'Oooh! 1 should have hated to see it!' said Mary-Lou,with a shudder. 'I'm terrified of spiders.'
'You're an idiot,' Alicia, still cross over the broken photograph. 'Terrified of this, scared of that—what a life you lead, Mary-Lou. I've a good mind to catch a large spider and put it down your neck!'
Mary-Lou turned pale. The very thought made her heart jump in fright. '1 should die if you did that!' she said, in a low voice.
'Cowardy custard,' said Alicia, lazily. 'Well—wait till 1 get a spider!'
Gwendoline said nothing—but how she rejoiced! Could anything be better! Alicia had said more than she could possibly have hoped she would say—and what was more, every North Tower first-former had heard it. It was marvellous!
'I'll wait till Monday, when Alicia and Darrell are on duty in the classroom,' she thought. 'Then I'll do the trick. It will teach them all a lesson!'
So, when Monday came, Gwendoline watched for her moment. She and Mary-Lou went about everywhere together now, much to the surprise and amazement of Darrell and Alicia and Betty. How could Mary-Lou chum up with that awful Gwendoline, especially after that cruel ducking? And why was Gwendoline sucking up to Mary-Lou? It seemed very queer to the first-formers.
Gwendoline's chance came, and she took it. She was told to go and fetch something from her common room, ten minutes before afternoon school. She tore there to get it, then raced to the first-form classroom with the card¬board box. She opened it and let the great, long-legged spider run into the desk. It ran to a dark corner and crouched there, quite still.
Gwendoline hurried away, certain that no one had seen her. Two minutes later Darrell and Alicia strolled in to fill the flower-vases with w ater. Ah, luck was with Gwendoline just then!
11 THE SPIDER AFFAIR
THE first lesson that afternoon was mental arithmetic. The girls groaned over this, except the quick ones, like Irene, who delighted in it. But it meant that there was no need for anyone to open a desk, because it was all oral work.
Miss Potts was lenient with the girls, for it was a very hot afternoon. Darrell was glad that Miss Potts was not as exacting as usual, for arithmetic was not her strong point, especially mental arithmetic.
The next leson was to be taken by Mam'zelle Dupont. It was to be a French conversation lesson, in which the girls would endeavour to answer all Mam'zelle's simple questions in French. Miss Potts left, and Mam'zelle arrived, not quite so beaming as usual, because of the heat. She was too plump to enjoy the hot weather, and little beads of perspiration shone on her forehead as she sat down at the big desk, opposite the rows of girls.
'Assevez-vous,' she said, and the girls sat down thankfully, feeling that the only lesson they would really enjoy that weather would be a swimming lesson.
The lesson proceeded slowly and haltingly. The flow of French conversation was not at all brisk on the girls' part, and the constant pauses began to irritate Mam'zelle.
'Ah!' she cried at last, 'it is too hot to make conversation with such stupid ones as you are this afternoon! Get out your grammar books and I w ill explain a few things to you that will help your conversation if you can get them into your so-stupid heads!'
The girls opened their desks to get out their grammar books. Gwendoline watched eagerly to see what would happen when Mary-Lou opened hers. But nothing did happen. Mary Lou had neither seen the spider nor disturbed it. She shut her desk.
All the girls opened their grammar books at the page Mam'zelle commanded. Then Mary-Lou found that she had her English grammar instead of her French one. So she re¬opened her desk to get the right book.
Que /aires vous, Mary-Lou?" demanded Mam'zelle, who hated desks being opened and shut too often. 'What are you doing?'
Mary-Lou stuffed her English grammar into the back of her desk and pulled out the French one. The spider, feeling itself dislodged by the book, ran out in a fright. It ran almost up to Mary-Lou before she saw it. She let the desk-lid drop with a terrific bang and gave a heart-rending scream.
Everyone jumped in alarm. Mam'zelle leapt to her feet, sending a pile of books clattering from her desk to the floor. She glared at Mary-Lou.
'Tiensl What is this noise! Mary-Lou, have you gone mad?'
Mary-Lou couldn't speak. The sight of the enormous spider apparently running straight at her had completely undone her. She scraped her chair away from her desk, and stared at it as if she expected the spider to jump through the lid.
'Mary-Lou!' thundered Mam'zelle. 'Tell me what is the matter with you? 1 demand it!"
'Oh, Mam'zelle—there's a—there's a simply enormous—giant—spider in my desk!' stammered Mary- Lou, quite pale.
'A spider?' said Mam'zelle. 'And you make this fuss, and call out so loudly that we all jump in fear! Mary-Lou, be ashamed of yourself! I am angry with you. Sit down.'
'Oh—I—I daren't,' said Mary-Lou, trembling. 'It might come out. Mam'zelle, it's enormous.'
Mam'zelle wasn't quite sure whether she really believed in this spider or not. What with Alicia's deafness last week and one thing and another...
Irene giggled. Mam'zelle fixed her with a glare. 'We will see if this spider exists or not,' she said, firmly. 'And I warn you, Mary-Lou, if this is again a trick, and there is no spider, you will go to Miss Potts for punishment. I wash my hands of you.'
She advanced to the desk. She threw open the lid dramatically. Mary-Lou drew in her breath and got away as far as she could, looking at the inside of the desk with scared eyes.
There was no spider to be seen. It had, of course, retreated to the darkest corner it could find again. Mam'zelle swept the desk with a searching glance and then turned on poor Mary-Lou.
'Bad girl,' she said, and stamped her foot. 'You, so quiet and good, you too deceive me, the poor Mam'zelle! I will not have it.'
'Mam'zelle, do believe me,' begged Mary-Lou, in despair, for she could not bear to be scolded like that. 'It was there— an enormous one."
Mam'zelle rummaged violently among the books in the desk. 'No spider! Not one!' she said. 'Tell me, where has it gone, if it is still in there?'
...
The spider was alarmed by the violent rummaging. It
suddenly hurried out from its hiding-place, and ran on to Mam'zelle's hand and up her arm.
Mam'zelle stared at the enormous thing as if she really could not believe her eyes. She gave a shriek even louder than Mary-Lou had given! She too was scared of spiders, and here was a giant specimen running over her person!
Irene exploded. That was the signal for the class to enter into the fun, and one and all scrambled over to Mam'zelle.
'Ah, where is it, the monster? Girls, girls, can you see it?' wailed Mam'zelle.
'It's here,' said wicked Alicia and ran a light finger down Mam'zelle's spine. She gave a scream, thinking that it was the spider running there. 'Take it off! I beg you, Alicia, remove it from me!'
T think it must have gone down your neck, Mam'zelle,' said Betty, which nearly made Mam'zelle have a fit. She immediately felt sure that it was well all over her, and began to shiver and tremble.
Alicia tickled the back of her neck and she leapt in the air. 'Oh, la la! Oh, la la! What a miserable woman I am! Where is this monster? Girls, girls, tell me it is gone!'
There was now a complete uproar in the first-form room. Miss Potts, again in the second-form room, was amazed and exasperated. What could her form be doing now? Had Mam'zelle left them alone, and had they all gone mad?
'Go on with your maps for a minute,' she said to the second form, who were glancing at one another in astonishment, as they heard the noise from the first-form room. She left the room and went rapidly to the door of the first form.
She opened it and the noise hit her like something solid. Worse than Break, she thought grimly. At first she could not see any mistress there at all, and thought that the girls were alone. Then she caught sight of Mam'zelle's head in the
middle of a crowd of girls. What vim happening!
'Girls!' sh
e said, but her voice went unheard. 'GIRLS!' Irene suddenly saw her and started to nudge everyone. 'Look out here's Potty,' she hissed.
The girls flowed back from Mam'zelle as if they were water! In a trice every one was by her desk. Mam'zelle stood alone, trembling, wondering what was happening. Where had that monster of a spider gone?
'Mam'zelle, really!' said Miss Potts, almost forgetting the rule the staff had of never finding fault with one another before the girls. ' I simply cannot think what happens to this class when you take it!'
Mam'zelle blinked at Miss Potts. 'It was a spider,' she explained, looking up and down herself. 'Ah, Miss Potts, but a MONSTER of a spider. It ran up my arm and disappeared. Ah-h-h-h-h! I seem to feel it everywhere.'
'A spider won't hurt you,' said Miss Potts, coldly and unfeelingly. 'Would you like to go and recover yourself, Mam'zelle, and let me deal with the first form?'
'Ah non!' said Mam'zelle, indignantly. 'The class, it is good—the girls, they came to help me to get this monster of a spider. So big it was, Miss Potts!'
Miss Potts looked so disbelieving that Mam'zelle exaggerated the size of the spider, and held out her hands to show Miss Potts that it was at least as big as fair-sized frog.
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 1 did, I should think.'
Mam'zelle rose in her seat, and for all her smallness she seemed enormous to Gwendol ine j ust 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!
12 SHARP WORDS
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. 1 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. T 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 upV
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 be
side 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 hair-brush. 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.