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Storm thinks they’re all crazy. The very notion of having the rest of her life determined by a man and the resulting demands of such a life fills her with an existential dread that makes her want to fling herself out the nearest window. There are plenty of them in this room, and they all have spectacular views, so she would enjoy the trip down.
“Well,” Madame Pritchard says. “One day, when you are doing whatever you want, you might find you want to do it with a modicum of grace and dignity, rather than clumsy aggression.”
That feels unfair. Storm is neither clumsy or aggressive. She is reckless and rebellious. Before she has the chance to point that out, Madame Pritchard has moved on to tilt another girl’s chin up and move her shoulders back.
“We do not slouch.”
The lesson begins. Books are placed on heads. It is all very stupid as far as Storm is concerned, but nobody else seems to share that opinion.
Gliding about the room with apparent ease, the other girls take careful poised steps. Not only do their books stop wobbling about in relatively short order, but more offensively, they seem to take pleasure and pride in the entire affair.
After watching as long as she possibly can without participating, she is eventually compelled to take part.
Storm puts the book on her head and makes a half-hearted attempt at doing what they are doing. It’s not hard, precisely, but it is a little uncomfortable to stand so straight and to pay attention to every part of her body. She resents the feeling of being so closely and carefully controlled, of being made to be something she is not.
“Chin up,” Madame Pritchard says, her eagle gaze falling on Storm.
“Shoulders back, breathing…”
Having hit the end of her patience in less than a minute, Storm reflexively lowers her head and lets the book fall to the floor.
“Fuck this,” she declares in a less than ladylike manner, as she departs the room at speed if not with grace.
She yearns to be outside, to be away from all this bullshit, this suffocating pressure to be someone other than who she is. In an act of petulant rebellion, she goes to the gardens, where she throws herself more or less into a bush and sulks furiously, arms crossed over her chest, knees practically drawn up to her chin. This is all such a waste of time. The world is changing. Women don’t need to be able to balance things on their heads anymore.
No more than two minutes pass before a tall shadow falls over her. Laura, omnipresent supervisor, has found her yet again.
“What do you think you are doing?”
Storm does not greet her with any modicum of cheer. “Oh god, no. Can you just for once, once, let me get away with something?”
“Probably not. What are you doing?”
“Everything is stupid,” she growls. “All these dumb lessons about how to be ladylike. Ladies are like whatever they are because they’re ladies. Whatever they’re doing is ladylike by definition.”
Laura’s expression softens slightly.
“Would it be so bad to learn the skills?”
Storm shrugs. “I didn’t come here for this. I came here because I had basically no choice. It was this, or…” she shudders, “home.”
“Then maybe you should do what you can to enjoy being here, if it is the lesser of two evils.”
“Yeah. Maybe.”
“You know missing classes will get you into trouble.”
“Only if you tell on me again.”
“Which I will, because it is my job.”
“Oh my god,” Storm groans once more, covering her face with her hands. “Can you just fuck off?”
A hard smack around the ear makes her pull her hands from her face. She looks up askance to find that all trace of sympathy has evaporated from Laura’s visage. She is now as stern and blonde and unyielding as ever, even as she stands there in pants, refusing to bow to the very same pressures Storm is trying to avoid. Storm wishes she had pants.
“You’re such a spoiled little brat,” Laura says. “You want everything to be your way all the time. If you’re asked to do anything, even small, that you don’t feel like doing, you act as if the world is ending.”
It’s the sort of lecture that might shame someone else into obedience, but Storm is more argumentative than to give into a few sentences about the virtues of not getting one’s way.
