CHAPTER XVIII
AT THE ELEVENTH HOUR
One more excitement was to quicken the pulses of the sophomores beforethey settled down to that long last period of study between Easterholidays and vacation.
The great, decisive basketball game with the juniors was now to takeplace.
Grace, in conclave with her team, had gone over her instructions for thehundredth time. They had discussed the strong points of the juniors andwhat were their own weak ones.
Miriam Nesbit was sullen at these meetings; but in the practice game shehad played with her usual agility and skill, so the girls felt that shewas far too valuable a member of the team for them to mind her humors.
"Everybody is coming to-morrow to see us play," exclaimed Nora in thelocker-room, at the recess on Friday. "I don't believe the President'svisit would create more excitement, really," she added with a touch ofpride.
"Did you know," interposed Anne, "that the upperclass girls are callingGrace and Julia Crosby 'David and Jonathan'?"
This was also an amusing piece of news at which the other girls laughedjoyously. In fact, there was no such feeling of depression before thisgame as had affected the class when the first game was played. Thesophomores were cheerful and confident, awaiting the great battle withcourage in their hearts.
"Be here early, girls," cautioned Grace, as they parted after school thatday. "Perhaps we may get in a little practice before the people begin tocome."
Grace hurried through her own dinner as fast as she could, on the eventfulSaturday.
"I shall be glad when this final game is over, child," exclaimed Mrs.Harlowe anxiously, "I really think you have had more athletics this winterthan has been good for you, what with your walking, and skating, dancing,and now basketball."
"You'll come, won't you, mother?" cried Grace, seizing her hat and rushingoff without listening to Mrs. Harlowe's comments. "We are sure to win,"she called as she waved her a good-bye kiss.
There was no one in the school building when Grace got back; that is, noone except the old janitress, who was sweeping down the corridor, asusual. The other girls had not been so expeditious and Grace found thelocker-room deserted.
With trembling eagerness she was slipping on her gymnasium suit andrubber-soled shoes, when she suddenly remembered that she had left her tiein the geometry classroom. She had bought a new one the day before, placedit in the back of her geometry and walked out of the classroom, leavingbook, tie and all behind.
"I'll run up and get it right away, before the others come," she said toherself.
Running nimbly up the broad stairway, she entered the deserted classroomand hurried down the aisle to the end of the room where she usually satduring recitation.
"Here it is," she murmured, taking it out of the book and tying it on.Then, sitting down at the desk, she rested her chin in her hands. Thequiet of the place was soothing to her excited nerves, and since it was soearly she would rest there for a moment and think.
Grace might have dreamed away five minutes when she heard the distantsound of voices below.
"Dear me," she exclaimed, laughing, "they'll scold me for not being ontime. I must hurry." So she hastened up the aisle to the door, which wasshut, although she had not remembered closing it after her.
She turned the knob, still smiling to herself, but the door stuck fast. Itwas locked!
Grace was so stunned that for a moment she hardly comprehended what hadhappened. She sat down and tried to collect her thoughts. Locked up in anupper classroom on the afternoon of the great game!
She tried the one other door in the room. It also was locked. As for thegreat windows, they were too large for her to push up without a pole.
"I'll try calling," she said. "They may hear me."
But her calls were fruitless, and beating and knocking on the door panelsseemed nothing but muffled sounds in the stillness.
"Oh! Oh!" she cried, rushing wildly from doors to windows and back again."What shall I do! What shall I do?"
In the meantime, it was growing late. The sophomores had assembled andwere confidently waiting for their captain.
"She's late for the first time," observed one of the girls, "but we'llforgive her under the circumstances."
"Maybe she's in the gymnasium," suggested Anne, hurrying off to look forher friend. In spite of herself she felt some misgivings and she meant tolose no time in finding her beloved Grace.
The gallery was already half full of people. Anne moved about looking forDavid, or some one who could help her. Just then Mrs. Harlowe appeared atthe door.
"Where is Grace, Mrs. Harlowe?" Anne demanded eagerly.
"I don't know, dear," answered Mrs. Harlowe "She ate her dinner and wentoff in such a hurry that I hardly had time to speak to her. She told meshe wanted to get back to meet the girls."
Anne ran back to the locker-room.
"Grace left home hours ago," she cried. "I just felt that something hadhappened."
Jessica opened Grace's locker.
"Grace must be in the building," she exclaimed "Here are her clothes."
The girls began to rush about wildly, looking for their captain in thevarious rooms on the basement floor.
In a few moments a junior came to the door.
"The game will be called in ten minutes," she said. "Are you ready?"
"Yes," answered Nora calmly. "Be careful," she whispered. "Don't let themknow yet."
Anne ran again to the gymnasium.
"I'll get David this time," she said to herself. "Something will have tobe done if Grace is to be found in time."
David was sitting at one side of the gallery with Reddy and Hippy.
He looked very grave when Anne whispered the news to him. The place waspacked with impatient spectators. The junior team was already standing onthe floor talking in low voices as they waited impatiently for theiropponents to appear at the opposite end.
"She must be somewhere in the building," David ejaculated. "That is if shehas on her gymnasium suit. Have you looked upstairs yet?"
"No," replied Anne, "but we have been all through the downstairs' rooms."
As they ran up the steps they heard the shrill whistle that summoned theplayers to their positions.
"Come on," cried Nora. "Miriam, you will have to take Grace's place, andEva Allen will substitute for you."
It still lacked a few moments of the toss up; the whistle having beenblown sooner to hurry the dilatory sophomores, who seemed determined tolinger, unaccountably, in the little side room.
But in that brief time a remarkable change had taken place in the demeanorof Miriam Nesbit. Two brilliant spots burned on her cheeks, and her blackeyes flashed and glowed with happiness. The other girls were too downcastand wretched to notice the transformation. They walked slowly into thegymnasium and stood, ill at ease and downcast, at their end of the hall.
A wave of gossip had spread quickly over the audience, that sat waitingwith breathless interest for the appearance of the tardy sophomore.
What had happened? Had there been an accident?
No; it was all a mistake. There they were. And tremendous applause burstforth, which died down almost as soon as it had begun. Where was GraceHarlowe, the daring captain of the sophomore team, who had boasted thather team would win the game if it took their last breath to do it?
There was a great craning of necks as the spectators looked in vain forthe missing Grace.
Hippy dropped his chin upon his breast disconsolately.
"I feel limp as a rag," he groaned. "Where, oh, where, is our gallantcaptain? I'll never believe Grace deserted her post."
In the meantime poor Grace, locked in the upper classroom, hadconcentrated all her thoughts and mental energies on a means of making herescape in time. She sat down quietly, and, folding her hands, began toconsider the situation. In looking back long afterwards upon this tragichour, it seemed to her that it was the blackest moment of her life. Thewalls were thick. The doors heavy and massive. The ceilings high
. Therewas no possibility of her cries being heard below. It is true she mightbreak a window, but what good would that do? She couldn't jump down threestories into a stone court below. She went to the window and looked out.
"If I hung by this window sill," Grace said aloud, "I believe my feetwould just reach the cornice of the second-story window."
Seizing a heavy ruler from one of the desks, she ran to the window anddeliberately smashed out all the plate glass in the lower sash. Then,hoisting herself onto the sill, she looked down from what seemed to berather a dizzy height. But nerve and determination will accomplishanything, and Grace turned her eyes upward.
"I shall do it," she kept saying to herself over and over.
Clinging to the window sill, she gradually let herself down until her feettouched the top of the cornice underneath. Then, steadying herself shelooked down. The cornice ledge was quite broad; broad enough to kneel on,in fact. She was glad of this, for she had intended to kneel on it,whatever its width.
With infinite caution, she gradually slipped along the ledge until she waskneeling. Resting her elbows on the stone shelf, she lowered herself tothe next window sill. There she stood for a moment, looking in at theempty classroom.
The door into the corridor stood open, and as she clung to the narrowledge, her face pressed against the window, she wondered how she was goingto get in.
"Unless I butt my head against this plate glass," she exclaimed, "I reallydon't think I can make it. I can't kick in the glass, for fear of losingmy balance."
Suddenly she heard her name called.
"Grace! Grace! Where are you?"
First it was David's voice, and then Anne's, and then the two together,echoing through the empty corridors and classrooms.
"I'm here," she answered. "Help! Help!"
Fortunately, they were passing the door at that instant and heard hermuffled cries.
"Here," she cried again, and they saw her at last, clinging desperately tothe window ledge.
"I don't dare open the window," exclaimed David, thinking aloud. "Theslightest jar might make her lose her balance. Grace," he cried, "I'llhave to break out the upper sash. Lower your head as much as possible andclose your eyes."
Another instant, and Grace was crouching in a shower of broken glass,which fell harmlessly on her back and the top of her head. David knockedoff the jagged pieces at the lower end, and Grace climbed nimbly over thesash.
"There's no time for explanations now," she cried. "I was mysteriouslylocked in. Has the game been called?"
David looked hurriedly at his watch.
"You have just a minute and a half," he exclaimed, and the three ran madlydown the steps and into the gymnasium just as the whistle blew and thegirls took their places.
When Grace, covered with dust, a long, red scratch across one cheek,rushed into the gymnasium, wild applause shook the walls of the building,for the honor of the sophomore class was saved.