Naughtiest Girl 5: The Naughtiest Girl Keeps a Secret

by Anne Digby

  ‘Impossible,’ she replied.

  They looked at each other ruefully.

  ‘In any case,’ Elizabeth laughed. ‘I’m not sure I care!’

  The fact was that Elizabeth and Julian’s cousin were no longer on speaking terms. They had simply decided to ignore each other. At the dinner table today, Patrick had been rather full of himself. There was to be another home match next weekend. Whyteleafe would be playing St Faith’s and Patrick had been picked for the second team again. After his good performance against Woodville, his place was beginning to look very secure.

  ‘And Mr Warlow has asked me to be hospitality monitor,’ Patrick told Martin, ‘as a reward for playing so well. Isn’t that an honour!’

  ‘You were brilliant,’ said Martin, who was now a great admirer.

  ‘It will be quite a tough match,’ said Patrick. ‘But the really big match will be the one after that, just before half-term.’

  ‘You mean the match against Hickling Green?’ said Rosemary, knowledgeably.

  Whyteleafe v. Hickling Green was always the big tennis fixture of the summer term. The two schools were long-standing rivals.

  ‘Yes,’ nodded Patrick. ‘A lot of parents come to watch, if they’re collecting us at half-term. I’ve got to play well against St Faith’s, to make sure of my place for the big match.’

  ‘I’m sure you will, Patrick,’ cooed Arabella. ‘Especially now you’re keeping your racket safely locked up.’

  Nobody else at the table had taken part in this conversation.

  Unofficially the class was starting to divide into two factions.

  There was a very small faction consisting of Patrick, Arabella, Rosemary and Martin. These four, together with one or two hangers-on, firmly believed that Elizabeth had played a mean trick on Patrick and was refusing to own up. She had not once been called the naughtiest girl in the school for nothing.

  A much bigger faction, consisting of Julian, Belinda, Kathleen, and many others, sided firmly with Elizabeth. They felt sure that if by any chance Elizabeth had played a joke, as a former monitor (and such a fine one) she would certainly have owned up.

  ‘As a matter of fact, Julian,’ Elizabeth said now, as they turned their ponies to head back to school, ‘I really do not care. I mean even if it was Roger wanting to get his place back in the second team. He deserves it more than Patrick does. He’s much more decent than Patrick.’

  ‘Yes.’ Julian’s green eyes twinkled. His friend was being illogical. ‘Of course. And much too decent to have played such a trick in the first place. Well, Elizabeth,’ he added airily, ‘if you don’t care, then why should I?’

  There the conversation ended. They trotted briskly back to the school stables. After seeing to the pony, Elizabeth decided to wander down to the school gardens. She had a compulsion to keep an eye on John’s project.

  ‘I must just check that the plants are all right,’ she thought. ‘Even though there’s nothing at all I can do about it, if they’re not.’

  The prize lettuces looked as fine as ever. No more slugs had appeared. The few in the bowls remained thoroughly bloated and drowned-looking.

  ‘I suppose there’s no chance they can somehow revive?’ Elizabeth fussed to herself. ‘It would be awful if they’re just unconscious and could come back to life again.’

  She walked round to the small rubbish heap where John had dumped all the dead creatures before. There was quite a mound of them. She turned them over with a twig, one by one, examining each one carefully. At first she screwed up her nose but she soon got used to them. Poor fat things!

  ‘Yes, they’re dead all right,’ she thought. ‘They’re as dead as doornails. So the milk idea really, really works . . .’

  ‘UGH!’ came a voice at her shoulder.

  Elizabeth sprang to her feet guiltily. She turned round.

  Sophie was standing right behind her. The child’s eyes were round as saucers.

  ‘Why are you playing with those dead slugs, Elizabeth?’ she asked, with a shudder.

  Elizabeth hurriedly threw the twig away and laughed.

  ‘It’s my secret hobby, Sophie!’ she joked, ‘I like playing with dead slugs.’

  ‘Do you really?’ asked the child, solemnly. She had been watching for some time.

  ‘Look here, Sophie,’ said Elizabeth briskly. She took her firmly by the hand. ‘You know you’re not allowed to come wandering down here on your own.’

  ‘I just wanted to look at all the flowers again. They do smell lovely.’

  ‘Well, you’re coming back to school with me, right now.’

  Sophie was reluctant to leave the flowers. Elizabeth decided to cheer her up.

  ‘I’ll teach you a funny song,’ she said kindly. ‘It’s one my governess told me. You can make up any names you like to put in it.’

  Soon they were chanting it together, all the way back to school:

  What is little Sophie made of? What is little Sophie made of?

  Sugar and spice and all things nice

  That’s what little Sophie is made of!

  What is little Patrick made of? What is little Patrick made of?

  Slugs and snails and puppy dogs’ tails

  That’s what little Patrick is made of!

  At the main doors, they parted, with peals of laughter. Sophie liked the song. She would use it for skipping!

  Elizabeth felt cheerful, too. She loved being at Whyteleafe School, in spite of the fact that she was no longer a monitor. She and Julian had been for such a good ride. And John’s lettuces were looking fine. They were looking better than ever.

  But the next day, the rains came back.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Elizabeth makes up her mind

  ‘WILL YOU please be so kind as to stop staring at me, Elizabeth?’ requested Mam’zelle during French, the first lesson on Monday morning. ‘Will you be so kind as to keep your eyes down and fixed on your work? Do you not know it is very rude to stare? What is the matter with you this morning? Is it that you have never before seen a person eating a biscuit?’

  From the rest of the class there came muffled giggles as the boys and girls glanced up from their vocabulary sheets.

  ‘Sorry, Mam’zelle,’ Elizabeth apologized. ‘I wasn’t really staring at you. I was thinking about something else.’

  ‘You will think about your French vocabulary while you are sitting in my lesson, if you please, Elizabeth.’

  Elizabeth lowered her head obediently. She pored studiously over her word sheet. Mam’zelle had given them ten minutes to learn some vocabulary while she herself marked some second form essays over by the big window. Then there would be a test.

  Elizabeth had not even noticed that Mam’zelle was eating a biscuit, it was such a commonplace. The temperamental French teacher carried her school biscuit tin everywhere, full of Cook’s home-made oatmeal biscuits. She needed them, she had explained to Miss Belle and Miss Best, to counteract the nervous dyspepsia she suffered when taking lessons. It helped to keep her digestive system calm. Everybody knew that. So naturally, first thing on Monday morning out had come the biscuit tin.

  ‘I wish they would keep the rest of her calm,’ Elizabeth sighed to herself. She was embarrassed to have received a scolding in front of the whole class.

  The little girl had been staring not at Mam’zelle but at the window panes beyond. There were large raindrops splattering on to them. Drip-drop. Drip-drop. They were getting louder and larger by the minute. Elizabeth had found it difficult not to watch the rain. Was this just the beginning or would it soon stop?

  The rain did not stop. It poured down relentlessly until the middle of the afternoon.

  ‘This will bring the slugs out again, for sure,’ Elizabeth thought, in despair. ‘And with none of us able to do a thi
ng about it.’

  She now felt deeply anxious about John’s project once again. The glimmerings of a plan began to form in the back of her mind.

  After tea that day, when the rain had stopped, she walked down to the village with her friend, Joan. The children were only allowed to go to the village in pairs.

  ‘What are you going to buy at the shops today, Elizabeth?’ asked the second former.

  ‘I’m going to get some sweets for John Terry,’ she replied. She still had fifty pence left, even after paying Belinda back for some stamps she had borrowed. She had been planning to save the fifty pence but this was more important. ‘John must be so miserable on his own in the san, day after day.’

  ‘You are a very kind person, Elizabeth,’ said Joan quietly, linking arms with her best friend as they walked along. ‘Susan thinks so, too.’

  ‘Susan?’

  ‘Yes. William and Rita told her how you stood down as an honorary monitor, so that she could have a proper turn. I was so proud of you when I heard that. You were being such a fine monitor.’

  Elizabeth felt noble again. Then, she suddenly blushed.

  ‘Oh, Elizabeth, you’ve gone all red!’ laughed Joan. ‘I didn’t mean to embarrass you.’

  ‘It’s not that,’ confessed Elizabeth. ‘The fact is, I’m quite pleased I’m not a monitor at the moment. I’m planning to do something rather un-monitorish. I wish I could explain to you but I can’t. It’s to do with somebody else’s secret, you see.’

  ‘Try not to get into any scrapes, then. But I am sure you will have a good reason, for whatever it is you are planning to do.’

  ‘I have got a good reason,’ Elizabeth told herself an hour later, as she crept through the grounds towards the school sanitorium. John’s sweets were in her hand. ‘I only hope his room is one of the ground floor ones. And I only hope Matron doesn’t see me!’

  Unluckily for Elizabeth, the very first window she peered through found her looking straight into Matron’s face!

  Matron was sitting at her desk in her office and she looked up in surprise when she heard a rustle of bushes. Then she saw Elizabeth’s face at the window. She quickly opened the window wide and leaned out.

  ‘Goodness gracious, Elizabeth Allen, you gave me such a scare!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing, creeping round here like a burglar?’

  Elizabeth was mortified.

  ‘I wanted to give John a wave through his window but I didn’t know which room,’ she said hurriedly. ‘I was going to wave these sweets at him to cheer him up. I went and bought them for him after tea.’

  ‘You won’t be waving through any window at John for a while, you silly girl. He’s upstairs and he’s tucked up in bed fast asleep. He has to stay in complete isolation you know, Elizabeth. Just until the rash has gone and his temperature’s back to normal.’

  However, Matron took the sweets for him. Before closing the window on Elizabeth she spoke much more gently.

  ‘Everybody knows John’s in quarantine! But you’ve got a good heart. It will cheer him up to know someone’s come over with some sweets. He’s been a real misery today, I can tell you. Fussing on about the rain and his blessed garden. A drop of rain, I ask you! It must be the fever, I expect.’

  Elizabeth slipped away feeling worse than ever. Her plan had come to nothing. Poor John! She had been so hoping she might get the chance to talk to him through the window. To tell him she thought that the competition rules were plain silly now and he must be prepared to let her help him a little bit. But she had been caught by Matron straight away!

  Her feet began to drag as she struggled with her conscience for a while.

  It was very difficult to come to a decision. But it was the thought of John lying on his sick bed, fretting and unhappy, that finally persuaded her.

  ‘John’s so great – I’ve got to help him. The competition rules are silly now. I’ve got to look after his plants for him, without his knowing. And without anybody else knowing, either. Nobody need ever know, not even John himself!’ she realized. ‘All that will happen is he’ll still win the special cup for the school, just as he’s always hoped!’

  Elizabeth broke into a run. Her mind made up, there was no time to lose. Recklessly, she ran immediately across to the school kitchens and found Cook.

  ‘A jug of milk, Elizabeth? Whatever do you want a whole jugful for?’

  ‘Oh, drat!’ thought Elizabeth.

  Then, looking through the side windows, she saw Fluff, the school cat, sitting outside on the low wall.

  ‘I think Fluff looks thirsty,’ she said, not untruthfully.

  ‘Fluff always looks thirsty,’ laughed Cook. ‘Well, you’re not going to give him a whole jugful. I’ll pour some in a bowl for you.’

  She found an old bowl under the middle sink and filled it from a jug.

  ‘Off you go. And when you see Patrick could you give him a message? Tell him I shall have some more cooking chocolate on Thursday, if he wants to make his crispy cakes then.’

  Elizabeth slipped out of the side door, walked straight past Fluff and headed for the school gardens. She carried the bowl carefully, for Cook had been generous. She did not notice Fluff stretch, yawn and decide to follow her.

  ‘I don’t suppose this will be nearly enough, but at least it’s a start,’ thought Elizabeth, eagerly. She glanced around, anxious not to be seen.

  Luckily the grounds were deserted.

  In fact, it was getting so late that Elizabeth should have been indoors. This was the time of evening when the first formers were expected to read or play quietly in the common room.

  ‘I wonder what’s happened to Elizabeth?’ Belinda was saying. ‘I haven’t seen her.’

  ‘Perhaps she has a piano lesson,’ shrugged Julian, in his casual way.

  ‘No, that isn’t today,’ said Kathleen.

  ‘If you ask me,’ Arabella intervened, ‘Elizabeth is not exactly sociable these days. It’s the shock of not being a monitor any more, I suppose.’

  ‘If we ask you, we will be very interested to hear what you have to say,’ replied Julian. ‘But as we haven’t asked you, we are not.’

  Elizabeth tiptoed through the school gardens and found John’s vegetable patch. The ground was squelchy. She placed the bowl of milk carefully on the path and went to examine his salad plants.

  It was such a relief to be doing something positive at last. From the moment she had made the decision to help John in secret, a weight had lifted from her mind. There was nothing worse than sitting around, worrying and feeling helpless. This was going to be much more fun.

  Half expecting to see the hearty green leaves ravaged by slugs, as her own had been, she was cheered to find them still intact.

  She smiled as she thought of what Cook had said about Patrick and the cooking chocolate. Patrick had been going around saying it was sissy to have to make sweets or something, just because he was to be hospitality monitor at the St Faith’s match on Saturday. A girl ought to make them and let him have the honour of handing them round. Even Arabella had drawn the line at that. In that case, he boasted, he would get hold of some of those biscuits like Mam’zelle’s. But secretly he was making something, after all!

  Well, it would be difficult for her to give him the message. They were still not speaking. She would have to ask one of the others to tell him.

  Elizabeth’s mind turned back to the slug situation. Looking in the six bowls, one by one, she found that a lot more slugs were now trapped in them. The soil was very wet after today’s rain and this had brought them out again.

  ‘Two of the bowls are nearly full!’ she realized. ‘Although the other four are all right.’

  How lucky that she had got some milk from Cook straight away. There would be just enough to sort out the two nearly-full bowls. Screwing up her nose,
she carried them both over to the little rubbish pile and tipped them out on to the waiting slug mound. That was goodbye to some more fat slugs!

  She came back, bent down and replaced the empty bowls in position.

  ‘Now to get the milk and tip half in each,’ she thought. Then she stopped. As she had straightened up, she had felt something rubbing against her legs. There came a loud purring sound.

  She looked down.

  ‘Fluff!’ she exclaimed. Then she saw the traces of milk on his mouth and whiskers. ‘Oh, no!’ squealed Elizabeth.

  She ran over to find her milk.

  The bowl was empty.

  The big cat with the fluffy face had drunk every last drop.

  Elizabeth trudged back to the school kitchens with the empty bowl, feeling a sense of despair. Why did things have to go wrong? She had tried to help John but in fact she had made matters worse. There had been six working slug traps and now there were only four. She had put two of them out of action. As those two bowls were now empty, the creatures would just ignore them. The four remaining bowls would not suffice very much longer. Given more rain, John’s lettuces would soon be getting devoured! Oh, what should she do now?

  The kitchens were deserted. Cook and her helpers had finished for the day. All the washing up had been done, the floor swabbed down. Elizabeth crept over to the middle sink, carefully washed and dried the old bowl, then replaced it in the cupboard below. About to leave, she noticed that someone had carelessly left the pantry door ajar. She walked over to close it. It was a beautifully cool room, with a stone-flagged floor and marble shelves. Staring inside, Elizabeth glimpsed a long row of large jugs, each with a little square of muslin draped over the top.

  On an impulse she slipped in, and peered inside the nearest jug.

  It was full of milk. They all were. It was the milk for the children’s breakfast cereal. As it was cool this evening, one of Cook’s helpers had set them up in readiness for the morning.

  ‘Tons and tons of milk!’ realized Elizabeth. She picked up the near jug. It was quite heavy. ‘Oh, nobody would ever miss one jug, would they? Not just one!’