Читать книгу Summer Term at St. Clare's - Enid blyton - Страница 6

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The twins awoke before the dressing-bell went the next morning. They lay whispering to each other whilst the May sunshine shone warmly in at the window. Then the bell went and the eight girls got out of bed, some with a leap, like Carlotta and the twins, some with a groan like Sheila, who always hated turning out of her warm bed, winter or summer.

They met their Cousin Alison coming out of her dormitory arm-in-arm with the American girl, Sadie Greene. They stared at her, because she had done her hair in quite a different way.

‘Alison! What have you done to your hair?’ said Pat. ‘It looks awful. Do you think you are a film-star or something?’

‘Sadie says I look grand like this,’ said Alison, setting her little mouth in an obstinate line. ‘Sadie says ...’

‘That’s all Alison can say nowadays,’ remarked Janet. ‘She’s like a gramophone record always set to say “Sadie says.... Sadie says ... Sadie says ...” ’

Every one laughed. ‘It’s sure a wunnerful way of fixing the hair,’ said Doris, with a very good imitation of Sadie’s American accent. Sadie laughed. She was very good tempered.

‘I don’t know what Miss Roberts will say though,’ went on Doris. ‘She isn’t very keen on fancy hair styles, Alison.’

‘Well, but Sadie says ...’ began Alison, in an injured sort of voice—and at once all the girls took up the refrain.

‘Sadie says ... Sadie says ... Sadie says!’ they chanted in a sort of chorus, whilst Doris jumped up on to a nearby chair and beat time for the chanting. Alison’s eyes filled with the easy tears she always knew how to shed.

‘You can see your cousin can turn on the water-tap just as easily as last term,’ said Janet, in her clear voice. Alison turned away to hide her face. She knew that the girls had no patience with her tears. Sadie slipped her arm through hers.

‘Aw, come on, sugar-baby,’ she said. ‘You’re a cute little thing, and I won’t let them tease you!’

‘Sadie says ... Sadie says ... Sadie says ...’

‘I can’t think how your cousin can make friends with that vulgar American girl,’ said a soft voice at Pat’s side. ‘It’s a good thing you’ve come. Sadie has a very bad influence on the class.’

Pat turned and saw the girl called Prudence Arnold. She didn’t know whether she liked the look of her or not. Prudence was pretty, but her mouth was hard, and her eyes, set too close together, were a pale brown.

The breakfast-bell went and saved Pat the bother of answering. She ran down the stairs with the others and whispered to Janet. ‘Is that Prudence? She looks awfully goody-goody.’

‘Yes, you’d better mind your P’s and Q’s with her!’ said Janet. ‘She’s so good she’ll burst with it one day—and as for playing a trick on anyone, well the thought of it would send her into a fit. You should have seen her face one day last week when I flipped a rubber at Hilary in class. It was enough to turn the milk sour. Oh and by the way—according to her she’s related to half the lords and ladies in the kingdom. Get her on to the subject—she’s funny!’

‘No talking now please,’ said Miss Roberts as the girls stood for grace to be said. Pat took a quick look at Prudence. The girl was standing with her head bent and her eyes shut, the very picture of goodness.

‘Now Lucy Oriell is really good,’ thought Pat, glancing at Lucy, ‘and I like her awfully, and did from the first—and yet I don’t take to Prudence at all, and she sounds good too. Perhaps it is because she hasn’t any sense of fun, and Lucy has. I wonder if she’s as clever as Lucy at lessons. Well, we shall soon see.’

That morning Miss Roberts read out the class-marks for the week, and the last new girl, Pamela Boardman, was top with ninety-three marks out of a hundred. Prudence Arnold was only half-way down the list. Sadie, Alison, Carlotta and Doris vied for places at the bottom.

‘Pamela, you have done very well for the first week,’ said Miss Roberts. ‘I can see you set yourself a high standard, and you work steadily, in each subject. Considering that you are the youngest in the form—not yet fourteen—this is very good.’

All the girls stared at Pamela, who was sitting upright in her desk, red with pleasure. The twins looked at her curiously. They were nearly fifteen, and it seemed marvellous to them that a thirteen-year-old should be top of their form.

‘She’s very small even for thirteen,’ thought Pat. ‘And she’s pale now that she’s not red any more. She looks as if she worked too hard!’

Pamela was not very attractive-looking. She wore big glasses, and her straight hair was tightly plaited down her back. She had a very earnest face, and paid the greatest attention to everything Miss Roberts said.

Miss Roberts had some more to say. She flipped at the marks list with her first finger and then looked firmly at Alison, Sadie, Doris and Carlotta.

‘You are all bottom,’ she said. ‘Well, we know some one has to be bottom—but nobody needs to be quite so very low-down as all of you are. Sit up, Sadie! Carlotta, there is no need to grin round the class like that. It isn’t funny to get so few marks in any and every subject!’

Carlotta stopped grinning round and scowled. She looked like a fiery little gypsy with her black curls, deep-brown eyes and creamy-brown skin. Not even her school uniform could make her look ordinary. She glared at Miss Roberts.

Miss Roberts took no notice of the scowl or the glare, but went calmly on. ‘Doris, you have been in my form for four terms now, and I’m really tired of seeing you at the bottom still. You will have extra coaching this term, because you really mustn’t stay in my form much longer.’

‘Yes, Miss Roberts,’ murmured poor Doris. The girls glanced at her, trying to cheer her up. Doris was a real dunce and knew it—and yet of all the girls in the school she could be the very funniest, sending the class into squeals of laughter by her imitations of mistresses and other girls. Every one liked her, even the mistresses who laboured so hard trying to teach her.

‘Now you, Alison,’ began Miss Roberts again, looking at the twins’ cousin with the intention of telling her that she also could do better, ‘now you, Alison ...’ Then she stopped and looked at the girl carefully.

‘Alison,’ she said, ‘there is something very strange about you this morning. It seems to me that you have forgotten to do your hair.’

‘Oh no, Miss Roberts,’ began Alison, eagerly. ‘Sadie showed me a new way. She said I had the kind of face that ...’

‘Alison, you don’t really mean to tell me that your hair is done like that on purpose!’ said Miss Roberts, in pretended horror. Alison subsided at once, and the girls giggled. Alison really did look a little silly with her hair all piled in floppy curls on top of her head. Miss Roberts never could stand what she called ‘frippery’ in dress or hair style.

‘Much as I hate you to lose any part of my lesson, Alison,’ she said, ‘I must ask you to go and do something to your hair that will make you look a little less amazing.’

‘I thought she’d be sent out to do her hair properly,’ whispered Janet to Pat. Miss Roberts’s sharp ears caught the whisper.

‘No talking,’ she said. ‘We’ll now get on with the lesson. Open your maths books at page sixteen. Pat and Isabel, bring your books up to my desk, please, and I will try and explain to you what the class did last week when you were away. The rest of you get on with what you began yesterday.’

In a little while all was silence as the class applied itself to its work. Alison slipped back into the room quietly, her cheeks flaming. Her hair was now taken down and brushed back properly, and she looked what she was, a fourteen-year-old schoolgirl. Sadie sent her a look of sympathy.

Prudence and Pamela bent their heads almost to their desks, so concentrated were they on their task. They sat next to each other. Prudence took a quick look at Pamela’s book to see if her own sums showed the same answers. Janet nudged Hilary.

‘Our pious little Prudence isn’t above having a peep at Pam’s work!’ she whispered, opening her desk to hide the fact that she was speaking. Hilary nodded. She was about to open her own desk and make a remark, but Miss Roberts’s eye caught hers and she decided not to. Miss Roberts didn’t seem to be standing any nonsense that term! She meant her class to do well, and to make a good showing when most of it went up into Miss Jenks’s form the next term!

Pat and Isabel stood beside Miss Roberts struggling to understand what she was explaining. Their five weeks’ holiday had made them rusty, and it was difficult to get back the habit of concentration again. But at last they understood and went back to their places to work. Miss Roberts got up to go round the class.

A suppressed giggle made her look round. Bobby Ellis had balanced a sheet of blotting-paper on the bent head of the unsuspecting Prudence. It sat there, moving slightly whenever Prudence turned her head a little to refer to her text-book. Then it floated gently to the ground, much to Prudence’s surprise.

‘I imagine that, as you find time to play about with blotting-paper, Roberta, you have also found time to do every one of the sums set,’ said Miss Roberts in a cold sort of voice. Bobby said nothing. She hadn’t done even half the sums.

‘Well, if you haven’t done all the sums and got them right too, by the time I get round to you, you will stay in at break and do them then,’ said Miss Roberts. ‘Prudence, pick up the blotting-paper and put it on my desk.’

‘Miss Roberts, I didn’t know anything about what Bobby was doing,’ said Prudence, anxiously. ‘I was quite lost in my work. I ...’

‘Quite so, Prudence,’ said Miss Roberts. ‘Now pick up the blotting-paper please and get lost again.’

Poor Bobby lost her time at break. There was no doubt about it—Miss Roberts was on the war-path that term!

‘What did I tell you?’ said Janet, when the morning ended at last, and the girls trooped out to wash for lunch. ‘What a morning! Alison sent out to do her hair again—most of us scolded—Bobby kept in for break—Janet ticked off for talking twice—Doris pulled up for dreaming in geography—Carlotta sent out of the room for answering back—and double the amount of prep we usually have! Golly, this is going to be a term!’