| |
|---|---|
| Mary-Lou Linnet | |
| Age |
12-17 |
| Gender |
Female |
| Eye colour |
Blue (depicted) |
| Occupation |
Student |
| School | |
| House | |
Mary-Lou is a girl in Darrell's form. She is quiet, shy, and ready to think that others were much more interesting than her. She is in the North Tower.
Appearance[]
Mary-Lou is small for her age, with short, straight, mousy hair and watery black eyes. She is also rather pale and slim.
Mary-Lou as portrayed by Imogen Lamb
In the 2020 television series, Mary-Lou is played by Imogen Lamb. She is a young, blonde girl with hair tied in a low ponytail boxer braid, pale skin and glasses. Out of the rest of the eight girls from the 2020 adaption, Mary-Lou is also the shortest of the group.
Personality[]
Mary-Lou is sweet and kind but very shy. She is easily manipulated because of her kind nature and Gwendoline and Daphne have used this to their respective advantages. Throughout her years at Malory Towers she grows more confident. She is always eager to please people, even though characters like Darrell get irritated when she tries to tidy their lockers or organise their things.
Family and Friends[]
Very little is known about Mary-Lou's family. She has had several friendships during her time at Malory Towers. She is popular with her class, and they see her as someone to look after.
Darrell Rivers[]
After Darrell saves her from drowning in the pool, Mary-Lou thinks she is a heroine and starts to annoy her by following her about all the time. When Darrell is accused of smashing Mary-Lou's expensive fountain pen, she believes that her friend was innocent. So Mary-Lou sneaked downstairs in the middle of the night and found Gwendoline's hidden shoe. Because of that, Darrell realises that Mary-Lou and Sally will always be her good friends.
Gwendoline Mary Lacey[]
In the first form, Gwendoline ducks Mary-Lou in the pool, but Darrell saves her and slaps Gwen. Gwen befriends Mary-Lou so she can do her schoolwork more easily. She smashes Mary-Lou's fountain pen, hides her own shoes and smears violet ink on Darrell's shoe. Darrell is assumed guilty and ostracised by all except Sally and Mary-Lou. Mary-Lou is the one who finds Gwendoline's hidden shoe and proves that she is the one who broke her fountain pen given by her mother.
Daphne Millicent Turner[]
Later on in the Second Form, Mary-Lou is forced by Daphne to do her French prep, and Mary-Lou mistakenly thinks that Daphne is acting as a good friend. She takes to the post office a parcel new girl Daphne wants to be posted. It is dark and windy, but Mary-Lou worships Daphne in much the same way she did Darrell the previous year, but never likes her as the same way she likes Darrell and Sally, she takes the parcel anyway. She is blown over the cliff and rescued by Daphne some time later. Luckily, Gwendoline - who pesters her at first because she tells Gwen that she is very rich - gives up on Daphne when Mary-Lou grows closer to her instead. By the end of the second book, they become best friends.
History[]
First Form[]
Mary-Lou is already at Malory Towers when Darrell, Gwendoline and Sally arrive.
Although Darrell is the youngest in their form, most people think Mary-Lou is. She gets scared very easily but her confidence begins to grow near the end of the first book. In the first story, Alicia Johns is frequently spiteful and slightly mean to Mary-Lou, particularly over her fear of spiders.
Second Form[]
In second form, she mostly tags along with Darrell and Sally but becomes friends with Daphne Turner after Daphne saves her. Mary-Lou weeps for Ellen after Alicia unjustly accuses the girl of stealing other students' belongings.
One particularly treacherous evening, toward the end of the term, Mary-Lou attempts to deliver a parcel, unknowing that it contains the very stolen items that the girls have been searching for. It is later revealed that Daphne was the thief. After getting cold feet, Daphne marches out into the cold night to rescue Mary-Lou, and saves her life. Mary-Lou becomes a staunch ally of Daphne when Miss Grayling puts the latter into the hands of her classmates, to decide her fate.
Third Form[]
In third form, Mary-Lou meets Bill and Zerelda, both new girls. She plays no major role in the story, but aids Bill when the latter wants to visit her horse, Thunder, but has been forbidden from doing so by the form mistress, Miss Peters. Mary-Lou does all of the classroom tasks whenever it is Bill's turn to do them, so as to let the girl enjoy some time with her horse, without being ticked off.
Fourth Form[]
In the fourth form, Malory Towers students take the School Certificate exam. Two new girls, Ruth and Constance Batten, who are twins, join Mary-Lou's class. During this term, Mary-Lou, like many of her classmates, grows exceedingly anxious about the coming exams. However, she completes them successfully.
Fifth Form[]
In her fifth form, Mary-Lou seizes a chance to shine as Cinderella in a Christmas pantomime. Darrell remarks how she learned her lines faster than any of her classmates, and yet she had one of the most demanding roles to learn. Mary-Lou is pleased about her selection from amongst all the others, but nevertheless remains her own timid self. She is also very kind and compassionate to Catherine, a student who is bent on working for others the entirety of the time, when others, such as Moira, Alicia, and Irene, become very irritated and touchy about Catherine's humble behaviour.
She becomes very distressed when Moira, who had been made head girl of the Fifth, and Alicia row with each other. Alicia had become used to being a natural leader in her form, as well as a popular and dominant girl. Moira, who is a year older than Alicia, disapproves of this and the two fly into numerous rages with each other.