Part 4 (1/2)
Nan turned. She wished that Laura and the rest were here now, but she knew that they were waiting in an outer office.
”Then you think,” Walker Jamieson's words brought Nan back to the present plight of herself and her cousin Adair, ”that there is a regular trade in visitors' pa.s.ses, that the pickpocket who got ours wanted nothing else?”
”You had no money stolen, did you?” Mr. Nogales queried.
”Uh-h-h-” Adair MacKenzie had been silent for a long while for him. Now he rummaged through his pockets even as Nan checked on the contents of her purse.
”Just as I thought,” Mr. Nogales nodded his head, as the two agreed that all their money was there. ”Your visitors' pa.s.ses are the only thing missing. Just a moment, please, I'll see what can be done.” With this, he disappeared into the office of his superior, and Adair MacKenzie followed him.
Nan, Alice, and Walker Jamieson looked hopelessly at one another as Adair disappeared from their view.
CHAPTER V
TELL US ABOUT THE HACIENDA
”What did you think?” Laura inquired afterwards when the girls were all settled in a hotel close to the border for the night. ”That the walls of that inner office would just cave in when Mr. MacKenzie started bellowing.”
”Why, Laura Polk, how disrespectfully you talk!” Bess exclaimed from her place in front of the dressing table where she was brus.h.i.+ng her hair.
”And Mr. MacKenzie is our host too. If it weren't for him we wouldn't be down here now. At this minute we'd probably be on the sh.o.r.es of a lake near Tillbury.”
”Oh, Bess, you know I'm not one bit disrespectful, really,” Laura retorted. ”I like Mr. MacKenzie real well and you know I do. I'd give anything in the world to be able to roar the way he does.” There was genuine longing in her voice as she spoke. ”Just imagine,” she continued, ”how handy that roar would have come in the night we routed the ghost. I just think,” she continued to play with the idea of making use of Adair MacKenzie's roar, ”how handy it would come in, if we were to meet Linda Riggs.
”Couldn't we manage,” she was lying p.r.o.ne on the bed, and, as this new idea came to her, she cupped her chin in her hands and looked off into s.p.a.ce, ”to have your cousin around sometime when Linda Riggs was present. I'd love to have him a.n.a.lyze her the way he did us today. Such fun!” Laura's eyes danced merrily at the thought.
”And then I'd like to have her open her mouth to protest,” Laura continued, ”and have him roar at her. Oh, I'd give a million dollars, a trillion dollars,” she amended generously, ”to hear that roar.”
”You and me too,” Bess joined in. ”By the way, have any of you heard anything about her lately.”
”Not I,” Nan answered, ”and I must say the less I hear about her and the less I see of her, the better. There was a rumor, you know, at school that she was going to be allowed to come back this fall.”
”I know it,” Bess somehow always managed to hear all the rumors, ”and I can't for the life of me understand why Dr. Prescott would ever let her reenter. Certainly, she's no credit to Lakeview Hall, or to any school for that matter. If I were a princ.i.p.al I wouldn't let her in my school.
In fact, if I got the chance at all, I'd just slam the door right in her face.”
”Oh, Bess, do you ever sound as though you meant it? Cousin Adair should hear you talk now. He thinks that Laura has a temper. He should hear you sometimes.” Nan laughed at her pal.
”I know it, but I think I'm more than justified. She's certainly caused us plenty of trouble from the very first time we ever met her. I'll never forget how she embarra.s.sed us on the train that took us to Lakeview the first time.”
”Nor how Professor Krenner took our part,” Nan added.
”Nor how you outwitted her and drove up to school in the back of Walter Mason's car as though you were a princess returning to her palace,”
Laura giggled. ”There never was a freshman created more of a stir than you did that night. Boy, did we ever put our heads together in corridor four and decide that we would have to put you in your place right away,”
she continued slangily.
”And did I ever hate you, Laura Polk,” Bess laughed now at the recollection. ”You embarra.s.sed me so about that lunch box that when I went to bed that night I cried myself to sleep.”
”Poor Bessie,” Laura sympathized. ”You were such a proud little thing that I never in the world thought I'd ever be able to get along with you.”