17 jo and deirdre

the girls laughed and laughed. “it was that little monkey of a nora,” said alicia, again. “i saw the magnet in her hand. the cheek of it—a second-former coming right up into our room.”

“terribly funny though,” said clarissa, wiping her tears away. “i haven’t laughed so much for terms. i wish nora would do it again, with me looking!”

“poor mam’zelle—she was absolutely bewildered,” said mary-lou.

“ah ?a—c’est très piggy-hoo-leeeearr,” said suzanne, enjoying the joke thoroughly. “vairy, vairy, piggy-hoo-leeearrrrr. most scrumpleeeeecious!”

mam’zelle had shot into the little workroom she shared with miss potts, the first-form mistress. miss potts was mildly surprised to see mam’zelle appear so suddenly with her hair down her back—not more than mildly though, because in her years with mam’zelle miss potts had become used to various “piggy-hoo-lee-eearrr” behaviour at times from mam’zelle.

“miss potts! all my pins have went!” said mam’zelle, her grammar going too.

“pins? what pins?” said miss potts. “you don’t mean your hair-pins, do you? how could they go?”

“that i do not know,” said mam’zelle, staring at miss potts with such tragic eyes that miss potts wanted to laugh. “one moment my bun, he is there on top—the next he is all undone. and when i look for his pins, they are gone.”

this sounded like a trick to miss potts, and she said so.

“no, no, miss potts,” asserted mam’zelle. “not one girl left her place to come to me this afternoon, not one.”

“oh well,” said miss potts, dismissing the matter as one of the many unaccountable things that so often seemed to happen to mam’zelle. “i expect you didn’t put enough pins in, so your bun just came down.”

mam’zelle found some pins and pinned her bun up so firmly that it really looked very peculiar. but she wasn’t taking any risks this time! she went back to the classroom, with her dignity restored.

nora recounted what she had done, when she got back to the second-formers. they laughed. “i bet the sixth got a laugh when mam’zelle’s bun descended!” said june. “it’s a pity you couldn’t stay and see.”

the first sixth-former they saw was the french girl, suzanne. she came hurrying up to them, smiling.

“ah, you bad nora!” she cried, and went off into a stream of excited french. susan, who was good at french, translated swiftly, and the second-formers laughed in delight at the vivid description of mam’zelle’s astonishment and dismay.

“clarissa said she wished you would do it again, when she was looking,” said suzanne, in french. “we would like to see it done. me also, i would like it very much. we are too big and old and prudent to do tricks—but we do not mind watching you!”

this was very naughty of suzanne. no sixth-former would be silly enough to encourage the younger ones to come and play tricks in their room as much as they liked—which was what suzanne was telling them to do! but suzanne was french. she hadn’t quite the same ideas of responsibility that the british girls had.

she was often bored with lessons, and longed for “peefle” of some kind. if the second-formers would provide some, that would be “magnifique! superbe!”

“right,” said june at once. “if that’s what you want, it shall be done. i’ll think up a little something for the entertainment of the sixth.”

june was bored now that she had practically given up playing games or swimming properly. she was in the mood for wickedness and mischief of some kind—and what better than this? she set her sharp brains to work at once.

jo was aggrieved at not having been told that the hair-pin trick was to be played by nora in the sixth form. “you might have told me,” she said. “you always leave me out.”

“you tell everything to that first-form baby—what’s her name—deirdre,” said june. “that’s why we don’t let you into our secrets.”

“i’ve a good mind to share my parcel that came today with the first form, instead of with you,” said jo.

“do,” said june. “probably you can buy their liking and their friendship with food. unfortunately you can’t buy ours. a pity—but there it is!”

jo was miserable. she was beginning to understand that heaps of money and sweets and food didn’t in the least impress the girls. but perhaps if she gave a most wonderful midnight feast on her birthday, and asked them all to it and was very modest and friendly herself, they might think she was not too bad after all?

but how could she buy a grand feast without money? she brooded over the five pounds that matron had of hers. she still hadn’t claimed it.

“and if i do, she won’t give it to me,” jo wailed to deirdre for the twentieth time. “i must screw up my courage, snoop into her room, and see if i can spot where she’s put my money.”

a most unexpected opportunity suddenly came. matron sent a message by susan to say she wanted jo.

jo went pale. “what for?” she asked.

“don’t know,” said susan. “probably you’ve mended your red gloves with blue wool again. you must think matron’s colour blind when you keep doing things like that!”

jo went off dolefully. she felt absolutely certain that matron was going to ask her if the five pounds was hers. she felt it in her bones!

she found the door of matron’s room open, and went in. there was nobody there. from far down the corridor she could hear yells. somebody must have fallen down and hurt themselves and matron had rushed off to give first aid. jo took a quick look round the familiar room. ugh, the bottles of medicine!

there was no money to be seen anywhere—but suddenly jo saw something that made her stand stockstill.

matron had a small, heavy safe in the corner of the room, into which she locked what money she had—the girls’ pocket-money, the kitchen staff’s wages, and so on. to jo’s enormous surprise, the safe door was a little open, the keys hanging from the keyhole! obviously matron had just been about to open or shut the safe when she had heard the agonized yells. she had rushed out, forgetting the keys left in the safe door.

jo ran to the door and peered out. not a soul was there. she ran back to the safe and opened the door. there was a pile of notes on one shelf, and a pile of silver on the next. jo grabbed some notes, stuffed them up her knicker-leg and fled!

no one saw her go. not a soul did she meet as she raced back. she went to find deirdre and they shut themselves into one of the bathrooms and locked the door.

“look,” said jo, pulling the money out of the knicker-leg. “nobody was in matron’s office. i’ve got my money back.”

“but jo—there’s more than five pounds there!” said deirdre.

so there was. there were nine pound notes, all new and clean.

“gosh—i didn’t think there were so many,” said jo. “never mind. i’ll borrow the extra four! i can easily get daddy to send me four pounds when i next write to him, and then i’ll put them back.”

“wouldn’t it—wouldn’t it be called stealing if we don’t put them back at once?” asked deirdre, scared.

jo was so frightened that deirdre might ask her to return them to matron’s room, that she pooh-poohed this suggestion at once. she felt sure she would be caught if she went to put them back!

“no, of course not,” she said. “don’t be silly. i’ve always plenty of money. i don’t need to steal, do i? i tell you, five pounds of this is my own money and four pounds i’ve just borrowed—and i’ll pay it back next week.”

deirdre cheered up. “shall we go and buy things for the feast now?” she asked. “gosh, what a lot we can get! we’ll go over to the town, shall we, next time we’re allowed out, and buy stacks of things!”

jo was very cock-a-hoop now. she felt she had done a very fine and daring thing. she got two safety-pins and pinned the notes safely to the top of her navy gym knickers, afraid that perhaps the elastic round the knees might once more give way.

the two of them set out the next day to go shopping. “where shall we hide the stuff?” said jo. “i daren’t put it anywhere in the dormy, and the common-room’s not safe.”

“well, it’s very fine weather. we could really hide it under a hedge somewhere,” said deirdre.

they bought a great many things. packets of biscuits, tins of nestlé’s milk, tins of sardines, chocolate bars by the dozen, bags of sweets, tins of peaches and pears! they staggered out with half the things, promising to go back for the others. they had kit bags with them, but these didn’t hold half the goods.

they found a good place in a field to hide the things. an old tree stump had fallen down, covering a hollow beneath it. the girls stuffed everything into the little hollow, which was perfectly dry. they went back for the rest of the things.

they paid the bill—seven pounds nine shillings and sixpence ha’penny! deirdre could hardly believe her ears. it was more money than she had had to spend in five years!

“we’ve got good value for the money though,” said jo, as they staggered off again, laden with tins and packages. “there’s enough and more for every one of the twenty-three girls in the form!”

they hid the second lot of food, strewed ivy strands over the opening to the hollow, and went back to school, well pleased with themselves. they had decided to ask a dozen or so of the second-formers to go with them to retrieve the food later on. they were sure they could never manage to take it all the way to school without falling by the wayside!

but, before anyone could be told about the exciting array of goods, jo got into trouble. she was supposed to go out for walks with another second-former or with someone of a higher form. the first-formers only went for walks accompanied by a sixth-former or by a mistress, though the rule was sometimes disregarded. jo had broken it by taking a first-former out—and she had also brought deirdre back an hour too late for her prep.

so that evening miss parker, the second-form mistress, gave jo a shock. she rapped on her desk, after a note had been brought in to her, and everyone looked up from their prep.

“i have here a note,” said miss parker. “it informs me that deirdre barker, of the first form, was taken out this afternoon by a second-former—which is against the rules—and did not return until an hour after prep was started in the first form. deirdre has not given the name of the second-former. i must therefore ask her to stand up so that i may see who it is.”

everyone knew it was jo, of course. they had seen her go off with deirdre, and even if they hadn’t they would have guessed it was jo, deirdre’s friend. one or two looked at jo expectantly.

and jo was afraid of owning up! she was afraid of having to say where they had been, and what they had bought, and where the money had come from. she trembled in her seat, and kept her eyes down. her cheeks grew crimson. miss parker waited for two minutes in silence.

“very well,” she said. “if the culprit will not own up, i must punish the whole class. the second form will not go swimming for three days.”