13 a shock—and a nice little plot

alicia remembered to ask june about the magnet. june grinned at her, put her hand into the pocket of her navy-blue knickers and pulled out the neat, powerful little magnet.

alicia took it. it was very heavy. she slid it along the desk. a large pencil-sharpener appeared almost to leap through the air and fasten itself on the magnet. then a compass came, and two or three pen-nibs.

“we played the trick on mam’zelle rougier again,” said june. “harriet did it that time. we did it a bit differently, and it was just as funny.”

“what happened?” asked alicia.

“well, the hair-pins came out again, of course,” said june, smiling broadly. “and harriet quickly took them off the magnet, and dropped them by the door when she went back to her place. mam’zelle rougier felt her hair going down her back and put up her hand to see, of course. she couldn’t find a single pin and looked absolutely horrified.

“then felicity put up her hand and said she had seen some hair-pins down by the door, and were they mam’zelle’s by any chance?

“mam’zelle simply couldn’t understand how they had got there. we offered all kinds of explanation. i said mam’zelle must have dropped them coming in. harriet said she didn’t think they could be mam’zelle’s, and how lucky it was that somebody else had dropped hair-pins in our classroom, and . . .”

“mam’zelle rougier will be smelling rats if you offer too many explanations,” said alicia, with a laugh.

“i think she does smell a rat, actually,” said june. “she keeps on and on putting up her hand to her hair to see if it’s still up, and she fingers her hair-pins all day long to make sure they’re still there! and she looks frightfully suspiciously at us now!”

“i wish i could see it played on mam’zelle dupont,” sighed alicia. “she’s the one that would be the funniest.”

“yes. it’s a pity sixth-formers are too high and mighty to play a little joke,” said june. “i hope i’m not like that if ever i get into the sixth.”

“you won’t be much good if you aren’t,” said alicia. “well—it’s a good trick. i’d like to have had it when i was in the second form. i think i’d have used it to more effect than you appear to have, though!”

she went off. june looked after her. now how would alicia have used it to better effect? it couldn’t be done! june put the magnet back slowly into her pocket, her quick mind going over all that alicia had said.

she sought out felicity and susan, and the three of them put their heads together. jo came into the room and saw them. she went over, all agog at once.

“what’s the secret? what’s up?” she said.

“nothing,” said june.

“you might tell me,” said jo, offended. “i do think you’re mean. i’m always kept out of everything. i always share things. i’m planning to have a first-class feast next week. look—i’ve got five pounds!”

for about the fourth time that day she took the pound notes out of the leg of her knickers to show the others. she did not dare to keep them in her drawer in case matron found them and removed them.

“we’ve seen them too many times already,” said felicity, bored. “what’s your father going to send you for your birthday? a rolls-royce? or a string of race-horses? or will he be too mean for words and only send you a real pearl necklace?”

jo turned away angrily. how was it she never never could learn not to show off? felicity wondered. did she take after her parents so closely that she had all their mannerisms and habits too?

a most unfortunate thing happened to jo just after she had left the common-room. the elastic of her knicker leg broke—and it happened to be the one up which she kept the pound notes! no doubt much pulling down of the notes and pushing up again had weakened the elastic. anyway, it quietly broke in two, and jo didn’t know it.

she wandered down the corridor, feeling the familiar sensation of being left out in the cold. what had those three been mumbling about? why didn’t they tell her? she determined to go and find deirdre and talk against the second-formers once more. deirdre was always a willing listener, and a more than willing sharer of jo’s many goodies.

matron came out of her room just as jo had passed. she was most astonished to see a pound note lying on the floor. she picked it up. it had fallen out of jo’s knicker leg, of course, and jo hadn’t noticed it. matron stuffed it into her pocket and went on again. she came across a second pound note, lying in the middle of the corridor. how very extraordinary!

matron became suspicious. were they real pound notes—or was this somebody’s joke? were there bright eyes watching her pick them up? matron glanced round, but there was no one to be seen at all. she looked at the notes. they certainly seemed genuine enough.

she was really amazed when she came across the third one. it was just round the corner, and lay there, flapping a little in the draught of the corridor. matron picked it up thoughtfully. surely they couldn’t belong to any of the girls? nobody had so much at once!

“three pounds,” she said to herself. “three pounds—and not given in to me! and how did they come to be here, lying around like this!”

the last two notes lay together in a corner of the corridor near the garden door. matron pounced on them. “five now! well, well, well—somebody very rich has been walking along here—but why cast away so much money?”

matron looked out of the door. she saw two figures in the distance—deirdre and jo talking together earnestly.

a light dawned on matron. of course! jo! some of her wealthy relations had been providing her with illicit pocket-money again. but five pounds! how foolish jo’s people were. they were ruining her with their silly, extravagant ideas!

jo must have dropped them. matron stood by the door and frowned. had jo any more money than this? she should, of course, have given it in to matron—that was the strict rule. she saw jo pull up her tunic and slip her hand into her knicker-leg. ah—so that was where the money was kept!

and then, of course, jo found the broken elastic round the leg—and no pound notes! she gave a cry of horror and alarm.

matron disappeared. she went back to her room. she put the money into her safe and wrote out a notice in her firm, clear handwriting.

meantime jo looked at deirdre in horror when she discovered her money was gone. “look—the elastic’s broken. i must have dropped the notes. come on, quickly—we must look for them! they can’t be far away.”

but, of course, the notes were gone. not one could poor jo find. she wept in dismay, and deirdre tried to comfort her.

jo met june, felicity and susan coming down the corridor, looking very pleased with themselves. they had made a very nice little plan, with the magnet as the centre of it! jo rushed up to them.

“i’ve lost my pound notes—all of them! do you know if anyone’s found them?”

“there’ll soon be a notice put up on the big board, if anyone has,” said felicity, and the three went on, not at all inclined to let jo weep on their necks.

“beasts! unkind beasts!” said jo. “why did i ever come here? deirdre, you’re the only decent person in the school—the only one i can depend on. i’ve a good mind to run away.”

deirdre had heard this many times before. “oh no,” she said comfortingly. “you mustn’t do that, jo dear. don’t say things like that!”

felicity and the others laughed to see jo on her knees in the corridor, still searching for the notes, when they came back. they had already seen matron’s notice put up on the big board. what a shock for jo, when she knew who had found her money!

“look on the notice-board,” said june. “someone has found your money, jo, you’ll be glad to know. you can get it back in two minutes!”

thankfully jo got to her feet and rushed off with deirdre to read the notice. june laughed. “i wonder what matron will say to jo,” she said. “that is—if jo dares to go and ask for the money!”

but jo didn’t interest them for more than a minute. they were too pleased with their plot to forget it for long. they had been looking for nora to tell it to. nora would be sure to laugh her head off!

they found her at last. “listen, nora,” said june. “you know my cousin alicia? well, she saw our magnet today and she said if she had had it she would have played a much better trick than we did—and she was moaning and groaning because she’s in the sixth and they’re too priggish to play tricks any more.”

“so we decided we’d give the sixth form a treat,” broke in felicity. “and one of us is going to appear in their room with a message to mam’zelle dupont, when she’s taking a lesson there—and abstract all her pins, and then go.”

“and mam’zelle will think one of them has been up to something,” said susan. “they simply won’t know what to do!”

“we thought we might do it twice or three times, just to show the sixth we play our tricks as well as they could,” said june.

nora went off into squeals of laughter. “oh, let me be the one to go,” she begged. “do, do, do! i swear i won’t giggle. it’s only when i’m with the second form i keep wanting to laugh, and can’t stop. i’ll be as solemn as a judge if you’ll let me go.”

“well, we thought we would choose you,” said june. “mam’zelle might suspect us—we’ve played tricks on her before—but she’d never suspect you—you’re one of her favourites too, so she’ll be quite pleased to see you.”

nora was the fluffy-haired big-eyed type that mam’zelle always loved. she twinkled at the three plotters. “i’ll do it!” she said, with a chuckle. “i’ll do it three times if you want me to!”

“oh no—somebody else must do it next,” said june. “we don’t want mam’zelle to get suspicious—and she would if you kept on appearing!”

“especially if her hair fell down each time,” giggled susan. “golly, i wish i was going to be there!”

“here comes jo!” whispered june. “my word, she looks petrified!”

jo was petrified! she had gone to the notice-board and had seen matron’s notice at once.

will the person who dropped five pounds in notes along the corridor please come to me?

matron.

jo could have dropped through the floor. matron! now whatever was she to do? if there was one person poor jo really dreaded, it was matron!