The Nicest Girl in the School Part 18

"I did, Miss Rowe," replied Enid, promptly.

"Then you will leave the room at once, Enid. You will take a bad mark for conduct, and you will learn two pages of Greek chronology, and repeat them to me to-morrow morning before nine o'clock. Go immediately!"

Enid obeyed with as much noise as she could; she was in a naughty frame of mind, and enjoyed banging the door after her. She did not greatly care about either the bad mark for conduct or the Greek chronology, though she had an uncomfortable qualm when it occurred to her that the episode might possibly come to Miss Lincoln's ears. For this once, however, she was safe. Miss Rowe was anxious to manage her troublesome cla.s.s without constant reference to the headmistress, and thought it better not to report the affair. She determined, nevertheless, that Enid, being the centre of so much mischief, should move from her desk, and, instead of sitting in the second row from the back, should be in front, directly under her teacher's eye. She mentioned her wish to Miss Harper, who ordered Enid to change places with Beatrice Wynne, and to transfer her books to her new desk before the next morning. Enid was furious.

"I won't go!" she declared to her companions. "Not unless Miss Rowe drags me there."

"You'll have to!" said Avis.

"I don't know about that. No one can force me to do a thing I don't want, not even Miss Lincoln."

"Miss Lincoln would expel you if you didn't do what you were told."

"I shouldn't care!"

"Oh, Enid, don't be silly! It can't make such a difference where you sit. I'll help you to move all your books, and put your new desk tidy,"

said Patty, hoping to pour oil on the troubled waters, and adding: "You'll have one advantage. You'll be close to Miss Harper in the botany cla.s.s, and she'll hand you the specimens first. I wish I might change instead of you. I always envied Beatrice when she was pulling off petals, and we were craning our necks to try and look."

"It's easy enough to see the bright side for somebody else," grumbled Enid.

"Let us have our removal now," continued Patty, wisely taking no notice.

"Beatrice is quite ready; aren't you, Beatrice? We'll lay all the things on the seat, and dust the desk inside before we put them in."

"I wouldn't do it for anybody but you," said Enid, allowing herself to be persuaded.

Beatrice soon emptied her desk, and it did not take very long to arrange the books in their new quarters. The alteration was effected almost before Enid realized it, and the storm which Patty had dreaded for her friend's sake was avoided. Nevertheless, Patty was not easy about Enid.

"She'll be getting into serious trouble some day," she thought. "I wish she would behave better in Miss Rowe's cla.s.ses. Things can't always go on like this, and if Miss Rowe were to tell her to report herself in the library, I don't believe even Enid would like to face Miss Lincoln and find her really angry. I know I shouldn't."

It seemed no use for Patty to try remonstrances. Enid only laughed, and would not listen to her.

"Patty, you're a dear!" she declared. "I love you the best of any girl I know, but even you can't persuade me to like Miss Rowe. It's no use.

We're flint and steel, or frost and fire; or oil and water, or anything else you can name that oughtn't to go together, and won't mix. The very tone of her voice annoys me."

"Why should it?"

"It's so prim. The way she pokes out her chin and says 'Enid!' is most disagreeable. It always makes me want to be naughty. Yes, it does; don't shake your head. I've told you a hundred times I'm not good like you, and I simply can't be. I'm like a bottle of soda-water with the cork popped, and I have to fizz over sometimes."

It was unfortunate that Enid should have taken such a dislike to her teacher, for she kept up a state of ill-feeling among the girls which otherwise would probably have died away. Absurd trifles were magnified and made much of, and ridiculous grievances were nursed and cherished.

One day Miss Rowe set the upper division a grammar exercise consisting of two questions. The first was long and very difficult; it was on the origin of the English language, and required a certain knowledge of various Anglo-Saxon roots, a list of words derived from ancient British, and some account of the Norman-French period. The second and shorter question was simply a sentence to be pa.r.s.ed. No one in the cla.s.s had a good memory for derivations. Fourteen out of the fifteen members spent the half-hour racking their brains and biting the ends of their pens in vain endeavours to complete their answers to Question 1, so that when it was time to hand in their exercise books, they had written very little, and that little was mostly wrong. The exercises were corrected and returned the next day, and each girl, with the solitary exception of Ella Johnson, found she had received a bad mark.

"It's too disgusting!" said Beatrice Wynne. "I don't believe even Miss Rowe herself could have answered that question without looking at the book."

"How did you manage it, Ella? You're the only one who's sc.r.a.ped through," asked Avis.

"I didn't attempt it," said Ella. "I did the parsing instead."

"You mean to say you didn't do Question 1 at all?" exclaimed Kitty Harrison.

"No, not I."

"How abominably unfair!" cried Enid. "I thought everybody had to begin with the first question. All the rest of us took so long over it, that we hadn't time for the parsing, and yet we got bad marks, and you, who hadn't even tried, got a good mark. It's just like Miss Rowe's meanness."

"It's really too bad," said Winnie. "Someone ought to go to Miss Rowe and ask her about it."

"Yes, so they ought."

"Who will, then?"

n.o.body volunteered for the disagreeable task, and Avis suggested that Winnie herself might be suitable.

"I daren't, after the snubbing I got yesterday," said Winnie. "She wouldn't listen to me."

"I think it would be best if we were to draw lots," said Enid.

"No, don't draw lots, it seems like gambling," said Avis. "Suppose we count as we do for games? Stand in a circle, and I'll begin. Are you ready?"

"The first one who gets 'out' will have to go and tell Miss Rowe what we think, then," agreed Enid.

"'One, two, three, four, Jenny at the cottage door," began Avis.

"'Eating cherries off a plate, five, six, seven, eight. One, two, three, out goes _she_.' Why, it's you, Winnie, after all."

"I wish it wasn't," groaned Winnie. "However, I suppose I shall have to go. Miss Rowe's in the studio, so I'll ask her now and get it over."

"Tell her we don't think it's fair," said Enid.

"And that Ella ought to have a bad mark too," said Kitty Harrison.

"Oh, you mean thing! It's not my fault," protested the indignant Ella.

"You can say we might all have done the parsing if we'd begun it first,"

said Beatrice.

"And don't forget to say there wouldn't have been time to answer two such long questions," said Maggie Woodhall.

"I'll do the best I can, but don't expect too much," replied Winnie.

"Stay here, all of you, till I come back."

Winnie returned in about five minutes with a doleful face. "It's no use," she a.s.sured the girls, "I can't make Miss Rowe understand the point at all. She would only say: 'You wrote a very ill-prepared exercise, which did not deserve a good mark, and if you think I am going to excuse bad work you are quite mistaken'."

"It's just what I expected," declared Enid. "Miss Rowe carries everything with such a high hand, she won't take the trouble to listen properly when one tries to explain."

"It's a shame!" said all the girls, indignantly.

"I wish we could find some way of paying her out," said Enid.

"What could we do?"

"Let me think. I know! Suppose we none of us say 'Good morning' to her when she comes into the schoolroom to-morrow to take the register."