Part 12 (2/2)

'Where did you get this?' she asked, sharply.

'I found it in this trick booklet,' said Mam'zelle, startled.

'Whose is the booklet? Where did you get it?' demanded Miss Potts.

'I took it from that bad little June's desk,' said Mam'zelle.

'Very interesting,' said Miss Potts. She got up and went to the door. She sent a girl to find Moira, Sally and Darrell. They came, looking surprised.

'I think I've found the writer of those notes,' said Miss Potts. 'But before I tackle her I want to know if she's any reason to dislike you, Moira. It's June, in the first form.'

'June!' exclaimed everyone, amazed.

Moira looked at Miss Potts. 'Yes - I suppose she'd think she had cause to dislike me,' she said. 'I ticked her off because she was cheeky about not being put into the Wellsbrough match. Told her she had no team-spirit. I also made her apologize to me for daring to say in front of me that Darrell had put Felicity into the match out of favouritism, because she was her sister.'

Miss Potts nodded. 'Thank you. It is June then, I'm afraid. I'll see her now. Send her to me, will you. I'm rather afraid this is a matter for Miss Grayling. We are not pleased with June and it wouldn't take much to have her sent away from here. This is a particularly loathsome act of hers - to send out anonymous letters.'

June came, looking defiant but scared. She had not been told why she was wanted.

'June, I have called you here on a very very serious matter,' said Miss Potts. 'I find that you have been writing detestable anonymous letters. Don't attempt to deny it. You will only make things worse. Your only hope is to confess honestly. Why did you do it?'

June had no idea how Miss Potts knew all this. She went white, but still looked bold. 'I suppose you mean the ones to Moira?' she said. 'Yes, I did write them - and she deserved them. Everyone hates her.'

'That's beside the point,' said Miss Potts. 'The point we have to keep to is that there is a girl in this school, a girl in the first form, who is guilty of something for which in later years she could be sent to prison - a thing that as a rule rarely begins until a girl is much much older than you, because it is only depraved and cowardly characters who attempt this underhand, stab-in-the-dark kind of thing.'

She paused. Her eyes bored like gimlets into the petrified June.

'We call this kind of thing ”poison-pen” writing, when the writers are grown up,' she went on, 'and they are held in universal loathing and hatred, considered the lowest of the low. Did you know that?'

'No,' gasped June.

'I would not talk to you in this serious manner if there were not also other things I dislike very much in you,' said Miss Potts, still in the same hard, driving voice. 'Your disobedience, your defiance, your aggressiveness, your total lack of respect for anyone. You may think it is admirable and brave and grand. It isn't. It is the sign of a strong character gone wrong - and on top of all that you have shown yourself a coward - because only a coward ever writes anonymous letters.'

June's knees were shaking. Miss Potts saw them but she took no notice. If ever anyone wanted a good shaking up it was June.

'This matter must go to Miss Grayling,' she said. 'Come with me now. You may be interested to know that it was because Mam'zelle found this note - to Felicity - that I discovered who was the writer of the other letters.'

June took a quick glance at the note to Felicity. 'I didn't give it to her,' she said. 'I meant to - and then I didn't. I must have left it somewhere in a book.'

'Our sins always find us out,' said Miss Potts, solemnly. 'Always. Now, come with me.'

'Miss Potts - shall I be - be - expelled?' asked June - a June no longer bold and brazen, but a June as deflated as when her balloons had been suddenly p.r.i.c.ked that day in cla.s.s.

'That rests with Miss Grayling,' said Miss Potts, and she got up. 'Come with me.'

The news went round the fifth form rapidly. 'The letters were written by June - the little beast!'

'She's gone to see Miss Grayling. I bet she'll be expelled. She's no good, anyway.'

Alicia listened in horror. Her own cousin! She disliked June as much as anybody else - but this was her own cousin in terrible trouble and disgrace. She was very distressed.

'It's a disgrace for our whole family,' she thought. 'And what will June's people say? They'll never get over it if she's expelled. They'll think I ought to have kept an eye on June more - and perhaps I should. But she really is such a little beast!'

Felicity came tearing up to the fifth-form common-room that evening. She was in tears. 'Darrell!' she said, hardly waiting to knock. 'Oh, Darrell - June's going to be expelled. She is really. Miss Grayling told her so. Oh, Darrell - I don't like her - but I can't bear her to be expelled. Surely she's not as bad as all that.'

Everyone in the fifth-form common-room sat up with a jerk at this news. Expelled! It was ages since anyone had been sent in disgrace from Malory Towers. And a first-former, too. Alicia sat silent, biting her lips. Her own cousin. How terrible.

Poor Felicity began to sob. 'June's got to go tomorrow. Miss Grayling is telephoning her people tonight. She's packing now, this minute. She's terribly, terribly upset. She keeps saying she's not a coward, and she didn't know it was so awful, she keeps on and on . . . Darrell, can't you do something? Suppose it was me, Darrell? Wouldn't you do something?'

The fifth form were aghast at all this. They pictured June packing, bewildered and frightened. Miss Grayling must have had very bad reports of her to make her go to this length. She must have thought there was no good in June at all not to give her one more chance.

'Darrell! Sally! Alicia! Can't you go and ask Miss Grayling to give her a chance?' cried Felicity, a big tear running down her nose and falling on to the carpet. 'I tell you, she's awfully upset.'

Moira had been listening with the others. So it was June! She looked round at Gwen, Maureen and Catherine, three of the girls she had suspected. It was a load off her heart that it wasn't any of them. It was an even greater relief that it wasn't Bridget, her sister.

But suppose it had been? It would have been Bridget who was packing then - Bridget who would have been so 'awfully upset'. It would have been her own parents who would be so sad and miserable because a child of theirs had been expelled.

Moira got up. 'I'll go and see Miss Grayling,' she said. 'I won't let her expel June. I'll ask her to give her another chance. After all - I've been pretty awful myself this term - and it's not to be wondered at if a mere first-former hated me - and descended to writing those letters. There was quite a lot of truth in them! June deserves to be punished - but not so badly as that.'

She went out of the room, leaving behind a deep silence. Felicity ran with her, and actually took her hand! Moira squeezed it. 'Oh, Moira - people say you're hard and unkind - but you're not, you're not!' said little Felicity. 'You're kind and generous and good, and I shall tell every single person in the first form so!'

n.o.body ever knew what happened between Miss Grayling, Moira and June, for not one of the three ever said. But the result was that June was sent to unpack her things again, very subdued and thankful, and that Moira came back to find a common-room full of admiration and goodwill towards her.

'It's all right,' said Moira, smiling round a little nervously. 'June's let off. She's unpacking again. She won't forget this lesson in a hurry.'

Alicia spoke in a rather shaky voice. 'Thanks most awfully, Moira. You've been most frightfully decent over this. I can't ever repay you - it means an awful lot to me to know that my cousin won't be expelled. I - er - I - want to apologize for resigning from the pantomime. If - if you'll let me withdraw my resignation, I'd like to.'

This was a very difficult thing for Alicia to do - Alicia who had said that nothing in the world would make her withdraw her resignation or apologize! Well, something had made her - and she was decent enough and brave enough not to s.h.i.+rk the awkwardness and difficulty but to say it all straight out in public.

Everyone went suddenly mad. Darrell gave a squeal of delight and rushed to Alicia. Sally thumped her on the back. Mavis sang loudly. Irene went to the piano and played a triumphant march from the pantomime. Bill and Clarissa galloped round the room as if they were on horseback, and little Mary-Lou thumped on the top of the table. Moira laughed suddenly.

What had happened to all the spite and malice and beastliness? What had happened to the squabbles and quarrels and worries? They were gone in an instant, blown to smithereens by Moira's instinctive, generous-hearted action in going to save June.

'Everything's right again,' sang Mavis, and Mary-Lou thumped the table in time. 'Everything's right, everything's right - HURRAY!'

21 MAM'ZELLE'S 'TREEK'.

CERTAINLY everything was much better now. Alicia went to see June and addressed a good many sound and sensible words to that much chastened and subdued first-former. It would be a long time before June forgot them, if she ever did. She didn't think she ever would.

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