Polly's Guide to the Rules
TTR/TDTO: Polly's Guide to the Rules
http://www.ttrarchive.com/pgr1.html
(All ages)
Polly's the most popular girl in the school, but she'd rather be Dodo...
Taster
“Jamie,” said Patrick, running after him down the corridor. “Oh,
there you are. We need to help Polly, but she’s not making it easy
for us.”
He stuffed half a sandwich in his mouth. “Umm hmm?”
“Oh, really, Jamie,” said Pat, ducking to avoid crumbs. “She needs
help, but she says that we’re not to try and interfere under any
circumstances.”
He swallowed the rest of the sandwich hastily and started choking.
“We’ll have to be subtle,” mused his friend thoughtfully. “It could
be difficult.”
Jamie, turning red in the face, spat his mouthful onto the floor and
coughed heavily.
“Really, Jamie,” said Zoe, who was passing by at that moment, “that’s
disgusting!”
*
Another This Time Round / Then Do That Over story. It took me a while, but now I love the idea of H G Wells, with all the Who characters enrolled as pupils. It allows for some wonderfully off-the-wall stories. (So thanks to Paul Gadzikowski, who came up with this aspect of Nameless).
Thinking about if all of Hartnell and Troughton era characters were in the top class (aged 17-18), then the scenario in this story seemed logical, because of course, the younger Polly would have chased the older boys while Dodo and Ben looked closer to home.
The rest just seemed inevitable after that. I love 60s Who characters. I'll have to write an actual Ben/Polly story one day, though. They're so under-represented in the archives and it's a crime.
I should acknowledge that in the real world, as a children's librarian, I read an awful lot of teen and junior fiction and do sometimes resort to teen chick-lit to get me through the next issues-heavy tome. And the device used in this story owes a lot to that genre, Meg Cabot in particular. I am always anything but original, sadly.
Now, where did I put that sequel to First Year Camp?