Third Year at Malory Towers (3 page)

“Betty's not coming back till half-term,” said Alicia, gloomily. “She's got whooping-cough. Imagine it—six weeks before she can come back. She's only just started it. I heard yesterday.”

“Oh, I say—You'll miss her, won't you,” said Darrell. “I shall miss Sally too.”

“Well, we'll just have to put up with each other, you and I, till Betty and Sally come back,” said Alicia. Darrell nodded. Alicia amused her. She was always fun to be with, and even when her tongue was sharpest, it was witty. Alicia was lucky. She had such good brains that she could play the fool all she liked and yet not lose her place in class.

“But if
I
do that, I slide down to the bottom at once,” thought Darrell. “I've got quite good brains but I've got to use them all the time. Alicia's brains seem to work whether she uses them or not!”

Mary-Lou came up. She had grown a little taller, but she was still the same rather scared-looking girl. “Hallo!” she said. “Wherever did you pick Zerelda up, Darrell? I hear she came down with you. How old is she? Eighteen?”

“No. Nearly sixteen,” said Darrell. “I suppose Gwendoline is sucking up to her already? Isn't she the limit? I say, what do you suppose Miss Potts will say when she sees Zerelda?”

Miss Potts was the housemistress of North Tower, and, like Matron, not very good at putting up with nonsense of any sort. Most of the girls had been in her form, because she taught the bottom class. They liked her and respected her. A few girls, such as Gwendoline and Mavis, feared her, because she could be very sarcastic over airs and graces, or pretences of any sort.

Darrell felt rather lost without Sally there to laugh with and talk to. She was glad to walk downstairs with Alicia. Belinda came bouncing up.

“Where's Sally? Darrell, I did some wizard sketching in the hols. I went to the circus, and I've got a whole book of circus sketches. You should just see the clowns!”

“Show the book to us this evening,” said Darrell, eagerly. Everyone loved Belinda's clever sketches. She really had a gift for drawing, but, unlike Mavis, she was not forever thinking and talking of it, or of her future career. She was a jolly schoolgirl first and foremost, and an artist second.

“Seen Irene?” said Alicia. Belinda nodded. Irene was her friend, and the two were very well matched. Irene was talented at music and maths, but a scatterbrain at everything else. Belinda was talented at drawing, quite fair at other lessons, and a scatterbrain almost as bad as Irene. The class had great fun with them.

“Seen Zerelda?” asked Darrell, with a grin. That was the question everyone asked that evening. “Seen Zerelda?” No one had ever seen a girl quite like Zerelda before.

At supper that night there was a great noise. Everyone was excited. Mam'zelle Dupont beamed at the table of the third-formers of North Tower.

“You have had good holidays?” she enquired of everyone. “You have been to the theatre and the pantomime and the circus? Ah, you are all ready to work hard now and do some very good translations for me.
N’est-ce pas
?”

There was a groan from the girls round the table. “No, Mam'zelle! Don't let's do French translations this term. We've forgotten all our French!”

Mam'zelle looked round the table for any new face. She always made a point of being extra kind to new girls. She suddenly caught sight of Zerelda and stared in amazement. Zerelda had done her hair again, and her golden roll stood out on top. Her lips were suspiciously red. Her cheeks were far too pink.

“This girl, she is made up for the films!” said Mam'zelle to herself. “Oh,
là là
! Why has she come here? She is not a young girl. She looks old—about twenty! Why has Miss Grayling taken her here? She is not for Malory Towers.”

Zerelda seemed quite at home. She ate her supper very composedly. She was sitting next to Gwendoline, who was trying to make her talk. But Zerelda was not like Mavis, willing to talk for hours about herself. She answered Gwendoline politely enough.

“Have you lived all your life in America? Do you think you'll like England?” persisted Gwendoline.

“I think England's just wunnerful,” said Zerelda, for the sixth time. “I think your little fields are wunnerful, and your little old houses. I think the English people are wunnerful too.”

“Wunnerful, isn't she?” said Alicia, under her breath to Darrell. “Just wunnerful.”

Everyone had to go early to bed on the first night, because most of the girls had had long journeys down to Cornwall. In fact, before supper was over there were many loud yawns to be heard.

Zerelda was surprised when Gwendoline informed her that they had to go to bed that night just about eight o'clock. “Only just tonight though,” said Gwendoline. “Tomorrow the third-formers go at nine.”

“At
nine
,”“ said Zerelda, astonished. “But in my country we go when we like. I shall never go to sleep so early.”

“Well, you slept in the car all right,” Darrell couldn't help saying. “So you must be tired.”

They all went to the common-room after supper, chose their lockers, argued, switched on the wireless, switched it off again, yawned, poked the fire, teased Mary-Lou because she jumped when a spark flew out, and then sang a few songs.

Mavis's voice dominated the rest. It really was a most remarkable voice, deep and powerful. It seemed impossible that it should come from Mavis, who was not at all well grown for her age. One by one the girls fell silent and listened. Mavis sang on. She loved the sound of her own voice.

“ Wunnerful!” said Zerelda, clapping loudly when the song was ended. “Ree-markable!”

Mavis looked pleased. “When I'm an opera-singer,” she began.

Zerelda interrupted her. “Oh, that's what you're going to be, is it? Gee, that's fine. I'm going in for films!”

“Films! What do you mean? A film-actress?” said Gwendoline Mary, her eyes wide.

“Yes. I act pretty well already,” said Zerelda, not very modestly. “I'm always acting at home. I'm in our Dramatic Society, of course, and last year at college I acted Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare. Gee, that was...”

“Wunnerful!” said Alicia, Irene and Belinda all together. Zerelda laughed.

“I guess I don't say things the way you say them,” she said, good-naturedly.

“You'll have a chance to show how well you can act, this very term,” said Gwendoline, remembering something. “Our form's got to act a play -
Romeo and Juliet”
. You could be Juliet.”

“That depends on Miss Hibbert,” said Daphne's voice at once. Daphne had already imagined herself in Juliet's part. “Miss Hibbert's our English mistress, Zerelda, and...”

“Bed, girls,” said Miss Potts' voice at the door. “Eight o'clock! Come along, everyone, or you'll never be up in the morning!”

IT was fun settling in the next day. The girls rushed into the third form classroom, which overlooked the courtyard and had a distant view of the sea.

“Zerelda's to go to the fourth form classroom,” said Jean, looking round for the American girl. “She's not with us after all.”

“I didn't think I would be,” said Zerelda. “I'm much older.”

Jean looked at her. “Zerelda,” said Jean, “I'd better give you a word of advice. Miss Williams, the fourth form mistress, won't like your hairstyle—or your lipstick either. You'd better alter your hair and rub that awful stuff off your lips before you go to the fourth form. Anyway, they'll rag you like anything if you don't.”

“Why should I do what you tell me?” said Zerelda, on her dignity at once. She thought a great deal of her appearance and could not bear to have it remarked on by these proper little English girls.

“Well, I'm head-girl of this form,” said Jean. “That's why I “m bothering to tell you. Just to save you getting into trouble,”

“But Zerelda's hair looks lovely,” said Gwendoline, who always resented having to have her own hair tied neatly, instead of in a golden sheet over her shoulders.

Nobody took the slightest notice of Gwendoline's bleating.

“Well, thanks all the same, Jean, but I'm not going to make myself into a little pig-tailed English schoolgirl,” said Zerelda, in her lazy, rather insolent drawl. “I guess I couldn't look like you, anyway. Look at you all, plain as pie! You ought to let me have a try at making you up—I'd soon get you some looks!”

Daphne, who fancied herself as very pretty, laughed scornfully.

“Nobody wants to look a scarecrow like you! Honestly, if you could see yourself!”

“I have,” said Zerelda. I looked in the glass this morning!”

“When you're in Rome, you must do as Rome does,” said Jean, solemnly.

“But I'm not in Rome,” said Zerelda.

“No. It's a pity you aren't!” said Alicia. “You'll wish you were in three minutes' time when Miss Williams catches sight of you. Go on into the classroom next door for goodness' sake. Miss Williams will be along in half a minute. So will our teacher, Miss Peters. She'd have a blue fit if she saw you.”

Zerelda grinned good-humouredly, and went off to find her classroom. As she got to the door Miss Williams came hurrying along to the fourth-formers. She and Zerelda met at the door.

Miss Williams had no idea that Zerelda was one of her form. The girl looked so grown-up. Miss Williams blinked once or twice, trying to remember who Zerelda was. Could she be one of the new assistant mistresses?

“Er—let me see now—you are Miss Miss—er ... Miss...” began Miss Williams.

“Zerelda,” said Zerelda, obligingly, thinking it was a queer thing if the mistresses all called the girls “Miss”.

“Miss Zerelda,” said Miss Williams, still not realising anything. “Did you want me, Miss Zerelda?”

Zerelda was rather astonished. “Well—er—not exactly,” she said. “I was told to come along to your class. I'm in the fourth form.”

“Good heavens!” said Miss Williams, weakly. “Not—not one of the girls?”

“Yes, Miss Williams,” said Zerelda, thinking that the teacher was acting very queerly. “Say, haven't I done right? Isn't this the classroom?”

“Yes,” said Miss Williams, recovering herself all at once. “This is the fourth form room. But you can't come in like that. What's that thing you've got on the top of your head?”

Zerelda looked even more astonished. Had she got a hat on by mistake? She felt to see. No, there was no hat there.

“There's nothing on my head,” she said.

“Yes, there is. What's this thing?” said Miss Williams, patting the enormous roll of hair that Zerelda had pinned there in imitation of one of the film stars.

“That? Oh, that's a bit of my hair,” said Zerelda, wondering if Miss Williams was a little mad. “It really is my hair, Miss Williams. I've just rolled the front part up and pinned it.”

Miss Williams looked in silence at the roll of brassy coloured hair and the cascades of curls down Zerelda's neck. She peered at the too-red lips. She even looked at the curling eyelashes to make sure they were real and not stuck on.

“Well, Zerelda, I can't have you in my class like this,” she said, looking very prim and bird-like. “Take down that roll of hair. Tie it all back. Clean your lips. Come back to the room in five minutes.”

And with that she disappeared into the form room and the door was shut. Zerelda stared after her. She patted the roll of hair on top. What was the matter with it? Didn't it make her look exactly like Lossie Laxton, the film star she admired most of all?

Zerelda frowned. What a school! Here were a whole lot of girls, all growing up fast, and not one of them knew how to do her hair, not one of them looked smart—”and I bet they're all as stupid as owls,” said Zerelda, out loud.

She decided to go along and do something to her hair. That prim and proper Miss Williams might say something to the Head. Zerelda had been very much impressed with Miss Grayling and the little talk she had had with her. What had Miss Grayling said? Something about learning to be good-hearted and kind, sensible and trustable, good, sound women the world could lean on. She had also said that Zerelda might learn something from her stay in England that would help her afterwards—and that Zerelda, if she was sensible and understanding, might also teach the English girls something.

“Well, I don't want to get on the wrong side of Miss Grayling from the word go,” thought Zerelda, as she went to find her dormy. “Where's this bedroom of ours? I'll never find my way about in this place.”

She found the dormy at last and went in to do her hair. She looked at herself in the glass. She was very sad at having to take down that beautiful roll of hair. It took her ages to put it there each morning. But she unpinned it and brushed it out. She divided it into two, and pinned it back, then tied her mane of hair with a piece of ribbon so that it no longer fell wildly over her shoulders.

At once she looked younger. She rubbed the red from her lips. Then she looked at herself. “You look plain and drab now, Zerelda,” she said to herself. “What would Pop say? He wouldn't know me!”

But Zerelda didn't look plain and drab. She looked a young girl, with a natural, pleasant youthful face. She went slowly to find her classroom. She was not sure whether she had to knock at the door or not. Things seemed to be so different in an English school—more polite and proper than in an American school. She decided to knock.