"Blyton, Enid - St Clare's 01 - The Twins At St Clare's" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blyton Enid)

"I have been looking through the reports that your father sent me from your last school," the Head began. "They are very good, and you seem to have been responsible and conscientious children there. I can't imagine that you can have completely changed your characters in a few weeks, so I am not going to treat you as naughty irresponsib1e girls. I know there must be a good reason behind all your queer behaviour last night. Really, my dears, you gave Mam'zelle and me quite a shock when you walked into the classroom in your blue dressing-gowns."
The Head smiled. The twins felt most relieved, and Pat began to pour out what had happened in the French class.
"The French isn't the same as at our old school. It isn't much use our trying to do well, because we always get everything wrong. It isn't our fault. And Mam'zelle was simply furious with us yesterday, and..."
Miss Theobald heard Pat patiently to the end.
"Well, your French difficulties can easily be put right," said the Head Mistress. "I have spoken to Mam'zelle, and she says that you speak well and understand well, but that you have not been well grounded in the writing of French. She has offered to give you half an hour's extra French a day until you have caught up the others. This is very kind of her because she is extremely busy. All this bother has come from the fact that you were behind your class in one thing -- and if you are willing to help to put it right by working hard with Mam'zelle, there is no need to say any more about your rather silly behaviour last night."
The twins stared at Miss Theobald with mixed feelings They were most relieved that nothing more was to be said -- but oh dear, oh dear - extra French each day! How tiresome! And yet how decent of Mam'zelle Abominable to be willing to help them.
"Thank you, Miss Theobald," said Pat at last. "We'll try. Once we catch up the others, we Shan't feel so angry and ashamed when we are scolded in front of the class."
"Well, you won't be scolded if Mam'zelle really feels you are trying," said Miss Theobald. "Now go to her and arrange what time will be best each day for the extra lesson. And don't go marching through the corridors in your dressing-gowns at half-past ten anymore!"
"No, Miss Theobald," said the twins smiling at the Head. Things seemed suddenly brighter. What they had done didn't any longer seem a dreadful piece of misbehaviour likely to be punished in dire ways but just a silly bit of nonsense that they were both heartily ashamed of They went out of the room, and skipped down the passage to the common room Mam'zelle was there, correcting piles of French essays, and muttering to herself as she ticked the pages
"Trшs bien, ma petite Hilary! Ah, this dreadful girl Joan ! Ah... come in!"
The twins went into the mistresses' common room Mam'zelle beamed at them, and patted them on the shoulder. Although she had an extremely quick and hot temper, she was, very good hearted and kind.
"Ah, now we will see how clever you can be at catching up the others," she said. "Every day you will work with me, and we shall be good friends, nest ce pas?"
"Thank you, Mam'zelle," said Pat. "We were rather idiots yesterday. We won't be again!"
"And thank you for saying you'll help us each day," said Isabel.
So that was that, and the classes with Mam'zelle went much more smoothly. Mam'zelle was patient with the twins, and they tried hard.
But nobody tried hard with poor Miss Kennedy!
Janet was a born tease and leg-puller, and she gave the unfortunate history-teacher a terrible time. Janet had a wonderful collection of trick-pencils, all of which she tried on Miss Kennedy with enormous success.
One pencil had a point that was made of rubber, so that it wobbled to one side when Miss Kennedy took it to write with. Another pencil had a point that slipped right inside the pencil as soon as any one wrote with it. The girls all watched with intense eagerness as the unfortunate mistress unwarily used these pencils, and gazed at them in surprise when they behaved so queerly.
Then Janet produced a pencil that wouldn't write at all, although it appeared to have a most marvellous point. To see poor Miss Kennedy pressing hard with the pencil, trying her best to write "Very good" with it, sent the whole class into fits of giggles.
"Girls, girls! Please make less noise!" Miss Kennedy said. "Turn to page eighty-seven of your history books. Today I want to tell you how the people lived in the seventeenth century."
The class at once began to turn over the pages of their history books in a most feverish manner, making a noise like the whispering of trees in the wind. They went on and on turning over the pages, muttering "eighty-seven, eighty-seven" to themselves all the time.
'What number did you say, Miss Kennedy?" asked Kathleen, innocently, though she knew very well indeed.
"I said page eighty-seven," said Miss Kennedy, politely. She was always polite, never rude like Mam'zelle or sarcastic like Miss Roberts.
"Oh, eighty-seven!" said all the girls at once, and immediately began to turn over their pages the other way, very busy and very serious -- until Janet let out a giggle, and then the whole class roared. Miss Kennedy rapped on the desk.
"Please, please," she said, "I do beg you to be quiet and let us get on with the lesson."
"Please, Miss Kennedy, did the people wear clothes in the seventeenth century, or just skins?' asked Janet, in an innocent voice. Miss Kennedy looked surprised.
"Surely you know that they wore clothes," she said. "I have a picture here of the kind of clothes they wore. You should know that they didn't wear skins then.
Janet."
"Not even their own skins?" asked Janet. This wasn't really at all funny, but the class was now in a state to giggle at anything, and the twins and every one else joined in the laughter.
"Perhaps they had jumped out of their skins and that's why they didn't wear any," said Hilary. More giggles followed this, though half the class didn't even catch what Hilary had said.
"Girls, I can't have this, I really can't," said Miss Kennedy. "I shall have to report you."
"Oh, please, please, PLEASE, Miss Kennedy!" chanted the class in a chorus, and one or two girls pretended to sob.
Poor Miss Kennedy! She had to deal with this sort of thing every time, though the upper forms were better behaved. The lower forms did not mean to be cruel or unkind, but they loved a joke and did not stop to think about Miss Kennedy and what she must be feeling. They just thought she was silly and asked for trouble.
One morning, when the class was especially riotous, Janet caught every one's eye. Kathleen giggled, for she knew what had been planned. When Janet gave the signal every girl was to drop her history text book flat on the floor! Janet nodded, and each girl let go her book.
Crash! Miss Kennedy jumped in. fright and the next minute the door opened and in came Miss Roberts! She had been taking a class in the next room, and when the crash of twenty history books had sounded, like a gunshot, she had decided it was time to investigate.
"Miss Kennedy, I don't know if there are any girls' names you would like to report to me," said Miss Roberts, in a very cold voice, "but I shall be glad to have them after morning school. I am sure you find it as difficult as l do to teach with all this noise going on."
Miss Roberts glared at the form, and they sat silent, half the girls going red. Miss Kennedy went red too.
"I'm so sorry for the noise, Miss Roberts," she said. "You see..."
But Miss Roberts was gone shutting the door after her very firmly indeed.
"Kenny won't report any one," whispered Janet to Isabel. "If she did, she'd have to report the whole class, and she would be ashamed to do that."
Miss Kennedy reported no one -- but in the secrecy of her bedroom that night she worried and tossed all night
long. She had come to St. Clare's because her friend, Miss Lewis, who thought so much of her, was ill -- and now Miss Kennedy felt that she was letting her down because the girls were quite out of hand, and she was sure that not one of them had learnt any history worth mentioning that term! And Miss Roberts had come in like that and been so cold and horrid -- and had hardly spoken to her in the common room afterwards. Supposed pose she complained about her to Miss Theobald? It was dreadful to feel herself a failure, and poor Miss Kennedy did not see how she could possibly turn her failure into anything like success.
"I'm afraid of the girls, that's why!" she said to herself. "And 1 do bate reporting them, because if I do they will hate me, and then my classes will be worse than ever."
And in the dormitory Janet was planning other tricks to plat on poor unsuspecting Miss Kennedy! Janet had brothers, monkeys all of them, and they sent her all kinds of tricks which they themselves tried out in their own classes.
"Pat! Isabel! Are you asleep?" whispered Janet. "I say! My brothers are sending me some fire-cracks! Have you ever heard of them?"
"Never," said the twins. "Whatever are they?"
"Well, you throw them on the fire and they crack and spit and hiss," whispered Janet, in glee. "My seat is next to the fire-so watch out for some fun next week! I expect the parcel will come tomorrow."
The twins giggled. Whatever would Kenny say when the fire began to spit and hiss and crack? They hugged themselves and pictured Miss Kennedy's alarmed expression.
"Janet!" whispered Pat. "Let's..."
But Hilary, head of the dormitory, put an end to the whispering. "Shut up!" she said. "You know the rules, don't you? For goodness' sake, go to sleep!"