The Youngest Girl in the Fifth: A School StoryBrazil, Angela
General
The Youngest Girl in the Fifth: A School Story
Brazil, Angela
Schools -- Fiction
Netta was a type of girl that can be found in every school and almost
every Form. Rather deficient in moral fibre, and badly trained at
home, her influence was always on the wrong side. She was clever
enough, as a rule, just to avoid getting into open trouble with the
authorities, but under the surface she was a source of disturbance.
She had a certain following of gigglers and slackers, who thought her
escapades funny, and were ready to act chorus to her lead, and though
she had never done anything specially outrageous, her reputation at
headquarters was not good. Every teacher realized only too plainly
that Netta was the firebrand of the Form, and that while she might
preserve a smug exterior it was really she who was responsible for any
outbreaks of lawlessness among the others.
As Junior Mistress of the Fifth no one had more reason to be aware of
this than Winnie Gascoyne. Teaching was uphill work to Winnie. She had
not Beatrice's commanding disposition and capacity for administration,
consequently it was the more difficult for her to keep order and
enforce rules. She did her conscientious best, but girls easily find
out a governess's weak point, and at present Netta was trying how far
she could go. "Ragging Miss Gascoyne" was a favourite pastime of hers,
and one which afforded much sport to her applauders, if not to the
victim of her jokes.
A few mornings after Gwen's introduction to the Fifth there was a
class for memory map drawing with the assistant teacher. Each girl was
supposed to come prepared to make a map of India, and to mark in a
large number of places, a fairly difficult task, and one over which
many of them grumbled in unison.
"It's not fair! It takes such heaps of time to go over it at home, one
hasn't a second for anything else!" wailed Minna Jennings.
"I'd a raging headache last night, and my mother said she thought
Rodenhurst was getting too much for me," bleated Millicent Cooper.
"Poor frail flower! You look as if you'd wither at a breath! Better
pack you off to a sanatorium!" laughed Netta.
"And you to a lunatic asylum, you mad thing! Don't you ever get
headaches with all this over-swatting?"
"No, my child, for I know a dodge or two! N. G. is no infant in arms,
I assure you."
"Deign to explain, O commander of the faithful!" begged Annie Edwards.
"Well, as I told you, I'm up to a thing or two, and I flatter myself I
know just exactly how to tackle Grinnie."
"Who's Grinnie?" asked Gwen rather sharply.
The others roared.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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