"Blyton, Enid - St Clare's 03 - Summer Term at St Clare's" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blyton Enid)

'Can't you make her?' said Pat. 'You're always full of ideas. Go on-I dare you to make her!'
Bobby always took on any ' dare'. She looked at Pat, and grinned. 'Right!' she said. 'I'll bet you a stick of toffee to a peppermint drop that Miss Roberts disappears from our classroom during the maths lesson.'
All the girls began to feel excited. Bobby was such fun. They knew she would do something unusual!
She did. She sat lost in thought at breakfast-time, and forgot to have any marmalade with her toast. Between breakfast and the first class, which was geography, Bobby disappeared.
She went to the common room, which was empty, for the girls were now tidying their cubicles and making their beds. She got down her writing-pad and pen, and in neat, mature writing, penned two lines.
'Kindly attend at the mistresses' common room in the lesson after break.'
She added a squiggle at the bottom that looked like anybody's initials, popped the note into an envelope and printed Miss Roberts's name on it. Then she placed the note inside her writing-pad in readiness for when she meant to use it.
'Thought of a plan yet?' asked Janet, when Bobby rejoined the girls upstairs. 'I've made your bed for you. What have you been doing?'
'Wait and see,' said Bobby, with a grin.
Maths was the first lesson after break. The girls waited impatiently for it, wondering what was going to happen. At break they begged Bobby to tell them what she was going to do, but she wouldn't.
She slipped off to the common room whilst the others were out in the garden. She took the note she had written, and went into Miss Jenks's classroom, next to Miss Roberts. She laid the note on Miss Jenks's desk, and then, making sure that no one had seen her, she slipped out again and went into the garden.
'Miss Jenks will see the note and think it has been left in the wrong classroom by mistake,' grinned Bobby to herself. 'She'll send one of her girls in with it to Miss Roberts-and then maybe we'll see our Miss Roberts trotting off to the mistresses' common room. And if I don't move the hands of the clock on whilst she's gone, my name isn't Roberta Henrietta Ellis!'
All the girls trooped back when the school-bell rang. They went to their classrooms and waited for the mistresses to come and take the next lesson. Hilary stood at the door watching for Miss Roberts.
'Sssst! Here she is!' warned Hilary. The girls stood up at once, and became silent. Miss Roberts came in and went to her desk.
'Sit,' she said, and the girls sat down with clatters and scrapes of their chairs.
'Now today,' said Miss Roberts, briskly, 'we will try to do a little better than yesterday, when Pamela was the only one who got even one sum right. At the end of the lesson there will be a ten minutes' oral test-and I warn you, no one is to get less than half-marks, or there will be trouble. Alison, please sit up. I don't like to see you draped over your desk like that. You are here to do maths not to act like the Sleeping Beauty and go to sleep for a hundred years!'
'Oh, Miss Roberts, must we have an oral test on a hot day like this? ' said Alison, whose brains worked slowly in the hot weather. 'This hot sun does make me feel so sleepy at the end of the morning.'
'Well, I shall wake you up thoroughly if you seem sleepy in your oral test,' said Miss Roberts, grimly. 'Now-page twenty-seven, please. Bobby, why do you keep looking at the door?'
Bobby had had no idea that her eyes were continually on the door, waiting for it to open and a second-former to appear. She jumped.
'Er-was I looking at the door?' she said, at a loss what to say, for once.
'You were,' said Miss Roberts. 'Now for a change, look at your book. Begin work, every one!'
Bobby looked at page twenty-seven, but she didn't see the sums there. She was wondering if Miss Jenks had seen the note. What a pity if she hadn't! The whole joke would be spoilt.
But Miss Jenks had. She had not noticed it at first, because she had put her books down on it. Then she had written something on the blackboard for the class to do, and had gone round the form to make sure they all understood what she had written. It was not until she sent Tessie to her desk to fetch a book that the note was discovered.
Tessie lifted up the books-and the note was there underneath. Tessie glanced at it and saw that Miss Roberts's name was printed on it.
'There's a note here on your desk for Miss Roberts, Miss Jenks,' she said. 'Do you suppose it was left here by mistake?'
'Bring it to me,' said Miss Jenks. Tessie took it to her. 'Yes -- some one thought this was the first-form, I suppose,' said Miss Jenks. 'Take it straight in to Miss Roberts, Tessie-and come straight back.'
Tessie took the note and left the room. She knocked at the door of Miss Roberts's classroom. All was complete silence inside.
Bobby's heart jumped when she heard the knock. She looked up eagerly. 'Come in!' said Miss Roberts, Impatiently. She always hated interruptions to her classwork. Tessie opened the door and came in.
'Excuse me, Miss Roberts,' she said, politely, 'but Miss Jenks told me to come and give you this.'
This was better than Bobby had hoped! Now it sounded as if Miss Jenks herself had sent the note. Miss Roberts wouldn't suspect a thing. Miss Roberts took the note, nodded to Tessie, and opened the envelope.
She read what was inside and frowned. It was a nuisance to have to leave her class in the middle of a difficult maths lesson. Well, she would slip along straightaway whilst the form was hard at work, and see why she was wanted.
She put the note back on her desk and stood up. 'Go on with your work, please,' she said. 'I shall be away a minute or two. No talking, of course. Finish what you are doing, and work hard.'
All the girls looked up, astonished, for they guessed that Bobby somehow had been the cause of Miss Roberts's disappearance-but how could she have made Miss Jenks send in a note to get her away? They gaped round at Bobby, who grinned back in delight.
'How did you do it, Bobby?' said Janet in a whisper, as soon as the door was shut.
'Bobby! You didn't write that note, did you?' said Pat, amazed. Bobby nodded and leapt to her feet. She ran quietly to the mantelpiece and opened the glass covering of the big schoolroom clock. In a trice she had put the hands on more than ten minutes. She shut the glass with a click and returned to her place.
'You really are a monkey!' said Hilary, thrilled. Even Pamela was amused. Only Prudence looked disapproving.
'It seems rather a deceitful thing to do,' she murmured. Sadie gave her a push.
'Aw, don't be a ninny!' she said, in her American drawl. 'Can't you ever see a joke?'
'I wonder what poor Miss Roberts is doing,' said Janet. 'What did you say in the note, Bobby? How clever of you to leave it in the wrong classroom so that Tessie had to bring it in!'
'Miss Roberts Is probably waiting all alone in the mistresses' common room,' said Bobby, with her wide grin. 'I don't know how long she'll wait!'
Miss Roberts was feeling very puzzled. She had hurried to the common room belonging to the junior mistresses, and had found no one there. Thinking the others would come in a minute or two, she went to the window and waited. But still nobody came.
Miss Roberts tapped her foot impatiently on the floor. She hated leaving her class at any time. There were too many mischief-makers in it that term! They couldn't safely be left for two minutes. What they would be up to now she couldn't think.
'I'll go and see if Miss Jenks knows what it's all about,' she thought. So she went to the second form, and was soon questioning a surprised Miss Jenks about the supposed meeting.
I don't know anything about it,' said Miss Jenks. I just sent the note in by Tessie because it was left on my desk for you by mistake. How funny, Miss Roberts!'
Miss Roberts, very much puzzled, went back to her class. She took a quick look round, but every head was bent and it seemed as if every girl was hard at work.
'Too good to be true!' thought Miss Roberts disbelievingly. 'Half the little monkeys have been playing about, and the other half talking. It's impossible to realize that when they are top-formers they will all be thoroughly trustworthy, more dignified than the mistresses even, and so responsible that we could probably trust the whole running of the school to them. Who would have thought that Winifred James, our worthy head-girl, was sent out of my class three times in one morning for playing noughts and crosses with her best friend?'
Miss Roberts was, for once, too engrossed in her thoughts to look at the clock. She began to go round the class to see what work had been done. When she came to the last girl she stood up and gave an order.
'Time for the oral test. Shut your books please.'
Then she took a glance at the clock, and stared in surprise. Why, it was the end of the lesson already! How quickly the time had gone-but of course she had had to waste some of it waiting about for nothing in the common room.
'Good gracious, look at the time!' she said. 'We can't have the oral test after all. Put away your books quickly please. Mam'zelle will be here in a moment.'