CHAPTER XVIII--AMANDA'S REVENGE
Amanda's jaw dropped and she sprang back while Eliza cowered behind her.The former held an ink bottle which she had been about to turn upsidedown in Miss Race's desk.
With a quick movement Laura snatched it from the girl's hand and held italoft triumphantly.
"Look, Billie," she said in a loud whisper. "Amanda was going to spillthis in the desk and then blame it on you."
Amanda made a quick dart for the door, but Billie ran after her andpulled her back.
"Not yet," she said, grimly. "You'll wait till we're through with you orI'll go to Miss Walters and report the whole thing. You had better nottry to get funny."
Amanda started to bluster, but on second thoughts decided not to. Billieand her chums had the argument all on their side this time, and thethought made her fume inwardly.
As for the "Shadow," her homely face was pale with fright, and she stoodmotionless and scared on the spot where the girls had first discoveredher.
The plan of the two conspirators had evidently been to upset theteacher's desk and then blame the whole thing on Billie. But how couldAmanda hope to prove that Billie had done it all?
Thus thought the girls as they rummaged through the desk in search ofsome further trick. And then, they found it.
"Look at this!" cried Billie, holding aloft a little square of linen atsight of which Amanda grew more sullen and Eliza quaked. "It's myhandkerchief with my initials and my laundry mark on it.Those--those--girls--were going to leave it here after spilling the ink,and when Miss Race found it she would of course think that I was theguilty one. Oh--what shall we do to them?"
She glared at the tricksters while Amanda tossed her head defiantly andEliza shrank still farther back into the corner.
"But that would have been so silly," cried Laura, who had snatched thehandkerchief from Billie and was examining it eagerly. Vi, in her turnwas trying to pull it from her. "Miss Race would know that you wouldhave sense enough not to give yourself away by leaving yourhandkerchief. Their heads sure are made of bone," and she favored thegirls with a contemptuous glance that was harder to bear than Billie'sanger.
"I wouldn't leave my handkerchief on purpose of course," Billie pointedout. "I might have dropped it by accident, though."
"But how did they get the hanky," wondered Vi, wide-eyed at this exampleof depravity.
"Probably stole it out of my pocket when I wasn't looking," said Billiecontemptuously, and at that Amanda made a show of defense.
"You needn't call me a thief, Billie Bradley!" she exclaimed, but Lauracut her short with a flippant observation.
"Would you rather she would call Miss Walters?" she asked, whicheffectively closed the girl's mouth.
"Let's make 'em clean up," suggested Billie. "I'd call Miss Walters,only they're not worth spoiling her sleep for. Come on over here, youtwo, and get busy."
"We won't do it," said Amanda, but as Billie started toward her shequite suddenly changed her mind.
"Oh, all right," she said angrily, as she flounced over to the desk,pulling the limp "Shadow" after her. "We'll do it this time. But youjust look out, Billie Bradley. I'll make you pay for this."
Laura struck a dramatic attitude.
"Look out," she cried. "The worm is turning. Let us nip it in the bud!"
It was all right for them to laugh at Amanda's discomfiture then andtreat the whole thing as a joke, but in the morning they were not quitesure that they had done the right thing.
"I think we ought to have reported her to Miss Walters," worried Vi."Then she and the Shadow would have been expelled, or suspended atleast, and we would have had no more trouble with them. As it is----"
"Oh, don't be an old gloom hound," commanded Billie, seizing her chumround the waist and whirling her about the room in a fantastic dance."They've never been able to do anything to us yet, so what's the use ofworrying?"
"Sure," agreed Laura, busy marking passages in her "Life of Washington.""That's what I say. We're too many for 'em."
But in spite of their optimism, in their hearts the girls decided towatch Amanda and her cowardly "Shadow" more closely than ever in thefuture.
And the girls would have been put even more on their guard if they couldhave peeped into the library one afternoon and overheard the curiousconversation that took place between two girls seated in a far corner ofthe big room.
"I've got it at last!" gloated one of the girls, who was no other thanthe plotting Amanda herself. Eliza, of course, was her inevitablecompanion.
"I don't know what you're talking about," said the latter rathersnappishly. For, since the fiasco in Miss Race's room, she had notentered into Amanda's schemes quite so whole-heartedly as she hadbefore. "I don't see why you should be so pleased about finding a mustyold book."
"Of course you don't see," said Amanda, patronizingly. "That's what I'mgoing to explain to you."
She paused a moment, regarding the "musty old book" in her handlovingly. Eliza moved impatiently in the seat beside her and Amandagrinned at her.
"You remember I told you I was going to try for the composition prize?"
"Yes," said Eliza crossly, adding with a frankness that might have beendisconcerting to anybody but Amanda: "And I thought you were crazy evento think of it. You haven't a chance in the world beside Billie Bradleyor Rose Belser or any of those girls."
"I know I wouldn't as a rule," admitted Amanda, her small eyes gleamingwith triumph. "But with this book," she caressed the little volumefondly, "_they_ won't have a chance against _me_!"
"And still I haven't the slightest idea what you're talking about,"snapped Eliza. "I wish you'd stop grinning to yourself and get to thepoint--if there is one," she added under her breath.
"All right," said Amanda, too delighted with her own cleverness tonotice her shadow's bad temper. "Listen then, and I'll tell you just howI came to think about it.
"I was rummaging through some books on the top shelf one day, trying tofind one I needed, when down behind the rest of them I happened to comeacross this little old book of biographies of the great generals of theworld. It was covered with dust, and so old and shabby-looking that Iwas sure it hadn't been touched in an age."
"Yes," said Eliza impatiently, as Amanda paused for breath.
"Of course that was before the composition prize was offered, so I putthe book back where I found it and forgot all about it. But now----" shepaused and the "Shadow" saw a gleam of light.
"And now," Eliza finished, "you think you are going to get materialenough out of this musty little old book to take the prize away fromBillie Bradley. I see."
"Oh no, you don't see." It was Amanda's turn to be impatient. "I'm notgoing to try to write an original composition at all. Listen," shelowered her voice to a whisper although they two were the only ones inthe large room. "I'm going to copy it from this book--word for word!"
For a moment Eliza stared at the grinning girl, pop-eyed. Then as thedaring of the thing sank into her muddled brain she sank back in herchair and shook her head slowly.
"Don't do it," she said. "If they should find out----"
"But nobody's going to find out," cried Amanda, as gleeful as though thecoveted prize were already in her hands. "This is an old book, andprobably nobody in this place has even heard of it. Say, won't thatBradley girl's eyes stick out when she sees me walking off with theprize? Oh my, oh my! This is the time I'm going to settle _her_!"
It was just about this time that a furor was caused in the school by thedisappearance of articles belonging to the students.
The articles were small and seldom valuable--so insignificant were someof them, in fact, that the owners never missed them until the report ofnumerous other losses spread through the school and woke them to therealization that they, too, were victims of the petty thief--whoever shewas.
For that the guilty one was one of their schoolmates there seemed to belittle doubt. For what outsider would care for such things as pencilsand erasers and old jackknives?
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It was true that one or two of the losses were valuable. A gold-mountedfountain pen for instance, which had been a Christmas present to one ofthe girls, who lamented her loss with "loud wailings and gnashings ofteeth," as Laura described it.
It was when the excitement over this strange series of events was at itsheight that Billie drew Laura and Vi aside one day and whispered astartling decision in their ears.
"Girls," she said, "I've dreamed of that locked room in tower three twonights in succession, and I've found an old bunch of keys and one ofthem may fit. Are you willing to come with me? Or have I got to goalone?"