Читать книгу Mischief at St. Rollo's - Enid blyton - Страница 4

Table of Contents

There was plenty to see at St. Rollo’s. The dormitories were fine big rooms. Each child had a separate cubicle with white curtains to pull around their bed, their dressing-table, and small cupboard. The children’s luggage was already in the dormitory when they got there.

“We’ll unpack later,” said Tom. “Look, that will be my bed. And yours can be next to mine, Mike, if I can arrange it. Look—let’s pull your trunk into this cubicle, then no one else will take it.”

They pulled the trunk across. Then Tom showed Janet her dormitory, across the passage. It was exactly the same as the boys, except that the beds had pink eiderdowns instead of blue. After that, Tom showed them the classrooms, which were fine rooms, all with great windows looking out on the sunny play-grounds.

“This is our classroom, if you’re in my form,” said Tom. Janet and Mike liked the look of it very much.

“I had that desk there at the front, last term,” said Tom, pointing to one. “I always try to choose one right at the back—but sooner or later I’m always made to sit at the front. People seem to think they have to keep an eye on me. Awfully tiresome!”

“I wonder where our desks will be,” said Mike.

“Bag two, if you like,” said Tom. “Just dump a few books in. Where do you want to sit?”

“I like being near the window, where I can look out,” said Mike. “But I’d like to be where I can see you too, Tom!”

“Well, I shall try to bag a desk at the back as usual,” said Tom. He took a few books from a bookshelf and dumped them into a desk in the back row by the window. “That can be your desk. That can be Janet’s. And this can be mine! All in a row together.”

Tom showed them the play-grounds and the hockey-fields. He showed them the marvellous gym and the assembly hall where the school met every morning for prayers. He showed them the changing-rooms, where they changed for games, and the common-rooms where each class met out of school to read, write or play games. Janet and Mike began to feel they would lose their way if they had to find any place by themselves!

“We’ll go and unpack now,” said Tom. “And then it’ll be tea-time. Good! We can all have things out of our tuck-boxes to-day.”

They went to their dormitories to unpack. Janet parted from the two boys and went into hers. Marian was there, and she smiled at Janet.

“Hallo,” she said. “I saw Tom taking you round. He’s a kind soul, but he’ll lead you into trouble, if he can! Come and unpack. I’ll show you where to put your things. I’m head of this dormitory.”

Janet unpacked and stowed away her things into the drawers of the dressing-table, and hung her coats in the cupboard. All the other girls were doing the same. Marian called to Janet.

“I say! Do you know any of the others here? That’s Audrey near to you. And this is Bertha. And that shrimp is Connie. And here’s Doris, who just simply can’t help being top of the form, whether she tries or not!”

Doris laughed. She was a clever-looking girl, with large glasses on her nose. “We’re all in the same form,” she told Janet. “Is your brother in Tom Young’s dormitory?”

“Yes,” said Janet. “Will he be in my form too?”

“Yes, he will,” said Doris. “All the four dormitories on this floor belong to the same form. Miss Thomas is our form-mistress. She’s nice but pretty strict. Only one person ever gets the better of her—and that’s Tom Young! He just simply doesn’t care what he does—and he’s always bottom. But he’s nice.”

Meanwhile Mike was also getting to know the boys in his dormitory. Tom was telling him about them.

“See that fellow with the cross-eyes and hooked nose? Well, that’s Eric.”

Mike looked round for somebody with cross-eyes and a hooked nose, but the boy that Tom pointed to had the straightest brown eyes and nose that Mike had ever seen! The boy grinned.

“I’m Eric,” he said. “Don’t take any notice of Tom. He thinks he’s terribly funny.”

Tom took no notice. “See that chap over there in the corner? The one with spots all over his face? That’s Fred. He gets spots because he eats too many sweets.”

“Shut up!” said Fred. He had one small spot on his chin. He was a big, healthy-looking boy, with bright eyes and red cheeks.

“And this great giant of a chap is George,” said Tom, pointing to an under-grown boy with small shoulders. The boy grinned.

“You must have your joke, mustn’t you?” he said amiably. “And now Mike what-ever-your-name-is, let me introduce you to the world’s greatest clown, the world’s greatest idiot, Master Thomas Henry William Young, biggest duffer and dunce, and, by a great effort, the bottom of the form!”

Mike roared with laughter. Tom took it all in good part. He gave George a punch which the boy dodged cleverly.

There was one other boy in the room, but Tom said nothing about him. He was not a pleasant-looking boy. Mike wondered why Tom didn’t tell him his name. So he asked for it.

“Who’s he?” he said, nodding his head towards the boy, who was unpacking his things with rather a sullen face.

“That’s Hugh,” said Tom, but he said no more.

Hugh looked up. “Go on, say what you like about me,” he said. “The new boy will soon know it, anyway! Be funny at my expense if you want to!”

“I don’t want to,” said Tom.

“Well, I’ll tell him then,” said the boy. “I’m a cheat! I cheated in the exams last term, and everyone knows it because Tom found it out and gave me away!”

“I didn’t give you away,” said Tom. “I’ve told you that before. I saw that you were cheating, and said nothing. But Miss Thomas found it out herself. Anyway, let’s drop the subject of cheating this term. Cheat all you like. I don’t care!”

Tom turned his back on Hugh. Mike felt very awkward. He wished he hadn’t asked for the boy’s name. Eric began to talk about the summer holidays and all he had done. Soon the others joined in, and when Hugh slipped out of the room no one saw him go.

“It should be about tea-time now,” said Tom, pulling out his watch. “Golly, no it isn’t! Half an hour to go still! My word, what a swizz!”

Just then the tea-bell rang loudly, and Tom looked astonished. Mike laughed. “Don’t you remember?” he said. “Mr. Wills put your watch back half an hour?”

“So he did!” said Tom, looking relieved. He altered his watch again. “Well, come on,” he said. “I could eat a mountain if only it was made of cake! Bring your tuck-box. What have you got in it? I’ll share mine with you if you’ll share yours with me. I’ve got a simply gorgeous chocolate cake.”

It was fun, that first meal. All the children had brought goodies back in their tuck-boxes. They shared with one another, and the most enormous teas were eaten that day! Janet went to sit with Mike, and the two of them gave away part of all their cakes. In exchange they got slices of all kinds of other cakes. By the time they got up from the tea-table they couldn’t eat another crumb!

“I hope we don’t have to have supper!” said Mike. “I feel as if I don’t want to eat again for a fortnight. But wasn’t it scrumptious!”

The children had to go and see the headmaster and headmistress after tea. Both were grey-haired, and had kindly but rather stern faces. Mike and Janet felt very nervous and could hardly answer the questions they were asked.

“You will both be in the same form at first,” said the headmaster, Mr. Quentin. “Janet is a year younger, but I hear that she is advanced for her age. You will be in the second form.”

“Yes, sir,” said the children.

“We work hard at St. Rollo’s,” said Miss Lesley, the headmistress. “But we play hard too. So you should have a good time and enjoy every day of the term. Remember our motto always, won’t you: ‘Not the least that we dare, but the most that we can!’ ”

“Yes, we will,” said the two children.

“St. Rollo’s does all it can for its children,” said Miss Lesley, “so it’s up to you to do all you can for your school, too. You may go.”

The children went. “I like the heads, don’t you, Mike?” said Janet. “But I’m a bit afraid of them too. I shouldn’t like to be sent to them for punishment.”

“I bet Tom has!” said Mike. “Now we’ve got to go and see Miss Thomas. Come on.”

Miss Thomas was in their classroom, making out lists. She looked up as the two children came in.

“Well, Michael; well, Janet!” she said, with a smile. “Finding your way round a bit? It’s difficult at first, isn’t it? I’ve got your last reports here, and they are quite good. I hope you will do as well for me as you seem to have done for your last form-mistress!”

“We’ll try,” said the children, liking Miss Thomas’s broad smile and brown eyes.

“I’m bad at maths,” said Janet.

“And my handwriting is pretty awful,” said Michael.

“Well, we’ll see what we can do about it,” said Miss Thomas. “Now you can go back to the common-room with the others. You’ll know it by the perfectly terrible noise that comes out of the door!”

The children laughed and went out of the room. “I think I’m going to like St. Rollo’s awfully,” said Janet happily. “Everybody is so nice. The girls in my dorm are fine, Mike. Do you like the boys in yours?”

“Yes, all except a boy called Hugh,” said Mike, and he told Janet about the sulky boy. “I say—is this our common-room, do you think?”

They had come to an open door, out of which came a medley of noises. A gramophone was going, and someone was singing loudly to it, rather out of tune. Two or three others were shouting about something and another boy was hammering on the floor, though why, Janet and Mike couldn’t imagine. They put their heads in at the door.

“This can’t be our common-room,” said Mike. “The children all look too big.”

“Get out of here, tiddlers!” yelled the boy who was hammering on the floor. “You don’t belong here! Find the kindergarten!”

“What cheek!” said Janet indignantly, as they withdrew their heads and walked off down the passage. “Tiddlers, indeed!”

Round the next passage was a noise that was positively deafening. It came from a big room on the left. A wireless was going full-tilt, and a gramophone, too, so that neither of them could be heard properly. Four or five children seemed to be having a fight on the floor, and a few others were yelling to them, telling them to “Go it!” and “Stick it!”

A cushion flew through the air and hit Janet on the shoulder. She threw it back. A girl raised her voice dolefully.

“Oh, do shut up! I want to hear the wireless!”

Nobody took any notice. The girl shouted even more loudly: “I say, I WANT TO HEAR THE WIRELESS.”

Somebody snapped off the gramophone, and the wireless seemed to boom out even more loudly. There was dance music on it.

“Let’s dance!” cried Fred, fox-trotting by, holding a cushion as if it were a partner. “Hallo, Mike, hallo Janet. Where on earth have you been? Come into our quiet, peaceful room, won’t you? Don’t stand at the door looking like two scared mice.”

So into their common-room went the two children, at first quite scared of all the noise around them. But gradually they got used to it, and picked out the voices of the boys and girls they knew, talking, shouting, and laughing together. It was fun. It felt good to be there all together like a big, happy family. The noise was nice too.

For an hour the noise went on, and then died down as the children became tired. Books were got out, and puzzles. The wireless was turned down a little. The supper-bell went, and the children trooped down into the dining-hall. The first day was nearly over. A quiet hour after supper, and then bed. Yes—it was going to be nice at St. Rollo’s!