Mavis put one foot out of bed into the wet pool, and drew it back like a cat. She reached for her bedroom slippers, pulled them on, then set to work with a sponge to try and remedy the damage. For what seemed about five minutes the girls were mopping and dabbing, getting the bottoms of their nightdresses soaked in the process, and having to scramble under the beds to follow some of the streams. Jessop, hearing the commotion, came in and scolded. "The new toilet jug! Whatever were you doing? What will your aunt say, I wonder? Girls are as careless as boys it seems to me! I used to make Master Cyril wash in the bathroom. We shall have to buy you enamel-ware if you break the china. Rivet it, did you say? No one could rivet these bits! Besides which, the old man who used to come round riveting things has never turned up since the war. The jug's done for and that's the long and short of it. There, get on with your dressing, or you'll be late for breakfast. I'll bring you some more water in a can. I suppose girls will be girls, and the thing's done now, and past praying for, so there's an end of it." It might be the end of the water jug, but unfortunately it was not the end of Merle's ill-luck. She must have been in a particularly awkward and maladroit mood, for at breakfast-time she actually managed to upset her cup of tea. "Hello! What are we doing here?" asked Uncle David, peering round his newspaper at the puddle on the clean tablecloth. "I don't know. I think the pixies nudged me. I'm fearfully sorry," apologized Merle, thanking her stars privately that Jessop was not in the dining-room, and hoping to escape to school before that already offended domestic deity came to clear away and discovered the tell-tale evidence. "Ah yes! Put it all on to the pixies; they've broad shoulders," twinkled Uncle David, as he helped himself to more bacon. "It's like the Mad Hatter's tea-party," grunted Mavis, moving farther down the table to avoid the wet patch, which had spread in her direction. Certainly Merle seemed pixie-led, for everything went wrong. When she put on her boots she broke her boot-lace, and had to piece it with a big knot which ran into her instep and hurt her. She struggled into her coat, slammed on her hat, and tore out after Mavis, who had already started; but when she was half-way along the High Street she discovered that she had forgotten one of her books and had to run back for it. It was in the summer-house, at the bottom of the garden, where she had left it the day before, and as she scurried up the steps she stumbled and fell, and grazed her knee. She picked herself up, looked ruefully at the injured limb, seized her book, and rushed away, limping slightly on one leg, and grousing hard. She was late for school, though, in spite of her best efforts, and only slipped into the big classroom just when Miss Pollard was closing the register.