New Term at Malory Towers

by Enid Blyton

  Veronica felt rather guilty on hearing this. Hadn’t she looked down on her own parents and thought that they weren’t good enough for her? Well, she had learned her lesson all right at half-term, and she understood exactly how Amy was feeling now. ‘No,’ she murmured. ‘You’re quite right, Amy. You can’t look down on the people you love.’

  Her voice was becoming drowsy and, beside her, Amy stifled a yawn.

  ‘No more talking now, girls,’ came Felicity’s voice. ‘It’s time for lights-out.’

  And, one by one, the third formers drifted off to sleep, each of them thinking that the last few days had been very strange indeed, and wondering what the remainder of the term had in store.

  A bad time for Felicity

  The following day started badly for Felicity, who was putting her shoes and socks on when the breakfast bell went, only to discover that one of her laces was missing.

  ‘What are you doing, Felicity?’ asked Nora, astonished to see the girl dive under the bed in search of her missing shoelace.

  ‘One of my laces is missing,’ came Felicity’s muffled voice from under the bed. ‘Blow! Where can it have gone? I know they were both here last night.’

  ‘It must have fallen out,’ said Julie.

  ‘Laces don’t just fall out,’ said Felicity, who was now crawling round the floor. ‘And they don’t simply disappear into thin air either. I can’t go down to breakfast without it, or I shan’t be able to keep my shoe on.’

  ‘I’ve got a spare pair of shoelaces,’ said Susan, coming to the rescue. ‘You can borrow one of them. Now do hurry up, Felicity, or you’ll get into a row from Potty.’

  Quickly Felicity threaded the new lace into her shoe and raced downstairs after the others, reaching the dining-room just in time to avoid a ticking off from Miss Potts.

  ‘I can’t think where my shoelace went,’ said Felicity to Susan as she buttered a slice of toast.

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t worry about it too much,’ said Susan. ‘It’s not as if you’ve lost something valuable, like jewellery or your purse. Perhaps someone removed it while you were asleep, for a prank. I daresay it’ll turn up later.’

  Felicity decided that Susan was probably right and thought no more about the matter – at first.

  June’s mind seemed to be somewhere else at breakfast. Indeed, she was so preoccupied that she would have put salt in her porridge instead of sugar, if Freddie hadn’t been on hand to stop her.

  ‘Whatever is the matter with you?’ asked Freddie. ‘You’ve been in an absolute dream since you got out of bed!’

  ‘I’ve just been thinking,’ answered June. ‘I’ve apologised to you, and I’ve apologised to Amy. Now all I need to do is square things with Mrs Dale, and once I’ve done that I’ll feel as if I can wipe the slate clean.’

  ‘Yes, I think you should get it over with as soon as possible, then you’ll feel much better,’ agreed Freddie. ‘She’s a decent old soul, and I don’t think she’ll be too cross with you – especially as you remind her of herself when she was young.’

  June laughed. ‘I couldn’t believe it when you told me that, and I still can’t imagine dear, kindly Mrs Dale playing pranks on her teachers!’ She sipped her tea and went on decisively, ‘I’m going to slip across and see her in the lunch-break. If I run over there quickly as soon as I’ve eaten, I can be there and back again in time for English this afternoon.’

  Freddie nodded in approval at this plan, while at the other end of the table, Julie said, ‘Felicity! Don’t forget that you said you’d lend me your spare pen. Mine’s broken and I shan’t have time to go and buy a new one until the weekend.’

  ‘Oh yes, I had forgotten!’ exclaimed Felicity. ‘It’s in the common-room. I’ll go and fetch it on the way to Maths.’

  But when Felicity and her friends popped into the common-room a little later, her spare pen was nowhere to be seen.

  ‘That’s strange!’ said Susan, looking baffled. ‘I could have sworn that you put it in your locker last night.’

  ‘Yes, so could I,’ said Felicity, frowning. ‘Half a minute, though! Nora, I lent it to you, remember, because you had left yours in your desk. You’re so scatterbrained that you must have forgotten to give it back to me.’

  ‘I did give it back to you, Felicity,’ insisted Nora. ‘I’m sure I did.’

  ‘Yes, she did,’ put in Pam. ‘I remember seeing her hand it to you. But goodness knows where you put it. Really, Felicity, first you lose your shoelace then you misplace your pen! You’re getting quite as scatterbrained as Nora.’

  But Felicity wasn’t at all scatterbrained, and had been brought up to take care of her things. It wasn’t like her at all to lose something, or to forget where she had put it, and she began to feel a little worried.

  ‘Well, we can’t stay here all morning hunting for a pen,’ said Susan briskly. ‘I don’t think that Miss Peters would think that an acceptable excuse for us being late. Julie, you’ll have to see if one of the others has a pen you can borrow.’

  So the girls quickly made their way to the third-form classroom, where, fortunately for Julie, she was able to borrow a pen from one of the South Tower girls. Miss Peters did not look at all kindly on girls who turned up to her classes badly prepared and without the correct equipment!

  Felicity, however, continued to puzzle over her missing belongings. It wasn’t as if they were expensive possessions, or things that were particularly important to her, or items that couldn’t be replaced. It was just so very annoying!

  True to her word, June sped across to Mrs Dale’s cottage after lunch, and Freddie was waiting for her by the school gates when she returned, relieved to see the happy smile on the girl’s face.

  ‘Mrs Dale is the nicest, most decent person I have ever met!’ she declared. ‘Of course, she gave me a bit of a ticking off, but that was only to be expected. Then she started telling me about some of the tricks she had played when she was at school, and I told her about the vanishing cream, and we got along like a house on fire! She’s given me some simply super ideas for tricks as well.’

  ‘Tell me about them later,’ said Freddie, taking June’s arm and walking briskly up the drive. ‘If we’re late for English we shall be in trouble with Miss Hibbert, and you don’t want another ticking off.’

  The two girls got to their classroom just before the English mistress and were spared a scolding, but alas for Felicity, she very soon got into trouble with Miss Hibbert.

  ‘We’re going to carry on reading through the play that we started yesterday,’ said the mistress, once the class was seated. ‘Open your scripts at page three and…Felicity, please pay attention!’

  Felicity, who had been rummaging around in her desk, hastily dropped the lid and said, ‘I’m sorry, Miss Hibbert, but I can’t seem to find my script.’

  ‘Really, Felicity, as head of the form you’re supposed to set an example to the others,’ said Miss Hibbert, sounding exasperated. ‘It’s most unlike you to be so careless. Well, you will just have to share Susan’s script for now.’

  Her face flaming, Felicity moved her chair closer to Susan’s, as her thoughts raced. She had put the script back in her desk after English yesterday, she was absolutely certain of that! To mislay one thing might be put down to carelessness or absent-mindedness, but this was the third thing that she had lost today. An unwelcome suspicion entered Felicity’s head. Was someone playing a prank on her? If so, it wasn’t a very funny one, for it had got her into hot water with Miss Hibbert. Her heart sank as it occurred to her that, perhaps, the culprit meant for her to get into trouble, and she glanced round at the other girls in her form, wondering which of them could be capable of such spite. She was certain that it was a third former, for nobody else could have sneaked into the classroom and the dormitory and the common-room without being spotted. But there was no time to think about that now, for Felicity had to give her full attention to Miss Hibbert and the reading of the play.

  She voiced her suspicions to S
usan later that afternoon, as the two of them sat on a wooden bench in the courtyard, and her friend looked very serious indeed.

  ‘I must admit that thought occurred to me too,’ said Susan. ‘But who on earth could it be? Not Pam, or Nora or Julie, that much is certain.’

  ‘No, we can certainly rule them out,’ said Felicity. ‘We’ve known them since we were first formers together and none of them would think of doing anything so beastly to me. I don’t think it’s the kind of thing Freddie would do either. There’s no shortage of suspects, though. I’ve upset Bonnie, Amy and Veronica recently – though Amy does seem to have got over it, and I honestly think she has too much on her mind at the moment to bother about playing silly, spiteful little tricks on me.’

  Susan agreed and said gravely, ‘I hate to say this, Felicity, but there’s someone else it could be.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Felicity in surprise.

  ‘June,’ answered Susan. ‘Don’t forget that you told her off over that business with Mrs Dale, and that won’t have gone down well. If there’s one thing that June hates it’s being made to feel small. You can’t deny that she has a malicious streak in her nature, and we all know that she can hold a grudge too!’

  Everything that Susan said was true, but Felicity hated to think that June, who had also come up through the school with them, was capable of such spite against her, even though they hadn’t always been the best of friends.

  ‘No,’ she said at last, shaking her head. ‘I know that June was angry with me for giving her a scold, but she also knew that she deserved it. Besides, if she did have a grudge against me she would tell me so to my face – and probably in front of everyone too! No, this hole and corner stuff isn’t like June at all.’

  But Susan wasn’t convinced. ‘She has done this kind of thing before,’ she said. ‘Remember when we were in the first form and she sent those horrid anonymous notes to Moira?’

  Felicity was silent. She had forgotten all about that! Moira had been a very unpopular and rather domineering fifth former who had got on the wrong side of June. And June had retaliated by sending the girl a series of unpleasant anonymous notes. But she had been found out, and it was only thanks to Moira’s intervention that June hadn’t been expelled.

  ‘Yes, but she was only a first former then,’ said Felicity at last, looking troubled. ‘And almost being expelled really shook her up and taught her a lesson. Surely she wouldn’t do anything like that again – would she?’

  ‘I really don’t know what to think,’ said Susan, frowning. ‘But perhaps we should tell Pam, Nora and Julie that we suspect someone is playing these mean tricks on you, then all of us can keep our eyes open and look out for anything suspicious.’

  ‘Good idea,’ said Felicity. ‘Oh, Susan, I do hope that it isn’t June! It’s bad enough to think that there’s someone in the third form who dislikes me enough to take my things and get me into trouble – but it’s even worse to think that it could be someone that I’ve known for years!’

  The two girls found Pam, Nora and Julie down at the stables, all of them fussing over Jack. To their astonishment, Bonnie was also there, feeding sugar to Miss Peters’s big black horse, Midnight, and patting his sleek, dark neck. Felicity noticed that the girl looked a little nervous when Midnight whinnied, and she shied away from him when he tossed his big head.

  ‘I didn’t know that you liked horses, Bonnie!’ said Susan, in surprise.

  ‘There are a lot of things you don’t know about me, Susan,’ said Bonnie, rather loftily. Then she gave Midnight a final pat and whispered to him, ‘I’ll be back to see you tomorrow, boy,’ before walking out of the stables, pointedly sticking her nose in the air as she passed Felicity.

  ‘I’d love to know what she’s playing at,’ said Nora, staring suspiciously after her. ‘Julie says that Bonnie has been to see Midnight every day this week, yet she’s never shown any interest in him – or any of the horses – before.’

  ‘She’s a funny little thing,’ remarked Pam. ‘I don’t quite know what to make of her!’

  ‘Well, never mind that now,’ said Felicity. ‘Susan and I have something we want to tell you.’

  And Pam, Nora and Julie listened open-mouthed as the two girls told them that they were certain someone was playing malicious tricks on Felicity.

  ‘I believe you’re right!’ said Pam. ‘It’s not like you to be careless with your belongings, Felicity.’

  ‘I’ll bet it’s Veronica!’ Nora said. ‘You know that she did something very similar to Katherine of the fourth form, of course?’

  ‘No, I didn’t know!’ said Felicity, looking shocked. ‘When was this?’

  ‘It was when they were in the second form together,’ said Nora. ‘Apparently the two of them fell out over something – I can’t remember what – and strange things started happening to Katherine, just as they have to you, Felicity. Her things went missing, and some of her work was deliberately spoilt, and eventually Katherine and some of her friends caught Veronica red-handed. That’s why the fourth formers always disliked Veronica so much, and, if you ask me, it’s why Miss Grayling decided to keep her down with us instead of going up into the fourth form this term. I think she wanted Veronica to have a fresh start with a new form.’

  ‘And instead it looks as if she’s been up to her old tricks again,’ said Julie, looking quite disgusted. ‘How jolly mean of her, especially as you were so kind to her at half-term, Felicity.’

  ‘Let’s find her and have it out with her!’ cried Susan, indignant on her friend’s behalf.

  But Felicity said decisively, ‘No, we can’t. We don’t have any proof that it’s Veronica who is behind this, and it would be a dreadful thing if we accused her wrongly.’

  ‘You’re quite right, old thing,’ said Pam. ‘None of us like Veronica, but just because she’s done this kind of thing before doesn’t mean that she is responsible this time.’

  ‘Well, I’m going to be watching her,’ said Susan. ‘And if I catch her in the act she had better watch out!’

  ‘Yes, but don’t let her know that you’re watching her,’ warned Julie. ‘If it is Veronica, we don’t want to put her on her guard.’

  There was quite a lot of spying going on in the third form over the next couple of days. Susan, of course, was watching Veronica. Felicity, meanwhile, kept an eye on June, for of all the girls she suspected, June was the one she desperately hoped was innocent. And Nora and Julie were watching Bonnie – not because they thought that she was the person playing tricks on Felicity, for both of them privately thought that Veronica was responsible – but they were extremely curious to know what was behind the girl’s sudden interest in Midnight.

  They found out on Saturday morning, when they were busy grooming Jack. Miss Peters came into the stables to saddle up Midnight, only to find Bonnie there petting him and feeding him a carrot. Midnight had grown very fond of Bonnie, and would whinny softly when she approached him, before nuzzling her shoulder. Bonnie, in turn, had quite lost her fear of the big horse and thought him rather sweet. He swallowed the last bit of carrot now and rested his black head on Bonnie’s shoulder, while she threw her arms round his neck and said in her lisping voice, ‘Dear Midnight, what a lovely horse you are! Miss Peters is so lucky to have you.’

  ‘Why, Bonnie!’ cried Miss Peters, coming up behind the girl. ‘I had no idea that you and Midnight were such good friends.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Peters, I didn’t hear you come in!’ said Bonnie, turning her big brown eyes on the mistress. ‘Yes, I absolutely adore Midnight, though I must admit I was a little afraid of horses until I got to know him. But he’s so sweet and gentle that now I can’t believe what a silly I was!’

  And, under the astonished eyes of Julie and Nora, Miss Peters – who loved Midnight more than anything or anyone else in the world – beamed at Bonnie and said kindly, ‘I’m glad that he has helped you to overcome your fear. Perhaps you would like me to take you out on him one day, Bonnie? I can lead him while you
sit on his back and just get used to being on a horse.’

  ‘Oh, Miss Peters!’ cried Bonnie ecstatically, her eyes shining. ‘That would be simply marvellous.’

  ‘Very well,’ said the mistress, putting the saddle on to the horse’s back. ‘I can’t take you out now, for I’ve arranged to meet Bill and Clarissa, but perhaps one day next week?’

  Bonnie thanked Miss Peters again, and waved her off as she led Midnight out into the yard before nimbly mounting him and riding off. Then, as the clip-clop of the horse’s hooves faded into the distance, she turned to the two third formers and said sweetly, ‘Looks like you owe me a stick of toffee, Nora.’

  And Nora had to laugh. Bonnie was quite a determined little character once she had made up her mind to do something, even overcoming her fear of horses because she knew that Miss Peters was sure to look kindly on anyone who liked her beloved Midnight. She really was the strangest girl!

  Veronica in trouble

  The following day, Sunday, was Amy’s birthday and the girl had been looking forward to it with mixed feelings. The excitement she would normally have felt was dimmed, because she knew that she would have to tackle her mother about the lies she had told. All the same, it was pleasant to wake up to a chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’ from the third formers, and – as she knew that she wasn’t the most popular girl in the form – Amy was both amazed and delighted to find that everyone had bought her a gift. They were only small things – a jar of bath salts from Veronica, chocolate from Felicity and a hair-slide from Pam, but Amy thanked everyone and smiled round pleasantly. She went into the bathroom to wash, and when she came back there was a large parcel on her bed, wrapped in silver paper with a bow on top. Curious, she ripped it open and gave a gasp. For there was the dress that Bonnie had promised her. The two girls had chosen the material together before they quarrelled, and Amy had assumed that Bonnie was no longer going to make the dress. But here it was, and what a super job Bonnie had done! Amy’s eyes shone as she held the pale pink dress against her and Nora said, ‘My word, Amy, that’s simply beautiful! Is that Bonnie’s work?’