"Blyton, Enid - St Clare's 05 - Claudine at St Clare's (b)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Blyton Enid)

liked very few of her form. Bobby she detested because she had said she
was like a doll. Carlotta she would have nothing to do with at all.
Carlotta didn't mind in the least. The dark-eyed, dark-haired girl had
once been a little circus-girl, and she was not at all ashamed of it.
Her mother had been a circus-rider, but her father was a gentleman, and
now Carlotta lived with her father and grandmother in the holidays, for
her mother was dead. She had learnt to be lady-like, to have good
manners, and was very popular indeed-but she had never forgotten the
exciting days of the circus, and she often amused the others by turning
cart-wheels, or going completely mad in a foreign, Spanish way that the
girls enjoyed very much. Alison had told Angela the histories of all the
girls, Carlotta included, and Angela had turned up her delicate little
nose when she heard that Carlotta had actually ridden horses in a
circus. ' How can they have her here, in a school like this? ' she said.
' I am sure my people wouldn't have sent me here if they had known
that.' ' Why did you come to St. Clare's?' asked Alison, curiously. '
It's supposed to be a sensible, no-nonsense school, you know-not a
swanky one.' ' I didn't want to come,' said Angela. ' My mother wanted
to send me to a much nicer school, but my father has funny ideas. He
said I wanted my comers rubbed off.' ' Oh, Angela 1 You haven't any
corners!' said Alison. ' Honestly, I don't think you've any faults at
all.' This was the kind of thing that Angela loved hearing, and was one
reason why she liked Alison for a friend. She looked at Alison out of
innocent blue eyes, and smiled an angelic smile. ' You do say nice
things, Alison,' she said. ' You are far and away the nicest girl in the
form. I can't bear that common Eileen, nor that awful Carlotta, nor that
dreadful Pauline Bingham-Jones.' Pauline certainly wasn't much of a
success. In her way she seemed as much of a snob as Angela, but she
could not carry it off so well, because her clothes were not beautifully
made, and she had no marvellous possessions such as Angela had. But she
too turned up her nose at Carlotta, and disliked the ready-witted Bobby.
As for Eileen, she would hardly speak to her at all. ' I don't see why
Eileen should be allowed to join the school just because her mother is
here as Matron,' said Pauline, in her rather affected voice. ' Good
gracious me-we shall have the cook's daughter here next, and the
gardener's too I It's bad enough to have Carlotta. She always looks so
wild and don't-carish.' Carlotta always did look a little wild at the
beginning of term, partly because she was no longer under the rather
strict eye of her grandmother. But nobody minded Carlotta's untidiness
and wildness. It was all part of the vivacious, amusing girl. Carlotta
knew that Angela and Pauline didn't like her, and she took a real
pleasure in talking slang, making rude faces, and unexpectedly walking
on her hands in front of them. Miss Ellis, however, did not encourage
things of this sort in the fourth form. Her form was a kind of halfway
house, where girls had to learn to shed their irresponsible ways, and to
become more serious, reliable members of the school. As soon as they
moved up into the fifth and sixth, they had studies of their own,
instead of common rooms, and were expected to take a good deal of
responsibility. So Carlotta was often called to order by Miss Ellis, in
her low, firm voice, and then Angela and Pauline looked down their noses