Fifth in a series of reviews. Previously: Upper Fourth At Malory Towers. Next: Last Term At Malory TowersContains spoilers.

In The Fifth At Malory Towers follows on directly from Upper Fourth in plot, characters and themes—so directly, in fact, that I’d be unsurprised if they turned out to be two halves of a much longer original. (I gather that Blyton’s more, er, enthusiastic manuscripts have been thus divided in some other cases). Nor do they read quite like the earlier Malory Towers books – whether because Blyton was consciously writing for an older audience, or simply because she was feeling stroppy, I can’t say.

Stylistically, however, there’s been a shift. In The Fifth builds on Upper Fourth’s harder edge, moving further from the straightforward dramas of the earlier books towards the more nuanced conflicts of a cast of characters whose behaviour isn’t always easily pegged as good or bad. There’s almost - almost - a tacit acknowledgement that in real life, human behaviour isn’t entirely determined by a few personality traits, but also by social contexts and situations.

Of course, since we’re in Blytonia, this trend only goes so far; all this character work is fomented by a familiar mix of prejudice, judgmentalism and plain old-fashioned bullying. The best example is probably the fate of new girl Maureen. I know virtually nothing about the development of girls’ schools in the postwar period (you’ll be surprised to hear) but I would guess that Maureen is Blyton’s way of warning of the dangers of a liberal education. Having arrived from a more relaxed rival school (now defunct), Maureen goes off the rails almost immediately:

“I must be friendly!” she said to herself. “I must keep my own end up, I must impress these girls!” So she chattered away in a light, airy voice, and didn’t seem to realize that new girls should be seen and not heard! It was only when the others very pointedly began to talk to one another, turning away from her until she found that no-one at all was listening to her, that she stopped.

God forbid that a new arrival should seek to, y’know, make friends or anything. She’ll be wanting to choose her own name next! Nor is there much sympathy when she admits to missing her family and old friends. So much sentimental stuff and nonsense!

“Better get over being sensitive then,” said Darrell, shortly. In her experience people who went round saying they were sensitive wanted a good shaking up and, if they were lower school, needed to be laughed out of it.

Unfortunately, Maureen doesn’t take the hint (and she does turn out to be a bit of a big-headed bore). Girls and mistresses alike agree that her old school must have been better at promoting its pupils’ self-esteem than teaching them How To Behave. That, of course, feeds directly into a controversy that’s still being vigorously debated today, but I’m not touching it with a ten-foot pole. Anyway, the cure is obvious: be even less nice to Maureen:

“And about this being unkind to Maureen. Sometimes unkindness is a short-cut to putting something right. I guess that’s what Maureen wants—a dose of good hard common sense administered sharply. And that’s what she’ll get if she doesn’t stop this silly nonsense of hers.”

And thus a plot is hatched to take Maureen down a peg or two: or to put it more plainly, to be a complete bunch of bitches in the hope of destroying her utterly. The girls encourage her to do endless work on the upcoming school pantomime, having already decided to reject it laughingly as soon as Maureen submits it. Not only will this be a big jolly jape, but Maureen will learn her lesson about, er, being keen to help out.

I mean, honestly? Am I just being a hopelessly silly and sentimental liberal here? Or is this not a completely bastard thing to do? Why not just throw her down a well and tell her that unless she rubs the lotion on her skin, she’ll get the hose again? As it is, the plot comes off without a hitch, and Maureen is duly devastated. Good job, girls.

Darrell, in a rare outbreak of fairness (being Head of Games must have gone to her head), ventures the thought that this might have been an excessively spiteful thing to have done – but maddeningly, Blyton fails to follow up. That moment of doubt aside, it’s never referred to again. And Maureen simply drops out of the story altogether, except inasmuch as she is used as a pawn in the girls’ tireless war against another lame duck: dear old Gwendoline Mary, who starts the term with fine intentions:

Gwendoline felt pleased to be back. Of course, it was nice to be at home with her mother and Miss Winter and be waited on hand and foot, and be fussed over—but it was fun at school. She made up her mind to be sensible and join in everything this term.

Quite why she feels this way is a mystery to me. Perhaps she’s just looking forward to getting back to her stash, or something. In any case, she doesn’t have any chance to do anything about it, because she’s immediately lumbered with Maureen as her “special friend”. This proves to be an education: Gwen’s Eyes Are Opened to how terrible she has been, and she resolves to Improve Herself. Presumably we’ll see whether this resolution holds in the next book.

If I were her, though, I wouldn’t bother, because let’s face it, fitting in at Malory Towers basically means cutting yourself off from everything you might hold dear. Unless lacrosse is close to your heart, of course. We get the tail-end of the disturbing story of twins Connie and Ruth, which establishes that loyalty to the Form trumps all other attachments, even blood:

“I know you’re my twin and we’ve always been together,” said Ruth, in an unnecessarily loud voice. “but I’m in the fifth now and you’re in the fourth. You can’t come tagging after a fifth-former, you know that. Leave me alone and clear out!”

We also find out what happened to Alicia’s upstart cousin June (whose story arc fizzled into nothing in the last book); it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but no change there, really. Darrell’s sister Felicity presses on with her efforts to become a complete clone of her sister (except she doesn’t beat up any other girls in the music rooms. Well, there’s time). We’re introduced to bossy-boots Moira, who is unusually fortunate in being a secondary character who gets to sort out her own problems, rather than being forcibly sorted out by the agency of others; and also to her fellow sixth-form hold-back, Catherine, who couldn’t be more of a doormat without writing “Welcome” on her head, and is duly pilloried for it.

For all that Malory morality is growing ever more questionable, In The Fifth is a much better read than Upper Fourth. The girls’ efforts to stage a pantomime give direction to the book, while the rising tide of suspicion and resentment supports a kind of junior Murder She Wrote scenario (yes, I know, how exciting) when Moira starts receiving poison-pen letters. Is it Darrell, the frustrated writer? Alicia, the offended prima donna? Or even Moira’s own jealous sister Bridget? (Who cares, you ask? Well, that’s a jolly heartless thing to say).

Of course, the panto is a triumph, the culprit is unmasked, all is super and smashing at Malory Towers. The disaffected and downtrodden are forgotten, left to lurk in dark corners of the school as the It Girls rejoice in their triumph:

“This is about the most exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life, Sally,” Darrell said. “You know—I shouldn’t be surprised if I don’t turn out to be a writer, one of these days!”

God help us all.