Читать книгу The Naughtiest Girl is a Monitor - Enid blyton - Страница 3

Table of Contents

It was in the middle of the Christmas holidays that Mother sprang a surprise on Elizabeth. Christmas was over, and Elizabeth had been to the pantomime and the circus, and to three parties.

Now she was beginning to look forward to going back to boarding-school again. It was dull being an only child, now that she had got used to living with so many girls and boys at Whyteleafe School. She missed their laughter and their chatter, the fun and games they had together.

“Mother, I love being at home—but I do miss Kathleen and Belinda and Nora and Harry and John and Richard,” she said. “Joan has been over here to see me once or twice, but she’s got a cousin staying with her now, and I don’t expect I’ll see her any more these hols.”

Then Mother gave Elizabeth a surprise.

“Well,” she said, “I knew you would be lonely—so I have arranged for someone to come and keep you company for the last two weeks of these holidays, Elizabeth.”

“Mother! Who?” cried Elizabeth. “Somebody I know?”

“No,” said Mother. “It is a girl who is to go to Whyteleafe School next term—a girl called Arabella Buckley. I am sure you will like her.”

“Tell me about her,” said Elizabeth, still very surprised. “Why didn’t you tell me this before, Mother?”

“Well, it has been decided in a hurry,” said Mother. “You know Mrs. Peters, don’t you? She has a sister who has to go to America, and she does not want to take Arabella with her. So she wanted to put the child into a boarding-school for a year, perhaps longer.”

“And she chose Whyteleafe School!” said Elizabeth. “Well, it’s the best school in the world, I think!”

“That’s what I told Mrs. Peters,” said Mother. “And she told her sister—and Mrs. Buckley at once went to see the headmistresses, Miss Belle and Miss Best....”

“The Beauty and the Beast,” said Elizabeth with a grin.

“And it was arranged that Arabella should go to Whyteleafe this term,” went on Mother. “As Mrs. Buckley had to leave for America almost at once, I offered to have Arabella here—partly as company for you, and partly so that you might be able to tell her a little about Whyteleafe.”

“Mother, I do hope she’s a decent sort of girl,” said Elizabeth, “It will be fun sharing hols with someone I like, but awful if it’s someone I don’t like.”

“I have seen Arabella,” said Mother. “She was a very pretty girl with most beautiful manners and she was dressed very nicely too.”

“Oh,” said Elizabeth, who was often untidily dressed, and was sometimes too impatient to have very good manners. “Mother—I don’t think I like the sound of her very much. Usually beautifully-dressed girls aren’t much good at games and things like that.”

“Well—you’ll see,” said Mother. “Anyway, she is coming to-morrow—so give her a good welcome and tell her as much about Whyteleafe as you can. I am sure she will love it.”

Elizabeth couldn’t help looking forward to Arabella coming, even if she did sound rather goody-goody. She put flowers into the room her new friend was to have, and put beside the bed some of her own favourite books.

“It will be rather fun to tell someone all about Whyteleafe School,” she thought. “I’m so proud of Whyteleafe. I think it’s marvellous. And oh—I’m to be a monitor next term!”

Impatient, hot-tempered Elizabeth had actually been chosen to be a monitor for the coming term. It had been a great surprise to her, and she had been happier about that than about anything else in her life. She had often thought about it in the holidays, and planned how good and trustworthy and wise she would be next term.

“No quarrels with anyone—no bad tempers—no silly flare-ups!” said Elizabeth to herself. She knew her own faults very well. Indeed, all the children at Whyteleafe knew their faults, for it was part of the rule of the school that every child should be helped with his faults—and how could anyone be helped if his faults were not known?

The next day Elizabeth watched from the window for Arabella to come. In the afternoon a rather grand car drew up at the front door. The chauffeur got out and opened the car door—and out stepped someone who looked more like a little princess than a school-girl!

“Golly!” said Elizabeth to herself, and looked down at her own school tunic of navy blue with its bright yellow badge. “Golly! I shall never be able to live up to Arabella!”

Arabella was dressed in a beautiful blue coat with a white fur collar. She wore white fur gloves and a round white fur hat on her fair curls. Her eyes were very blue indeed and had dark lashes that curled up. She had a rather haughty look on her pink and white face as she stepped out of the car.

She looked at Elizabeth’s house as if she didn’t like it very much. The chauffeur rang the bell, and put a trunk and a bag down on the step.

Elizabeth had meant to rush down and give Arabella a hearty welcome. She had decided to call her “Bella” because she thought Arabella rather a stupid name—“like a doll’s name,” thought Elizabeth. But somehow she didn’t feel like calling her “Bella” now.

“Arabella suits her better after all,” thought Elizabeth. “She is rather like a doll with her golden curls and blue eyes, and lovely coat and hat. I don’t think I like her. In fact—I think I feel a bit afraid of her!”

This was queer, because Elizabeth was rarely afraid of anything or anyone. But she had never before met anyone quite like Arabella Buckley.

“Although she’s not much older than I am, she looks rather grown-up, and she walks like a grown-up—all proper—and I’m sure she talks like a grown-up too!” thought Elizabeth. “Oh dear, I don’t want to go down and talk to her.”

Mrs. Allen welcomed the visitor.

So she didn’t go down. The maid opened the door—and then Mrs. Allen, Elizabeth’s mother, came hurrying forward to welcome the visitor.

She kissed Arabella, and asked her if she had had a tiring journey.

“Oh no, thank you,” said Arabella, in a clear, smooth voice. “Our car is very comfortable, and I had plenty of sandwiches to eat halfway here. It is so kind of you to have me here, Mrs. Allen. I hear you have a girl about my age.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Allen. “She ought to be down here giving you a welcome. She said she would be. Elizabeth! Elizabeth, where are you? Arabella is here.”

Elizabeth ran down the stairs two at a time.

So Elizabeth had to go down. She ran down the stairs in her usual manner, two at a time, landing with a bump at the bottom. She held out her hand to Arabella, who seemed a little surprised at her very sudden appearance.

“Do come down the stairs properly,” said Mrs. Allen. It was a thing she said at least twelve times a day. Elizabeth never seemed able to remember to go anywhere quietly. Mrs. Allen hoped that this nice, well-mannered Arabella would teach Elizabeth some of her own quietness and politeness.

“Hallo,” said Elizabeth, and Arabella held out a limp hand for her to shake.

“Good afternoon,” she said. “How do you do?”

“Gracious!” thought Elizabeth, “I feel as if she’s Princess High-and-Mighty come to pay a call on one of her poor subjects. In a minute she’ll be offering me a bowl of hot soup or a warm shawl.”

Still—it might be that Arabella was only feeling shy. Some people did go all stiff and proper when they felt shy. Elizabeth thought she had better give Arabella a chance before making up her mind about her.

“After all, I’m always making up my mind about people—and then having to unmake it because I am wrong,” thought the little girl. “I’ve made an awful lot of mistakes about people at Whyteleafe School in the last two terms. I’ll be careful now.”

So she smiled at Arabella and took her up to her room to wash and have a talk.

“I expect you didn’t like saying good-bye to your mother, when she went off to America,” said Elizabeth in a pleasant voice. “That was bad luck. But it’s good luck for you to be going to Whyteleafe School. I can tell you that!”

“I shall be able to judge whether it is or not when I get there,” said Arabella. “I hope to goodness there are decent children there.”

“Of course there are—and if they are horrid when they first come, we soon make them all right,” said Elizabeth. “We had one or two boys who were awful—but now they are my best friends.”

“Boys! Did you say boys!” said Arabella in the greatest horror. “I thought this was a girls’ school I was going to. I hate boys!”

“It’s a mixed school—boys and girls together,” said Elizabeth. “It’s fun. You won’t hate boys after a bit. You soon get used to them.”

“If my mother had known there were boys at the school, I am sure she would not have sent me,” said Arabella in a tight, prim little voice. “Rough, ill-mannered creatures—dirty and untidy, with shouting voices!”

“Oh, well—even the girls get dirty and untidy sometimes,” said Elizabeth patiently, “and as for shouting—you should just hear me when I’m watching a school match!”

“It sounds a terrible school to me,” said Arabella. “I had hoped Mother would send me to Grey Towers, where two of my friends had gone—it’s such a nice school. They all have their own pretty bedrooms—and wonderful food. In fact, the girls are treated like princesses.”

“Well—if you think you’ll be treated like a princess at Whyteleafe, you’ll jolly well find out you’re wrong!” said Elizabeth sharply. “You’ll be treated as what you are—a little girl like me, with lots of things to learn! And if you put on any airs there, you’ll soon be sorry, let me tell you that, Miss High-and-Mighty!”

“I think you are very rude, considering that I am a visitor, and have only just come,” said Arabella, looking down her nose in a way that made Elizabeth feel very angry. “If that’s the sort of manners they teach you at Whyteleafe, I am quite sure I shan’t want to stay there more than a term.”

“I jolly well hope you don’t stay a week!” said hot-tempered Elizabeth at once. She was sorry the moment after.

“Oh dear!” she said to herself. “What a bad beginning! I really must be careful!”