The Jolliest School of All by Angela Brazil (if you liked this book .txt) ๐
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- Author: Angela Brazil
Read book online ยซThe Jolliest School of All by Angela Brazil (if you liked this book .txt) ๐ยป. Author - Angela Brazil
"Yes, thanks, but please what's a sorority?" ventured Irene meekly.
Two or three distinct snickers were heard from underneath the black masks, but a voice murmured, "Order!" and the sounds promptly ceased.
"A sorority is a secret sisterhood," explained the President, "just the same as a fraternity is a brotherhood. We call ourselves 'The Camellia Buds,' and we're members of the Transition who have banded ourselves together for the purposes of mutual protection. It's a great honor to be elected. There are only nine of us so far, and we've waited ever so long to choose a tenth. I hope you appreciate the privilege?"
"I do indeed!"
"You're ready to take the vow? Then the initiation may proceed. Sword-bearers, guard the door, please."
There was a Masonic quality about the proceedings. Two dark figures, armed with rulers, placed themselves at the threshold, prepared to settle all intruders, and to preserve the absolute secrecy of the ceremony.
"Will you give your word of honor to be a loyal member of the Sorority of Camellia Buds, and never to do a dirty trick so long as you remain at this school?" asked the President.
"I promise!" replied Irene.[47]
At that somebody switched on the electric light, and the members, pulling off their black masks, disclosed their laughing faces.
"You stood it A-1. I was quite prepared for you to start hysterics and had the sal volatile bottle ready right here," chirruped Delia gayly.
"We call it our 'strength of mind' test," explained President Agnes, blowing out the guttering candles.
"If I had screamed what would have happened?" inquired Irene.
"Probation for another week till you got your nerves. We'd a business with Sheila just at first; she's rather fluttersome. Well, anyway, you've got through the ordeal, and now you're a full-fledged 'bud.' Aren't you proud?"
"Rather! Is the society limited to ten?"
"Sorority, please, not society. It's limited because there isn't anybody else in the Transition who's worth asking to join. Most of them are a set of utter sneaks. They may take Rachel's oath about preserving their nationality and all the rest of it, but if they're to be counted specimens of Anglo-American honor it makes one blush for one's mother country whichever side of the ocean it happens to be on. Oh, you don't know most of them yet! Wait till you find them out."
"You'll be glad then you belong to us."
"Not that we're perfect, of course."
"We don't set up as Pharisees."
"On the whole we're rather a lot of lunatics."[48]
"We just have a little sport among ourselves to keep things humming."
"Well, now Irene understands, we'd best get her fixed up with a 'buddy' and close the meeting."
"But I don't understand. What, for goodness' sake, is a buddy, and why must I have one?" demanded Irene tragically.
"Sit down there, child, and let Grannie talk to you," replied President Agnes. "If you haven't heard of a buddy yet it's time you did. They're the latest out. They had them at all the camps last summer, in England as well as in America. A buddy is a chum with whom you're pledged to do everything, and who's bound to support you. For instance, when the bathing season is on you must never swim unless your buddy is swimming with you; if you go on an excursion you stick to each other tight as glue, and if one of you is lost the other is held responsible. You're as inseparable as a box and its lid, or the two blades of a pair of scissors, or a bottle and its cork, or any other things you happen to think of that ought to go together, and aren't any use apart."
"We only realized buddies last term," explained Peachy, "but the idea caught on no end. We all went simply crazy over it. I don't mind guessing that every girl in this school who's worth her salt has got her buddy. She mayn't let it be known outside her own sorority, but we aren't blind."[49]
"Are there other sororities in the school then besides the Camellia Buds?" asked Irene.
"Bless your innocence! I should think there are. There's a rival one in the Transition. I rather fancy they've snapped up Mabel already. I gave Winnie a hint she wasn't to tackle you, because you'd come to school with an introduction to me, so I ought to have first innings. The prefects have a sorority all to themselves, and the seniors have one, and as for the juniors, silly little things, they're as transparent as glass, with their signaling and their grips and their cypher letters. Any one can see through them with half an eye. But we're wasting time. We've got to fix you up with a buddy, and we must be quick before the bell rings."
"May we choose?" asked Irene, and her eyes fell longingly on Peachy.
"No, we mayn't!" said President Agnes firmly. "We have to take what the fates send us. It's Kismet. Every time we elect a new member we draw lots again for buddies. It's a kind of general shuffle. If we're an uneven number somebody of course has to be odd man out."
"I was the 'old maid' last draw, and I haven't had a buddy this term," remarked Sheila plaintively.
"Never mind, ducky! You're bound to find a partner now," consoled Delia. "It might even be my little self, so live in hope."
"No such luck," groaned Sheila. "I'll probably[50] get Joan, and you know she always uses me as a door-mat."
Agnes meantime was writing ten names on ten separate pieces of paper and folding them in identically the same fashion. Peachy offered the loan of a hat, and into this treasury they were cast and shuffled.
"The newest member draws," murmured Agnes, and the others pushed Irene forward. She chose two folds of paper at a venture, and twisted them together, then performed the like service for another pair, until all the ten were assorted. The thrill of the ceremony was when Agnes opened the screws of paper and read out the names. Fate had mixed the Camellia Buds together thus:
Whether the members of the secret sorority felt satisfied or otherwise with the result of the shuffle, etiquette forbade them to show anything but polite enthusiasm. Each took her buddy solemnly by the hand and vowed allegiance. Peachy then produced what she called "the loving cup," a three-handled vase of brown pottery brought by Jess from Edinburgh and with the motto "Mak' yersel' at hame,"[51] on it in cream-colored letters. It was usually a receptacle for flowers, but it had been hastily washed for the occasion and filled with lemonade, a rather bitter brew concocted by Peachy and Delia from a half-ripe lemon plucked in the garden and a few lumps of sugar saved from tea. This was passed round, and the Camellia Buds gulped it heroically as a pledge of sisterhood.
"The password is Thistle-down," decreed Agnes, as the members, trying not to pull sour faces, consoled themselves with candy and broke up the meeting. "Any one who can think of a stunt for next time please bring along propositions. We're always open to new ideas and ready for a startler."
As a direct result of her admission to this select sorority Irene found herself flung by Fate into the arms of Lorna Carson. Had any individual choice been allowed she would have selected Peachy, Jess, Delia, or even Sheila in preference, but the lot once cast she must abide by it and be content. She had a very shrewd suspicion that when the buddies got tired of each other they elected a fresh member and so necessitated a general reshuffle of partners, and that her admission to the society had been welcomed as the pretext for such a change. Here she was, however, pledged to intimate friendship with Lorna, a girl who half fascinated and half repelled her, and who, though she might possibly turn out trumps in the future, was for the present at least most difficult to understand.[52]
CHAPTER V Fairy Godmothers, LimitedIrene Beverley, when she first left the shores of her native land, was a particularly light-hearted, jolly little Britisher, not at all bookish, and not accustomed to worry her head over any of the deep affairs of life, but ready to have a royal time with anybody of similar tastes and inclinations. In her first letter home she summed up the results of a week's experience.
"Mummie Darling,
"This is to tell you I am still alive! I'm a little surprised, because I thought math would kill me. Miss Bickford is most horribly conscientious and insists upon finding out whether I really understand or not, and it is generally 'not.' I suppose I was born with a thick head for figures, anyway, she seems amazed at my ignorance. I lay the blame on St. Osmund's. Is that mean of me? It's my only way of paying out Miss Gordon for past scores.
"I don't mind admitting I have warm times in school over some of the classes, but the rest of the life is lovely. Miss Bickford is often a big thorn, but Peachy is a rose. As for[53] Lorna she's like one of those tropical flowers that Uncle Redvers grows in his conservatory. How does Vin like being at the office? Are you straight yet at the flat? Come and see me as soon as ever you can, because I'm a little bit lonesome and wanting my home folks, though I wouldn't confess it to any of these girls for the world.
"Heaps of love to Dad and Vin and your dear self.
"Renie."
If Irene, who had found her niche in a congenial set at the Villa Camellia, was capable of feeling the pangs of homesickness, that unpleasant malady exhibited itself with far more serious symptoms in the case of another new girl who had entered the school upon the same day. Dรฉsirรฉe Legrand could not settle down among the juniors. She was used to the society of grown-up people, and did not take kindly to young companions. In the excitement of her own affairs Irene had hardly given the child a thought since her arrival, but one afternoon, when enjoying a solitary ramble round the garden, she suddenly came face to face with Little Flaxen. She was shocked at the change in her; the once pink cheeks were white and pasty, and her eyelids were red and swollen as if with perpetual crying.
"Hello! Whatever have you been doing to yourself?" exclaimed Irene. "You look rather a bunch of misery, don't you? What's the matter?"[54]
Dรฉsirรฉe, squatting forlornly on the steps that led to the upper tennis courts, produced a lace-bordered pocket-handkerchief and mopped her eyes.
"Nobody loves me here!" she blurted out dramatically. "I'm just wr-r-r-etched! They all laugh and call me Frenchie! I'm not French, and I w-w-ant to be l-l-oved!"
Irene looked at her and shook her head.
"That's not the way to go about it I'm afraid. I'm sorry, but you know you'll just invite teasing if you carry on like this. Can't you brace up and be sporty? Pretend you don't mind anything they say and they'll soon stop."
"But I do mind!" sobbed the tragic little figure on the steps. "I mind d-d-dreadfully! Why are they all so horrid to me? People have always been so nice till I came here!"
"That's exactly the reason," said Irene, grasping the situation and explaining it truthfully. "You've been accustomed to be petted by everybody, and after all why should the other girls in your form pet you? You don't pet them, do you?"
"N-n-o!"
Dรฉsirรฉe's eyes were round with amazement.
"Well, can't you see school's a matter of give and take? If you do something for the rest they'll possibly like you, but they won't fall on your neck just out of sheer good nature. Why don't you write home for a box of chocolates and offer them round your form?"[55]
"I never thought of it. I had some chocolatesโbutโI ate them!"
"There you are! You expected to get all the attention and give nothing. Sorry if I seem brutal, but it's the solid truth. You take my advice and cheer up instead of continually sniveling. I've been at school myself since I was seven, and I know a thing or two. If a girl's popular there's generally some reason behind it. Look here, I'll help you if I can. Those kids over there are doing nothing. I'll get them to come and play rounders, choose you for a partner, and I'll back our side to win. Here's Peachy! Perhaps she'll join in too. I'll ask
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