History Literature / TheSecretsOfDrearcliffGrangeSchool

* AnimalThemeNaming: The Moth Club's codenames are all types of moth, as chosen by the lepidoptery enthusiast Amy.

* SuperSpeed: "Light Fingers" Naisbitt's ability. To begin with, she mainly uses it to pick people's pockets. [[spoiler:Later, she discovers that it also endows her with "quick thinking", the ability to develop complicated theories and plans in a moment, and the DistantFinale indicates that she will go on to become a successful detective]].

* {Planimal}: Among the strange sights Amy sees in the Purple are living wolves with bodies made of wood.

* SkunkStripe: Dilys Frost starts out with a white streak in her black hair. It gets wider every time she uses her power, and she ends up with a black streak in her white hair.

''The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School'' is a novel by Creator/KimNewman. It's a homage to the girls' BoardingSchool adventure stories of the early twentieth century, with a fantasy twist: Drearcliff Grange is a school for girls who are ... ''unusual''.

** Amy is enough of a fan of crimefighter Dr. Shade to follow his exploits in magazines. Fifty-odd years later, their son Jamie Chambers will have an adventure of his own in ''Literature/ColdSnap''.

* BattyBooks: In a RunningGag, Devlin has a penchant for claiming the current situation reminds her of a fictional book with a punny author, like "''A Fashionable Woman'' by Nathalie Dresst".

* ShoutOut:
** A remote and sinister mansion called "Drearcliff House" is the setting of ''Film/SherlockHolmesAndTheHouseOfFear''.
** The traditional attributes of the five school Houses -- Goneril, Tamora, Viola, Ariel, and Desdemona -- are summarized as [[Music/SpiceGirls "sporty", "terrifying", "babies", "posh", and "red-headed stepchildren"]], respectively.
** Students mentioned in passing during the story include an American girl named [[Series/TheAddamsFamily Tish Frump]], another American named Janice Marsh (of the [[Literature/TheShadowOverInnsmouth Innsmouth Marshes]]) and a girl named Sally Nikola with a notorious father (implied to be Guy Boothby's Dr Nikola).
** Another student is named ten Brincken, and was reportedly grown rather than born. This is a reference to the 1930's German film ''Alraune'' (the girl in question also appears in ''Literature/AngelsOfMusic'').
** Frost and Thorn are pupils with respectively [[AnIcePerson ice]] and [[PlayingWithFire fire]] powers, who in the DistantFinale turn out to have become [[ComicBook/TheFlash supervillainous partners]].
** The complete school roll at the end includes a student never mentioned in the novel called [[Series/DoctorWho Susan Foreman]].
** Posters for a cancelled school play set partially in the Antarctic feature [[Film/TheThing1982 a gruesome cuttlefish-like thing emerging from a husky's head]].
** One of the Black Skirt trios are given the collective nickname of "[[Film/GhidorahTheThreeHeadedMonster the Ghidorah]]".
** When Amy learns about Paquinget's GreenThumb, she wonders if there's a plant-themed other dimension called the Green to go with the Purple that is connected to several of the other Unusuals' abilities. In ''ComicBook/SwampThing'', the existence of the Green is a major plot point.
** At one point, the werewolf girl Gould is described as having her eyes bulging in astonishment "like the Big Bad Wolf in the fairy tale". It's actually a shout-out to the animated film "WesternAnimation/RedHotRidingHood", which the narration can't reference directly because it wasn't made until after when the book is set.
** There's a mention of a group of villains attempting a FossilRevival on a rhedosaurus, the fictional dinosaur from ''Film/TheBeastFromTwentyThousandFathoms''.

* RunningGag: Devlin's penchant for claiming the current situation reminds her of a fictional book with a punny author, like "''A Fashionable Woman'' by Nathalie Dresst".

** "Drearcliff" is the setting of "In The House of Fear", one of Film/TheBakerStreetDozen.

* CallForward: The weather research station in Sutton Mallet, mentioned briefly near the end, is the main setting of the ''Literature/DiogenesClub'' story "Cold Snap" [[spoiler: which features Amy's son as a protagonist]].

The novel is set in the same world as Newman's ''Literature/DiogenesClub'' series. Part of it was first published as a novella in the collection ''Mysteries of the Diogenes Club''. It was followed by a sequel, ''The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School'', in 2018.

* CallForward: The weather research station in Sutton Mallet, mentioned briefly near the end, is the main setting of the ''Literature/DiogenesClub'' story "Cold Snap".

* RunningGag: Devlin's penchant for claiming the current situation reminds her of a fictional with a punny author, like "''A Fashionable Woman'' by Nathalie Dresst".

* {{Defictionalisation}}: Of a children's book mentioned in Newman's earlier novel ''An English Ghost Story''.

** There's a mention of a group of villains attempting a FossilRevival on a rhedosaurus, the fictional dinosaur from ''Film/TheBeastfromTwentyThousandFathoms''.

* StupidJetpackHitler: In the DistantFinale, set during World War II, Amy recalls taking part on a Nazi "dark physics facility" that was trying to revive a carnivorous dinosaur frozen in a glacier, and one of her colleagues dealing with "a squadron of Tiger tanks controlled by the bottled brains of dead Afrika Korps commanders". It's also hinted that the Nazis borrowed from Rayne's mental assimilation techniques.

* BulletCatch: Laurence catches a ''cannonball'' by opening her "purple pocket" directly in its path. [[spoiler: Her turning this trope into CatchAndRelease, duplicating the projectile and releasing it ''from'' the pocket towards the Black Ants' pirate ship, is what finally wins the battle for the Remove.]]
* CharacterOverlap: Several of the characters have previously appeared in the ''Literature/DiogenesClub'' series, most obviously the undercover teacher Miss Kaye, who is a main character in that series. Amy herself has been mentioned a few times in her adult guise as a moth-themed costumed crimefighter, including a cameo in "Literature/SorcererConjurerWizardWitch". Fish-girl Janice Marsh, as an adult, is a key character in "The Big Fish" and "Another Fish Story". "Poppet" Dyall is implied to be related to the girl at the center of "Literature/AngelDownSussex", if not the same girl under a new name. Miss Borrodale, the science teacher, appears as a schoolgirl in "Richard Riddle, Boy Detective in 'The Case of the French Spy'".

* ContinuityNod: There are several references to the Splendid Six, the superhero team featured in "Literature/ClublandHeroes". Lucinda Tregellis-d'Aulney, the Aviatrix, is a former Drearcliff girl, and her flying ability gets compared to Amy's.

* MeaningfulName: Knowles has the power to ''know'' vast amounts of information. Frost is AnIcePerson.

* MyBrainIsBig: In the Purple, where the Unusuals' appearance change to reflect their natures, the psychic Dora Paule appears with an oversize cranium and undersized rest of her body.

** The headmistress, Dr. Swan, also hasn't aged in decades.

* SinisterMinister: The creepy school chaplain "Ponce", who turns out to be even worse than rumour suspected.

* SuperSpeed: "Light Fingers" Nesbitt's ability. To begin with, she mainly uses it to pick people's pockets. [[spoiler:Later, she discovers that it also endows her with "quick thinking", the ability to develop complicated theories and plans in a moment, and the DistantFinale indicates that she will go on to become a successful detective]].

* WeDidntStartTheFuhrer: The Third Reich is implied to have been inspired by Professor Rayne's ideas.

* MythologyGag: A quartet of school chum refer to themselves as "the Forus", short for "the four of us". Newman's novel ''Literature/TheQuorum'' revolves around a quartet of school friends who called themselves "the Forum", because there were four of 'em.

* CryingWolf: One of Amy's schoolfriends, Smudge, is constantly telling wild stories. Then another friend gets kidnapped by sinister hooded figures, and they go to report this to the staff:
-->"Smudge told the story first, which was a disaster."