They were in excellent time, so they called a halt at Hodges' shop and dismissed the car. The assistant, after searching in various drawers and boxes, produced a small supply of surplus fireworks, which Fay eagerly purchased, being also provident enough to remember to buy a box of matches. She pranced into school in the highest of spirits, flaunting her flag, and stuck it in a conspicuous place in the classroom, where Miss Mitchell eyed it indeed with some astonishment, but offered no remonstrance. At eleven o'clock interval the fun began. Fay and her confederates retired to a secluded part of the garden and began to let off squibs and crackers, the sound therefrom drawing an interested and excited little crowd, who hopped about squealing at the explosions, and were immensely thrilled at the audacity of such a performance on school premises. "They're great!" "Hold me down, or I'll fly off in sparks!" "Fay, you are the limit!" "It's a brainy notion!" "Wow! Don't set me on fire!" "Goody! Here's Miss Fanny coming!" It was a decidedly wrathful Miss Fanny who descended upon them, and promptly confiscated the few fireworks that were left. "Most dangerous!" she remarked indignantly. "You might easily, some of you, have been burnt. Really, Fay, I'm surprised. A girl in the Fifth form ought to know better. Go back all of you at once. And don't let such a thing ever happen again!" The confederates had been lucky enough to have almost finished their display before Miss Fanny appeared on the scene, so they bore the loss of the last three squibs with equanimity. "If Miss Fanny had only been an American she'd have helped to let them off herself instead of interfering!" protested Fay. "I haven't worked my spirits off yet, so I warn you! We'll do something mad after dinner." "What?" "I haven't quite fixed it up yet, but I'll tell you later on." The girls from Chagmouth dined daily with the boarders in the hostel, and were on very good terms with most of them. Fay could therefore be tolerably sure of a certain amount of support in any scheme she chose to evolve. She thought things over during the French class, a process of mental abstraction which brought the wrath of Mademoiselle on to her head, for she answered at random and made some really idiotic mistakes, at which the other girls giggled. "You didn't shine this morning, old sport!" whispered Beata when the class was over. "I believe Mademoiselle thought you were ragging her!" "I wasn't doing anything of the sort. Can't you all realise it's the Fourth of July?" "You've mentioned that once or twice before!" "Well, I'll mention it again. Of course I focus my mind on America, not on France! You can't expect me to go jabbering French when I think of the times my friends will be having to-day on the other side of the Atlantic. I've had rather a brain throb though. We'll dress up after dinner in anything we can borrow, and have a parade on the tennis lawn, with prizes for best costumes."