The Naughtiest Girl Again Read online

  The boy passed the ball just as the Uphill girl behind him tried to strike at his stick to get the ball. It flew straight through the air to Elizabeth. She caught it, and sped off, followed by a swift running Uphill girl.

  Elizabeth passed to Robert who was nearby. An Uphill girl ran at him – and he passed the ball back to Elizabeth, who ran for goal. Should she shoot from where she was?

  She might get a goal – and she would win the match for Whyteleafe! But Robert had run down the field and was nearer the goal now – she ought really to pass to him! Without another moment's delay Elizabeth threw the ball straight to Robert.

  He caught it – and flung it at the goal. It was a beautiful shot. The girl in goal tried her best to save the goal, but the ball flew past her stick and landed right in the corner of the net. Goal to Whyteleafe! And almost at once the whistle blew for Time! The match was over!

  «Three goals to Whyteleafe!» shouted the umpire. «Three goals to two! Whyteleafe wins! Well played!»

  Then all the watching Uphill girls cheered too, and clapped their hardest. It had been an excellent match and everyone had played well.

  «Another second and the whistle would have blown for Time!» panted Elizabeth. «Oh, Robert! You were marvellous to shoot the winning goal just in time!»

  «Well, I couldn't have if you hadn't passed me the ball exactly when you did», said Robert, his breath coming fast as he leaned on his lacrosse stick, his face flushed and wet. «Golly, Elizabeth – we've won! Think of that! We've never beaten Uphill before! Oh, I'm glad you shot a goal too!»

  The two teams trooped off the field and went in to wash. It was nice to feel cold water, for they were all so hot! The two captains shook hands, and the Uphill girl clapped Eileen on the back.

  «A jolly good match!», she said. «It's the first we've lost this term. Good for you!»

  Elizabeth hadn't been able to eat much dinner, but she made up for it at tea-time. There was brown bread-and-butter and blackberry jam, currant buns and an enormous chocolate cake. The children ate hungrily, and the big plates of bread-and-butter and buns were soon emptied.

  «I'm longing to get back to Whyteleafe to tell the good news», said Robert to Elizabeth. «Aren't you? Oh, Elizabeth, I am glad you played after all – and I can't tell you how glad I am that I was able to play! I hope we play in heaps more matches together. It was marvellous being able to pass the ball so well to one another!

  «You shot that winning goal well», said Elizabeth happily. «Oh, I'm so tired, but so happy. I feel as if I can't get up from this form! My legs won't work any more!»

  All the children were tired, but their tongues still worked well. They chattered and laughed and joked together' as they got ready to go back to the waiting motor-coach. Oh, what fun to tell the School that they had won! They all got back into the coach. They waved good-bye to the cheering Uphill girls, and the coach rumbled off.

  The children sank back into their seats, their faces still red with all their running about, and their legs tired out. But as soon as they got near Whyteleafe School they all sat up straight and looked eagerly to see the first glimpse of the Whyteleafe children, who would all be waiting to hear the result of the match.

  Joan and Jenny and Kathleen had been looking out for the coach for the last half-hour. When they heard it coming they tore to the big school door. Dozens of other children ran with them. It was always the custom at Whyteleafe to welcome home the children who had been to an Away Match.

  The lacrosse team waved their hands wildly as the coach rumbled up to the big school door.

  «We won! We won! Three goals to two!»

  «We've won the match. It was marvellous!»

  «It's the first time Uphill have been beaten!»

  «Three goals to two! Three goals to two!» The Whyteleafe children cheered madly when they heard the good news. They swarmed out round the coach and helped down the team, whose legs were still very wobbly from all the rushing about they had done.

  «Jolly good! Oh, jolly good!» cried everyone. «Come along in and tell us all about it!»

  So into the gym went the team, and Miss Belle and Miss Best, and Mr. Johns too, had to come along and hear all the excitements of the afternoon. Mr. Warlow spoke for a while and told how well everyone had played.

  Then John shouted out: «Who shot the goals?»

  «Elizabeth, Nora – and Robert», said Mr. Warlow. «Good goals all three. Robert's was the most exciting because he shot his almost as the whistle went for Time. Another second and it would have been too late!»

  «Three cheers for Nora, Elizabeth, and Robert!» cried everyone, and they clapped them on the back. How pleased and proud those three children were! Elizabeth almost cried for joy. To think she had actually shot a goal for Whyteleafe in her very first match. It was too good to be true.

  Nora had played in many matches and shot many goals, so she just grinned and said nothing. But Robert was as pleased and proud as Elizabeth, though he did not show it quite so much.

  Elizabeth slipped her arm in his. «I'm so glad we both had the chance to play together!», she said. «And oh, Robert, you don't know how pleased I am that I've done something for Whyteleafe, even if it's only to shoot a goal! I hated Whyteleafe when I first came here – but now I love it. Wait till you have been here a term or two and you'll love it too.»

  «I love it already, thank you», said Robert. «And what's more, I mean to do a whole lot more for it than just shoot a goal!»

  There was a special supper that night for the winning team! Hot sausages appeared on the table, two for each one of the team. How delighted they were! And not only that, but anyone who had sweets or chocolates made a point of offering them to the team, so that by the time the bed-bell went, both Robert and Elizabeth felt that they couldn't eat anything more at all! Kathleen was as delighted as anyone. Her face was beaming as she brought a tin of sweets along. Elizabeth took a good took at her.

  «Golly, you don't look the same girl!», she said. «Your eyes are all smiting and your hair is shiny! You walk as if you wanted to run, and you've already got rid of your awful spots!»

  Kathleen laughed. She had kept her word to herself and hadn't eaten a single sweet. She had begun to forget herself, and to join in the chatter and jokes of the form. She held her head up and smiled gaily. Already when she thought of the horrid tricks she had played she could not imagine how she could have done them.

  She had taken down Elizabeth's books from the top of the cupboard where she had put them, and had dusted them well. With scarlet cheeks she had given them back to Elizabeth, who had taken them with a word of thanks. A few scornful words had almost come to Elizabeth's tongue when she remembered how Miss Ranger had scolded her for losing her books – but she had bitten them back and said nothing.

  Kathleen worked hard at the two handkerchief-cases, and embroidered them carefully and well. Each had the word HANDKERCHIEF across it, and it was a long word to sew. There were blue forget-me-nots on Elizabeth's case and pink roses on Jenny's.

  Just as Kathleen was finishing the very last stitch, Jenny came into the common room.

  «My goodness, I wish I'd played in the match too», she said, flinging herself into a chair. «What wouldn't I do for hot sausages for supper! Hallo, Kath! What are you so busy about? Let's see.» She bent over Kathleen's work. «My goodness!», she said. «What tiny stitches – and how nicely you've worked the roses! I wish I could sew like that. I want a handkerchief-case.»

  «Well, this is for you», said Kathleen, delighted. «I've done one for Elizabeth too.»

  «But whatever for?» asked Jenny, in surprise.

  «To make up just a little bit for other things I did which weren't quite so nice», said Kathleen. «Here you are, Jenny – take yours and use it. I'm so glad to give it to you.»

  Jenny was very pleased indeed. She took the handkerchief-case at once. «You are a brick!», she said. «Thanks most awfully. Here's Elizabeth! Look – hi, Elizabeth, come and see what you've
got for an unbirthday present!»

  Soon both girls were examining their new handkerchief-cases in delight, and other children came round to see them. Kathleen felt proud when she heard their remarks.

  “It's much nicer to do something for other people instead of against them” she thought. “But I'll never, never be brave enough to own up to the School that it was I who played those tricks! I am nicer – and kinder too – but I'm still just as such a coward!”

  Chapter 22: Elizabeth in Trouble Again

  The term went on happily. Now that the quarrels between Robert and Elizabeth, and between Kathleen and the others, had been cleared up, things were much better.

  Elizabeth worked well and shot to the top of her class. Robert was sometimes second and sometimes third, which pleased Miss Ranger very much, for it was by sheer hard work that the boy did so well. Kathleen, too, worked a great deal better, and had stopped arguing in the silly way she once had. Mam'zelle was pleased with her.

  «The child in this class who has made the most improvement is the little Kathleen!» said Mam'zelle. «Ah, how I thought she was stupid! How I scolded her! But now, see, her French essay is the best, and she rolls her r's in the right French way – not like you, R-r-r-r-robert, who will never, never get them right!»

  Robert smiled – and Kathleen went red with pleasure. She had never been praised in class before, and it was very pleasant. She began to wonder if she was as stupid as she had always thought herself to be.

  “My memory does seem to be better” she thought, “and I like working at my lessons now. I was bored before. Maybe I shan't always be at the bottom of the class now! How marvellous! Wouldn't Mother be pleased if I came out top in something!”

  She worked especially hard for Mam'zelle, and this was a great change for Kathleen, for ever since Mam'zelle had scolded her so badly she had disliked the French teacher and done her lessons carelessly. But now, somehow, things were different. For one thing the girl was healthier – she went out riding and walking with the others, and she even offered to help John, Elizabeth, and Peter in the school garden.

  «Good gracious!» said John. «You're the last person I would have thought wanted to help! Are you any good at gardening?»

  «Well, no, not much», said Kathleen honestly. Three weeks before she would have boasted untruthfully that she knew everything about gardening. «But, John, I'd like to help a bit. Isn't there anything I can do?»

  «You can wheel that rubbish over there to the rubbish-heap», said John. «Then bring back the barrow and fork the next pile of rubbish in. It's really too heavy for Peter to wheel.»

  Peter was very keen on gardening, and John was delighted to have him. Peter told John how Robert took him riding, and John grew quite interested in hearing about the horses. «I'd really have to try riding myself», he said. «I've never much wanted to. I did when I first came to Whyteleafe, and then somehow I got so interested in gardening that I couldn't think of anything else. But perhaps I'll come tomorrow, Peter.»

  Peter spoke to Robert, and it was arranged that John, Peter, Robert, Elizabeth, and Kathleen should all go riding together the next morning – and off they all went, galloping over the hills in the pale winter sunlight. John loved it.

  «I must come again», he said, when he jumped down from the saddle. «That was fine. Goodness, Kathleen, what red cheeks you've got! You always used to look so pale! Coming to help me garden this week-end?»

  «Yes, please», said Kathleen, overjoyed at being asked to help someone. She was beginning to find how lovely it was to make friends, and to be a friend. If you offered to help other people, they offered to help you in return, and that was how friendships began – and surely it was the nicest thing in the world to have good friends round you.»

  “It was quite true what William and Rita said” thought Kathleen to herself. “I envied Jenny and said she was lucky because she had so many friends – and I thought that because I was an unlucky person none of those nice things happened to me. But now that I'm trying to be nicer, nice things happen to me too. It is our own selves that make us lucky or unlucky, it's our own selves that bring us friendship and kindness. I was always groaning and grumbling about everything and thinking I would always be unlucky and wouldn't be able to help it – but as soon as I changed myself, I changed the things that happened, too! What a pity that everyone doesn't know that!”

  Elizabeth was working hard at her music, and Mr. Lewis was very pleased with her. She and Richard were once again playing duets, and the big boy loved playing with the quick-fingered little girl. She looked up to Richard and thought he was wonderful.

  «Can we play our duets at the school concert again?» asked Elizabeth. «I do want to, Mr. Lewis. Shall we be good enough?»

  «Oh, yes», said Mr. Lewis. «Richard is playing his violin, too. Have you heard him play the same piece that is on the gramophone record he got, Elizabeth?»

  «No», said Elizabeth. «I haven't. But I'd like to. Please play it to me, Richard.»

  So Richard was sent to fetch his violin, and the big, dreamy boy played a marvellous piece to his master and to Elizabeth. They both listened, enchanted.

  «Oh, that's lovely», sighed Elizabeth, when it was finished. «Oh, I wish I could play like that. Can't I learn to play the violin too, Mr. Lewis?»

  «My dear child, you already fill your days too full!» laughed the music-master. «No – stick to the piano.»

  «But Richard plays the piano too», said Elizabeth. «And the violin!»

  «And he doesn't do anything else!» said Mr. Lewis. «But nobody can make him do anything else, so he might as welt work hard at those. No one has ever made Richard pull a weed out of the garden, or ride a horse more than once, or keep even a harmless white mouse! He thinks of nothing but music.»

  «I'll make him think of something else!» said Elizabeth. «Come and practise with me at lacrosse tomorrow, Richard! You can't think how marvellous it feels to be good enough to play in a match!»

  But Richard wouldn't come. He did play games sometimes, but so badly that he was worse than any child in the kindergarten. Not even determined little Elizabeth could make him leave his precious music, and she soon gave it up. Secretly she was very proud to play duets with him.

  «One day Richard will be a famous musician and composer», she told Jenny and Joan. «Then I shall be very proud to think that once I played duets with him.»

  There was to be a play at the school concert. The children in Elizabeth's form were to write one themselves, and they spent a long time thinking it out. When at last they had worked out the plot, there came the labour of writing it. Jenny and Kathleen proved to be unexpectedly good at this. Jenny could manage conversation very well, and Kathleen had a good imagination and thought of all kinds of things. Before the week was out, the two were writing out the play together, with helpful and unhelpful remarks from the other members of the class.

  It amused Elizabeth to see the two heads bent over the paper. “It's just as funny to see Jenny and Kathleen like that as it was to see me and Robert” she thought. “How silly we are when we quarrel! Well – I'll never quarrel again!”

  It was a pity she said that, for she broke her word to herself the very next day! She quarrelled with John! They had built a big rubbish-heap, and John had said they would light it the next time they had an hour or two to spare. But when Elizabeth went to find John in the garden to light the fire, he wasn't there.

  «Oh, bother!» thought the little girl. «I did so want to see the bonfire burning! Well – if John doesn't come in the next few minutes I'll light it myself. He won't mind!»

  But she knew that he would mind, really, for although he trusted Elizabeth in a great many ways, things such as lighting bonfires he always did himself. Elizabeth fetched a box of matches. She struck one and held it to some paper she had pushed into the heart of the rubbish-heap. It caught fire – and in a trice the bonfire was burning furiously! What a blaze it made! Blue smoke streamed out from it and flew
over the shed nearby.

  Elizabeth danced round happily. This was marvellous! How silly John was to be late! And then she suddenly noticed something! The wind was blowing the flames of the bonfire near the shed!

  «Gracious! I hope the shed won't catch fire!» cried Elizabeth in alarm. «Oh, my goodness – I believe it will! John! John! Quick, where are you?» John was coming down the path at that moment. He saw the flames of the bonfire at the bottom of the garden, and hurried to see what was happening. When he saw that the red tongues were actually licking the wood-shed, he had a terrible fright.

  «Elizabeth! Get the hose out with me!» he cried. Together the two children unrolled the hose and hastily fitted it to the garden-tap. John turned on the tap and the water gushed out of the hose. The boy turned it on the bonfire. In a few minutes the fire was out and only dense black smoke came from the very heart of it. John threw down the hose and turned off the tap.

  «What in the world did you light the bonfire for?», he said angrily. «What an idiot you are! Don't you know by now that I'm head of the school garden? You might have burnt down the shed!»

  «Don't talk to me like that!» cried Elizabeth, firing up at once. «You said you were going to light it – and it would have happened just the same if you had, wouldn't it!»

  «My dear Elizabeth, I'm not quite so foolish as to light a bonfire just there, with the wind blowing the flames straight towards the shed», said John furiously. «Have a little sense! I didn't dream of lighting it today! And you've no business to. Now we've ruined the bonfire and I meant it to be such a beauty. You're a real nuisance, and I don't want you in the garden any more!»

  «Oh!» cried Elizabeth, with tears in her eyes. «You hateful boy! After all I've done in the garden and all the help I've given you!»

  «You shouldn't have done it for me», said John. «You should have done it for the garden and for the school. Go away, Elizabeth. I don't feel as if I want to talk to you any more.»