Читать книгу The O'Sullivan Twins - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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Everything was ready for the party. Tessie had even been into the little music-room and lighted the oil-stove to get the room warm for her guests!

“No one ever goes in there at night,” she said to Winnie, who was afraid that somebody might see the stove, if they went in. “The room will be lovely and warm by the time we are ready!”

The two girls were in a great state of excitement. Tessie had had two birthday cakes sent to her, which pleased her very much. She had been able to put the bigger one of the two on the tea-table for all her form to share—and had kept the other for the midnight party.

There were biscuits, sweets, chocolates, a big fruit cake, and four tins of peaches, with a tin of Nestle’s milk for cream! There were also the strings of little sausages to fry. It was going to be great fun!

“We haven’t anything to drink!” whispered Winnie to Tessie, in arithmetic at the end of that morning.

“Yes, we have. I’ve got some ginger-beer,” whispered back Tessie. Miss Jenks caught the word “ginger-beer”.

“Tessie, how does ginger-beer come into our arithmetic lesson?” she enquired, coldly.

“Well—it doesn’t,” said Tessie, at a loss what to say. “Sorry, Miss Jenks.”

Susan, Hetty and Nora winked at one another. They knew quite well where the ginger-beer came in! Erica saw the winks and smiled to herself. She was going to spoil that party, ginger-beer and all!

Everything was hidden in the music-room, ready for that night. The eight girls were in a great state of excitement. They had all been in to peep at the things in the cupboard. The music-mistress would have been most surprised if she had taken a peep too—for in stead of the usual piles of old music, a metronome or two, old hymn-books and so on, she would have seen a big birthday cake with “Happy returns to Tessie!” on it, and a big tin full of other goodies—to say nothing of eight fat brown ginger-beer bottles!

“How are we going to keep awake till twelve o’clock?” said Pat to Isabel and Janet.

“Oh, I’ll be awake at twelve,” said Janet, who had lately got the idea that she could wake at any time she liked, merely by repeating the hour to herself half a dozen times before she went to sleep. “I shall simply say ‘twelve o’clock’ firmly to myself before I go to sleep. And then I shall wake on the first stroke of midnight! You just see.”

“Well, Janet, I hope you’re right,” said Pat, doubtfully. “I’ve tried that heaps of times but it never works with me. I just go on sleeping.”

“It’s will-power,” said Janet. “You needn’t worry. I shall wake you all right!”

So the twins went peacefully to sleep as usual at half-past nine, trusting to Janet to wake them. Janet went to sleep too, saying ‘twelve o’clock, twelve o’clock’ steadily to herself, as she dropped off.

But alas for Janet! Midnight came—and she slept on! Her will-power must have been a little weak that night. The three first-formers would certainly have missed the party if the second-formers hadn’t sent to see why they didn’t turn up!

Pat was awakened by some one tugging at her arm, and a torch being flashed into her face. She woke with a jump and was just about to give a squeal of fright when she saw that it was Winnie who held the torch. In a flash she remembered the party.

“Pat! For goodness’ sake! Aren’t you three coming?” whispered Winnie.

“Of course,” said Pat. “I’ll wake the others.” She threw off the bed-clothes, slipped her feet into her slippers and put on her warm dressing-gown. She went to wake Isabel and Janet. Soon the three of them were creeping out of the room, down a few stairs, round a corner past the second-form dormitory, and into the music-room.

The door opened and shut quietly and the three girls blinked at the bright electric light. The blinds had been drawn and the oil-stove had made the little room as warm as toast. The other five girls were busy opening tins and setting out cake and biscuits.

“Whatever happened to you?” said Tessie, in surprise. “It’s a quarter-past twelve. We waited and waited. Then we sent Winnie.”

“It was my fault,” said Janet, looking ashamed of herself, a most unusual thing for Janet. “I promised I’d wake them—and I didn’t. I say—what a marvellous cake!”

The girls set to work to eat all the good things, giggling at nothing. It was so exciting to be cooped up in the little music-room, gobbling all sorts of goodies when every one else was fast asleep.

“Oh, Susan—you’ve spilt peach-juice all over my toes,” giggled Janet.

“Lick it off then,” said Susan. “I bet you can’t!”

Janet was very supple. She at once tried to reach her foot up to her mouth to lick off the juice from her bare pink toes. She overbalanced and fell off her music-stool.

“Janet! You’ve sat on the sausages!” hissed Tessie, in dismay. “Get up, you idiot. Oh, the poor sausages—all squashed as flat as pan-cakes!”

The girls began to giggle helplessly. Tessie tried to press the little sausages back into their ordinary shape again.

“When are we going to fry them?” asked Isabel, who loved sausages.

“Last thing,” said Tessie. “That is, if there is anything left of them when Janet has finished with them!”

The ginger-beer was opened. Each bottle had a top that had to be taken off with an opener, and each bottle gave a pop as it was opened.

“If any one hears these pops they’ll wonder whatever’s happening in this music-room,” said Susan.

“Well, nobody will hear,” said Tessie. “Every one is fast asleep. Not a soul in our own dormitory knows that we slipped out. Not a single person knows our secret!”

But Tessie boasted too soon. Some one was already outside the closed door, with her eye to the keyhole and her sharp ears trying to catch all that was said. Erica knew quite well all that was going on. Soon she caught her own name, and she stiffened outside the door, as she tried to hear what was said.

It was Tessie who was speaking. She was handing round the chocolates. “We caught that nasty little sneak Erica helping herself to the chocolates this afternoon,” she said, in her clear voice. “Isn’t she the limit?”

“Oh, she’s always doing things like that,” said Pat. “You can’t trust her an inch.”

Erica felt the tears coming into her eyes. The girls had often told her unpleasant things to her face—but somehow it was horrible hearing them spoken behind her back. But the tears passed into tears of rage.

“I’ll give them a few frights!” thought Erica, furiously. “And then I’ll go and fetch Miss Jenks. It will serve the wretches right.”

Erica knocked softly on the door, and then, quick as lightning, darted into a nearby cupboard. She hoped that her knocking would give the girls a shock.

It gave them a most terrible shock! They all stopped talking at once, and Tessie put down the box of chocolates with a shaking hand. They stared at one another, round-eyed.

“What was that?” whispered Tessie.

“A knock at the d-d-d-door,” stuttered Winnie.

There was dead silence. Every one waited to see if the door would open. But it didn’t.

Erica was still hidden in the cupboard. As nothing happened, she crept out again and knocked once more on the door, this time quite smartly. Then back she hopped to the cupboard again, beginning to enjoy herself.

The eight girls in the music-room jumped almost out of their skins when the second knocking came.

“There must be somebody there,” said Tessie, quite pale with fright. “I’ll go and see.”

She went bravely to the door and opened it. There was no one there! Tessie shone her torch into the passage. It was perfectly empty. The girl shut the door and went back to her seat, looking frightened.

“It wasn’t any one,” she said.

“Stuff and nonsense,” said Janet, beginning to recover from her fright. “Doors don’t knock by themselves! It must be some one having a joke.”

“But, Janet, no one knows we are here,” said Isabel.

“Shall we get back to bed—and not fry the sausages?” asked Tessie.

That was too much for Isabel. “What, not fry the sausages when I’ve been looking forward to them all the evening!” she said, indignantly.

“Shut up, idiot! Do you want to wake the whole school?” said Pat, giving her a nudge that nearly sent her off her chair. “Fry the sausages, Tessie, old girl. I think that knocking must have been the wind!”

So the sausages were fried, and sizzled deliciously in the pan on the top of the oil-stove. Tessie turned them over and over with a fork, trying not to squeal when the hot fat jumped out and burnt her.

Erica had crept out of the cupboard again. She heard the sizzling of the sausages, and the lovely smell made her feel hungry. She wondered what to do next. A noise made her scurry back to the cupboard. What could it be?

Then Erica knew. It was Mam’zelle in her study, having one of her late nights! The French mistress sometimes stayed up very late, reading and studying—and tonight she was still in her study! Erica smiled to herself. She knew what she was going to do now. She wouldn’t tell Miss Jenks! She would let hot-tempered Mam’zelle find out—and she herself wouldn’t come out into the open at all!

“I’ll go and knock at Mam’zelle’s door,” said Erica to herself. “Then I’ll skip back to the dormitory. Mam’zelle will open her door in surprise—and when she finds no one there she’ll go and prowl around, if I know anything about her! And it won’t be long before she smells those sausages!”

So Erica slipped up the passage to the door of the little room that Mam’zelle used as a study. She knocked smartly on it three times—rap-rap-rap!

“Tiens!” came Mam’zelle’s voice, in the greatest surprise. “Who is there!”

There was no answer, of course, for Erica had slipped as quietly as a mouse away from the door—not into the cupboard this time, but back into her dormitory. She guessed there would soon be trouble about, and she wasn’t going to share in it!

Mam’zelle slid back her chair and went to the door, puzzled. She threw it open, but there was no one there. She stood there for a moment, wondering if she could possibly have been mistaken—and then she heard, from somewhere not very far off, a subdued giggle. And down the passage crept the unmistakable smell of—frying sausages!