8 the magnet trick

darrell would not let gwen and her obstinacy spoil more than a day of her precious last term! she brooded over the interview in her study for a few hours, wishing she could have done better with gwen—and then put it right out of her mind.

“i know i can’t do anything more, so what’s the good of worrying about it?” she thought, sensibly. she turned her thoughts to more interesting things—tennis matches—swimming matches—half-term, when her parents came down—and she also thought about a secret that felicity had giggled out to her the day before.

“oh, darrell. do listen! susan’s heard of a lovely trick from june. it’s so simple and so safe.”

darrell grinned. it was good being high up in school, and an important member of the sixth form—but it did mean that tricks and jokes were no longer possible or permissible. it just wasn’t done in the sixth, to play a trick on any mistress. the mere thought of playing one on the dignified, scholarly miss oakes was impossible.

but there was no reason why the younger ones shouldn’t have their bit of fun, as they had in darrell’s own time. so darrell grinned and listened, as felicity poured out her bit of news in a secluded corner of the garden.

“june’s getting a magnet,” she said. “it’s a very special one, treated in a special way to make it frightfully powerful. it’s very small too, june says—small enough to be hidden in the palm of your hand.”

“well? what do you intend to do with it?” asked darrell. there didn’t seem to be great possibilities in such an ordinary thing as a magnet.

felicity began to giggle again. “well, you just listen, darrell,” she said. “you know how the two mam’zelles wear their hair, don’t you—in little buns?”

darrell nodded, puzzled. she couldn’t for the life of her see what buns of hair and a magnet had to do with each other.

“mam’zelle rougier has hers at the back, and mam’zelle dupont has hers near the top of her head,” said felicity. “and they both stick their buns full of hair-pins.”

darrell stared at her younger sister, and a light began to dawn. “you don’t mean—oh, i say, felicity—you wouldn’t dare to hold the magnet near either of the mam’zelles’ heads and make the hair-pins come out!” she said.

felicity nodded, her eyes dancing. “yes. that’s the idea,” she said. “oh, darrell! isn’t it smashing? it’s super.”

darrell began to laugh. “it’s wonderful!” she said. “fancy us never thinking of such a simple trick as that. felicity, when are you going to do it? oh, i wish i could see it! i wish i could do it myself!”

“you can’t. you’re head-girl,” said felicity, sounding quite shocked. “but you could make some excuse, couldn’t you, to come and see us play the trick? we thought we’d do it on mam’zelle dupont and on mam’zelle rougier just as many times as they’d stand for it, without getting suspicious.”

“i should think they’d jolly soon get suspicious,” said darrell. “especially mam’zelle rougier. you’d better be careful of her, felicity. she’s not got the sense of humour that mam’zelle dupont has.”

“we’ll be careful,” said felicity. “well—can you make an excuse to pop into our classroom, if we tell you when we’re going to do the trick?”

“i’ll try,” said darrell. but she felt sure she wouldn’t be able to. mam’zelle might be rather astonished if she kept appearing in the second-form room every time her hair-pins came out!

darrell told the rest of the form, with the exception of gwen and maureen, whom nobody ever trusted enough to let into even the simplest secret. amanda was there too, and to everyone’s surprise, she suddenly guffawed. like her voice, her laugh was very loud, and it made everyone jump. they hadn’t heard the stuck-up amanda laugh before—she was too busy looking down her nose at everything!

“that’s great,” said amanda. “we did things like that at trenigan, too.”

“did you?” said darrell, in surprise, and trenigan went a little way up in her rather low estimation of it. “what tricks did you play?”

for the first time amanda opened out a little, and an animated conversation began about tricks—good ones and bad ones, safe ones and dangerous ones, ones likely to be too easily spotted, and ones that never were spotted. it was a most interesting conversation.

amanda had to admit that malory towers was better at tricks than trenigan had been.

“oh well—it’s because of alicia, really, that we got such fine tricks,” said sally. “alicia’s got three brothers, and one of them, sam, always used to send her good tricks he used himself. alicia—do you remember the sneezing trick?”

“oh yes,” said alicia. “it was a tiny pellet, amanda, which we stuck somewhere near mam’zelle—on the wall or anywhere, it didn’t matter—and when you put a few drops of salt water on it, it sent off an invisible vapour that made people sneeze—and you should have heard mam’zelle sneeze!”

“a-whooooooosh-ooo!” said sally, suddenly, and everyone jumped. sally grinned. “just like that,” she said. “and poor mam’zelle went on and on and on, till she was scared out of her life.”

“oh dear—how we laughed. i envy those lower-form kids,” said alicia, putting on a comical look. “no dignity to keep up, no responsibilities like ours, no necessity to set an example to the whole school. and that wonderful magnet trick to play!”

“your young cousin june is certainly keeping up the family tradition,” said mary-lou. “when are they going to do this absurd trick?”

it was fixed for a thursday morning, at the end of the french lesson. this was the last lesson before break and after it the girls would be able to go out into the hall and laugh their heads off, if they needed to!

“who takes the lesson? mam’zelle dupont or mam’zelle rougier?” asked darrell, hoping it was the plump, jolly mam’zelle dupont.

but it wasn’t. it was the thin, rather bad-tempered mam’zelle rougier. what in the world would she think when her hair fell down and her pins disappeared?

the second-formers planned it all carefully. they decided that june must not play the trick. all the teachers were suspicious of her. somebody else must do the trick.

“shall i?” said felicity. “or what about susan? susan’s always so good in class that nobody would ever suspect her of such a thing.”

“i’m not always good,” said susan, quite hurt at this compliment. “anyway, i don’t want to do the trick. i giggle too easily.”

“nobody must laugh,” warned june. “once we laugh we shall be suspected, and we shan’t be able to play the trick again.”

“but how can we not laugh?” asked nora, who was given to sudden snorts, like irene’s. “i mean—laughing is like sneezing or coughing. you can’t stop it coming, if it wants to.”

“yes, you can,” said june, firmly. she had wonderful control over herself, and could keep a straight face during the most comical happenings. “if you feel you are going to give the game away, you’d better go out of the room just before we do the trick. see?”

“oh, i couldn’t. i simply couldn’t miss it,” said nora. “i won’t laugh. i’ll take three or four hankies and stuff them into my mouth.”

thursday came. lessons began. the french lesson came, and mam’zelle rougier walked into the room, her heavy tread sounding all the way down the corridor. june was holding open the door. a little snort came from nora, whose pockets were bulging with handkerchiefs.

“shut up!” said several people, in loud whispers. nora looked round, ready to snort again, but met such fierce glares that she subsided.

mam’zelle rougier came in “asseyez-vous,” she said, in her sharp, crisp voice. the class obeyed, sitting down with much scraping of chairs. they looked at mam’zelle rougier, suspiciously bright-eyed.

but mam’zelle rougier was used to facing dozens of bright, laughing eyes. she snapped out her instructions. “page thirty-three. i hope you have prepared the lesson well.” she repeated it slowly in french. “nora, please begin.”

nora was bad at french. she suddenly lost all desire to laugh, and stood up, stammering through the french translation. one by one the others followed. mam’zelle rougier was in a bad temper. words of anger came from her more readily than words of praise that morning! the class felt very pleased she was going to have a trick played on her!

just before the end of the lesson, mam’zelle gave her usual order. “clean the blackboard, please.”

susan stood up. she had the powerful little magnet inside the palm of her hand. it had already been tried out on many things, with most miraculous results.

susan walked steadily to the board near mam’zelle. mam’zelle had opened her desk and was rummaging in it for a book. it was a wonderful chance to use the magnet at once!

susan held the magnet to mam’zelle’s head

watched by twenty-three breathless second-formers, susan held the magnet to the back of mam’zelle’s head. she held it about two inches away from the bun of hair on mam’zelle’s neck, as she had been instructed.

before her delighted eyes, every one of the rather large hair-pins that mam’zelle rougier used for her bun flew out, and attached themselves firmly and silently to the magnet. susan grinned at the class, went abruptly to the blackboard and cleaned it.

mam’zelle had apparently noticed nothing. the bell went, and she stood up. “dismiss!” she said, and the class dismissed, nora stuffing one of her handkerchiefs into her mouth already. they went to the big hall to get biscuits and milk, watching for mam’zelle to come too.

she came—and the second-formers gave a squeal of joy. “it’s coming down. the bun’s all undone!”

so it was. mam’zelle hadn’t noticed it—but miss peters saw it at once. she tapped mam’zelle on the shoulder and spoke to her. “your hair is coming down, mam’zelle,” she said.

mam’zelle put up her hand, and to her immense astonishment found that her bun was completely undone and hanging down her back! she groped about for the hair-pins to pin it up again.

there wasn’t a single hair-pin in her head! this was not surprising, as they were all on the magnet, which susan now had safely in her pocket! mam’zelle rougier felt frantically all over her head, and nora gave a muffled snort. she stuffed her second hanky in her mouth.

mam’zelle now began to feel down her neck, wondering if the hair-pins had disappeared down there. miss peters looked at her curiously.

“lost a hair-pin?” she said.

“i have lost them all!” said mam’zelle, filled with alarm and astonishment. she wondered if she could possibly have forgotten to do her hair that morning. had she gone into her classes with her hair down her back? she blushed red at the thought. what must the girls have thought?

she caught sight of the laughing second-formers, and saw nora stuffing her third hanky into her mouth. she turned hurriedly and almost ran from the hall.

“the girls were laughing! i did come into my classes without pinning up my hair,” said poor mam’zelle to herself. “what a thing to do! how could i have forgotten to pin it up? i haven’t a single pin in my hair!”

she went to her room and did her hair very carefully indeed. she had no suspicion at all that a trick had been played on her. but if she could have seen the wicked little second-formers laughing and rolling on a secluded piece of grass under the trees in the grounds, she would have felt very suspicious indeed!

“when she groped down her neck for the pins that weren’t there!” chuckled june. “and oh, miss peters’s face when she saw mam’zelle’s hair all down her back. i could have died.”

“let’s do it again,” begged felicity. “do, do let’s. it’s one of the funniest tricks we’ve ever thought of!”