In the Fifth at Malory Towers (2 page)

It was fun to go and see what bed you had in the dormy, and whose bed was next to yours. It was fun to go and peep into your classroom and see if it looked any different. It was fun to say how-do-you-do to all the mistresses, and especially to tease Mam’zelle Dupont. Not Mam’zelle Rougier, though, the other French mistress. She was as sharp as Mam’zelle Dupont was simple, and as irritable as the other was good-tempered. Nobody ever teased Mam’zelle Rougier.

Darrell went to look for the rest of her friends in the fifth form. Fifth form! How grand it sounded! She was actually in the fifth now, with only one more form to go into. Oh dear — she was certainly getting very grown-up.

Alicia and Sally came up, with Irene and Belinda. “Let’s go and see our new classroom,” said Darrell. “The fifth! My goodness!”

They all went along together. The new classroom was an extremely nice one, high up and overlooking the cliff. Down below was the blue Cornish sea, as blue as cornflowers today, the waves tipped with snowy white.

“I say — this is a wizard room, isn’t it?” said Alicia, looking round. “Lovely windows and view — nice pictures — and all done up in cream and green.”

“Any new girls, does anyone know?” asked Darrell, leaning out of the window and sniffing the salty sea air.

“There’s someone called Maureen coming,” said Irene. “I heard about her. The school she was at shut down suddenly, when the Head died — and she’s coming here. I don’t know anything about her, though.”

“I suppose
you’re
coming into the fifth, Alicia?” said Sally. I mean — I know Connie’s been left down in the fourth because she didn’t pass her School Cert. — and you didn’t either, because you had the measles. But surely you won’t be left down?”

“Oh no. I’m up all right!” said Alicia. “Gosh, I wouldn’t have come back if I hadn’t been put up with the rest of you. Miss Grayling wrote to Mother and said I could pass School Cert. on my head any time I liked — and I could go up into the fifth with you, and work for School Cert. on the side, so to speak.”

“Anyone left down with us from the old fifth form?” asked Darrell.

“Yes — Catherine Gray and Moira Linton,” said Irene, promptly. There were groans from the others.

“Oh I say — two of the worst of them!” said Sally. “I never did like Moira — hard, domineering creature! Why has she been left down?”

“Well, actually she’s a year young for the sixth,” said Irene, “so they said she’d better stay down a year — but personally I think she was so unpopular that they just dropped her thankfully and went on without her!”

“What about Catherine?” asked Sally.

“She hasn’t been well,” said Irene. “Worked herself too hard, or something. She’s pretty pious, isn’t she? I don’t really know much about her. She’s one of those girls that don’t make much impression from a distance.”

“Well, as far as we’re concerned that’s like three new girls then,” said Darrell. “Catherine, Moira and Maureen. Who’ll be head-girl?”

“You or Sally,” said Irene, promptly.

“No. I don’t think so,” said Darrell. “I imagine it will have to be either Catherine or Moira — after all, they’ve been fifth-formers for ages. It wouldn’t be fair to put an ex-fourth-former over them at once.”

“No. You’re right,” said Alicia. “Gosh, I hope it isn’t Moira then. She does love to get her own way! Did you hear how she set all the second-formers a long poem to learn last term, to go and say at Monitors” Meeting, just because one of them wrote a poem about her, and nobody would own up to it? Every single one of them had to learn “Kublai Khan”. They did howl about it!”

“Yes. I remember now,” said Darrell. “Oh well, I dare say we shall manage Moira all right.”

“If you don’t lose your temper with her too often!” said Irene, with a sly grin. Darrell’s hot temper was well known. She had tried to conquer it for terms and terms, and just when she prided herself on really having got the better of it at last, out it came again.

Darrell looked ruefully at the others. “Yes. I’ll have to be careful. I lost it really well last term, didn’t I, Alicia, with that brazen young cousin of yours, June. I hope she behaves better this term!”

“She came to stay with us in the hols,” said Alicia. “I’ve got three brothers, you know — and when June actually dared to disobey Sam, he gave her the choice of being spanked twenty times with her own hair-brush or running round our paddock twenty times each day!”

“And which did she choose?” asked everyone.

“Oh, running round the paddock, of course,” said Alicia. “And Mother was awfully surprised to see her going round and round it each day like that. She thought she was training for sports or something! Sam stood and watched her, grinning like anything. So she may be better this term!”

“She can do with a lot of improvement!” said Darrell. “I say — what in the world’s that?”

It was the sound of thunderous hooves out in the drive somewhere — so thunderous that the noise even came round to the back of Malory Towers and was heard in the classroom where the five girls stood listening.

“
I
know! It’s old Bill back — and her brothers have brought her as usual — all on horseback!” cried Belinda, rushing out of the room. “Come along — let’s go into the art-room and look out of the window. We can see the drive from there.”

They were soon leaning out of the high window. They saw a sight, which they had already seen two or three times before, and were never tired of!

Wilhelmina, called Bill for short, had arrived on her horse, Thunder — and accompanying her were six of her seven brothers, all on horseback, too. What a sight they were, six well-grown boys, ranging from seventeen down to ten, with Bill, their sister, in the midst.

“Woa there! Now then, quiet, quiet!”

“Thunder! We’re here!”

“Bill, here’s your case.”

Clippity-clop, clippity-clop went the hooves of the seven grand horses, curvetting about the broad drive. “Hrrrrrrrumph!” said one of them, and then all seven neighed together.

“Bill, where can we let the horses drink?” came the deep voice of the seventeen-year-old brother.

“Follow me,” said Bill, and the six brothers trotted up the drive and round a corner, following the girl sitting so straight on her magnificent horse, Thunder.

“Gosh!” said Alicia. “What a horde of brothers. Where’s the seventh?”

“Gone into the army,” said Sally. “My word — I wish I had seven brothers.”

“Well, I’ve got three and that’s more than enough,” said Alicia. “No wonder Bill’s more like a boy than a girl.”

“Here they come again!” said Irene. “Belinda, where’s your sketch-book — do draw them all!”

Belinda had already got out her sketchbook which was always somewhere about her person. Her swift pencil sketched in horse after horse, and the others watched in admiration. Oh, to have a gift like Belinda’s! She could draw anyone and anything.

The seven horses seemed to know that Bill and Thunder were to be left behind. They lifted their heads and whinnied softly. Bill leaned over and stroked the noses of those nearest to her.

“Good-bye, Moonlight. Good-bye, Starlight. Good-bye, Snorter. Good-bye, Sultan...”

“She’s paying a lot more attention to the horses than to her brothers!” said Alicia, with a grin. “That’s Bill all over, of course — horse-mad!”

“Well, her brothers are as bad!” said Sally. “Look — yelling good-bye to Thunder but not to Bill!”

“Off they go,” said Darrell, envying Bill her brothers. “Look at Thunder, trying to follow them. He doesn’t want to be left behind!”

Bill was left alone in the drive with the impatient Thunder, who thought he should go with his comrades; he reared and curvetted in annoyance at being made to go the other way, up the drive instead of down.

The six horses and brothers disappeared in a clatter of hooves and a cloud of dust. Bill, looking rather solemn, made Thunder take the path to the stables. She hated being parted from the many horses that her family owned. But now that she had settled down well at Malory Towers, and was allowed to bring her horse, she would not have given up boarding school for anything.

Another clatter of hooves, this time coming up the drive, made Bill rein in her horse, and look round. The five up in the art-room yelled to her.

“Bill! BILL! Here comes Clarissa — and she’s on her horse, too!”

Sure enough, up the drive came a beautiful little horse with white socks, tossing his pretty head and showing off. Clarissa Carter rode him. She had been a new girl the term before, a plain, bespectacled little thing with an ugly wire round her front teeth. But now she had no wire and no spectacles, and she galloped up, her auburn hair flying in the wind, and her green eyes shining.

“Bill! Bill! I’ve brought Merrylegs! Isn’t he sweet? Oh, do let him see Thunder. They’ll love one another.”

“Two horse-mad creatures,” said Alicia, with a laugh. “Well, Bill never had a friend till Clarissa came — so they’ll have a fine time together this term, talking about horses and riding them, feeding them and grooming them...”

“Scrubbing their hooves and brushing their tails!” added Irene. “Gosh, those galloping hooves have given me an idea for a new tune — a galloping tune — like this!”

She hummed a galloping, lilting melody — “tirretty-tir-retty-tirretty-too...”

“Dear old Irene — she’s not horse-mad, she’s music-mad,” said Belinda, putting away her sketchbook. “Now we shall have nothing but galloping tunes for the next few weeks! Come on, tirretty-too!”

And she galloped her friend out of the room at top speed. “Tirretty-tirretty-tirretty-too. Oh — so sorry, Miss Potts — we never saw you coming!”

ALL but the new girls were well settled in by the evening. Matron had received health certificates and pocket money from the lower school, and health certificates but no money from the upper school, who were allowed to keep their own without having to ask Matron for it.

“Did Irene’s health certificate arrive all right?” asked Darrell, remembering how almost every term Irene’s certificate was mislaid.

Sally laughed. “Oh, somebody put an envelope in Irene’s case, marked “Health Certificate”, and she thought her mother had put it there instead of sending it by post — so she took it to Matron, of course, and said, “Here you are, Matron — I’ve really remembered it at last!”“

“And what was inside it?” asked Darrell.

“A recipe for Bad Memories,” chuckled Sally. “I forget how it went. Take a cupful of Reminders, and a spoonful of Scoldings — something like that. You should have seen Matron’s face when she saw it. Irene was dumbfounded, of course. She would be! However, it didn’t matter because Matron had got her certificate by post.”

“Irene’s such a scatterbrain, for all her cleverness,” said Alicia. “So is Belinda. There must be something about Art and Music that makes people with those gifts perfectly idiotic over ordinary things. If Irene can lose something, she does. And if Belinda can forget something she forgets it! Do you remember how she came down to breakfast once without her blouse on?”

“There’s the gong for supper,” said Darrell, thankfully. “I’m awfully hungry. Hope there’s as super a supper as usual — we always have such a good one on the first night! I’m glad I haven’t got to fuss round Felicity this term — she’s not a new girl any more. She can stand on her own feet.”

They went down into the big dining room to supper. Sally absent-mindedly walked towards the fourth-form table, and Darrell pulled her back.

“Idiot! Do you want to sit with those kids?” she hissed. “
Here’s
the fifth-form table!”

They took their places, and saw three girls already there, two old fifth-formers, and one new girl. Catherine and Moira nodded to them, and Catherine gave them a beaming smile. Moira didn’t. She was tight-lipped and looked as if the cares of the whole school rested on her shoulders!

The new girl, Maureen, smiled at them brightly. She was a fluffy, rather untidy-looking girl, with a big mouth, a large nose and rather uneven teeth that stuck out a little and made her look rabbity.

“I’m Maureen Little,” she said, in a light, friendly voice. “I hope you won’t mind having me at Malory Towers!” She gave a little giggle.

“Why should we?” asked Darrell, surprised. “We heard your old school had closed down. That was bad luck.”

“Yes,” said Maureen, and looked pensive. “It was such a marvellous school, too — you should have seen the playing fields! And we had two swimming-pools, and we were allowed to keep our own pets.”

“Well, I expect you’ll find Malory Towers isn’t too bad,” said Alicia, joining in.

“Oh
yes
,” said the girl, smiling again, and showing her rabbit-teeth. “I’m sure it’s
wonderful
. That’s why my mother chose it. She said that next to Mazeley Manor — that was my old school, you know — Malory Towers was the best.”

“Dear me — that was nice of her,” said Alicia in her smooth voice. “I don’t seem to have heard of Mazeley Manor. Or was it the school whose girls always failed in the School Cert.?”

Maureen flushed. “Oh
no
,” she said. “It couldn’t have been. Why, quite half of us passed. I passed myself.”