The O'Sullivan Twins

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The O'Sullivan Twins is the second in the St. Clare's series of novels by Enid Blyton. It was first published in 1942.

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The newly sensible Pat and Isobel O'Sullivan are preparing to depart for their second term at St Clare's, and it looks as if there will be no excitement at all now that they are such staid and useful characters. But then a letter arrives from their aunt, saying that their Cousin Alison is to join them at St Clare's this term,. With trepidation, the twins say that Alison had better come and stay with them for a few days before term starts, so they can prepare her for St Clare's.

Alison's character is airheaded and ditzy, but she is basically a decent and kind-hearted person. Like the twins before her, she is horrified that the younger girls must wait on the fifth and sixth forms, and that the girls are expected to do their own mending, including sheets. Mrs O'Sullivan tells her that she should be OK here, as her mother has bought her all new things.

Apart from shouting at her when she accidentally burns the sports captain's prep, the girls are kind enough to Alison as the twins' cousin, although they are impatient with her vanity and her easy tears. But there are two other new girls to occupy their time: Lucy Oriell and Margery Fenworthy. Lucy is the archetypal school story girl—bright, kind and popular—although she is portrayed well, without the one-dimensional flatness this type of character can often have. Her father is a painter and Lucy herself is a talented artist.

But Margery is sulky, sullen, rude, antisocial. The girls are puzzled as to why she's at St Clare's and in the first form—she won't tell them anything about herself and she is so tall they suspect she must be at least sixteen. She is rude in class, which the mistresses put up with, and strops around in a proper teenage huff. The girls decide to give her a chance, as they were the same when they first arrived. The twins and their rebelliousness were nowhere near as bad as Margery, who is a genuine sulky rebel, but she does seem to thaw a little when she is the only first former put into the team for the upcoming lacrosse match against Oakdene.

Before that though, Tessie from the second form organises a midnight feast to celebrate her birthday. But there are too many girls in the form and not enough food to go round, so Tessie decides to invite only a few and keep the party a secret. Tessie decides to invite three others from the second form plus the greedy Winnie, and the twins and Janet from the first form. The girls also, most unusually, decide to borrow a frying pan from Gladys the scullery maid, and fry sausages.

But Erica, a horrible second former, suspects that Tessie has a secret and determines to find out about it. Unfortunately for Tessie and Winnie, Erica sees Gladys with the frying pan and makes a guess that it's for 'Miss Tessie's party'. Gladys crumples under the weight of class boundaries and forelock-tugging, and confirms that yes, the frying pan is indeed for Miss Tessie's party.

Erica would probably have been happy enough with finding out the secret, but she is angry that Tessie caught her sneaking a chocolate out of the box Tessie got for her birthday and offered round the class. Tessie scolds Erica, and so Erica vows to spoil the party. And she does so by waking Mam'zelle up just as the girls are frying the sausages. The girls are punished and vow to find out who the sneak is. This is revealed soon enough by Gladys, and the girls ignore Erica. Angered, Erica silently determines to get revenge.

Meanwhile, Margery is becoming very unpopular. She is very rude to the history teacher and so the first form swear to have nothing to do with her.

Isobel says she herself couldn't cope with being in the same situation as Margery—but Margery, while obviously upset, takes it on the chin and pretends not to care. But she wants to get even with Pat after she overhears Pat reminding everyone not to cheer if Margery shoots a goal in the lacrosse match. And the girls stick to their word. Margery scores three of the four goals, but no-one claps or cheers. And, when Erica secretly ruins a jumper of Pat's and stamps Pat's nature work into the mud, the girls all blame Margery.

The twins discuss this at half-term with their mother and an old friend of theirs, Pamela, who says Margery used to be at her school but was expelled. The twins and Alison are dying to tell the others this, but the twins' mother wisely prevails, saying that Margery is obviously desperate for her secret to remain one and that the girls should let St Clare's have a chance. But there seems no hope of that as Margery is scorned by all for ruining Pat's work, and Alison then lets the secret out as she is so angry on Pat's behalf.

Fourtunately, a Thrilling Rescue sees Margery a heroine and Erica feels so guilty she owns up. Miss Theobald tells Erica it would be better if she left St Clare's to start somewhere else, but that she must endure the final two weeks of the girls' contempt first.

Margery explains to Lucy and the twins why she's so difficult—her father remarried, her stepmother didn't like her, and her father, whom she idealised, took her stepmother's side.

The twins and Lucy fix that though by writing to Margery's father, and Margery is thus a Cured Case, entering into St Clare's life with gusto. She makes friends with Lucy, and is instrumental in Lucy being able to stay at the school after her father has an accident and can't paint any more, so he cannot pay the fees. So both new girls are sorted out by their time at St Clare's, and even Alison is deemed not to be as 'feather-headed' as when she arrived.

The last excitement of the term is with Mam'zelle, who genuinely thinks she is going mad when Janet puts beetles into her spectacle case and then the girls pretend they can't see them. Matron sternly explains that Mam'zelle is very tired and overworked as she nursed her sick sister all through the holidays and didn't get any break before coming back to the "little horrors". Janet takes Mam'zelle some flowers and fesses up, but Mam'zelle is so relieved to find she isn't going mad after all that she quite stuns Matron by going into hysterical laughter.