Boarding school students -- Juvenile fiction; Boarding schools -- Juvenile fiction; Teenage girls -- Fiction
“O, _you_, Cathalina,” said Isabel, “you aren’t a bit like her. _Your_
face is sweet and hers isn’t.”
Cathalina then told of her experience in the reception room. “We must be
nice, anyway, and as good to her as possible, as she’ll let us be. I
have a funny feeling that I’ve seen her somewhere or some one with the
same features, but I can’t remember.”
“Who’s her roommate?”
“She is in the single room on the first floor, around at the end of the
corridor running west from Miss Randolph’s rooms. She just goes around
with her head in the air that way all the time, I guess, and unless she
gets over it she’ll not make many friends.”
“Well, let’s speak to her when she’ll let us. I have an idea that she’ll
change after a while. I introduced myself, but she did not tell me her
name. Do any of you know what it is?”
Nobody did.
“The Mysterious Girl of Single Room Number Blank! Betty, here’s our
title for that story we have to write in English.”
Betty had hardly said a word during this conversation, but now remarked,
“I suppose there are girls here with queer stories in their lives. If we
knew them we’d learn a whole lot.”
“Yes; maybe it’s just as well we don’t. But I guess Miss Randolph is
very careful about what girls come here. Aunt Knickerbocker said so.”
This, Isabel declared, was mystery number one at Greycliff and what was
a boarding school without _some_ mystery? To mystery number two she was
introduced that night, by no desire of her own.
The Hall was wrapped in slumber, usually quite profound, for while the
girls often grumbled about putting out lights on time, they slept
soundly and morning came all too soon. But about midnight Cathalina and
Hilary were wakened by a loud shriek that reverberated through the halls
and was followed by another; then, silence. Both frightened girls sat up
in bed and by one impulse slipped into bath robes and slippers and
opened their door, peering out, half afraid but curious, in the
corridor. This was dark, lighted only by one dim gas light at the
further end. But they could see Avalon’s ghostly face at her half open
door and Isabel leaning against the wall not far away, her face hidden
in her arm. She was shaking all over. “Sh-sh!” said Avalon, her first
thought of the teachers.
“What on earth’s the matter?” asked Hilary in a low voice. “Somebody was
screaming to beat the band!”
“O,” gasped Isabel, as she heard Hilary’s voice, and ran with open arms
toward the two girls. “I was just scared to death,” she whispered. “O,
I’ll not sleep one wink this night!”
Cathalina went on toward Avalon, whom she found trembling with fright.
“Come over to our room and tell us what the trouble was. Who screamed?”
“Isabel!”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account