The Alarm Bell
When it came to writing letters home, each girl approached her family
from a different viewpoint, naturally. Arden, who was the most
interesting writer of the three, was inclined to dramatize. Her missive
was filled with descriptions, reflecting the fears they had felt at Sim's
disappearance and their resentment at the punishment inflicted by the
dean. All this was set forth vividly.
Terry was diplomatic in her letter. Her mother, she knew, would worry
needlessly if she felt that the girls were in any danger. So she made
prominent mention of the good times they were having, culminating in a
mistake they had mutually made which resulted in a curtailment of some of
their privileges.
Sim was writing rapidly, her eyes bright and her lips compressed into a
stern, determined line. She finished first, and after closing the
envelope and sealing it, she scratched on the address and turned to her
friends.
"I may as well tell you, before you hear it outside," Sim began and
hesitated, "but I've written to my father for permission to come home!"
"Sim! Not to stay! Don't leave us now, when things will be so dull here
for Arden and me if you go!" Terry begged.
Sim looked uncompromising.
"Please don't go, Sim! Don't mail your letter. I feel as though I am to
blame. Anyhow, Sim, there'd be nothing for you to do at home. Three weeks
aren't so long." Arden arose and patted Sim maternally on the shoulder.
"It isn't just three weeks. It's the whole school year!" Sim declared.
"It will take a long time to fix the pool, even if they get the money.
Besides, I was told by my math teacher that I'd probably flunk out at
mid-year if I didn't improve, and I'd rather go home before that
happens."
"But we can help you, Sim," Terry promised. "Won't you think it over?
Even if we are campused, I know of a few parties the girls have planned,
and they'll be fun."
Arden decided to try a new method of approach.
"Sim, I wouldn't mention it if I didn't want you to stay," she said. "But
you got us into this, even if you meant it all for the best, and even if
you do leave, Terry and I will still be campused. There are lots of other
things to do besides swimming, and, don't forget, we have a mystery here
that no one dreams about but us."
"I am sorry about you and Terry, but right now I don't feel like being a
good sport. I'll go to Tiddy and ask her to let you two off." Sim
hesitated. "But I want to go home, Arden. Don't ask me to stay."
"If you feel you must go, Sim, all right. But what I ask you to do is not
to mail your letter for a few days. Write another in its place, at least
temporarily, and say everything is settled. And then, if you still feel
the same way----" Arden shrugged and turned aside.
Sim left her desk and walked slowly to a window. The peacefulness of the
scene below, framed by the trees in their bright autumn array, must have
had some influence on the perturbed girl. For, after a few moments of
silent contemplation, Sim swung around and exclaimed:
"All right, Arden. I'll think it over. You can hold this letter for three
days, and I'll write another to send home. But it's only because of my
friendship for you both that I'm doing it."
"That's great, Sim! You won't be sorry. We'll forget about it now
and----"
A small shuffling noise stopped Arden in the midst of her exultation. It
came from the direction of the door, and, even as the three looked, a
bright blue and white envelope was pushed under the portal. Terry picked
up the missive and opened it.
"Why!" she exclaimed in delighted surprise, "it's an invitation for a
party tomorrow in the gym. The sophomores are giving it to the freshmen,
and we must," she was rapidly reading the note, "all wear some sort of a
costume. Oh, how precious!" She was gleefully excited.
"What fun!" With the suddenness of youth Arden closed her mind to the
subject of Sim threatening to go home and she began to plan for the
party.
"What can we wear?" asked Terry.
"We haven't much in the way of costumes," Arden admitted. "I suppose,
though, we can wear riding habits or blacken our faces and slick back our
hair. We'll probably have more fun that way than if we wore draperies."
"Oh, yes," Terry agreed.
"It will be a little break for us after what we know is in prospect,"
said Sim in a low voice.
After lessons, the next day had been gotten through in some fashion and,
following supper, the three hurried back to their room. Sim put on
Terry's riding clothes, which were much too big, and Terry wore a part of
Sim's sport suit with a woolly cap belonging to Arden. As for Arden, she
put on a short, tight skirt and a sweater belonging to Jane Randall and
knotted a scarf about her throat, Apache style.
Then, using a soft eyebrow pencil, the girls adorned their lips with
villainous mustaches.
"How do we look?" asked Sim, trying to pose in front of a mirror that
showed only part of her.
"Terrible!" laughed Terry.
"That's the way we want to look," decided Arden.
Down in the large gymnasium crêpe paper was used to cover the steam
pipes, and many streamers, in the college colors, disguised the bare
whitewashed walls. The room was crowded with noisy, laughing girls. At
one end a portable phonograph was playing, with the loudest needle
obtainable, a popular dance tune.
Arden and her two particular friends were met at the door by their
sophomore tormentors, Toots Everett, Jessica Darglan, and Priscilla
MacGovern.
Toots came forward and gave Sim a large paper carton made in imitation of
a traveling bag. It was adorned with huge purple and green paper bows.
"A gift for our most widely traveled freshman!" said Toots with a laugh.
"You must keep this with you until refreshments are served. Those are the
rules."
Sim smiled grimly and accepted the box gracefully. So her story was known
all over college in spite of the dean's prohibition?
Arden and Terry received large, blank exercise books in which to keep a
record of their engagements: gentle sarcasm when it was evidently known
they couldn't make any for three weeks at least.
One by one the freshmen were given articles to show up their various
faults, failings, and follies.
The party was soon well under way and progressed happily. The girls who
could lead were the most popular dancers that night. In fact, those girls
were booked well ahead as partners.
Arden was dancing with Jane Randall at the far end of the gymnasium when
she happened to glance up at one of the windows. What she saw startled
her so that she made a mis-step and caused Jane to exclaim:
"Look out!"
Arden wanted to say she was looking with all her eyes, but she did not
dare call her partner's attention to what had so disturbed her. For, as
she glanced up at the window, Arden saw gazing down at her with strange
malevolence a mocking, smiling face. Then, in a second, it was gone, and
only the black square of glass remained.
Arden was almost shaking with fright, so much so that she faltered in the
dance. She glanced quickly at Jane to learn whether she had noticed the
face, but now Jane was smiling over Arden's head at the antics of some
capering freshman.
As she circled the room with Jane, Arden's fears subsided somewhat, and
she resolved to say nothing about it to Jane. Then, when the record had
played itself out, that dance came to an end. For a moment following the
last strains of the music there was a lull in the noise of talk and
laughter.
Then, suddenly, breaking in on the happy, peaceful silence, as though it
had been planned, came the slow and mournful tolling of a heavy bell.
Dong! Ding-dong! Ding-dong!
"What is it?" questioned several.
"Do we unmask now?" others wanted to know. They thought it a signal.
"I've never heard a bell ring like that since I've been here at Cedar
Ridge," said a demure little sophomore in a low voice.
"It hasn't rung--in a long time," said one girl in a low voice.
"But what is it?" Arden demanded.
"Why does it ring now?" Terry wanted to know.
"Come on!" called the impulsive Toots Everett. "There's something wrong
somewhere."
"That old outside fire-alarm bell hasn't been tolled since we had the
modern telephone system installed," said one of the teachers who was
overtaken in the hall by a rush of students from the gymnasium. The dance
was momentarily forgotten.
"Oh, a fire!" gasped Terry.
"Let's hurry out!" proposed Sim.
They were all hurrying.