The Naughtiest Girl in the School (2 page)

“One-two-three-four-five,” she counted. “Five, Dear me where’s the sixth?” She looked on the floor. She looked on the chair. She was really vexed. She counted the pile again. Then she went to the door and looked for Elizabeth. The little girl was pulling something out of a cupboard on the landing.

“Elizabeth!” called Miss Scott sharply, “have you got a pair of your brown stockings?”

“No, Miss Scott,” said Elizabeth, making her eyes look round and surprised. “Why?”

“Because a pair is missing,” said Miss Scott. “Did you take them out of this room?”

“No, really, Miss Scott,” said Elizabeth truthfully, trying not to laugh as she caught sight of the stockings swinging at Miss Scott’s back. “I’m sure all the stockings are in the room, Miss Scott, really!”

“Then perhaps your mother has a pair,” said Miss Scott. “I’ll go and ask her.”

Off marched the governess down the landing, the pinned brown stockings trailing behind her like a tail. Elizabeth put her head into the cupboard and squealed with laughter.

Miss Scott went into her mother’s room, “Excuse me, Mrs. Allen,” she said, “but have you one of Elizabeth’s new pairs of stockings? I’ve only five pairs.”

“No, I gave you them all,” said Mrs. Allen, surprised. “They must be together. Perhaps you have dropped them somewhere.”

Miss Scott turned to go, and Mrs. Allen caught sight of the brown stockings following Miss Scott. She looked at them in astonishment.

“Wait, Miss Scott,” she said. “What’s this?” She went to Miss Scott, and unpinned the stockings.

The governess looked at Mrs. Allen, “Elizabeth, of course!” she said.

“Yes, Elizabeth!” said Mrs. Allen, “Always in mischief. I really never knew such a child in my life. It is high time she went to school. Don’t you agree, Miss Scott?”

“I do,” said Miss Scott heartily. “You will see a different and much nicer child when you come back home again, Mrs. Allen!”

Elizabeth was passing by, and heard what her mother and her governess were saying. She hit the door with the book she was carrying and shouted angrily, “You won’t see me any different, Mother, you won’t, you won’t! I’ll be worse!”

“You couldn’t be!” said Mrs. Allen in despair. “You really couldn’t be worse!”

CHAPTER 2

Elizabeth goes to School

For the rest of her time at home Elizabeth was very naughty and also very good.

“I’ll try being very, very good and obedient and polite and sweet, and see if Mother changes her mind,” she thought.

So, to the surprise of everyone, she became thoughtful, sweet-tongued, good-mannered, and most obedient. But it had quite the wrong effect, because, instead of saying that she would keep her at home now, her mother said something quite different!

“Well, Elizabeth, now that I know what a really nice girl you can be, I’m not so afraid of sending you to school as I was,” she said. “I thought you would get into such trouble and be so unhappy-but now that I see how well you really can behave, I am sure you will get on nicely at school. I am very pleased with your behavior!”

And you can guess what happened after that. Elizabeth at once became naughtier than she had ever been before!

“If being good makes Mother feel like that, I’ll see what being naughty does!” she thought.

So she emptied the ink-bottle over the cushions in the drawing-room. She tore a hole in one of the nicest curtains. She put three black beetles into poor Miss Scott’s toothbrush mug, and she squeezed the seccotine into the ends of both Miss Scott’s brown shoes, so that her toes would stick there!

“Well, all this makes it quite certain that Elizabeth needs to go to school!” said Miss Scott angrily, as she tried to get her feet out of her sticky shoes. “I’m glad to leave her! Naughty little girl! And yet she can be so sweet and nice when she likes.”

Elizabeth’s things were packed and ready. She had a neat brown trunk, with “E. Allen” painted on it in black. She had a tuck-box too, with a big currant cake inside, a box of chocolate, a tin of toffee, a jam sandwich, and a tin of shortbread.

“You will have to share these things with the others,” said Miss Scott, as she packed the things neatly inside.

“Well, I shan’t, then,” said Elizabeth.

“Very well, don’t!” said Miss Scott. “If you want to show everyone what a selfish child you are, just take the chance!”

Elizabeth put on the outdoor uniform of Whyteleafe School. It was very neat, and she looked nice in it. But then Elizabeth looked nice in anything! The outdoor uniform was a dark blue coat with a yellow edge to the collar and cuffs, a dark blue hat with a yellow ribbon round it, and the school badge at the front, her stockings were long and brown, and her lace shoes were brown too.

“My goodness, you do look a real schoolgirl!” said her mother, quite proudly.

Elizabeth wouldn’t smile. She stood there, sulky and angry.

“I shan’t stay at school long,” she said. “They’ll soon send me back!”

“Don’t be silly, Elizabeth,” said her mother. She kissed the little girl goodbye and hugged her, “I will come and see you at half term,” she said.

“No, Mother, you won’t,” said Elizabeth. “I shall be home long before that!”

“Don’t make me sad, Elizabeth!” said Mrs. Allen.

But Elizabeth wouldn’t smile or say she was sorry. She got into the car that was to take her to the station, and sat there, very cross and straight. She had said goodbye to her pony. She had said goodbye to Timmy, her dog. She had said goodbye to her canary. And to each of them she had whispered the same thing.

“I’ll soon be back! You’ll see-they won’t keep the naughtiest girl in the school for long!” Miss Scott took her to the station and then up to London in the train. She went with Elizabeth to a big station where trains whistled and chuffed, and people ran about in a hurry.

“Now we must find the right platform,” said Miss Scott hurrying too. “We have to meet the teacher there, who is in charge of the girls going by this train.”

They came to the right platform and went through to where a big group of girls stood with a teacher. They were all dressed in dark blue coats and hats, with yellow hat-bands like Elizabeth. The girls were of all ages, some big, some small, and most of them were chattering hard.

Two or three stood apart, looking shy. They were the new ones, like Elizabeth. The teacher spoke to them now and again, and they smiled gratefully at her.

Miss Scott bustled up to the teacher. “Good morning, “she said. “Is this Miss Thomas? This is Elizabeth Allen. I’m glad we are in good time!”

“Good morning,” said Miss Thomas, smiling. She held out her hand to Elizabeth. “Well, dear,” she said, “so you are going to join the happy crowd at Whyteleafe School!”

Elizabeth put her hand behind her back and would not shake hands with Miss Thomas. The teacher looked surprised. The other children stared. Miss Scott blushed red, and spoke sharply to Elizabeth.

“Elizabeth! Shake hands at once!” Elizabeth turned her back and looked at a train puffing nearby. “I’m so sorry she’s behaving so rudely,” said Miss Scott, really upset. She spoke in a low voice to Miss Thomas, “She’s an only child-very, very spoilt-rich, pretty-and she doesn’t want to come away to school, just leave her alone for a bit and I expect she’ll be all right.”

Miss Thomas nodded. She was a merry-looking young woman, and the girls liked her. She was just going to say something when a man came hurrying up with four boys.

“Good morning, Miss Thomas,” he said. “Here is my batch! Sorry I can’t stop; I’ve a train to catch! Goodbye, boys!”

“Goodbye, sir,” said the four boys.

“How many boys have you at Whyteleafe this term?” asked Miss Scott. “As many as girls?”

“Not quite,” said Miss Thomas, “There are some more boys over there, look, in charge of Mr. Johns.”

Miss Scott liked the look of the boys, all in dark blue overcoats and blue caps with yellow badge in front.

“Such a good idea,” she said, “to educate boys and girls together. For a child like Elizabeth, who has no brothers, and not even a sister, it is like joining a large family of brothers and sisters and cousins, to go to a school like Whyteleafe!”

 “Oh, they’ll soon knock the corners off your Elizabeth,” smiled Miss Thomas. “Look-here comes our train. We have our carriages reserved for us, so I must find them. The boys have two carriages and the girls have three. Come along, girls, here’s our train!”

Elizabeth was swept along with the others, She was pushed into a carriage with a big label on it, “Reserved for Whyteleafe School.”

“Goodbye, Elizabeth; goodbye, dear!” cried Miss Scott. “Do your best!”

“Goodbye,” said Elizabeth, suddenly feeling very small and lost, “I’ll soon be back!” she shouted.

“Gracious!” said a tubby little girl next to her, “a term’s a long time, you know! Fancy saying you’ll soon be back!”

“Well, I shall,” said Elizabeth, She was squashed in a heap by the tubby little girl and another girl on the other side, who was rather bony. She didn’t like it.  Elizabeth felt sure she would never, never learn who all the different girls were. She felt a little afraid of the big ones, and she was horrified to think there were boys at her school! Boys! Nasty, rough creatures-well. She’d show them that a girl could be rough too! The little girl sat silently as the train rattled on and on. The others chattered and talked and offered sweets round the carriage. Elizabeth shook her head when the sweets were offered to her.

“Oh, come on, do have one!” said the tubby little girl, whose sweets they were. “A sweet would do you good-make you look a bit sweeter perhaps!” Everybody laughed. Elizabeth went red and hated the tubby little girl.

“Ruth! You do say some funny things!” said a big girl opposite. “Don’t tease the poor little things she’s new.”

“Well, so is Belinda, next to you,” said Ruth, “but she does at least say something when she’s spoken to!”

“That will do, Ruth,” said Miss Thomas, seeing how red Elizabeth had gone. Ruth said no more, but the next time she offered her sweets round she did not offer them to Elizabeth.

It was a long journey. Elizabeth was tired when at last the train drew up in a country station and the girls poured out of the carriages. The boys came to join them, and the children talked eagerly of all they had done in the holidays.

“Come along now, quickly,” said Mr. Johns, pushing them out of the station gate. “The coach is waiting.”

There was an enormous coach outside the station, labeled “Whyteleafe School,” The children took their places. Elizabeth found a place as far away as possible from the tubby little girl called Ruth; she didn’t like her one bit. She didn’t like Belinda either. She didn’t like anyone! They all stared at her too much! The coach set off with a loud clank and rumble. Round the corner it went, down a country lane, up a steep hill - and there was Whyteleafe School at the top! It was a beautiful building, like an old country house-which, indeed, it once had been. Its deep red wall s, green with creeper, glowed in the April sun. It had a broad flight of steps leading from the green lawns up to the school terrace.

“Good old Whyteleafe!” said Ruth, pleased to see it. The coach swept round to the other side of the school, through a great archway, and up to the front door. The children jumped down and ran up the steps, shouting and laughing.