First Term at Malory Towers (10 page)

The girls had enjoyed everything immensely. What a French lesson! Gwendoline had enjoyed it too, especially as she was the cause of it, though nobody knew that, of course. She sat demurely in her desk, watching the two mistresses closely.

And then suddenly she felt something running up her leg! She looked down. It was the spider! It had left Mam'zelle a long time ago, and had secreted itself under a desk, afraid of all the trampling feet around. Now, when peace seemed restored, the spider wanted to seek a better hiding-place. It ran over Gwendoline's shoe, up her stocking and above her knee. She gave a piercing scream. Everyone jumped again. Miss Potts turned fiercely.

“Gwendoline! Go out of the room! How dare you squeal like that! No, don't tell me you've seen the spider. I'm tired of the spider. I'm ashamed of you all!”

Gwendoline shook herself violently, not daring to scream again, but filled with the utmost horror at the thought of the spider creeping over her.

“It
was
the spider!” she began. “It...”

“GWENDOLINE! What did I tell you! I will NOT hear another word of the wretched spider!” said Miss Potts, raising her voice angrily. “Go out of the room. The whole class can go to bed one hour earlier tonight as a punishment for this shameful behaviour, and you, Gwendoline, can go two hours earlier!”

Weeping, Gwendoline ran from the room. As soon as she got outside she examined herself carefully and tremblingly to see if the spider was still anywhere about her. To her enormous relief she suddenly saw it running down the passage.

She leant against the wall. How tiresome of that spider to come to her, when it might have gone to anyone else! Now she had got to have double punishment. Still, she would soon put it about that Alicia and Darrell had planted the spider in Mary-Lou's desk! How sickening of Miss Potts to pounce on her like that.
She
couldn't help it if the spider came to her.

But perhaps after all it was a good thing that Miss Potts had come into the room and heard it all. Perhaps Gwendoline might even drop a hint to Miss Potts about Alicia and Darrell putting the spider in the desk.

Miss Potts came out of the room at this moment. She eyed Gwendoline with dislike.

“Miss Potts, the spider ran away down there,” said Gwendoline, pointing, anxious to get back into Miss Potts's good books.

Miss Potts took not the slightest notice but swept into the second-form classroom, and the door shut. Gwendoline felt very small. Now what was she to do? Stay out here—or go back into the classroom?” She didn't want to be found out there if by any chance Miss Grayling, the Head, came by. She decided to risk going back. She opened the door and sidled in.

“Ha! You are back again! And who told you to come?” demanded Mam'zelle, now ashamed of her part in the affair, and ready to vent her humiliated feelings on anyone she could. “You screamed and made Miss Potts white and angry!”

“Well, Mam'zelle, you screamed too,” protested Gwendoline, in an injured tone. “Louder than I did, I should think.”

Mam'zelle rose in her seat, and for all her smallness she seemed enormous to Gwendoline just then. Her beady black eyes flashed.

“You would be rude to
me
, Mam'zelle Dupont! You would argue with
me
, who have taught here for twenty years! You—you...”

Gwendoline turned and fled. She would rather stand outside the door all day long than face Mam'zelle when she looked like that!

THE Spider Affair, as it was called, went all over the school before the day was out. It caused a great deal of laughter. When Mam'zelle Rougier heard of it she sneered.

“To think that a Frenchwoman should be so foolish!” she said. “Now / do not mind spiders or earwigs or moths or even snakes! Mam'zelle Dupont should be ashamed to make such an exhibition of herself!”

The first form talked about it more than anyone else, of course. They squealed with laughter whenever they thought of poor Mary-Lou, Mam'zelle, and Gwendoline all falling victims to the same spider.

“Jolly clever spider!” said Irene. “It knew the only three people in the form that would be scared of it. I take my hat off to that spider.”

“I can't think why it chose
my
desk,” said Mary-Lou.

“No. That was a shame,” said Gwendoline. “Poor Mary- Lou! It must have been an awful shock for you when you saw it. I wonder who put it there?”

There was silence. For the first time it occurred to the first form that the spider might have been put there on purpose. They looked at one another.

“It was a dirty trick to put it into poor Mary-Lou's desk,” said Jean. “She can't
help
being scared of things, I suppose, and she almost jumped out of her skin when she saw it. I should have thought any joker in our form would have been decent enough to have popped it into, say, Alicia's desk!”

“Not if it happened to be
Alicia
who popped it in!” said a sly voice. “You do so love playing tricks, don't you, Alicia? You and Darrell were in the first-form room before afternoon school. And I'm sure we all remember you saying you'd like to put a spider down Mary-Lou's neck!”

It was Gwendoline speaking. Alicia glanced at her. “Well, I didn't do it,” she said. “Nor did Darrell. Sorry to disappoint you, darling Gwendoline Mary, but we just didn't. If it was anyone, I should think it was you!”

“Mary-Lou is my friend,” said Gwendoline. I wouldn't do that to her.”

“Well, if you'd almost drown her one week, I should think you could quite well bring yourself to put a spider in her desk the next week,” said Darrell.

“It's pretty funny that you and Alicia were the only ones in the classroom before afternoon school,” persisted Gwendoline, angry that no one seemed to have agreed with her suggestion.

“Shut up,” said Katherine, shortly. “We
know
it wasn't either Darrell or Alicia, because they
say
so! The spider must have got in there by accident, and that's that.”

“Well, I think...” began Gwendoline, but the class took up a chant at once.

“Shut up, Gwendoline; Gwendoline, shut up! Shut up, Gwendoline; Gwendoline, shut up!”

There was nothing to do but shut up. Gwendoline was sulky and exasperated. It had been such a good idea, and all that had resulted from it was a double punishment for her, and a complete failure to make anyone believe that Alicia or Darrell had played the trick. True, the first formers had had to go to bed an hour earlier, but they had all voted it was worth it.

Gwendoline felt vicious about the whole affair. She determined not to be put off by her first failure but to go on doing things to Mary-Lou, so that in the end the class would have to put them down to tricks by Alicia and Darrell. She thought too she would also hint to Miss Potts that she thought Alicia and Darrell were at the bottom of things.

But she didn't get very far with this. She had to go and see Miss Potts about some returned homework, and stood very meekly beside her, in the little room that Miss Potts shared with Mam'zelle Dupont at North Tower.

“Miss Potts I was awfully sorry about that spider affair the other day,” she began. “Of course, Alicia and Darrell were in the classroom beforehand, and I'm sure they know something about it. I heard Alicia say...”

Miss Potts looked up. “Are you trying to sneak?” she said. “Or in more polite language, to tell tales? Because if so, don't try it on me. At the boarding school I went to, Gwendoline, we had a very good punishment for sneaks. All the girls in the sneak's dormy gave her one good spank with the back of a hairbrush. You may have a lot of interesting things to tell me but it's no use expecting me to listen. I wonder if the girls here have the same punishment for sneaks. I must ask them.”

Gwendoline went flaming red. A sneak! Fancy Miss Potts daring to call her, Gwendoline Mary Lacey, a sneak! All because she had just wanted to drop a kindly hint. Gwendoline didn't know what to say. She felt as if she would like to burst into tears, but Miss Potts always got very impatient with girls who did that. She went out of the room, longing to slam the door as she often did at home. But she didn't dare to here.

She felt very sorry for herself. If her mother knew what an awful school she had come to she would take her away at once. Miss Winter, too, would be horrified. But Gwendoline wasn't quite so sure about her father. He could say things at times very like the things Miss Potts said.

The week went by. It was a very pleasant week, hot with a cool breeze that made games and swimming even more pleasure than usual. Alicia and Betty were practising hard for the school sports. Both were excellent swimmers and divers. Darrell tried to imitate all they did. She was good, too, but not quite so good as they were. But she was quite fearless, and dived off the highest diving boards, and went down the chute in all kinds of peculiar positions.

The only unhappy person that week was Mary-Lou. She got into a lot of trouble over many little things. For instance, her clothes in the changing-room had been thrown down in a pool of water, and were soaking wet. She had to take them to Matron to be dried.

Matron was cross. “Mary-Lou! Can't you hang your things up properly in that changing-room? You know there are always puddles on the floor from the girls coming in and out from the pool.”

“I did hang them up, Matron,” said Mary-Lou, mildly. “I know I did.”

Then Mary-Lou's tennis racket suddenly showed three broken strings. They were not frayed, but looked as if they had been cut. Mary-Lou was upset.

“My new racket!” she said. “Look, Gwendoline, who would think a new racket could go like that?”

“It couldn't,” said Gwendoline, pretending to examine it very closely. “These strings have been cut, Mary-Lou. Someone's been playing a dirty trick on you. What a shame.”

Mary-Lou was miserable. She couldn't believe that she had any enemies. But when she found buttons cut off her Sunday dress she knew that someone was being unkind and mean. Gwendoline comforted her.

“Never mind.
I'll
sew them on for you! I hate sewing, but I'll do it for you, Mary-Lou.”

So, making a great show of it, Gwendoline sewed on the six blue buttons one night. The first-formers stared at her in surprise. They knew she never mended anything if she could help it.

“How did those buttons come off?” asked Jean.

“That's what I'd like to know,” said Gwendoline smugly.

“Six buttons all ripped off! I'm putting them on for Mary- Lou, because I'm so sorry that anyone should play her such a dirty trick. And I'd like to know who cut the strings of her tennis racket, too.”

The first-formers looked at one another. It certainly was queer the way things had been happening to poor Mary-Lou lately. Even her prayer-book had disappeared. And some of her pencils had gone. True, they had been found in Alicia's desk—but everyone had thought that was just an accident. Now they began to wonder if some one had put them there. Not Alicia. Alicia wouldn't do a thing like that. But Somebody.

It was getting near half-term. Many of the girls were excited, because some of them were expecting visits from their parents. Any parent who lived not too far away would be sure to come. Darrell was thrilled because her father and mother were coming. They lived a long way away, but had decided to take a week's holiday in Cornwall, and come and see Darrell in the middle of it.

The girls began to talk about their families. “I wish my three brothers could come,” and Alicia. “We'd have some sport then.”

“I wish my little sister could come,” said Jean. “I'd love to show her Malory Towers.”

“Is
your
mother coming, Sally?” asked Mary-Lou.

“No,” said Sally. “She lives too far away.”

Darrell remembered something her mother had told her in a letter a week or two before. She had said that she had met Sally Hope's mother, and had liked her. She had said too that she had seen Mrs. Hope's baby, Sally's sister, a little girl of three months. Darrell had meant to tell Sally what her mother had said and had forgotten. Now she remembered it.

“Oh, Sally, I expect your mother won't come because of the baby,” she said.

Sally went stiff. She stared at Darrell as if she couldn't believe her ears. Her face went quite white, and when she spoke she sounded as if she were choking.

“You don't know what you're talking about,” she said. “What baby? We haven't a baby! My mother won't be coming because it's so
far
, I tell you!”

Darrell was puzzled. “But Sally—don't be silly—my mother said in a letter that she had
seen
your baby sister— she's three months old, she said.”

“I haven't
got
a baby sister!” said Sally, in a low, queer voice. “I'm the only one. Mother and I have been everything to each other, because Daddy has had to be away such a lot. I haven't
got
a baby sister!”

The girls looked at Sally curiously. Whatever could be the matter with her? She sounded so queer.

“All right,” said Darrell, uneasily. “
You
ought to know, I suppose. Anyway, I expect you'd like a sister. It's nice having one.”