Читать книгу The Naughtiest Girl is a Monitor - Enid blyton - Страница 5

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One of the exciting things about a new term is—are there any new children? What are they like? Whose form will they be in?

All the old children looked to see who was new. Arabella was, of course. Then there were three more, two of them boys, and one a girl.

Elizabeth, as a monitor, made it her business to make the new children feel at home. As soon as they arrived at Whyteleafe she set things going.

“Kathleen, show Arabella her dormitory, and tell her the rules. I’ll help the other three. Robert, will you give a hand too? You will have two new boys to see to to-day.”

“Right,” said Robert, grinning. He had grown in the holidays and was tall and burly now. He was glad to be back at school, for at Whyteleafe were the horses he loved so much. He hoped that he would be allowed to take charge of some of them, as he had been the term before.

Elizabeth turned to the new children. Arabella had already gone off with Kathleen, looking rather scared. The other three new ones stood together, one boy making rather a curious noise, like a hen clucking.

“That’s just like a hen clucking,” said Elizabeth. “You sound as if you’ve laid an egg!”

The boy grinned. “I can imitate most animals,” he said. “My name’s Julian Holland. What’s yours?”

Elizabeth looked at the new boy with interest.

“Elizabeth Allen,” said Elizabeth. She looked at the new boy with interest. He was the untidiest person she had ever seen. He had long black hair that fell in a wild lock over his forehead, and his eyes were deep green, and brilliant, like a cat’s. “He looks jolly clever,” said Elizabeth to herself. “I bet he’ll be top of the class if he’s with Miss Ranger.”

The boy made a noise like a turkey gobbling. Mr. Lewis, the music-master, was passing by, and looked round, startled. Julian at once made a noise like a violin being tuned, which made Mr. Lewis hurry into the nearest music-practice room, thinking that someone must be there with a violin.

Elizabeth gave a squeal of laughter. “Oh! You are clever! I hope you’re in my form.”

The other boy, Martin, was quite different. He looked very clean and neat and tidy. His hair was well-brushed back from his forehead, and his eyes were a very clear blue. They were set a little close together, but they had a very wide and innocent expression. Elizabeth liked him.

“I’m Martin Follett,” he said in a pleasant voice.

“And I’m Rosemary Wing,” said the new girl, rather shyly. She had a pretty little face, with a smiling mouth, but her eyes were rather small, and she did not seem to like to look anyone full in the face. Elizabeth thought she must feel very shy. Well, she would soon get over that.

“Robert, you take Julian and Martin to the boys’ dormitories,” she said, “and I’ll take Rosemary to hers. Hang on to them till they know their way about, won’t you, and show them where they have their meals and things like that.”

“Right, Monitor,” said Robert, with another grin. Elizabeth felt proud. It was grand to be a monitor.

“Are you a monitor?” asked Rosemary.

“Oh, are you a monitor?” asked Rosemary, trotting after Elizabeth. “That’s something very special, isn’t it?”

“It is rather,” said Elizabeth. “I’m your monitor, Rosemary. So, if ever you are in any difficulty or trouble, you must come to me and tell me—and I’ll try and help you.”

“I thought we had to bring our troubles or complaints to the Weekly Meeting,” said Rosemary. She had heard about this in the train that day.

“Oh yes; but at first you had better tell me what you’d like to bring before the Meeting,” said Elizabeth, “because, you see, we are only allowed to bring proper difficulties or complaints to the Meeting—not just tales. You might not know the difference between just telling tales and bringing a real complaint.”

“I see,” said Rosemary. “That’s a very good idea. I’ll do that.”

“She’s a nice little thing,” thought Elizabeth, as she showed Rosemary where to put her things and told her to put out her tooth-brush, hair-brush and nightdress. “By the way, Rosemary, we are only allowed to have six things out on our dressing-tables, not more. You can choose what you like.”

It was fun to give out the rules like this. Elizabeth remembered how Nora, her own monitor two terms ago, had told her the rules—and how she had disobeyed them at once by putting out eleven things! She wondered now how she could have been so silly—how she could have dared!

“Yes, Elizabeth,” said Rosemary obediently and she counted the things to put out.

In the next dormitory Kathleen was having trouble with Arabella, who was very scornful about all the rules told her.

“Well, there are not many,” said Kathleen, “and after all, we make the rules ourselves, so we ought to obey them, Arabella. I’ll fetch Elizabeth here, if you like—she is the monitor and can tell you the rules properly.”

“I don’t want to see Elizabeth,” said Arabella at once. “I saw her quite enough in the holidays. I only hope I’m not in the same form.”

Kathleen had a great admiration for Elizabeth, although she had hated her part of the term before. She spoke up at once.

“You’d better not say things like that about our monitors. We choose them ourselves because we like and admire them. Anyway, it’s bad manners to talk like that about somebody whose guest you have just been.”

Arabella had never in her life been accused of bad manners before. She went quite pale and could think of nothing to say. She looked at Kathleen and decided that she didn’t like her. In fact, she didn’t think she liked anyone at all, so far, except that little pretty girl called Rosemary—the one who was new. Perhaps she could make friends with her. Arabella felt sure that Rosemary would be most impressed with her tales of wealth, rich clothes, and marvellous holidays.

The next few days everyone settled down. A few were homesick, but Whyteleafe was such a sensible school and the children were so jolly and friendly that even new boys and girls found it hard to miss their homes. There was laughter and chatter to be heard everywhere.

All the new children were in Elizabeth’s class. Good! It was fun to have new children, and now that Elizabeth was a monitor, it was nice to impress Julian and the others. Joan had gone up into the next class, so Elizabeth was the only monitor in hers.

Miss Ranger, the form-mistress, soon sized up the new children, and talked them over with Mam’zelle.

“Julian is a lazy boy,” she said. “A pity, because I’m sure he has a wonderful brain. He thinks of plenty of clever things to do outside lessons. He can make simply anything with his hands. I saw him showing the others a little aeroplane he had made—it flies beautifully. All his own ideas are in it, none of them copied. He’ll spend hours thinking out things like that—but not one minute will he spend on learning his geography or history!”

“Ah, that Julian,” said Mam’zelle, in a tone of great disgust. “I do not like him. Always he makes some extraordinary noise.”

“Noise?” said Miss Ranger in surprise. “Well, I must say he hasn’t tried out any extraordinary noises on me yet. But I dare say he will.”

“Yesterday, in my class, there was a noise like a lost kitten,” said Mam’zelle. “Ah, the poor thing!” I said. “It has come into our big classroom and got lost. And for ten minutes I looked for it. But it was that boy Julian doing his mews.”

“Really?” said Miss Ranger, making up her mind that Julian would not do any mews or barks or whines in her class. “Well, thanks for the tip. I’ll look out for Julian’s noises!”

The talk passed on to Arabella. “A silly, empty-headed doll,” said Miss Ranger. “I hope we can make something out of her. She really ought to be in the next class, but she is rather backward, so I must push her on a bit before she goes up. She seems to have a very high opinion of herself! She is always doing her hair, or smoothing down her dress—or else trying to show us what perfect manners she has!”

“She is not bad, that one,” said Mam’zelle, who was quite pleased with Arabella because the girl had lived for a year in France and could speak French well. “In my country, Miss Ranger, the children have better manners than the children here—and it is pleasant to see one with manners as good as Arabella’s.”

“Hm,” said Miss Ranger, who knew that Mam’zelle would rarely have anything to say against children who spoke French well. “What do you think of Martin—and Rosemary?”

“Oh, the sweet children!” said Mam’zelle, who loved Rosemary’s willingness to please, and to obey her in everything. “The little Martin now—he is so good, he tries so hard.”

“Well, I’m not so sure about him,” said Miss Ranger. “Rosemary is all right, I think—but she’s a weak little thing. I hope she’ll make the right friends. I wish Elizabeth Allen or Jenny would make friends with her.”

So the teachers sized up their new children—and the old children sized them up too. Julian was an enormous success. He was a real dare-devil, with most extraordinary gifts which he used when he pleased. He had a wonderful brain, inventive and brilliant, and he could make all kind of things, and think of all kinds of amusing tricks which he was quite prepared to perform in class as soon as he had settled down a bit.

“It’s a shame you are so low in form, Julian,” said Elizabeth at the end of a week. “You’ve got such marvellous brains. You ought to be top!”

Julian looked at her with his brilliant green eyes. “Can’t be bothered,” he said in his slow, deep voice. “Who wants to learn history dates? I’ll forget them all when I’m grown. Who wants to learn the highest mountains in the world? I’ll never climb them, so I don’t care. Lessons are a bore.”

Elizabeth remembered that she was a monitor. She spoke earnestly to Julian.

“Julian, do work hard. Do try to be top.”

Julian laughed. “You’re just saying that because you’ve remembered you’re a monitor! You can’t catch me with goody-goody talk like that! You’ll have to think of some jolly good reason for me to work hard before I do!”

Elizabeth went red. She didn’t like being called goody-goody. She turned away.

But Julian came after her. “It’s all right, I’m only teasing,” he said. “Listen, Elizabeth—Joan, your best friend, has gone up into the next form—so why can’t we be friends? You’ve got the best brain in the form—after mine, of course!—and you’re fun. You be my friend.”

“All right,” said Elizabeth, rather proud that the brilliant and unusual Julian should ask her. “All right. We’ll be friends. It will be fun.”

It was fun—but it brought a lot of trouble too!