Just Gerry Part 15

"I wonder what she'll do when it comes to literature and she finds we haven't prepared for that, either," said Hilda, with rather a tragic expression on her face. Hilda's conscience was troubling her a good deal. She had very lively visions of what the headmistress would probably say about her responsibility as head of the form, when the matter should get to her ears.

"Treat us the same way as she did in algebra cla.s.s, I expect," said Jack, with a grimace. "Wasn't it a rotten thing to go and do? I'd much rather she had raved at us like she did over the German--that really was rather fun!"

"It was rather cute of her, all the same," said Dorothy, with a sort of grudging admiration. "It made me feel rather mean when she settled down to correcting those papers like that. If she hadn't been quite so lavish with her bad marks all the time, I almost believe I might have repented a bit then."

"Oh, you'll repent all right, later on. Don't you worry about that,"

said Jack philosophically. "You just wait until Miss Oakley has given us a jawing. She'll make you feel an utter worm; you just see if she doesn't!"

"I know she will!" said Hilda, with a groan. "I say, don't you think we'd better give in and tell Miss Burton that we're sorry? There's a perfectly awful time waiting for us if we go on with the strike."

"We've gone too far to draw back now," said Dorothy. "So we may as well go on a little longer and see if we can't accomplish something.

We've set out to show Miss Burton that she's come to an up-to-date public school, and that her old-fas.h.i.+oned kindergarten methods won't go down here. Don't let's give in before the campaign's properly begun!"

"Courage, _mes amis_," cried Jack gaily, waving a biscuit over her head. "The worst is still to come, I admit, but we are martyrs in a good cause. We'll teach Miss Burton a lesson before we've done! And if we burn our own fingers in the doing of it--well, we knew we shouldn't get off scot-free before we began, didn't we?"

"Anyway, we shall have a bit of a run for our money," observed Nita Fleming, who had only just joined the group. "Miss Oakley's gone away till Wednesday--I was in the hall just now and saw her drive off. That means Thursday before the row can come off, at the very earliest."

"Hurrah!" shouted Jack. "If we all hold together till then we shall have broken Miss Burton's spirit, and shown her that she can't treat us as though we were just a parcel of kids. Thursday--why, who knows, we may have brought her to terms by then!"

"There's the bell!" said Hilda. "Buck up! it's Mademoiselle first, and we don't want to be late for her."

The French lesson pa.s.sed off most successfully, full marks being gained by the whole form. Then came a breathless moment while the form waited for the reappearance of Miss Burton. But to everybody's astonishment it was the head girl, Muriel Paget, who walked into the cla.s.sroom at the conclusion of the French lesson.

"Miss Burton isn't coming to this cla.s.s," announced the head girl in cold tones. "Miss Latham has asked me to come and sit here during the lesson. Get out your _Henry the Fifths_, please. You are to copy out Act I. Scene ii. from the beginning, putting in all the stage-directions and footnotes. Those are Miss Latham's orders, and what you don't have time to do now, you are to finish in prep to-night."

"My hat! The whole of the second scene!" groaned Phyllis in a whisper.

"Why, there's pages and pages of it!"

"Silence, please! There is to be no talking in cla.s.s," rapped out Muriel, frowning. Phyllis, catching the frown, relapsed into instant silence, and meekly found the place in her copy of _Henry V_. Defying the new mistress was one thing, but to defy the head girl was quite another. And soon the whole of the Lower Fifth was struggling with ink-stained fingers and much inward groaning of spirit to accomplish the irksome and monotonous task allotted to it.

Miss Burton did not return to the cla.s.sroom at all that morning, and at the end of school, Muriel set the preparation for the evening and prepared to take the marks. Miss Latham's awards for English came first and were duly noted down. Then came the marks for the German cla.s.s.

"German, now," said Muriel. "Hilda Burns, how many?"

"None," came from Hilda.

"Dorothy Pemberton?"

"None."

"Phyllis Tressider?"

"None."

And so on throughout the whole form, right down to Gerry Wilmott, whose name as the last comer was placed last upon the list. Muriel made no comment upon the scandalous result, but called for the marks for algebra. Once again the same comedy was enacted. Then came the good marks obtained from Mademoiselle, and then the last cla.s.s for literature. Muriel did not ask any questions respecting these.

"You have none of you any marks for literature," she said. "Any bad marks to give in?"

There were several, and the head girl's eyebrows went up as she put them down.

"Is that _all_?" she asked sarcastically, when at last she had disposed of all the upraised hands. Then she closed the mark-book and prepared to descend from the high desk.

"I hope you are pleased with your morning's work," she said, and went out of the room, leaving a somewhat discomfited Lower Fifth behind her.

"I say! The fat _is_ in the fire if all the Sixth know about it!" said Dorothy uncomfortably.

"What a perfectly, beastly mean sneak that Miss Burton is!" exclaimed Phyllis.

"Well, all I can say is, we shall have to make things so beastly uncomfortable for her that she'll just _have_ to go!" said Jack vindictively. Then she relapsed into a rather sheepish grin. "At any rate, it is to be hoped that we shall," she said. "For we've certainly succeeded in making things beastly uncomfortable for ourselves."

A remark with which the whole form mournfully agreed.

CHAPTER XVI

A GREAT DECISION

"Done your lines yet?" inquired Jack, catching Gerry up just as the latter was going into the Lower Fifth cla.s.sroom for preparation that evening.

"Very nearly," said Gerry. "I've only got about another ten to do, I think. I've come in early so as to finish them and take them up to Miss Burton before the prep bell goes. How are you getting on with yours?"

"Oh, about half-way through, I think," said Jack carelessly. "But it doesn't matter. I shall do them in prep to-night instead of any of Miss Burton's work. I shouldn't bother about them at all if it wasn't Miss Oakley who had set them. As it is, I shall have to do them, I suppose. It doesn't pay to disobey the Head, I can tell you," she added, with emphasis.

Jack and Gerry were not the only two members of the Lower Fifth who had come in early for preparation that night. When they entered the cla.s.sroom, they found several of the girls there already. Most of them were gathered around Hilda Burns's desk, apparently endeavouring to persuade her to some course of action.

"Here's Jack!" exclaimed Dorothy Pemberton in a tone of relief as the two newcomers came into the room. "I say, Jack, _do_ come here and talk to Hilda! She wants to cave in and do Miss Burton's prep. I tell her that she'll be a traitor to the form if she does."

"Of course, she will be!" cried Jack. "And, besides, it won't be the slightest use caving in now. Miss Burton's got her knife into us like blazes. She's sure to take the matter up to the Head, anyway, so we may as well be hung for a sheep as for a lamb!"

"That's what I say," said Dorothy. "But Hilda's got an attack of nerves or conscience or something. Pull yourself together, old girl, and stick to it. As Jack says, we're bound to get into a beastly row anyhow, so we might as well try and accomplish our purpose before we cave in."

"But what is our purpose?" argued Hilda, still unconvinced, but manifestly wavering.

"To teach Miss Burton a lesson, of course. To show her that she can't go sticking the Lower Fifth in corners as though we were a parcel of babies from the First Form! To make her see how jolly unpopular she's made herself, and to induce her to treat us better for the future if she stays on--which I jolly well hope Miss Oakley won't let her do!"

said Jack, with a fine flourish of eloquence.

"Good old Jack!" said Dorothy approvingly. "That's put it in a nutsh.e.l.l. Now, Hilda, say you'll stick to it and refuse to work for Miss Burton, or--or we'll send you to Coventry or something!"

The threat was made laughingly. Dorothy knew well enough that Hilda's strength of purpose was not sufficient for her to stand out against the whole of her form when it actually came to the point. This was not the first time she had had to deal with the conscience of the head of the form. Hilda was apt to get these belated attacks of panic when nefarious schemes were afoot in the Lower Fifth, but never yet had she been known to make a stand for her convictions. And this occasion proved no exception to the general rule. Seeing that public opinion was all in favour of continuing the strike, she yielded, with one last feeble protest.

"Well, don't blame me when Miss Oakley comes down upon us like a ton of bricks!" she said, as she got out the books and papers for the preparation set by Miss Latham and Mademoiselle.

"We won't, old thing," promised Jack. "And if there's anything left of us after the Head's done with us, we'll let you say, 'I told you so,'

as many times as you like! I'm sure it will be no end of a consolation to you!"

While this argument was in progress, Gerry had been quietly finis.h.i.+ng her lines. She had now completed writing out "Chestnuts are bad for the digestion" one hundred times, and, fastening her papers neatly together with a paper-fastener, she glanced up at the clock. It still wanted four minutes to five o'clock. If she was quick she would just about have time to hand over her lines to Miss Burton before the prep bell sounded, and, getting up from her desk, she left the cla.s.sroom and hurried along to the mistress's private study.