THE P. SQUAREDS
Kitty rolled over in bed and opened her eyes with a start. What was
that? She was sure she had heard someone moving stealthily down the
dormitory. The next instant she heard the sound of a smothered
giggle and drew a breath of relief. Of course it was only those
harum-scarum juniors up to some prank; and by the scuffling noise,
thought Kitty, nearly the whole of the dormitory seemed astir.
Just as the sounds diminished Kitty heard a bed creak, as if someone
had sat up suddenly, and a voice, which she recognized as Duane's,
saying:
"Who's that? Is there anything the matter?" Kitty gave a little
chuckle, then answered softly, "Couldn't say exactly, only I should
guess most of the juniors of this dormitory are taking a little
nocturnal airing."
"Oh, indeed! Well, I'll soon make sure of that."
The bed creaked once again as Duane turned out of it. Kitty, now
wide awake, and feeling rather amused and curious, slipped quietly
out too. The head of the dormitory, looking very tall and striking
in a vividly-red dressing-gown, emerged at the same time, a lighted
candle in her hand. She crossed to the opposite cubicle and, without
ceremony, drew back the curtain. The cubicle was empty. Quickly she
made a round of the dormitory; the nine cubicles occupied by juniors
were all deserted. The only occupants of the dormitory at that
moment were herself, Kitty and Hilary, who could be heard breathing
deeply and steadily, soundly asleep.
"Shall we follow them, and see what they're up to?" asked Kitty
eagerly, only too willing for an adventure.
"No fear!" replied Duane with a yawn. "Bed for me. They'll only be
gorging themselves in the common-room, I expect. Little wretches!
It'll do in the morning. Good night." Yawning again, she went off
into her cubicle, carrying the light with her.
Kitty hesitated, disappointed, but not caring to switch on one of the
lights, and at last decided that, under the circumstances, the most
discreet thing to do was to follow Duane's example. In ten minutes,
the latter was breathing as regularly and as evenly as Hilary.
Kitty, lying awake, heard the delinquents return, and grinned to
herself as she thought of their surprise in the morning. The head
prefect, for once, evidently intended to exert her authority and
enforce discipline.
Directly after morning lessons were over, at half past twelve, the
nine juniors who slept in Dormitory A were summoned to their head
prefect's study. Here they found Duane, Hilary and Kitty. The last
named had much ado to refrain from smiling as the nine
sheepish-looking juniors endeavoured to squeeze themselves into the
little room. In the foreground was Peggy O'Nell, always the chief
spokesman for the juniors. She was in the Fourth, an active,
mercurial girl with a mop of thick black curls, sparkling blue eyes
and a mischievous smile. She had won her position as leader of the
juniors through sheer force of personality, and perhaps enjoyed a
larger share of popularity than any other girl in the house. Close
behind her was her faithful follower and shadow, little Erica Salter,
Bertha's sister.
The friendship between the two was a curious one, for Erica was
several years Peggy's junior and in the lowest form. She was a slim,
fair-haired, fairy-like child, of rather a timid nature. In no
respect did she resemble her sister Bertha. She adored the
high-spirited, masterful Peggy with a slavish devotion; in her eyes
Peggy could do no wrong. On the other hand, Erica was petted and
made much of by the rest of the dormitory, because she was the
youngest, the "baby."
"You'll find standing room, if there's nowhere to sit down," remarked
Duane, in an affable drawl. "Would you mind shutting the door behind
you? Thanks so much. Now we can get to business. I suppose you
won't deny the fact that all nine of you left your dormitory in the
middle of last night?"
"Wouldn't be much good, would it?" replied Peggy, somewhat impudently.
Duane ignored the impudence, and went on in the same tone:
"I also presume you are aware that, since a girl broke her leg last
year at that same trick, it is one of the strictest house rules that
girls are not to leave their dormitories after lights out, except in
cases of necessity."
"Yes," said Peggy, "but I've heard you say yourself that rules are
like piecrust--made to be broken."
"True, my child, but that was before I was made a prefect."
"Well, we're not prefects--yet."
"Then allow me to point out that, if you wish to indulge in
rule-breaking you must so manage it that prefects don't get to know
of it."
"Perhaps," interrupted Hilary, "you wouldn't mind enlightening us as
to the reason for this midnight excursion?"
Silence!
The nine exchanged glances and glowered at the tall figure of their
head prefect with sullen determination. Duane waited a few moments,
then said, with bland deliberation:
"Of course, if you are going to refuse to make a clean breast of the
whole affair the matter is beyond me. I shall simply have to report
it to Miss Carslake and let her deal with you."
The juniors started, and exchanged frightened glances. Lines or
order marks from prefects were not unusual punishments and could be
put up with, but "reported to house mistress" was a far more serious
affair, and a rare occurrence.
Duane crossed her arms behind her head and lounged back comfortably
in her chair, with the agreeable sensation of being mistress of the
situation.
"Well?" she said, serenely. "Peggy, you seem to be the leader of the
party."
Peggy gulped. "We--we--were only having a supper down in the
common-room."
"Oh, I see. That was what I surmised. There's generally some light
refreshment attached to your little affairs. Most thrilling!
Barbara, suppose you tell me what were the eatables in this repast of
yours."
Barbara giggled. It seemed to be an incurable affliction with her.
"Oh--er--sandwiches and cakes and--and lemon jelly. We took our soap
dishes down to eat it from and made it in a Moab--I mean a wash-jug.
And--and," here Barbara, rather singularly, hesitated and blushed
furiously, "pork pies."
"H'm. Quite a feast! I almost wish I had been invited," murmured
the head prefect. "Pork pies, too! Now, I wonder--" she paused, as
a sudden thought struck her, and repeated again, "pork pies! Of
course, there isn't any connexion between the--er--title of your
society and that article of diet? I have often wondered what P.
Squared stood for."
The faces of the juniors were a study. Peggy boiled over with rage.
"Yes, that's where we did get the title from," she flung out
defiantly, "and--and--it's beastly mean of you to get it out of us
like this. I half believe somebody told you."
"No, no, merely intuition--aided by Barbara's self-conscious blush,"
assured Duane. "I suppose the eating of pork pies at the beginning
of each meeting constitutes a sacred ceremony. Oh well, I was young
myself once. You do great credit to Miss Green's teaching. I must
congratulate you on the intelligent way in which you have learnt
algebra. Correlation of subjects, too, is one of the modern crazes."
She rose to her feet.
"Well, thank you for your frankness. I will think the matter over
and decide on the sentence. There's dinner bell, so you'd better
clear," and at the words of dismissal from the head prefect, who had
become aware that the other two seniors were no longer able to
control their merriment, the nine juniors gladly made their escape.
As they disappeared Hilary's face sobered suddenly. She turned to
Duane.
"You'll report 'em, I suppose? It's the only way to stop these silly
societies. One wouldn't mind them, of course, but these kids are far
more enthusiastic over a cricket match between P. Squareds and
Budmushes than one between Carslake's and another house, and when
they actually cut school matches because their blessed society is
running a picnic or has a jape on against the other one, it's getting
more than a joke."
Such was the point of view of the seniors.
Among the juniors there was great indignation when Miss Carslake
called them together and, as a punishment for rule-breaking and
rowdyism, forbade the formation of secret societies among themselves.
Rarely did Miss Carslake arouse herself to such severity, but perhaps
she also was beginning to realize the backslidings of her house.
The juniors were treated to a long lecture in which the house
mistress advised them to devote their energies to more worthy and
less childish objects, and especially to endeavour to raise the
"tone" of the house and its prestige in the school. This could only
be done by combining, with their seniors, to form a united house.
Then complaints from form mistresses of careless preparation, reports
from prefects of disciplinary troubles would cease, and both the work
and the play of the house would reach a higher level.
She left behind her an audience simmering with indignation, wrath and
outraged pride.
"Back up the prefects indeed!" cried Peggy. "Prefects like ours? No
fear! Duane is a beastly sneak, that's what she is. Other prefects
don't report little things like that. She did it on purpose to put a
stop to the P. Squareds and Budmushes."
Daisy Carteret, leader of the Budmushes, was as indignant as Peggy.
An indignation meeting was held until the descent of an irate
mistress upon the common-room, demanding what their prefects were
doing not to put a stop to the din, summarily put an end to the
proceedings. Thus nothing came of the indignation meeting, but after
Miss Carslake's drastic measures the atmosphere in the house was
charged with a good deal of electricity.
Duane took no notice of the hostility of the juniors, apparently
believing it the wisest--and easiest--plan to let their indignation
burn itself out, as no doubt it would do in time. She said nothing,
even when one evening, on passing through the common-room in the
company of three other Upper Fifth-formers, there was an audible hiss
from one of the juniors. Duane walked on with her usual leisurely
gait, Hilary flushed crimson, and France, who had been thinking out a
colour scheme for a design, looked round in a bewildered fashion.
But Kitty stopped dead, then swung round and spoke curtly and coldly.
"May I ask who that was meant for?"
"It's all right, Kitty. That wasn't meant for you, nor for France.
You're a sport all right."
"I'm glad of that--for your sakes," said Kitty, still curtly, "and I
should be still more obliged if it wasn't meant for anyone else, not
when she's in _my_ company, at any rate," and she passed on, leaving
the juniors a little taken aback.
As she caught the others up in the passage, she said involuntarily,
lowering her tone, "if I were a prefect I'd never allow them to do
that to me. Why do you, Duane?"
Duane looked at her. Kitty had quite a shock when she saw the
unmistakable, and for once unconcealed, hostility in the other's
sleepy grey eyes.
"You happen to enjoy their popularity, you see," Duane replied,
coldly. "Besides, you're not a prefect. It isn't all jam to be head
prefect--at least, the jam's only there to hide the bread underneath."
"A sort of gilded pill," laughed Kitty, to hide her discomfiture, but
Duane walked on without reply. Kitty felt a little miserable as she
brushed out her thick brown crop that night. "I was right from the
beginning," she thought. "I knew the Hon. Duane and I would never
hit it off. It's rotten having your own head prefect for an enemy."
Girls in the other houses raised expressive eyebrows when, next
Wednesday afternoon, on the important occasion of the tennis match
between Carslake's and Prince's, while there was a goodly proportion
of the juniors of the latter house in attendance to support their
players, the Carslake juniors were chiefly conspicuous by their
absence.
"Sulking," explained France airily to Vanda. "Had a row with 'em
last week. They'll come round in time."
"Seems to me you are always having rows in Carslake's," retorted
Vanda, dryly.
Carslake's lost the match, but they put up a better fight than was
expected. Kitty, indeed, played brilliantly again, and as a result
received her first colour from the hands of Vanda. She was delighted
at the honour of being chosen to represent the school, though her
pleasure was rather spoilt when several of the juniors were heard to
rejoice openly that she had been given the preference over Duane.
May passed in a blaze of sunshine and ended on a more hopeful note
for Carslake's, the house gaining their first and most welcome
cricket victory over Green's. They had previously lost to
Sheerston's (who possessed a very strong side), leading into the
field a team that had perforce to be composed largely of juniors, for
Bertha was in bed with a severe cold, and Sonia was but a broken reed
where games were concerned. After the dismissal of Duane and Kitty,
except for a dogged stand by Daisy Carteret, the rest of Carslake's
innings was a mere "procession," so that when the house next took the
field against Green's, Paddy could be heard loudly propounding an
original riddle to the scorers in the pavilion.
"Why is Carslake's cricket team like a tadpole?"
"Because one day it'll be a frog," hazily returned Hilary, who was in
her usual post as scorer for her house.
"No, silly, because it's chiefly tail," retorted Paddy, triumphantly.
"You mean, 'and thereby hangs a tale,'" said Hilary, solemnly,
refusing to see the point since it was made against her side.
However, although Carslake's only succeeded in making a moderate
total themselves, Kitty's bowling was more successful this time. She
not only bowled overhand with remarkable accuracy for a girl, but
managed to make the ball break in a formidable fashion; and supported
by some really smart ground fielding and catching on the part of the
juniors, she dismissed Green's for a more moderate total still,
leaving Carslake's victors by about a dozen runs.
This triumph acted as a badly needed tonic, and when, a week later,
the house also defeated Green's at tennis, the seniors began to
congratulate themselves that the "bad time" was over and the house
was at last looking up. Alas! no one had the slightest presentiment
of the trouble that Fate had in store for them before that term was
ended.