Читать книгу Fifth Formers at St. Clare's - Enid blyton - Страница 7

Table of Contents

The fifth form were certainly working hard. Miss Cornwallis kept their noses to the grindstone, as Pat said, and piled prep. on to them. Miss Willcox expected a great deal of them too. Miss Theobald, the Head, took the form for one or two lessons and although she did not give them a great deal of prep. the girls felt that what she did give them must be specially well done.

When Mam’zelle piled prep. on them too, the girls grew indignant. “Gracious! What with all that maths. to do, and that map to draw, and those French poems to memorize, and that essay for Miss Willcox, we’ll all have nervous breakdowns!” groaned Bobby.

Only Pam Boardman did not seem to mind. She had an amazing memory, and had only to look at a page once to know it by heart. Doris envied her this gift from the bottom of her heart.

“I’ve no memory at all for lessons,” she sighed. “What I learn in the morning I’ve forgotten in the evening.”

“Well, if you’re going to be an actress, you’ll have parts to learn, won’t you?” said Pam.

“The funny thing is, when I act a part and say the words out loud, I can remember them quite easily,” said Doris. “I never forget them then. It’s sitting hunched up over a book, reading and re-reading the words that gets me down.”

“Well, Doris, stand up and recite the words out loud, and act them if you want to,” said Pam, a gleam of fun coming into her solemn eyes. “Here—take this French poem—it’s all about the so-beautiful country-side, as Mam’zelle would say. Recite it out loud, act the cows and the sheep, frisk when you come to the part where the little lambs play, and waddle like a duck when you get to them. You’ll soon learn it.”

So, to the amazement of Pat and Isabel, who looked in at Pam’s study to borrow a book, Doris threw herself heart, soul and body into the French pastoral poem.

She frisked like a lamb.

She declaimed the poem loudly, with gestures of all kinds. She frisked like a lamb, she chewed cud like a cow, she waddled like a duck. It was perfect.

The girls shrieked with laughter. Doris had turned the solemn and rather heavy French poem into a real comedy.

“Now—do you know it?” said Pam, when Doris finished, and sat down panting in a chair.

Doris screwed up her nose and thought hard. “Let me see,” she said, “it begins like this ...”

But until she got up and acted the poem as she had done before, she could not remember a word. It was evidently the acting that brought the words to her mind.

“Well—you do know the poem,” said Pam, pleased. “You won’t forget it now. Mam’zelle will be pleased with her chère Doris tomorrow!”

Doris, however, was not in Mam’zelle’s good books the next day. Her French exercise was nothing but mistakes and was slashed right across with Mam’zelle’s thick blue pencil. Mam’zelle never spared her blue pencil when she was annoyed, and a page disapproved of by her was always a terrible sight.

“Ah, you Doris!” began Mam’zelle, when she was going through the work with her class. “You! Have I had you on my thumb ...”

“Under my thumb,” said Bobby, with a grin. Mam’zelle glared at her and resumed.

“Have I had you on my thumb for all these terms and still you do not know that a table is she not he. Why are you not in the kindergarten? Why can you still not pronounce the French R? All the others can. You are a great big stupid girl.”

“Yes, Mam’zelle,” said poor Doris, meekly. When Mam’zelle flew into a rage, it was best to be meek. But for some reason Doris’s meekness irritated Mam’zelle even more.

“Ah—you mock at me now! ‘Yes, Mam’zelle’ you say, with your tongue in your mouth and butter melting in your cheek!” cried Mam’zelle, getting things mixed up as usual.

The girls giggled. “You mean, with your tongue in your cheek, and butter that won’t melt in your mouth,” suggested Bobby again.

“Do not tell me what I mean, Bobbee,” said Mam’zelle, exasperated. “Always you interrupt. Doris, stand up.”

Doris stood up, her humorous mouth twitching. She would act this scene afterwards for the benefit of the girls. How they would laugh!

“Your written work is very bad. Now let me hear your oral work,” demanded Mam’zelle. “You have learnt the French poem? Yes—then let me hear it. Begin!”

Doris couldn’t think of a single word. She stared into the distance, racking her brains. She knew there were all kinds of animals in it—but how did the words go?

“She did learn it, Mam’zelle,” said Pam’s voice, earnestly. “I heard her say it all through without looking at the book once.”

“Then I too will hear it now,” said Mam’zelle. “Begin, Doris.”

Pam sat just behind Doris. She whispered the first line to her. Doris began—and then she suddenly knew that if only she could act the poem, she could say every word—but not one line would come unless she acted it! Oh dear—she couldn’t possibly act it in front of Mam’zelle, who loved French poetry, and would think she was making fun of it.

“Well, Doris, I wait. I wait patiently,” said Mam’zelle, who was anything but patient at that moment. “Can you or can you not say the poem to me?”

“Yes. I can,” said Doris. “But—but only if I act it.”

“Then act it,” said Mam’zelle, losing the last of her patience. “But if you are not telling me the truth, ma chère Doris, I complain to Miss Theobald. Act it—but say the poem through without a mistake.”

So, in despair, Doris acted the French poem in her usual exaggerated, ridiculous manner, waggling herself, chewing the cud, waddling, frisking—and, of course, as soon as she acted the poem, she knew it all the way through without a single mistake. She certainly had a queer memory.

The girls were thrilled and amused at Doris’s rendering of the solemn poem, but they felt certain that Mam’zelle would be exceedingly angry. It was Claudine that saved the situation.

She clapped her hands in delight. She threw back her head and laughed her infectious laugh. She held her sides and almost doubled herself up.

“Oh ma tante, ma tante!” she cried to her aunt. “The clever Doris, the marvellous Doris! Such a poem she makes of it—and not one single mistake. Ah, never never shall I forget this poem now!”

Mam’zelle pushed her glasses on to her nose more firmly. Her face changed. She let out a roar of delighted laughter, and the class breathed loudly in relief. So long as Mam’zelle saw the joke it was all right.

Mam’zelle took off her glasses and wiped her streaming eyes. “It is clever, very clever, Doris,” she said. “It is not the right way to recite such a poem, no. But it is very clever and very amusing. I will forgive you this time for your bad work. It is true that you know the poem, and you have made it very funny. Is it not so, Claudine?”

Claudine agreed. “We too will say the poem like that,” she suggested, her eyes gleaming with fun. But Mam’zelle was not going so far as that.

“Ah non!” she said. “Doris has a gift that way. One girl is funny, but fourteen, fifteen girls would not be funny. Tiens! Look at the clock. We have wasted half the lesson on this bad, clever Doris. Get out your books, please.”

Doris found that she could learn anything if only she said it out loud and put ridiculous actions to the words. But so often she could not repeat what she had learnt unless she accompanied it with absurd actions. Miss Willcox did not think this was funny. She called it “playing the fool” and said it was very bad taste.

As for doing such a thing in Miss Cornwallis’s class or Miss Theobald’s, it was quite unthinkable. However much the girls begged Doris to recite the latest maths. rules with appropriate—or inappropriate—actions she would not.

“I’m not going to get expelled just to make you laugh,” she said. “I must go on plodding away, and get Pam’s help as much as I can. I’ll never be any good at lessons.”

“But you’ll always be able to make people laugh!” said Isabel. “I’d almost rather do that than anything, but I’m not much good at it.”

“I’d rather write a book or paint a beautiful picture,” said Alison.

“So would I,” said Anne-Marie. “Much rather. To leave something of oneself behind, something one has made or created—now that’s really worth-while.”

“Deirdre fans!” said Carlotta, mockingly.

Alison had found out that Miss Willcox’s first initial was D. and had asked her what it stood for.

“Deirdre,” said Miss Willcox, and Alison had thought it a most beautiful name, almost picturesque enough for her darling Miss Wilcox. Deirdre Willcox—a lovely name for a poet!

She had told Angela and Angela had told every one else. Both Anne-Marie and Alison were always round Miss Willcox, and the girls now called them “Deirdre fans”. It annoyed them very much. Allison was sorry now that she had told any one Miss Willcox’s name—she would have liked to be the only one that knew it.

She and Anne-Marie both vied with each other for Miss Willcox’s attentions. Alison was jealous of Anne-Marie because she could write poetry, and Miss Willcox encouraged her to bring her her poems. Anne-Marie was jealous of Alison because she felt sure that Miss Willcox liked Alison the better of the two, which was quite true. A little of Anne-Marie and her intenseness went a very long way.

“You’re both silly,” said Bobby, who never could understand what she called “sloppiness”. “Can’t you see that any one who encourages a couple of idiots like you can’t be worth sucking up to?”

But this kind of remark only made Alison and Anne-Marie more devoted. It even brought them together a little in their common indignation, which amused the girls very much. The “Deirdre fans” were the cause of a lot of fun that half-term!