Part 5 (1/2)
Just now Eleanor was keen upon getting the two plays given just before the Christmas vacation well started before the busy time at the end of term: it was the custom for the Old Girls to entertain the New Girls at a play and for the New Girls to return the compliment.
So the absorbing topic of Queen's new hockey coach being exhausted for the time being, ”Got any good stuff for the play in your cubicles, Cathy?” asked Eleanor; ”looks to me as if they are a nice lively little bunch. What a little witch Sally May is, and what lovely eyes Judy has!
I'm glad she and Nancy are such pals--they make a good team.”
”They're darlings, all of 'em,” said Catherine enthusiastically; ”but 'not too good for human nature's daily food.'” And she unfolded the plan for the midnight supper.
”Well, of course,” said Eleanor, laughing reminiscently, ”you couldn't expect them to go home for the holidays without a story of some such adventure as that. Remember the time we went down to the gym and Pat fell over the dumb-bell rack.”
”And it was such a mean supper to get punished for,” added Catherine, grinning; ”only cold baked beans and apples. The trouble is that Miss Marlowe is death on suppers since Christine Dawson caught pneumonia last year when they climbed out on to the sun-parlour roof, and of course now that I know--”
”Oh, of course we'll have to do something. But what?”
Various plans were discussed, but nothing satisfied their desire for poetic justice until suddenly Catherine exclaimed: ”I've got it! Let them have their supper, and then we'll make them wish they hadn't--let's lock the door of the common room (that's where they mean to go) and give them a good long time in which to repent of their sins. I've got the key--Miss Marlowe loaned it me for the dress rehearsals.”
”Good,” said Eleanor. ”I'll see that the windows are kept shut during the evening so that they won't catch cold, and I'll oil the lock at tea-time.”
And in spite of the solemnity befitting prefects, their eyes danced as they pictured the dismay of the young sinners when they discovered themselves caught; for prefects, notwithstanding their dignity and general ”high and mightiness,” are not by any means above a bit of a lark themselves.
CHAPTER V
”ENOUGH IS AS GOOD AS A FEAST”
THE crew of the ”Jolly Susan” did little work during the evening study hour; Judith, especially, found that she could not keep her mind on her tasks. This was the full flavour of life at a boarding-school, surely, to break the rules, and creep down the corridor in the dark to eat forbidden food! She even let her mind play round the food itself--chicken, meringues! She could hardly wait for bedtime.
If Catherine had not been in the secret, she would have been amazed at the swiftness with which her family went to bed. Josephine was usually incorrigibly slow, and Sally May always needed reminding that the devotion bell would ring in two minutes' time. To-night clothes were neatly arranged ready for the morning, rooms were in impeccable order, hair was properly brushed, and there was no mad rush to be at one's own door when the fatal bell sounded.
At last ”Lights out” bell rang and silence descended on South House.
Ten o'clock, and the prefects put out their lights, only the tiny red fire-escape lamps shone dimly at intervals down the corridor. Eleven o'clock, and the night watchman had creaked by on his way to East House.
The way was clear.
Out of bed slipped the conspirators. Judith's cheeks burned with excitement as, obedient to orders, she put on her warmest kimono, and, carrying mug and sofa pillow, followed Josephine and Jane to the corridor.
Nancy and Sally May had already gone, Josephine informed her in a piercing whisper, and Nancy had said to be _very_ careful of the boards opposite Miss Marlowe's door because they sometimes squeaked horribly.
Stealthily in Indian file they crept down the corridor.
Horrors! The boards certainly did creak! Miss Marlowe's light was still on! What if she should open her door!
Judith, with her eyes glued on the crack of light, clutched her kimono more tightly as if to escape being seen, and in some inexplicable way her mug slid from her cold fingers.
The fate of Sally May's party hung in the balance for just so long as it takes a mug to fall to the ground, and Judith for a nightmare second felt the bitterness of having betrayed her friends to the enemy; but Jane, with a magical dexterity, caught the mug ”on the fly” as Judith described it later, and for the time being they were saved.
Judith's heart was still thumping from their narrow escape when they joined the rest of the party in the common room at the head of the stairs. The blinds had been pulled up to let in the pale moonlight, and in the semi-darkness Judith could see five shadowy forms seated on their pillows around the precious box.
”Are we all here?” said Sally May in a sepulchral whisper.
”We are--thanks to Jane,” said Judith, and the episode of the mug was told to appreciative listeners.