining room, all so handsome, all so tall.

“I like the one with the blond hair.” Sara pointed. “Dreamy.”

“I like that one.” Becky pointed.

“Like they would look twice at us.” Sara stood up straight and wiped her clothes down. She looked herself up and down. Her sandy blond hair was messy and her clothes looked like she had just got finished playing in mud… she knew she didn’t smell nice.

“Come on.” Becky sighed and walked over to the hot pots cooking on the stove. She began to stir the contents with a large spoon.

Miss Minchin and Dr. Elric made sure everyone was situated at the long dining table before allowing Sara and Becky to come out and serve them. It had to be completely silent. The awkward girls kept staring back and forth from the boys as if it was their first time seeing a boy in their life. They would look at one another and giggle like they had puppy love. Sara and Becky served them quietly, pouring the equal amount of porridge in everyone’s bowl. Dr. Elric excused himself from the table for a moment. And a few seconds afterward, Miss Minchin did the same. Everyone giggle quietly to themselves knowingly.

Sara and Becky exchanged glances with smiles on their faces. Sara stopped at a blond haired boy with freckles all over his face. He was handsome with blue grey eyes and thick eyebrows, but she wasn’t allowed to say anything to him, so she just lifted the spoon and poured the porridge into his bowl. He grabbed her arm and pulled her down to him with gently force.

He brought his mouth to her ear and whispered: “Your father is alive.” He whispered. “And I know where he is… and I know how to get you there.”

Sara pulled away from him thinking that it was a cruel joke. But his face and his eyes were so serious. How could he know anything about her father? How did he know that she would be there? Her father was dead… she knew that. They had found his body in the fields.

“That’s not allowed.” An older girl, names Lavinia told the two teenagers. “You're not allowed to talk to her. No one is.”

“Did I ask for your comments?” the boy asked her. “Your two sense?”

“No.” Lavinia shook her head. “I'm just telling you the rules.”

“I don’t abide by rules.” The boy told her. “Nicholas McKindrick.” He looked at Sara with a nod.

Sara turned away from him quickly just as Miss Minchin was walking into the room, afraid of being scolded. She continued on through the dining room. When she was finished, she ran into the kitchen with Becky, threw her hat off and slouched down on dusty chair.

“What did he say?” a curious Becky asked, pulling up a chair and sitting down next to her best friend. “What did he say?”

“He said that he…” she shook her head, not wanting to believe one word that came out of his mouth. She looked at Becky with sad eyes. “H said that my father is alive and he knew where he was.”

Becky’s eyes shot open wide and a smile curved across her face. “Well that’s great!” she said a little too loudly. She slapped her hand over her mouth. Then she jumped up, ran over to the double doors, and slid them closed. She turned back around to Sara with a large smile on her face. “So are you going to talk to him again?”

“How do you suggest I do that?” Sara crossed her arms and sat back in her chair.

“I’ll arrange it.” Becky crossed her arms and smiled. “I’ll set up everything tomorrow night.”

“You really think that he’s telling the truth? We don’t even know him.” She chuckled.

“Then I guess we’re just going to have to get to know him, aren’t we?”

R & R