The Youngest Girl in the Fifth A School Story

Excerpt

An Unexpected Remove

"Gwen! Gwen Gascoyne! Gwen! Anybody seen her? I say, have you all gone deaf? Don't you hear me? Where's Gwen? I—want—Gwen—Gascoyne!"

The speaker—Ida Bridge—a small, perky, spindle-legged Junior, jumped on to the nearest seat, and raising her shrill voice to its topmost pitch, twice shouted the "Gwen Gascoyne", with an aggressive energy calculated to make herself heard above the babel of general chatter that pervaded the schoolroom. Her effort, though far from musical, at any rate secured her the notice she desired.

"Hello, there! Stop that noise! It's like a dog howling!" irately commanded a girl in spectacles who was cleaning the blackboard.

"And get down from my desk this minute! Who said you might climb up there?"

"Look here, you kid, what are you doing in our classroom?"

"Take yourself off at once! Fly! Scoot!"

The "kid", however, stood her ground.

"Shan't move till you've answered my question," she replied with aggravating impudence. "I want Gwen Gascoyne."

"Why, there she is all the time!"

"Where?"

"Under your very nose, you stupid baby! Get down from my desk, I tell you!"

The Junior cast what was intended to be a withering glance before she descended.

"Gwen Gascoyne, why couldn't you answer when I called you?" she demanded abruptly.

Gwen paused in the act of sharpening a lead pencil, and eyed the intruder.

"Who asked you to come in here?" she retorted.

"You babes must keep to your own classrooms! Hey, presto! Vanish! And be quick about it!" interposed Myra Johnson.

"Shan't! Not till I've spoken to Gwen."

"Cheek!"

"Suppress that kid!"

"But I've got a message!" squeaked the babe, as sundry arms of justice thrust her summarily in the direction of the door. "Oh, I have really—a message for Gwen from Miss Roscoe! She's to go to the library—now!"

"Then why couldn't you say so at first?"

"You never gave me a chance!"

Gwen threw the half-sharpened pencil inside her desk and banged down the lid.

"What does Miss Roscoe want with me?" she asked in some consternation. "Are you sure she meant me?"

A summons from the headmistress rarely boded good fortune to the recipient, and the girls stared at Gwen with interested sympathy.

"What have you been doing?" murmured Eve Dawkins.

"Glad I'm not in your shoes!" proclaimed Daisy Hurst.

"Oh, Gwen, I am sorry for you!" bleated Alma Richardson.

"I've not been doing anything!" protested Gwen indignantly. "You've no need to look at me as if I were a cross between a criminal and a martyr! Here, you babe, what did Miss Roscoe say?"

"Only that you're to go to the library; and you'd better be quick, because she said: 'Tell her to come at once!' Said it in her snappiest way, too! I shouldn't be a month about going if I were you. Hello! There's the bell. Ta-ta, I'm off! I wish you luck!" and Ida Bridge fled to the region of her own classroom, with a grin on her impish face.

Though she might rail at the impudence of the small fry, Gwen was not above taking a hint—headmistresses do not lightly brook being kept waiting—so she started at a run up the passage, turning over in her mind every possible crime which she might unwittingly have committed....