PLANS AND MORE PLANS
She clasped the knob firmly in her hand and opened the door suddenly.
Though she saw nothing, she felt something soft and furry brushing
against her legs. She turned white and screamed.
It was Laura who brought her back to her senses. "Oh Bess, be quiet!"
she commanded. "You'll have the whole dormitory in here. You'll spoil
everything. You are not afraid of a cat, are you?"
"A cat!" Bess exclaimed.
"Yes, a cat. What's more it is as frightened as you are!" Laura said in
great disgust. "How did it get into the building anyway?"
"How do I know?" Bess asked shortly, for she was still frightened.
"Now, there, don't take it so hard," Amelia comforted her friend, as
Bess turned to view her unexpected visitor.
In a far corner of the room, its back arched high in anger was a very
black, very angry looking cat.
"What's the matter, pussy cat?" Rhoda coaxed. "Did Bess nearly scare you
out of a year's growth?"
But the cat was not to be appeased. At the sound of Rhoda's voice
directed toward it, it moved, slowly, around the edge of the room with
its back still arched, however, and its heavy tail slowly curling.
"Ooh, it _is_ mad!" Grace exclaimed as she got up from her place on the
floor. "Better get it out of here."
"What do you suppose I'm trying to do?" Bess helplessly asked.
Laura took command of the situation. "Now, don't move, any of you," she
warned. "I've a way with cats."
"And it doesn't work," Amelia rejoined, as the black ball of fury
snarled at the red-headed girl.
"Well, I'll show you, Mrs. Cat, who is boss." Laura's temper had been
aroused. She grabbed Grace's green suede jacket.
"Get out of here--now," she ordered, shaking it before the animal.
The cat turned, leaped over a chair, jumped up on a bookcase, sprang
to the window-sill and pushing out the already loose screen, it
leaped across space to a tree outside, jumped to the ground and was
disappearing around a corner just as the girls, recovering from their
surprise, got to the window.
"Well, that is that." Laura pretended to wash her hands of the whole
matter. "Did I get rid of that cat, or didn't I?"
"You did!" Bess agreed emphatically, as she slammed down the window as
though to preclude the possibility of the animal's doing a leap in
reverse as she had seen swimmers do in news reels. "But will you tell
me," she asked, "what it all means?"
"Simply that someone left a door open downstairs," answered the
practical Amelia.
"And the cat smelled a mouse. So she came up here." Rhoda dismissed the
question.
"Oh, you two know what I mean," Bess exclaimed impatiently. "I don't
like black cats, especially when they walk right in on a party I'm
planning."
"You think it casts a great big black spell over everything?" Laura
supplied.
Bess shook her head. She was almost in tears.
"Oh, come, Bess," Rhoda put her arm around the girl's shoulder. "Don't
be like that. That black cat can't do you or anybody else any harm.
Don't be superstitious."
Bess smiled through her tears. "Guess I was more upset than I thought,"
she half apologized. "If that door is closed," she nodded toward the one
the cat had entered, "let's go on with what we were talking about."
The party! The girls now all sat down close together in a circle on the
floor. It was Bess who remembered in spite of her recent scare.
"Say, you two," she said, addressing Laura and Amelia. "You had a
secret, too. What was it?"
Both the girls looked guilty.
"You fooled me!" Bess was indignant.
"No, not exactly that, O Suspicious One," Laura denied, "But the truth
is that Amelia and I had thought of a going away party too, and we were
down in the village to find out about how much it would cost."
"Just a whole gang of people with a single idea," Rhoda laughed.
"And that idea is Nan!" Bess agreed. "Now let's get busy before she
comes," she continued as she raised her arm to note the time. The watch
had been a Christmas present and Bess was still self-conscious about it
and very, very proud. "It's four-thirty," she said. "We'll all have to
get ready for dinner shortly, and Nan will be here, if she isn't coming
already," she added as she heard footsteps in the hall.
"Sounds like Mrs. Cupp," Laura whispered.
"It was," Bess breathed a sigh of relief. "No one else rustles like
that."
"Good reason," Laura couldn't help adding. "No one else has a figure
like that."
The girls giggled appreciatively.
"How will we organize this?" Bess appealed to Rhoda for help.
"Let's have committees," Grace answered the question.
"I'll take charge of food," Laura jumped in with a suggestion.
"Not if I have anything to do about it," Amelia contributed her bit.
"And I'd like to know why not!" Laura retorted.
"Simply because I was just down in the village with you and I know what
kind of food we would get, if you did the buying, just one course after
another of chocolate sodas with chocolate cream, and then you would top
it all off with devil's food cake a la mode." With this, Amelia looked
significantly at the spot on the front of Laura's skirt.
"Oh, darling, let's make peace," Laura capitulated, "or we will never
accomplish anything at all this afternoon. I nominate Rhoda to have
charge of the food. Do I hear a second?"
"I second the motion," Bess replied. "All in favor say 'Aye'."
There was a chorus of "Ayes".
"The motion is carried," Bess, the self-appointed chairman closed the
question. "Now, who wants to take charge of the guest list?"
"Aren't we getting pretty high-hat with guest lists, and all?" Laura
asked. "Just ask the people to come. There doesn't have to be any fuss
about it."
"Oh, Laura, it's about time you grew up," Bess silenced her friend.
"We're going to do this party up right. It's not going to be a secret
midnight spread, though they are fun," and her eyes twinkled as she
remembered the one down in the boathouse at which they had entertained
Mrs. Cupp.
"Let's make this different than anything we have ever had before. Let's
make it dignified and have everybody wear party dresses. Let's invite
Dr. Beulah and Professor Krenner. Nan loves them both. I'm sure she
would feel very proud, if they came."
"Bess, you will have to hire a hall," Grace rather timidly interposed.
"How can we ever entertain all those people? They'll scare the life out
of me. Just imagine going up to Dr. Beulah and saying, 'We are going to
have a party, will you come to it?' What if she said, 'No!' Then what
would the person who had asked her say? Why, it gives me gooseflesh just
to think about it."
"Never you mind, little Gracie, you won't have to do the asking," Laura
reassured her, "We'll let either Bess or Rhoda do that."
"That's an idea!" Amelia approved. "Rhoda already has a job. Bess, you
make up a list of people you think we ought to invite and then you
invite them. It seems to me, though, if you are going to do it in a
grand manner, you really ought to write out the invitations, and that
you will have to invite Mrs. Cupp."
The girls groaned.
"That's right." Amelia stuck to her point.
For a second Bess looked crestfallen, almost as though she had rather
give up the party than have grim looking Mrs. Cupp present watching over
it.
Laura, however, cheered her up. "Never mind, Bess," she consoled, "she's
really not so bad, you know, after you have thawed her out with
something warm to drink and given her something good to eat. Really, she
can be quite human when she wants to be."
"At any rate, we don't have to think about Linda Riggs this time," Bess
said in an effort to find one patch of brightness in the situation. "My,
doesn't it seem good not to have her here this term!"
"Better than anything that has happened to us for a long time," Grace
agreed. "But let's not crow too loud about it, you never know when she
will turn up. Then you'll invite Mrs. Cupp, too?" she asked Bess,
looking as though she was very glad she didn't have to do it.
"I suppose so," Bess agreed half heartedly. "How many will we invite?"
"I've been wondering about that, too," Rhoda spoke up. "And I can
see no end to a list. Nan has so many friends that it is positively
embarrassing! We can't possibly have a dinner, even if Dr. Beulah and
Mrs. Cupp would let us. There just wouldn't be enough room."
"Nor enough money," Amelia added significantly.
"That's right," Laura stuck in her oar. "How are we going to get the
money to pay for all of this."
The question fell on a quiet room. No one had thought of paying for it!
Finally, Bess broke in on the silence, "Maybe I could get my father to
send me some extra money this month," she offered doubtfully. "I could
write and ask him for two months' allowance at once. I think he would do
it." Bess did have a way with her father and mother that usually secured
for her what she wanted, for she was an only child and they loved her
dearly. For this reason, she had no conception at all of the value of
money. "You seem to think," Nan often told her, "that it is something
you go out and pick off from bushes. Don't you know that people work for
money?"
Now it was Amelia who put a damper on Bess's generous but thoughtless
offer. "That wouldn't be fair at all," she rejected Bess's proposal.
"Why?" This from Bess.
"Because we are all giving the party, and we all want to help."
"Thata girl, Amelia," Laura applauded slangily.
"Why can't we," Rhoda began slowly as though she hadn't quite worked the
idea out in her own mind yet, "make up a list of people that we know
would like to do something for Nan--goodness knows, there's enough of
them--and invite them asking each one to contribute fifty cents to help
take care of expenses?"
"But we couldn't ask Dr. Beulah to give fifty cents!" Grace cried out
without even thinking.
"Of course not!" Laura agreed. "But we could make out a list of extra
special people whom we would invite as guests. They wouldn't pay
anything at all."
"That's perfect!" Bess chimed in. "That takes care of everything. At
fifty cents apiece, we will have some money left, and we can use that to
buy Nan a going away present."
"And Laura and Amelia and I will be the committee to buy the gift,"
Grace added. "And let's have the party on a Sunday afternoon and just
serve simple refreshments so that there will be lots of money left
over!"
"Yes, we want to get something nice for Nan, something that she would
never buy for herself and something that she will use all the time she
is away, so that she will think of us often," Bess added rather sadly,
for she wasn't quite reconciled yet to Nan's going away without her.
"Sh! I hear someone coming, and it's not a cat this time," Laura
whispered in the silence that followed Bess's statement.
Bess jumped up. "Everybody get busy," she just had time to say, "so
that this will be the very nicest party Lakeview Hall has ever seen,"
before Nan burst into the room on the conspirators.