Читать книгу The Naughtiest Girl is a Monitor - Enid blyton - Страница 7

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All the new children settled down as the days went on. Julian set about making the new barrow in a very workmanlike way. He explored the various sheds, and brought out an old rubber wheel that had once belonged to somebody’s tricycle. He found some odd bits of wood and other odds and ends, and took them all to the carpentering room.

The children heard him whistling there as he hammered away. Then they heard the creaking of a barrow being wheeled up and down.

“Golly! Has he finished it already?” said Harry in surprise. “He’s a marvel!”

But he hadn’t, of course. He was only making one of his noises. His green eyes twinkled as the children peeped round the door. He loved a joke.

The boys and girls crowded round him, exclaiming in admiration.

“Julian! It’s going to be a marvellous barrow! Julian, how clever you are!”

“No, I’m not,” said Julian, laughing. “I was bottom of the form this week. Didn’t you hear?”

“Well, the barrow is fine, anyway,” said Belinda. “It’s just as good as a real one.”

Julian cared for neither praise nor blame. He had not offered to make the barrow because he was sorry that the youngsters hadn’t one. He had offered to make it simply because he knew he could, and he would enjoy making it.

Julian was very well liked, for all his don’t-care ways. But Arabella was not. She would make friends with no one but the little meek Rosemary. Rosemary thought the lovely well-mannered girl was like a princess. She followed her everywhere, listened eagerly to all she said and agreed with everything.

“I think this is a stupid school,” Arabella said to Rosemary many times. “Think of the silly rules it has—all the sillier because they are made by the children themselves.”

Up till then Rosemary had thought that the reason the rules were so good was because they had been made by the boys and girls. But now she agreed with Arabella at once.

“Yes. They are silly.”

“Especially the one about putting all our money into the school money-box,” said Arabella.

This had not mattered much to Rosemary, who had only had two shillings and sixpence to put in. Her parents were not very well off, and she had not been given much money at any time. Still, she agreed with Arabella, of course.

“Yes, that’s a very silly rule,” she said. “Especially for people like you, Arabella, who have to give up so much money. It’s a shame. I saw you put in the ten-shilling note and the two shillings.”

Arabella looked at Rosemary and wondered if she could trust her—for Arabella had a secret. She had not put in all her money! She had kept a whole pound note for herself, so that, with the two shillings she had been allowed, she had twenty-two shillings. She was not going to give that up for anyone! It was hidden in her handkerchief case, neatly folded up in a hanky.

“No,” she thought. “I won’t tell Rosemary yet. I don’t know her very well, and although she is my friend, she’s a bit silly sometimes. I’ll keep my own secret.”

So she told no one. But she and Rosemary went down to the town together that day to buy stamps, and a hair-grip for Rosemary—and Arabella could not help spending some of her money!

“You go to the post-office and buy your stamps, and I’ll go and buy some chocolates at the sweet-shop,” she said to Rosemary. She did not want the other girl to see her buying expensive chocolates, and handing over three or four shillings for them.

Arabella bought a pound of peppermint chocolates.

So, whilst Rosemary was buying a tuppenny-ha’penny stamp in the post-office, Arabella slipped into the big sweet-shop and bought a pound of peppermint chocolates, the kind she loved.

She saw a bottle of barley-sugar too, and bought that. Lovely! Then, as Rosemary didn’t come, she went into the shop next door, and bought herself a book.

The two girls wandered round the town a little while, and then went back to school. “You know,” said Arabella, linking her arm in Rosemary’s, “you know, that’s another silly Whyteleafe rule—that no one is allowed to go down to the town alone unless she’s a monitor or in the higher forms.”

“Awfully silly,” agreed Rosemary. Arabella undid the bag of chocolates. “Have one?” she said.

“Oooh, Arabella—what a lovely lot of chocolates!” said Rosemary, her rather small eyes opening wide. “Golly, you must have spent all your two shillings at once!”

They went in at the school gate, munching chocolates. They were really delicious. Arabella shut up the bag and stuffed it into her winter coat pocket. She did not want the others to see what a lot of chocolates she had, in case they might guess she had spent more than two shillings on them.

She went to take off her hat and coat. Jenny was putting hers on, and when Arabella put the book she had bought down on the bench between them, Jenny picked it up.

“Lend this book to me, will you, Arabella?” asked Jenny.

“Hallo! I always wanted to read this book. Lend it to me, will you, Arabella?”

“Well, I haven’t read it myself yet,” said Arabella. “I only bought it this afternoon.”

Jenny looked at the price inside the cover, and whistled. “It’s a three-and-sixpenny book. How could you buy that with two shillings?”

“I got it cheap,” said Arabella, after a moment’s pause. She went red as she said it, and sharp-eyed Jenny saw the blush. She said no more, but went off, thinking hard.

“The mean thing! She didn’t put all her money into the box!” thought Jenny.

Rosemary annoyed Arabella very much that evening when they were in the common-room together, because she gave away the fact that Arabella had bought the chocolate peppermints! She did not mean to, of course—but she did it, all the same!

The children were talking about the sweet-shop, which they all loved, and where they all spent money each week.

“I think those boiled sweets are the best bargain,” said Jenny.

“Oh no—those clear gums last much the longest,” said Belinda.

“Not if you chew them,” said Harry. “I bet if you sucked a boiled sweet properly, right to the end without crunching it up, and after that sucked a clear gum without chewing at all, there wouldn’t be much to choose between them.”

“Let’s have a competition and see,” said John.

“It’s no good me trying,” said Jenny. “I always crunch everything, and it goes like lightning down my throat.”

“I think the best bargain of all is chocolate peppermints,” suddenly said Rosemary’s meek little voice.

Everyone laughed scornfully. “Idiot!” said Julian. “You only get about five for sixpence. They are most awfully expensive.”

“They’re not,” said Rosemary, “really they are not. Arabella, show them the enormous bagful you got to-day at the shop.”

This was the last thing that Arabella wanted to do. She frowned heavily at Rosemary.

“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I only got a few. They are expensive.”

Rosemary was amazed. Hadn’t she taken one herself from an overflowing bag? She opened her mouth to say so, but caught sight of Arabella’s warning face and stopped.

The others had listened to all this with much interest. They felt perfectly certain that Arabella had spent a lot of money on the chocolates, and Jenny remembered the book too. She looked sharply at Arabella.

But Arabella was now looking her usual calm self, rather haughty. “You’re a deceitful person, in spite of your grand, high-and-mighty ways,” thought Jenny to herself. “I bet you’ve got those chocolates hidden away somewhere, so that no one shall know you spent a lot of money on them. I’ll find them too—just see if I won’t!”

Arabella got up in a few minutes and went out. She soon came back, carrying a small paper bag in which were six or seven chocolate peppermints. “These are all I got for my money,” she said graciously. “I’m afraid there isn’t enough for one each—but we could divide them in half.”

But nobody wanted any. It was an unwritten rule at Whyteleafe that if you didn’t like a person, you didn’t accept things from them. So everyone except Rosemary said No. Rosemary took one, feeling puzzled and astonished. She knew she had seen a much bigger bag of chocolate peppermints before. Could she have been mistaken?

Jenny grinned to herself. Arabella must think they were all stupid if she thought she could make the other boys and girls believe she had only bought a few sweets—when that silly little Rosemary had given the secret away! She wondered where Arabella could have hidden the rest of the chocolates.

She thought she knew. Arabella learnt music and had a big music-case. Jenny had seen her go to it that afternoon, although she had neither lesson or practice to do. Why?

“Because she wanted to put her chocs there,” thought Jenny. She slipped off to the music-room, where everyone kept their music. She took up Arabella’s case and peeped inside it. The chocolate peppermints were there, where Arabella had hurriedly emptied them.

Richard came into the room whilst she was looking. “See Richard,” said Jenny, in a tone of disgust, “Arabella has kept some money back—and bought heaps of chocs and a book—and told all kinds of lies.”

“Well, make a complaint at the Meeting, then,” said Richard, taking up his case and going out.

Jenny stood and thought for a moment. “Would a complaint at the Meeting be thought a tale?” she wondered. She had better ask the others before saying anything. But she wouldn’t tell Elizabeth—not yet, anyhow—because Arabella had been staying with Elizabeth, and it might be awkward for the new monitor if she knew about Arabella.

So Jenny told the others, when Elizabeth, Rosemary, and Arabella were not there. They were really disgusted.

“I’m sure it would be a proper complaint,” said Harry. “All the same, it’s rather awful to have your name brought up at the Meeting quite so soon in the term, just when you’re still new. Let’s just show Arabella that we think her jolly mean. She’ll soon guess why—and at the next Meeting I bet she’ll pop all her money into the Box!”

Then poor Arabella was in for a bad time! For the first time in her life she knew what it was to be with children who didn’t like her at all, and who showed it!