CHAPTER XI
A DANGEROUS PLOT
The girls, their laughter quenched, gazed at each other for a fewseconds with stupefaction. Then Nan sprang to the door, opened it, andcaught sight of a silently scurrying figure that could not by any meansbe confounded with Mrs. Cupp's angular form or slow, measured movements.
The other girls, astonished, gazed at Nan open-mouthed as she re-enteredthe room with flushed and indignant face and uttered the oneenlightening word:
"Linda."
"It sure was!"
"Of all the nerve!" began Laura slowly.
"Of all the meanness, I should say," amended Rhoda indignantly, as sheturned the key in the door.
Then the funny side struck them, and they sat doubled up with suppressedlaughter.
With increased hilarity the feast went on. The ice cream was brought inand found to be in a very creditable state of preservation, and thelayer cake and small iced cakes were very soon being gobbled up.
To illustrate that "variety is the spice of life," so she said, Laurahad just followed some ice cream with a sour pickle, when a footstepneared the door and a stern voice commanded them to open it.
"Linda," whispered Grace to Bess, who was nearest her, while Laura saidin a perfectly audible though subdued voice:
"You can just go about your business, you essence of meanness."
"You needn't think you can work that trick on us twice," added Grace.
"Don't judge our intellects by your own," scoffed Rhoda. "You must thinkwe were born yesterday."
The girls laughed at the sally, and silence ensued for a moment.
"I guess that has disposed of Linda for the rest of the night," exultedLaura, and she applied herself again to the now rapidly melting icecream.
"Let's finish this cream while the eating's good," laughed Nan, when herspoon was arrested on its way to her mouth by a voice outside the door.
"Nan Sherwood, I command you to open this door."
In overwhelming consternation the girls rose to their feet, and Nanunlocked and opened the door.
Quivering with anger and outraged dignity, Mrs. Cupp swept the room withflashing eyes.
"You will go to your rooms, young ladies, and you will all report at Dr.Prescott's room to-morrow morning at ten o'clock," she decreed, and,turning, moved majestically down the corridor, leaving blackconsternation behind her.
"Now, we are in for it!" gasped Rhoda, as the sound of footsteps diedaway.
Too overwhelmed to say another word, the others slipped away to theirrooms.
The next morning, with many inward quakings, they entered theprincipal's room. Dr. Prescott's voice was severe as she said to thefive caught-in-the-act delinquents:
"You are ready to admit, I presume, that you have broken one of therules of the school. That I can understand. But that you should havebeen guilty of disrespect to one of the officers of the school is quiteanother and more serious thing. Have you any explanation to offer?"
After a moment's silence, Nan acted as spokesman.
"We did not intend to be disrespectful to Mrs. Cupp," she declared, andthen went on and told the whole story.
"That puts things in a better light," said Dr. Prescott, when Nan hadfinished. "But to make you more careful in future and to remind you thatthe rules of Lakeview Hall are made to be observed, not ignored, I willforbid you all to go outside the grounds for three full days. You cango now to your recitations."
The girls bowed and withdrew, and for the rest of the morning they wereunusually quiet. At noon they gathered in Laura's room, dropped into thenearest chairs at hand, and looked at each other lugubriously.
"Three days without poking our noses outside the gates!" mourned Bess."How are we ever going to stand it?"
"I don't care much for that," commented Rhoda. "But I hate to give thatLinda Riggs anything to gloat over."
"And she will," declared Grace. "She'll make the very most of it, youcan be sure."
"She will."
"Oh, well, let her then," said Laura, recovering something of her usualspirits. "Say, girls, did you see the expression on Cupp's face when weopened the door?"
They burst into a merry laugh at the remembrance, and the laugh lessenedthe tension and did them good.
"Oh!" gasped Laura, as she wiped the tears from her eyes, "I shallremember that look when I'm an old woman."
"I suspect Cupp will remember the occasion, too, for many days to come,"prophesied Nan.
"I wish there had been a glass opposite the door, so that she couldhave seen her face," remarked Bess, going off into another gale oflaughter.
"Come on," said Rhoda, when they had settled down. "Let's go for a walkon the campus and get some fresh air. Thank goodness, we can do that,anyway."
"Oh, dear," sighed Nan, as they went downstairs. "No coasting, noskating for three days. What a fate!"
"No matter," comforted Grace. "The feast was worth it. The memorylingers."
"It does," agreed Laura. "I can taste that layer cake yet. But come,girls, I challenge you to a race around the campus. One, two,three--go!"
"Wait until I make certain my shoe is tight," cried Grace.
"And wait until I get my cap fastened on," added Nan.
"No primping now!" exclaimed Laura. "Everybody ready?"
"What's the prize?" questioned Bess. "I can't run well unless I knowit's worth it."
"You get the hole out of a doughnut," said Nan. "All sugared over, too."
"And a glass of frozen ice-water," added Grace.
"This is all the way around the campus," went on Laura. "No cuttingcorners, remember. You must follow the trees and the hedge. One centfine if you don't. All ready? One--two--three, go!"
With wild shouts and much laughter the race around the campus was on.
Nan won "by a nose," as Laura rather slangily put it, and the girls,glowing and breathless, looked like anything else than confessedlaw-breakers doing penance.
The sight of their happy faces was too much for Linda, who, with Cora,was passing them, drawing the _Gay Girl_ and carrying their skates overtheir shoulders.
"Some people try mighty hard to show that they're having a good time,"she remarked to her companion.
"Blessings brighten as they take their flight, as the girl said when shecouldn't leave the campus," grinned Cora maliciously.
"Well," countered Nan, "at least we're not doing penance for sneaking inthe dark and listening at doors."
The flush on Linda's face showed that the shot had reached the mark.
"You think you know a lot, don't you?" she mocked, as she and Cora wenton.
"How I detest that Nan Sherwood," hissed Linda. "I'll get square withher some day, and that day isn't so far off either. I know just how I'mgoing to fix her."
"Why do you keep on being so mysterious?" asked Cora impatiently."You're always hinting and getting my curiosity aroused and thenstopping short. Go on and tell me now."
But Linda refused, saying that she wanted to be sure first that herplans would go through all right.
"When I do spring things," she said, "I'll square up all accounts."
Cora sulked, but had to submit.
Several days later, as Nan and Bess were studying in their room, Besswrote the final word in a French translation with a sigh of relief.
"Didn't you say once, Nan," she queried, "that you had somewhere a bookof model French conversations?"
"Yes," answered Nan, looking up from her work. "Do you want it?"
"I'd like it ever so much," Bess answered. "I think it would help mewith these wretched idioms that puzzle me so. Could you get it for me?"
"Surely, Bess," assented Nan, with obliging readiness. "It's down in mytrunk. I'll go right down to the basement to-morrow after we finish ourEnglish recitation at twelve o'clock and get it for you."
"That's a darling, Nan," returned Bess gratefully. "I know it will helpme heaps."
During this conversation their door had been standing open, and LindaRiggs,
who was passing (she made occasion often to pass Nan's door),heard every word. An exultant look came into her face, and she hurriedoff to find Cora. She told her eagerly that at last she knew just howand when she was going to get even with that much-hated Nan Sherwood.
"What are you going to do?" asked Cora, excited and yet a little fearfulof any scheme that Linda might hatch.
"I'm going to give her the scare of her life," replied Linda. "The ideacame to me the other day when I was in the trunk room in the basement.The steam started to blow off with such a whistle close to my ears thatit made me almost jump out of my skin. I feel sure that if the steam canonly be held down for a little while and then go off with a rush it willbe ten times louder. If that could be made to happen just as Sherwoodwas going past, it would scare her out of a year's growth. She'd thinkher last hour had come. The trouble has been that I never knew just whenshe'd be there. But I know now. I just heard her say. She's in for thebiggest fright of her life. How does it strike you?"
"It sounds all right," answered Cora slowly. "But how are you going todo it?"
"Easily," said Linda, with a confident ring in her voice. "After thejanitor has fixed up the fires for the day to-morrow morning he'll notbe in the basement. I'll slip down before Sherwood is due to get thereand tie down the valve. That'll keep the steam confined and make theshriek that much louder when it's let loose. I'll hide behind thewoodpile, and just when Sherwood is opposite the furnace, I'll cut thestring and--_voila_."
"All very fine," remarked Cora half-heartedly. "But isn't it awfullydangerous? Have you thought what might happen if you confine the steam?"
"Of course I've thought of that, stupid," replied Linda, nettled atCora's lack of enthusiasm. "But the steam won't be held back long enoughto do any harm."
"I'm not so sure of that," said Cora, who felt very uneasy about thepossible results of her friend's malicious scheme.
"Nonsense," retorted Linda. "I'll take all the risk, if there is any.But there won't be. I've planned it out too carefully to make anymistake about it. It's too good a chance to get even with Nan Sherwoodto let it go by."