Naughtiest Girl 6: Naughtiest Girl Helps A Friend

  Helps a Friend

  written by Anne Digby

  Illustrated by Kate Hindley

  Contents

  Title Page

  Introduction

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  BONUS BLYTON

  THE LIFE AND TIMES OF ENID BLYTON

  YOUNG ENID

  ENID AS A CHILD: ON THE PATH TO BECOMING A WRITER – Part One

  WHAT THEY DID AT MISS BROWN’S SCHOOL

  Acknowledgements

  Have you read them all?

  Copyright

  More from Enid Blyton

  If you liked this you’ll love . . .

  Introduction

  by Cressida Cowell

  bestselling author of the

  How to Train Your Dragon series

  Like so many, many children before and after me, Enid Blyton’s books played a crucial role in turning my nine-year-old self into a passionate reader.

  That is because Enid Blyton had an extraordinary knack for writing the kind of books that children actually want to read, rather than the kind of books that adults think they should read.

  Enid Blyton could tap into children’s dreams, children’s desires, children’s wishes, with pin-point accuracy. She knew that every child, however good and well-behaved they might look on the outside, secretly longed to be Elizabeth Allen, the naughtiest kid in the school. I’m afraid I entirely cheered Elizabeth on, as she defied her parents, the headmistresses, her schoolmates, and the very serious School Meetings. If anything, I wanted her to be even naughtier.

  But the Naughtiest Girl books were really my favourite of Enid Blyton’s school stories because of Whyteleafe, a very different school from Malory Towers or St Clare’s. What if there could be a school in which discipline was administered by the children rather than the adults? In which all money was given in at the start of the term and distributed amongst the children along socialist lines? Wouldn’t this be the kind of school that children would actually want to go to, rather than the kind of school that children have to go to?

  It was an interesting proposition to a nine-year-old, and it remains an interesting proposition.

  I hope you enjoy this story as much as I did when I was nine years old.

  CHAPTER ONE

  A big responsibility for Joan

  ‘LOOK, JOAN!’ exclaimed Elizabeth, as they emerged from behind the stables. ‘Look at all the tents! The teachers and the seniors must have put them up for us. There were only bushes and trees and grass and buttercups here this morning. Oh, Joan, I do hope Miss Ranger will let me be in your tent. I’m so proud you’ve been made a tent monitor!’

  The two friends paused, out of breath. Their kitbags, stuffed full of spare clothes and camping equipment, were heavy. They each carried a pillow and a sleeping bag, too. They were making their way from the school buildings across to the camp site. Putting everything down for a moment, they leaned against the stable wall and gazed at the scene beyond.

  ‘To think that’s where we’ll live for the next few days!’ laughed Elizabeth, clapping her hands. ‘Oh, won’t it be fun? I’m so glad neither of us is going home for half-term. Isn’t it just like a little secret village?’

  For all children staying on at Whyteleafe School over half-term, a summer camp had been organized in the school grounds. And this wild corner, beyond the stables, made a perfect camp site. The school tents had been brought out of storage. They were ex-army bell tents. Supported by a central pole, their roofs tapered to a point and they were high enough to stand up in. The tents were dotted along both banks of an old dried-up stream bed. On a washing line, strung between two willow trees, some bright tea-towels billowed gently in the sunshine.

  ‘Why, yes, it does look half like a village,’ Joan agreed, quietly. ‘The brown tents are like little houses. Except they haven’t got any windows in them, of course,’ she added. She touched the large torch that was sticking out of the top of her kitbag.

  ‘At least this torch will be useful at night when it gets dark inside.’ All the tent monitors had been told to bring a torch – only one was allowed per tent.

  That reminded Elizabeth.

  ‘I’ll die if I haven’t been put in your tent!’ she repeated. ‘I begged and begged Miss Ranger to say I could be. I wonder what she’s decided?’

  ‘Hadn’t we better go and find out?’ asked Joan, with her gentle smile.

  ‘Yes, let’s!’

  The two friends humped their kitbags over their shoulders once more. With their pillows and sleeping bags rolled under their arms, they staggered onwards. The ground was uneven here, with large tussocks of grass to step round. But they went as fast as they could. Elizabeth was beginning to feel tense now. Joan, too, looked rather anxious. What would Miss Ranger have decided?

  Elizabeth and Joan were best friends. At one time they had been in the first form together. In those days Elizabeth had been called the Naughtiest Girl in the School and Joan had been her only true friend. Joan was older than Elizabeth and had gone up into the second form some time ago. In fact, she was a second form monitor. It meant that the friends saw far less of each other in term time than they used to. It was going to be marvellous fun being at camp together, thought Elizabeth, and even better if she could be in Joan’s tent.

  Miss Ranger, Elizabeth’s form teacher, was to be in charge of the girls at camp, assisted by Rita, the head girl. The boys, whose tents were pitched on the other side of the dried-up stream, would be answerable to Mr Leslie, the science master, and William, the school’s head boy.

  ‘You will sleep four girls to a tent,’ Miss Ranger had explained to some of them. ‘There will be a school monitor, or one of the senior girls, in every tent. She will be known as Tent Monitor. She will be responsible for the happiness and wellbeing of everyone in her tent. As there will be a little junior girl to look after in most of the tents, it will be an important responsibility.’

  The boys’ side of the camp would be run on similar lines.

  ‘Will we still have Meetings, so we can air our complaints and grumbles?’ Arabella Buckley had asked, eagerly. She would have loved to have been a tent monitor herself, able to boss people around. But as there was no hope of that, she was uneasy. ‘I mean, if there are any problems that the tent monitor can’t solve?’

  ‘Oh, yes, there will be the usual Meetings, with William and Rita in charge,’ Miss Ranger had assured her. ‘But they will be held in the open air. I hope you can keep them nice and short.’

  And now, as the two friends reached the camp site, here was Miss Ranger coming to greet them.

  ‘Hello, Elizabeth. Hello, Joan. You are almost the last to arrive! My goodness, you’re certainly heavily laden, Elizabeth. Here, let me take your pillow and sleeping bag.’

  ‘It’s my fault we’ve taken so long, Miss Ranger,’ confessed Elizabeth. ‘I couldn’t decide which books to bring, or whether to bring my yo-yo, and then I couldn’t get everything into my kitbag—’

  ‘Never mind!’ replied the first form teacher. ‘Follow me.’

  She led them past the nearest tents and through to a large clearin
g. Here the ground was level. Ground sheets had been spread out, with bags and bedding piled high. Lots of girls were milling around Rita, the head girl. Rita was holding a list and directing the girls to their various tents. Beyond, a brick barbecue had been built and a fire lit. The delicious smell of toasted muffins mingled with woodsmoke drifted towards Elizabeth. Beyond the barbecue, a camp kitchen had been set up. In fact, it was still being built. Thomas, a senior boy, was banging some stakes into the ground with a mallet, while Mr Leslie sawed some rough planks.

  The two friends dumped their things on a ground sheet and gazed round at all the activity with interest.

  ‘This is Camp Centre!’ explained Miss Ranger. ‘It’s a very busy place, as you can see.’

  Elizabeth stared across at the list in Rita’s hand.

  ‘Please, Miss Ranger, will I be in Joan’s tent?’ she blurted out.

  ‘Yes, indeed, Elizabeth,’ replied the teacher, lightly. ‘I’ve decided that Joan will be the best person to keep you in order.’

  The friends exchanged joyful looks.

  ‘Oh, I’m so pleased,’ said Joan, quietly. She rarely showed emotions but the relief on her face was unmistakeable. ‘I’m sure Elizabeth will be a great help to me.’

  ‘Joan will not have to keep me in order, Miss Ranger!’ said Elizabeth. Even though the teacher had made the remark lightly, it had stung just a little. She was not the Naughtiest Girl any more. She was going to be as good as good could be.

  ‘Of course not,’ replied the teacher. ‘Joan, may I have a quiet word with you, please? It’s just about your junior.’

  As the teacher took Joan to one side, Elizabeth went and stood by the kitbags and gazed about her. She was in a happy little dream. She was definitely going in Joan’s tent! Life was perfect. It was a sunny day and they had been promised more good weather to come. The sky was completely blue. And how fine the big bell tents looked! Much better than those low ones that you had to crawl into. It would be like living in their own little house!

  Which tent would they be given? And which of the younger girls were they being asked to look after? Miss Ranger had warned them there would be a junior in most of the tents.

  ‘Elizabeth!’

  Joan walked across and joined her. The teacher had departed.

  ‘Miss Ranger has told me where our tent is. She says we can just pick up our things and go straight there. You see,’ she explained, ‘it seems that Teeny’s been here quite a while. She’s sitting in the tent, waiting to get to know me.’

  ‘Teeny Wilson? Is that who we’ve got?’ asked Elizabeth cheerfully. Noticing that her friend looked rather pale, she added: ‘What’s the matter, Joan? Teeny won’t be any trouble for you to look after. I’m sure she couldn’t say boo to a goose!’

  Tina Wilson was new at Whyteleafe School this term and small for her age. She was the smallest member of the junior class, which was why everybody called her Teeny. Elizabeth had noticed the timid little girl standing alone at playtime, her spectacles too big for her small, round face.

  Miss Ranger had confided to Joan that Teeny was not settling down well at her new school. She seemed rather shy and nervy. She would no doubt find sleeping in a tent rather strange at first, even a little scary. The teacher had reasoned that calm, gentle Joan was exactly the reassuring presence at camp that Teeny needed. She had told Joan as much.

  ‘It’s going to be a big responsibility, looking after Teeny,’ was all Joan would say.

  ‘No, it isn’t. It’s going to be fun!’ replied Elizabeth, as they headed along the bank towards the last group of tents. ‘We’ll make sure she has a good time. Am I going to be a big responsibility, too?’ she teased her friend. ‘I promise I’ll be good. You know I’m not the Naughtiest Girl in the School these days!’

  Joan barely smiled.

  ‘Ssh,’ she said. ‘That’s our tent at the end. She mustn’t hear us talking about her. And, wait Elizabeth, there’s something else I have to tell you. Let’s put our things down a minute.’

  Obediently Elizabeth propped her things up against a willow tree but she was hardly listening.

  ‘What, Joan?’ she asked, staring impatiently towards the brown bell tent that was to be their home for the next few days. The flap was partly open. She was longing to peep inside, see what it was like in there, and make friends with Teeny. She and Joan would soon put the little junior at her ease. ‘What a glorious position!’ she exclaimed. ‘We’re right in the corner.’

  The tent was pitched by the school’s high boundary wall. The crumbling old wall’s dark red brickwork was almost hidden in places by cascading honeysuckle. Elizabeth could smell the sweet scent, wafting on the warm breeze, even at this distance. By the wall, the bank of the old stream dropped down to where the dried-up water course came to an end at a culvert. The culvert, an old brick-built tunnel, would once have carried the flowing water underground for a short distance. Now the stream bed was just dry, powdery dust and the entrance to the culvert choked with rubble and weeds.

  ‘It’s about the other person in our tent,’ Joan was saying. ‘It’s going to be Arabella.’

  ‘Arabella Buckley?’

  As Joan’s words sunk in, Elizabeth groaned.

  ‘Oh, no, not Arabella!’

  Then she suddenly giggled. She was too happy today to let anything dismay her for long. She thought of her rich, spoilt classmate, with her pretty doll-like face. Arabella was always perfectly groomed and thought a great deal of herself.

  ‘Miss High-and-Mighty at camp!’ she exclaimed. ‘Having to slum it in my tent. Oh, Joan, this should be funny!’

  ‘Now, promise me you two won’t quarrel—’ began her friend.

  ‘Don’t be so tent-monitorish!’ laughed Elizabeth. ‘It depends how badly Arabella behaves whether we quarrel or not. Come on, Joan, what are we waiting for? Let’s go and investigate the tent right now! As long as Arabella doesn’t do anything silly and make me lose my temper, there’s nothing to fret about!’

  She grabbed Joan’s hand and bounded towards the last tent.

  She was far too excited to notice the frown on her friend’s face or to hear her soft reply.

  ‘Knowing Arabella, I’m worried she might.’

  And that was not the only thing that Joan was worried about.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Arabella accuses Elizabeth

  AS THE face peered in at her, the tiny, bespectacled girl in the tent gave a nervous start.

  ‘Peep-o! Hello, Teeny!’ cried Elizabeth boisterously.

  Then she ducked into the tent, followed by Joan.

  The small child shrank back into the shadows, just inside the tent. Her hands were shaking a little.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she apologized. ‘You made me jump.’

  Teeny was on her own. Arabella had gone off somewhere.

  ‘Isn’t it lovely in here?’ said Elizabeth, as her eyes got used to the gloom. She danced round the tall, stout tent pole in the centre. ‘Look, Joan! You can stand straight and walk around in the middle! Isn’t this fun?’

  ‘I’ve put my things over there,’ Teeny was telling Joan, shyly. She pointed to the far side of the tent. ‘It’s nice and dark and cosy over there. Is that all right, Joan? Am I allowed?’

  Joan at once gave permission.

  ‘What a good idea, Teeny,’ said Elizabeth. ‘I think I’d like to sleep that side, too. Unless you want to, Joan?’

  ‘Oh, no, I’ll be quite happy here,’ said Joan sweetly. She was crawling around near the open tent flap, in the very small space that Arabella had left clear. ‘I like to be near the fresh air!’

  ‘Arabella’s taken up far too much room though,’ Elizabeth pointed out. Arabella’s sleeping bag was already fully unrolled, with her personal belongings piled all around. ‘She’s been in and unpack
ed, then, Teeny?’

  ‘She was here very early,’ replied the junior. ‘She wanted to bag a good place in the tent, she said. She’s gone to get a muffin now. Please, may I go and get one, as well, Joan?’

  ‘Of course, Teeny,’ replied Joan, gently. ‘Off you go. And while you’re out, Elizabeth and I will bring our stuff in and sort it out.’

  ‘We’ll get the tent ship-shape!’ added Elizabeth, eyeing Arabella’s things. There was a glint in her eye. Did Arabella really think she was going to get away with having twice as much space as the rest of them? Not if Elizabeth could help it!

  The two friends went outside to collect their belongings. They watched the figure of Teeny hurrying off through the tents, looking this way and that as she went.

  ‘What a jumpy little thing!’ observed Elizabeth. ‘But she really likes you, Joan. I can tell that already. She really looks up to you.’

  ‘I do believe she does,’ agreed Joan.

  When the two friends had finished sorting things out, they sat outside the tent in the sunshine to take a rest. It was then that Arabella appeared.

  ‘I’ve had to move a few of your things, Arabella,’ Joan said pleasantly. ‘You hadn’t left me quite enough room. And would you mind rolling your sleeping bag up, please?’

  ‘Whatever for?’ asked the fair-haired girl. ‘I’ve arranged it just how I want it for bedtime tonight.’

  ‘Because it’s a camp rule,’ replied Joan, quietly. ‘Kitbags must be kept packed during daytime and sleeping bags rolled up. With four people using the tent during the day, we have to leave enough space for people to be able to move around.’

  ‘Oh, sorry. I didn’t know,’ replied Arabella. ‘Though I can’t think who will want to spend time in the tent during the day, when it’s so sunny outside. I certainly won’t.’

  Giving Elizabeth a rather pointed stare, she ducked into the tent to attend to her sleeping bag. Elizabeth smiled to herself. ‘What good news,’ she thought.

  ‘Come on, Elizabeth,’ said Joan, rising to her feet. ‘If we’re going to the village, we’d better stroll down there now. I’ve got my purse.’