"Blyton, Enid - St Clare's 06 - Fifth Formers at St Clare's" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blyton Enid)

Nobody but Angela listened. The whole class was bored to tears by Anne-Marie's pretentious, solemn and
insincere poetry. Anne-Marie let herself go, and her voice rang quite sonorously through the classroom.
But she was not allowed to finish it. Miss Willcox had listened in a state of irritation, and stopped her half-way through. The poem was plainly an imitation of one of her own poems, in the book she had had published, and of which the adoring Anne-Marie had bought a copy.
Her poem was called ' The Deserted Farm', and the whole plan of it was much the same as Anne-Marie's, even to the ideas in the different verses. As an imitation it was very clever-but Anne-Marie had not meant it to be an imitation. She had thought she was writing a most original poem, and had not even realized that she had drawn on her memories of Miss Willcox's own poem.
'Stop,' said the mistress, and Anne-Marie stopped, puzzled. She glanced at Miss Willcox, who was frowning.
' When you write something really original, something out of your own mind, something which isn't copied from my work or any one else's, I'll listen to it, Anne-Marie,' said Miss Willcox, putting on her deep, drawling voice again.
' But Miss Willcox-I didn't copy it from anywhere,' stammered Anne-Marie, horrified. 'I-I only tried to model it on your own style, which I admire very much.
Even if Anne-Marie's poem had been as good as one by Shakespeare, Miss Willcox would not have admired it that morning, when she was still smarting from the sending back of her own precious collection of poems.
' Don't make excuses,' she said coldly. ' If I were you I should tear the poem up. Now-there's the bell. Put your books together and go out for Break. Alison, you can stay and help me for a few moments. I want these papers put in order.'
In tears poor Anne-Marie went out of the room-and with smiles Alison helped Miss Willcox. The other girls hurried out thankfully-what a nerve-racking English lesson it had been !


10 ABOUT GENIUSES, SPORT, AND MENDING

'YOU weren't sick after all, Claudine,' said Angela, rather maliciously, as they went out.
' It passed,' said Claudine, airily. ' Happily Felicity took Miss Willcox's attention, or I might have had to go to Matron.'
' We'd better go and get Felicity out of her study,' said Isabel to Pat. ' I wonder if she's written out the act of that play. It's an awfully long one.'
They went to Felicity's study. Anne-Marie was there, crying. She scowled at the others when they came in.
' Cheer up, silly,' said Pat. ' What does it matter what dear Deirdre says about your poem ? I bet she's jealous, that's all!'
' You don't know anything about poetry,' sniffled Anne-Marie. ' I don't believe you heard a word of my poem, anyway.'
' Quite right, I didn't,' said Pat. ' I'd listen if I understood what you were trying to say in your poems, Anne-Marie, but it always seems to me as if you haven't got anything to say.'
' You're all unkind to me," sobbed Anne-Marie, thoroughly upset by two things—the fact that her precious poem had been scoffed at, and that her adored Miss Willcox had snubbed her.
' Oh, don't be such a baby,' said Pat, and turned to look at Felicity, who was writing feverishly in a corner, copying out the play in a nervous, very small handwriting.
' Bad luck, Felicity,' said Pat. ' Come on out now, though. Do you good to get a blow in the air this morning. You look awful.'
' I don't know what happened to me in class today,' said Felicity, raising her head for a minute. ' You
see, I've been working so hard on my music, and the tune I've been groping for suddenly came to me-and my mind just went after it, and I forgot everything else.'
' It's because you're a genius,' said Pat, kindly, for she liked Felicity, who put on no airs at all, and was not in the least conceited. ' Geniuses always do funny unusual things, you know. They can't help it. They like working in the middle of the night, they go without food for days sometimes, they walk in their sleep, they are absent-minded-oh, they're not like ordinary people at all. So cheer up-you can't help being a genius. Personally, I think you're working too hard.'
Anne-Marie listened to this sympathetic speech with sniffles and a discontented look. She thought herself just as much a genius as Felicity-but nobody ever talked to her like that ! Nobody ever called her a genius, except Angela-and Angela really didn't know the difference between a nursery rhyme and a great poem ! Life seemed very hard to poor Anne-Marie just then.
' Perhaps,' thought Anne-Marie, suddenly, ' perhaps if I do some queer things, like Felicity does, the girls will realize I'm a genius too. It's worth trying, anyway-so long as I don't get myself into a row. It's no good doing anything in Miss Willcox's class-after Felicity's performance it would be silly.'
She cheered up a little and went out for Break. Felicity would not go out. She was intent on finishing the writing out of the play, so that she could once more give her mind freely to the music that seemed always all around her. Felicity was finding things very hard that term. The work in the fifth form was more difficult than in the fourth, and there was the strain of the exam. to face. She was also working even harder at her music, and very often could not sleep at night.
Mirabel also was working very hard at the sports standard of the whole school. She wanted to raise the standard of the lacrosse so that even the fourth and third
teams would win all their matches. What a feather it would be in her cap, if she did!
Gladys did not approve of all this intense drive for high efficiency in games and gym. and running practice. ' You're trying to do too much too quickly,' she said to Mirabel. ' You'll get much better results if you go more slowly, Mirabel. Look at this practice list of yours for the first form. You'll make them all fed up with games if you insist on so much time being given to them.'
'Do them good,' said Mirabel, intent on the second form list. ' These kids ought to be very grateful for the interest I take in them. That Jane Teal for instance— she is ten times better since she did what I told her and put in more practice. She's the best catcher in the first form.'
' Well, you can drive people like Jane Teal, who always want to do the best they can for any one they like,' said Gladys, ' but you can't drive every one. Some just get obstinate. I think you're not at all sensible with some of the fourth formers—and you really ought to know better than to go after people like Carlotta and Angela and Claudine.'
' I wish you wouldn't always find fault with me, Gladys,' said Mirabel, impatiently. ' You're quite different from what you used to be. You used to like being guided by me, you said I was the strong one, and you quite looked up to me.'
' I know,' said Gladys, ' and I do now. I only wish I had half your strength of will and purpose, Mirabel. But as I accepted the post of vice-captain, which does bring with it the responsibility of sharing with you most of your decisions, I can't sit back and not say things I ought to say. I don't want to say them—I know you won't like some of them—but I'd be a very poor thing if I didn't say them.'
Mirabel really was surprised at Gladys. Always she had been the leader of the two and Gladys had followed meekly and willingly. It was something new for Mirabel
to find Gladys sticking up for her own ideas, and actually going against her sometimes I Mirabel should have admired her quiet friend for this, but instead, glorying in her position of sports captain, she only felt resentful.
' I mean to make St. Clare's the best sports school in the country,' she said obstinately. 'I shan't listen to any excuses of over-work or tiredness from any one. They'll just have to put as much into their games as they do into their school-work.'
' Every one is not as big and strong as you are,' said Gladys, looking at the huge, strapping girl. 'I don't wonder you are going to train as a games-mistress. You're just cut out for it ! You could take gym. and games the whole day long and then go for a ten-mile walk in the evening! But do, do remember, Mirabel, old thing, that youngsters like Jane Teal really haven't the strength to do all you do !'
Jane Teal had most conscientiously done all that Mirabel had asked her, for she was a loyal and hardworking girl. She felt proud when Mirabel told her that she was now the best at ball-catching in lacrosse in the whole of her big form.
But she had never stopped worrying about Angela, and she longed to make up the quarrel with her, and do things for her again. She sat in prep. and debated things in her mind. How could she become friends with Angela again ? How could she do her jobs instead of Violet, who, after the upset with Antoinette, had been taken back into favour again. She could not for the life of her think how to get back into Angela's good books.
'You seem to be lost in dreams, Jane,' said Miss Roberta's voice. 'I can't think you are doing your maths., with that faraway expression on your face.'
'I—I was just thinking of something,' said Jane, embarrassed, and bent her head to her work.
The next day Violet went down with a very bad cold, and was taken off to the san. by Matron, sniffling and
feeling very sorry for herself. She called to Jane as she went.
' Find that school-story for me, and my new jig-saw puzzle and bring them in sometime to me,' she said, and Jane promised she would. Accordingly she went to Violet's locker after morning school, and looked for the things she wanted.
She found them—and she also found two pairs of Angela's stockings, and two vests, all wanting quite a lot of mending. She stared at them.
Violet would be away from school for three or four days. Should she, Jane, do the mending, and take it back to Angela, and ask if she might take Violet's place till she came back ! It would be lovely to go to her study again, and tidy up the beautiful place, look at the pictures on the wall, fill the vases with water—do all the things she loved doing. Angela would smile at her again, and everything would be all right.