Читать книгу First Term at Malory Towers - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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Darrell soon began to settle down. She learnt the names not only of the girls in her form at North Tower, but of every girl there, from the head-girl Pamela, down to Mary-Lou, the youngest but one in the first form. Darrell herself was the youngest girl in North Tower, she found, but she felt that Mary-Lou was very much younger.

Mary-Lou was a scared mouse of a girl. She was frightened of mice, beetles, thunderstorms, noises at night, the dark, and a hundred other things. Poor Mary-Lou, no wonder she had big scared eyes. Darrell, not easily scared of anything, laughed when she saw poor Mary-Lou rush to the other side of the dormy because she saw an earwig on the floor.

There were ten girls in the first-form dormy at North Tower. Katherine, the quiet head-girl. Alicia, the talkative, unruly-tongued monkey. The three new girls, Darrell, Gwendoline, and Sally. Mary-Lou, with her big scared eyes, always ready to shy back like a nervous horse, at anything unexpected.

Then there was clever Irene, a marvel at maths. and music, usually top of the form—but oh, how stupid in the ordinary things of life. If anyone lost her book it was Irene. If anyone went to the wrong classroom at the wrong time it was Irene. It was said that once she had gone to the art-room, thinking that a painting lesson was to be taken there, and had actually sat there for half an hour, apparently waiting for Miss Linnie to come. What she thought had happened to the rest of the class, no one knew.

“But how could you sit there all that time and not even wonder why nobody came!” said Katherine, in amazement. “What were you thinking of, Irene?”

“I was just thinking of a maths. problem that Potty set us, that’s all,” said Irene, her eyes shining through her big glasses. “It was rather an interesting one, and there were two or three ways of getting it right. You see ...”

“Oh, spare us maths. out of school!” groaned Alicia. “Irene, I think you’re bats!”

But Irene wasn’t. She was a most intelligent girl, who, because her mind was always so deeply at work at something, seemed to forget the smaller, everyday things of life. She had a sense of fun too, and when she was really tickled she came out with a tremendous explosive giggle that startled the class and made Miss Potts jump. It was Alicia’s delight to provoke this explosion sometimes, and upset the class.

The other three girls in the form were Jean, a jolly, shrewd girl from Scotland, very able at handling money for various school societies and charities; Emily, a quiet studious girl, clever with her needle, and one of Mam’zelle’s favourites because of this; and Violet, a shy, colourless child, very much left out of things because she never seemed to take any interest in them. Half the form never even noticed whether Violet was with them or not.

That made up the ten girls. Darrell felt that she had known them for years after she had lived with them only a few days. She knew the way Irene’s stockings always fell down in wrinkles. She knew the way Jean spoke, clipped and sharp, in her Scots accent. She knew that Mam’zelle disliked Jean because Jean was scornful of Mam’zelle’s enthusiasms and emotions. Jean herself never went into ecstasies about anything.

Darrell knew Gwendoline’s sighs and moans over everything, and Mary-Lou’s scared exclamations of fear at any insect or reptile. She liked Katherine’s low, firm voice, and air of being able to cope with anything. She knew a great deal about Alicia, but then, so did everyone, for Alicia poured out everything that came into her head, she chattered about her brothers, her mother and father, her dogs, her work, her play, her knitting, her opinion of everything and everybody under the sun.

Alicia had no time at all for airs and graces, pretences, sighs, moans or affectations. She was as downright as Darrell, but not so kind. She was scornful and biting when it pleased her, so that girls like Gwendoline hated her, and those like scared Mary-Lou feared her. Darrell liked her immensely.

“She’s so lively,” she thought to herself. “Nobody could be dull with Alicia. I wish I was as interesting as she is. Everyone listens when Alicia speaks, even when she says something unkind. But nobody pays much attention when I want to say something. I do really like Alicia, and I wish she hadn’t got Betty for a friend. She’s just the one I would have chosen.”

It took Darrell longer to know the first-formers who came from the other Towers. She saw them in class, but not in the common room or dormies, for the first-formers of the other Towers had their own rooms, of course, in their own Towers. Still, it was enough to know her own Tower girls for a start, Darrell thought.

She didn’t know very much about the older girls in her Tower, for she didn’t even meet them in the classroom. She saw them at Prayers in the morning, sometimes during the singing-lesson, when Mr. Young took more than one class at a time, and sometimes on the tennis-courts and in the swimming-pool.

She heard a few things about some of them, of course. Marilyn, sixth-former, was captain of the games, and most of the girls liked her immensely. “She’s fair and really takes a lot of trouble to coach even the first-formers,” said Alicia. “She’s as good as old Remmington, the games-mistress, any day. She won’t bother with the duds, but Marilyn does.”

Everyone appeared to look up to Pamela, the head-girl, too. She was clever, and rather literary. It was said that she was already writing a book. This impressed the first-formers very much. It was hard enough to write a decent composition, let alone a book.

No one seemed to like two girls called Doris and Fanny. “Too spiteful for words,” said Alicia, who, of course, could always give an opinion immediately about anyone or anything, from Winston Churchill down to the little boy belonging to the Tower House cook. “They’re frightfully pi.”

“What do you mean—pi?” said Gwendoline, who hadn’t apparently heard that word before.

“Golly—what an ignoramus you are!” said Alicia. “Pi means pious. Religious in the wrong way. Thinking they’re wonderful and nobody else is. Trying to stop people’s pleasure. They’re a sickening pair. Always on the prowl and on the snoop. Once, when I slipped across the Court in the middle of the night to join Betty Hill, in West Tower for a midnight feast, Doris saw me out of the window, and lay in wait for me to come back. Beast.”

“Did she catch you?” asked Mary-Lou, her eyes wide with alarm.

“ ’Course she didn’t! You don’t think I’d let myself be caught by the Pi Sisters, do you?” said Alicia, scornfully. “I spotted her when I came back, and shut her in the boot-cupboard.”

Irene gave one of her loud explosive giggles and made them all jump. “I’d never think of the things you think of, Alicia!” she said. “No wonder the Pi Sisters glare at you in Prayers each morning. I bet they’ll watch out for you to do something you shouldn’t, and tell on you.”

“And I bet I’ll get the better of them!” said Alicia, grimly. “If they try any tricks on me, I’ll try a few on them!”

“Oh, do, do,” begged Darrell, who had a great weakness for jokes and tricks. She didn’t always dare to do them herself, but she was always ready to back up any one else who did.

Darrell soon got to know all the different classrooms too. She knew the art-room, with its clear north light. She hadn’t yet had a lesson in the lab. or laboratory, which looked a bit frightening. She loved the great gym. with all its apparatus of swings, ropes, vaulting-horses and mattresses. She was good at gym. So was Alicia, who could climb like a monkey, and was as strong as a horse. Mary-Lou, of course, was too scared to do anything unless she was made to.

It was fun, the way all the girls slept in the Towers, and had their lessons in the other parts of the great building. Darrell knew where the teachers lived now in the building facing south, except those who, like Miss Potts, and Mam’zelle, lived in with the girls, to keep an eye on them. She began to wonder how she could have felt so lost and over-awed when she first arrived. She didn’t feel a bit like a new girl now.

One of the things that Darrell liked best of all was the big swimming-pool down by the sea. This had been hollowed out of a stretch of rocks, so that it had a nice rocky, uneven bottom. Seaweed grew at the sides, and sometimes the rocky bed of the pool felt a little slimy. But the sea swept into the big natural pool each day, filled it, and made lovely waves all across it. It was a sheer delight to bathe there.

The coast itself was too dangerous for bathing. The tides were so strong, and no girl was allowed to swim in the open sea. But anyone was safe in the pool. One end was quite deep, and here there were diving-boards and a chute, and a fine spring-board for running dives.

Mary-Lou and Gwendoline were terrified of the pool, Mary-Lou because she was afraid of water, anyhow, and Gwendoline because she hated the first cold plunge. Alicia’s eyes always gleamed when she spied the shivering Gwendoline, and the poor girl so often had an unexpected push into the water that she soon began to step in hurriedly whenever she saw Alicia or Betty coming near.

The first week went very slowly. There was a lot to learn and know, things were so new and exciting. Darrell loved every minute, and soon got into the way of things. She was naturally quick and responsive, and the girls soon accepted her and liked her.

But they neither accepted nor liked poor Gwendoline, and as for Sally Hope, after trying in vain to draw her out a little, and get her to talk of her family and home, the girls let her live in her shell, and not come out of it at all.

“First week gone!” announced Alicia, some days later. “The first week always crawls. After that the days fly, and it’s half-term in no time, and when that’s gone we’re looking forward to the hols. You’ve soon settled in, haven’t you, Darrell?”

“Oh, yes,” said Darrell. “I love it. If every term is as nice as this, I shall be thrilled!”

“Ah, you wait,” said Alicia. “Everything’s always all right at first—but when you’ve had a wigging or two from Mam’zelle, and been dosed by Matron, and kept in by Potty, and slated by Miss Remmington, and ticked off by one of the older girls, and ... !”

“Oh, stop!” cried Darrell. “Nothing like that will happen, Alicia. Don’t try and frighten me!”

But Alicia was right, of course. Things were not going to be quite as smooth and easy as Darrell thought!