‘None of us wants to believe it, Pam,’ said Felicity, earnestly. ‘I know that Bonnie has some funny ways, but I honestly believed that she was completely straight. But if you had seen her in the library with Miss Tallant, you would agree that her behaviour was most suspicious.’
‘Hush!’ hissed Freddie. ‘She’s coming over.’
Bonnie joined them, saying excitedly, ‘Susan, I have some super ideas for costumes. I’ve made some sketches and must show them to you.’
‘I’m looking forward to seeing them,’ said Susan, forcing herself to smile at the girl. ‘Bring them to me tomorrow, if you like.’
‘I will,’ said Bonnie. ‘I say, did I hear you talking about playing a trick on that horrid Miss Tallant.’
‘Yes,’ said June, winking slyly at the others. ‘We are going to put a huge spider in her desk on Monday, but you must promise to keep it to yourself.’
‘Of course,’ said Bonnie, clapping her hands together in excitement. ‘I shan’t say a word. Oh, how I shall enjoy hearing her squeal!’
With that Bonnie went back to join Amy, and Freddie said, ‘See! Even more proof, if we needed it. What a nerve, coming over like that to try and get more information out of us.’
Pam looked thoughtful, and said, ‘I must say, she’s a jolly convincing actress.’
‘Well, we’ll see how convincing she is when she’s been well and truly caught out,’ said June, in a hard voice. ‘And then we will decide how to punish her.’
All of those who were in on the secret were looking forward to Miss Tallant’s Drama class on Monday. As usual, Bonnie held the door open for the mistress, receiving a warm smile and a word of praise. June, who was watching Miss Tallant closely, thought that there was a triumphant glint in the mistress’s eye as she walked towards her desk. She didn’t go right up to it, though, noticed June, but stopped a few feet away from it—almost as if she was afraid that there was something unpleasant in there.
‘Sit down girls,’ she said. The girls did as they were told and, for a moment, the mistress stood watching them, her eyes hard and cold. They seemed to linger on June, and, at last, she said, ‘June, please come out to the front of the class.’
June stood up, her head bowed so that the mistress would not see the little smile on her lips, and walked to the front of the room. Miss Tallant looked her up and down coldly, then said, ‘Please open the drawer of my desk.’
June put on a puzzled look, and said, ‘Open your drawer, Miss Tallant? But why?’
‘Don’t ask questions, June,’ said the mistress. ‘Just do as you are told.’
So June pulled open the drawer, noticing as she did so that Miss Tallant shrank back a little. Then the mistress peered over June’s shoulder and said, ‘Now kindly remove the spider that is lurking in there.’
‘Spider? What spider?’ said June, looking so puzzled, and so innocent, that Felicity had to clamp her lips tightly together to stop her laughter escaping.
‘The spider that I know very well you have hidden there,’ said Miss Tallant, a triumphant note in her voice.
‘Miss Tallant, I would never do such a thing!’ said June, sounding so outraged that Freddie grinned. ‘Why, the very thought of playing a trick on a mistress is—’
‘June, your reputation for playing tricks and jokes on mistresses is well known to me,’ interrupted Miss Tallant. ‘So please don’t waste your breath. I know that you have put a spider in that drawer, and I insist that you remove it immediately. After you have done so, I shall inform you what your punishment is to be.’
‘But Miss Tallant, there is no spider there,’ said June, looking down into the drawer. ‘See for yourself.’
Rather gingerly, Miss Tallant looked. ‘It must be hiding in one of the corners. Remove everything from the drawer, June, and put it on top of the desk.’
Obediently, June did so, then at last she stood back and said, ‘There is no spider there, Miss Tallant.’
Miss Tallant was reluctantly forced to agree that there wasn’t, and she said crossly, ‘I believe that you have hidden it, just as you did the mouse. Turn out your pockets, at once.’
June turned out her pockets but, of course, there was no spider, and she said cheekily, ‘You’re quite welcome to feel in them yourself, Miss Tallant, if you think that I am hiding anything else.’
But Miss Tallant had no intention at all of doing this. If she did find a spider in June’s pocket, she would simply die! Yet she couldn’t let this wretched girl get the better of her.
Miss Tallant had been reliably informed that June intended to put a spider in her drawer today, and she was going to punish her for it.
‘June, you will go to bed one hour early tonight,’ said the mistress spitefully, and the fourth formers gasped in outrage.
‘You can’t punish June without any evidence!’ cried Susan, stung by the injustice of this, and Miss Tallant glared at her.
‘I can do anything I please,’ she said in an icy tone, before turning back to June. ‘Put your belongings back in your pocket,’ she said. ‘Then go back to your seat and we will get on with the lesson.’
Susan opened her mouth to protest again, but Felicity whispered, ‘Don’t, Susan. You will only earn a punishment for yourself. We are going to have to think of some other way to defeat Miss Tallant.’
So, reluctantly, Susan remained silent.
June, meanwhile, stole a glance at Bonnie’s face as she made her way back to her seat. The girl really was a good actress, for she looked just as shocked as everyone else. June made up her mind that she was going to tackle her later over her deceit—and, my goodness, wouldn’t she give her something to look shocked about! The girl wasn’t terribly upset about her punishment, though having to go to bed early was a frightful bore. But she was upset by the fact that the punishment was an unjust one. She intended to use her hour of peace and quiet to good purpose, however—in thinking up a way to get back at Miss Tallant!
‘Phew!’ said Pam, when the girls emerged from the classroom. ‘What a lesson! How I dislike that woman.’
‘It’s so terribly unfair!’ cried Susan. ‘June is being punished for something that she hasn’t even done.’
‘Don’t worry about me, Susan,’ said June. ‘The main thing is that it proved our suspicions are correct, and that Bonnie is giving our secrets away to Miss Tallant. Where is Bonnie, anyway?’
‘Oh, she stayed behind to help Miss Tallant tidy up the classroom,’ said Nora. ‘But what’s all this about Bonnie telling her our secrets?’
‘Of course, you don’t know, do you?’ said Felicity. And she and Susan told Nora, Julie and Lucy what had been happening.
They were very shocked, of course, and Lucy said gravely, ‘What are we going to do about it?’
‘Speak to her about it, of course,’ said June. ‘And I vote we punish the little beast by sending her to Coventry.’
‘That will be a very hard punishment for her to bear, because Bonnie loves to chatter,’ said Julie.
‘I wonder if Amy will stand out against the punishment?’ said Nora. ‘After all, Bonnie is her friend.’
‘Well, if she does, then I’m afraid we shall have to send Amy to Coventry, too,’ said Susan, her expression grim. ‘We’ll tackle her in the common-room after tea tonight.’
So, after tea that night, the girls gathered in the common-room.
Susan was sitting with Felicity, Pam and a few others, and she said, ‘Well, I vote that we get this whole beastly business over with as quickly as possible.’
The others agreed, and Susan called out, ‘Bonnie, can you come over here a minute, please? There is something we need to talk to you about.’
Surprised, Bonnie went over to Susan, who decided that it was no use beating about the bush, and said, ‘Bonnie, I need to ask you something. Have you been letting Miss Tallant in on some of our form’s secrets?’
Bonnie gave a gasp, and said at once, ‘Of course not! What makes you ask such a thing, Susan?’
r /> ‘She’s fibbing!’ said June. ‘There’s no one who can play innocent as well as Bonnie can. And we all know how good she is at acting.’
‘That’s enough, June,’ said Susan sharply. ‘The thing is, Bonnie, someone told Miss Tallant the name of the play that we are doing.’
‘And they sneaked to her about the mouse that I put in Olive’s desk,’ said June, who was far too angry to stay silent. ‘And we saw her with you in the library on the day of our meeting. She gave you a bar of chocolate.’
‘Yes, because she had asked me to do something for her, and said that she would give me a bar of chocolate if I did,’ said Bonnie, who had turned pale. ‘It was all part of my plan to suck up to her.’
Freddie gave a harsh laugh. ‘Yes, but you went a little too far in your plan, didn’t you? You decided that you had more to gain from being on Miss Tallant’s side than ours.’
‘That’s a horrid lie!’ cried Bonnie, tears starting to her big, brown eyes.
‘Of course it is,’ said Amy, entering the battle. ‘How dare you accuse Bonnie of such a thing?’
‘I realise that you want to stick up for your friend, Amy,’ said Felicity. ‘But we know that Bonnie is the culprit. You see, we let her overhear us talking about June’s plan to put a spider in Miss Tallant’s desk. And, sure enough, word reached Miss Tallant’s ears.’
‘But it wasn’t me!’ protested Bonnie, tears beginning to trickle down her cheeks now. ‘I wasn’t the only one who overheard you. Sylvia was there that night, and so was Olive. And Pam! It could just as easily have been one of them.’
Of course, the others knew that it wasn’t Pam, for she had come up through the school with them and would never dream of such a thing. Felicity couldn’t help glancing at Sylvia and Olive, though. Sylvia was looking extremely startled, while Olive wore her usual miserable expression. Could it have been one of them? She said to Bonnie, ‘All right then, you tell us what this mysterious job was that Miss Tallant asked you to do. Then, perhaps, we will believe you.’
But Bonnie had a stubborn streak, and she pursed her lips, saying through her tears, ‘I shan’t tell you, for if you were true friends you would believe me, and wouldn’t expect me to explain myself to you like this.’
‘So you are refusing to tell us?’ said Susan, looking grave.
Bonnie’s soft, brown curls shook as she nodded her head.
‘Don’t be an ass, Bonnie!’ begged Felicity. ‘Just tell us what Miss Tallant wanted you to do, and that will be an end to all of this.’
This time Bonnie shook her head, a stubborn set to her firm little chin.
‘Then I am afraid, Bonnie, that we will have to assume that you are the sneak,’ said Susan heavily. ‘And your punishment is that you will be sent to Coventry. Not one girl in the form is to talk to you, or have anything to do with you, for a whole week.’
Then Amy surprised everyone by putting her arm around Bonnie’s heaving shoulders, and saying loyally, ‘Well, I am not joining in your silly punishment, and I don’t care if you send me to Coventry as well! Come along, Bonnie, let’s go somewhere where we can be alone.’
With that, she led the weeping girl from the room and, as the door closed behind them, Susan grimaced and said, ‘Well, that was simply beastly, but it had to be done.’
Most of the others agreed at once, but Felicity remained silent. She remembered how Bonnie had played a big part in reuniting Julie with her missing horse, Jack, last term. The girl had certainly proved her loyalty to the form then. And there were several other past incidents when Bonnie had shown that, although she could be rather unscrupulous when it came to getting what she wanted, she was absolutely straight and honest—in her own, rather strange way!
Oh dear, thought Felicity, I do hope that we haven’t made a dreadful mistake!
9
A shock for the fourth form
Several days later Felicity and Susan learned some startling news. It was a pleasant, if cold, afternoon, and the two of them were wrapped up in coats, hats and scarves as they walked through the grounds.
‘I shall be glad when Bonnie’s period of Coventry is over,’ said Susan with a sigh. ‘It really is horrible. And it is making things awfully difficult as far as the play is concerned, for I can’t discuss the costumes with her until I can speak to her again.’
‘Yes, but even when we are allowed to speak to Bonnie again, things will never be the same,’ said Felicity thoughtfully. ‘For this incident will always be at the back of our minds. It’s a shame, because although I didn’t like Bonnie much when she first came to Malory Towers, I’ve grown quite fond of her now.’
‘Yes, she has many good qualities, although she has a funny way of going about things sometimes,’ said Susan. ‘Still, I suppose that no one is completely good, or completely bad. And once Bonnie’s punishment is over, we shall all have to do our best to try to forget what she has done, and help her try to make amends.’
Just then, the two girls saw a figure coming towards them, and both groaned inwardly. For it was none other than Miss Tallant!
‘Susan!’ said the mistress sharply, as she drew level with the two girls. ‘I understand that you took a book about play production from my desk yesterday, without permission. Not a very good example for a head-girl to set her form.’
Susan flushed bright red. She had sneaked the book from Miss Tallant’s desk, for she knew very well that the mistress did not like her, and would certainly have refused to lend it to her if she had asked.
She had flicked through it in the common-room yesterday evening, and had meant to put it back on Miss Tallant’s desk this morning, before the mistress even realised it had gone. But, alas for Susan, she had completely forgotten about it, and now she could have kicked herself!
‘Kindly ask permission before borrowing anything again, Susan,’ said Miss Tallant coldly. ‘And please bring the book to me in the mistresses’ common-room before prep this evening.’
‘When I will no doubt be given lines, or some other beastly punishment!’ muttered Susan as the mistress walked briskly away. ‘Blow! Why didn’t I remember to put it back this morning?’
‘Susan,’ said Felicity, with a frown. ‘How did Miss Tallant know that you had taken her book?’
‘Well, she noticed it wasn’t there, I suppose,’ said Susan, shrugging.
‘Yes, I know that,’ said Felicity, a little impatiently. ‘But how did she know that you took it, when it could have been any one of us fourth formers?’
‘Golly, I didn’t think of that!’ exclaimed Susan. ‘Well, there is only one explanation. Bonnie must have been tittle-tattling again. Which means that, even after being sent to Coventry, she still hasn’t learned her lesson! Honestly, that girl is a glutton for punishment!’
‘Half a minute, though!’ said Felicity. ‘Bonnie couldn’t have known that it was you who took the book, for she wasn’t there when you took it. I was, and so were Pam and Nora—but not Bonnie.’
Susan thought this over for a moment, then said, ‘But she was in the common-room last night, while I was sitting there reading it. I noticed that she kept glaring across at me, and thought it was because she was still sore at being ignored by everyone. But, of course, she must have been planning to tell on me to Miss Tallant all along.’
Felicity brooded on this as the two girls walked on. They had almost walked as far as the stables, and could see a slim, red-haired girl patting the nose of one of the horses, who had stuck his head over the stable door.
‘I say, there’s old Clarissa!’ cried Susan. ‘Hi, Clarissa!’
The girl turned her head, smiling when she saw Felicity and Susan coming towards her. ‘Hallo, you two!’ she said brightly. ‘You only just caught me. I’ve just been to see Miss Peters, and was about to go back to Five Oaks.’
‘How are things at Five Oaks?’ asked Susan. ‘Bill all right?’
The three chatted together for a while, then Clarissa said, ‘I met that new teacher of yours in town, the ot
her day—Miss Tallant. We had quite a chat.’
‘Really?’ said Felicity. ‘How did you come to meet her, Clarissa?’
‘Well, I was in the little tea-shop, waiting for Bill, and Miss Tallant sat down at the table next to mine. I didn’t realise who she was at first, of course, but then we fell into conversation. Very pleasant woman!’
Felicity and Susan exchanged startled glances and, noticing this, Clarissa laughed. ‘Do I detect that Miss Tallant is not very popular?’
‘She’s extremely unpopular!’ said Susan, pulling a face.
She and Felicity went on to tell Clarissa about some of the things Miss Tallant had done, and Clarissa exclaimed in surprise. ‘Well, I never! She seemed awfully nice when she was talking to me. And, having a niece of her own here, you would think that she would know the best way to handle young girls.’
‘A niece!’ exclaimed the two girls in unison, completely taken aback.
‘Well, that’s the first we’ve heard of it!’ said Felicity. ‘Who is this niece, Clarissa? Which form is she in?’
‘Why, the fourth form,’ answered Clarissa. ‘Apparently she has just started this term.’ Clarissa soon went on her way, leaving Felicity and Susan to stare at one another in horror.
‘You know what this means, don’t you, Felicity?’ said Susan in a very serious tone.
‘Yes,’ said Felicity, also sounding very grave. ‘Either Sylvia or Olive is Miss Tallant’s niece. And whichever one of them it is must also be the person who has been sneaking to her.’
‘Which means that we accused poor little Bonnie unjustly,’ said Susan, with a groan. ‘I feel simply dreadful! Felicity, we must round up the others at once, and call a form meeting.’
‘Of course,’ said Felicity. ‘Wait a minute, though! There are two of the others that we don’t want at our meeting—Sylvia and Olive themselves. Whichever one of them is the mysterious niece, she obviously doesn’t want anyone to know about the connection. And if we ask straight out she is likely to deny it.’
‘Yes,’ said Susan, looking thoughtful. ‘We need to set a trap for her, just as we did for Bonnie. And this time we need to make sure that nothing goes wrong.’