These Gascoignes, I should explain, live next door to us at home, and more awkward neighbours it would be difficult to imagine. They're all simply awful and they all behave in the dottiest way, but Peregrine, whom we call Pea-green in order to relieve our feelings, is the worst. If ever a boy should have been left on a bleak hill-side to perish like the Spartans of old, he's the one. To begin with, he's allowed to do exactly as he likes in case his personality should get stunted or something, and the first time that Susan ever saw him he jumped on her from a great height dressed up in a moth-eaten old fur coat pretending to be a gorilla. Susan thought he was a gorilla and has never quite got over this and is always expecting the worst from Pea-green. She is, I may say, seldom disappointed. Oddly enough, Aunt Lucy seems to like these dreadful Gascoignes - Aunt Lucy, by the way, looks after us since we have no mother; she's Susan's aunt too. Susan is our cousin, she is living with us at the moment while her people are in Africa. Oh, and I'm Marjorie Carmichael, but I'm always called Midge. I could tell you plenty about Susan's character only she happens to be reading this over my shoulder. So I shall say that she thinks it is her mission in life to interfere in everybody's business and try to organise their lives and change things for the better.
From SUSAN'S SCHOOL PLAY.
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