Chapter 9

Girls of VA

The Easter term wended its way along with many ups and downs for Lesbia. Her struggles with the unruly juniors constituted a genuine trial, but there were compensations in what Marion called "the by-products of the school", by which she meant the Dramatic Society and the various activities on the afternoons devoted to "self-expression". Lesbia had finished the decoration of VA. Her lotus pattern really looked extremely nice round the walls and gave the room an appearance of quite superior culture. She had taken up chip-carving, and under the superintendence of Miss Joyce, who held a weekly class in the studio, was carving a frame to hold an old print of Kingfield Main Street as it appeared before the High School established its quarters there. There was great rivalry between the various forms in the decoration of their rooms. The Sixth had several beautiful pictures, and moreover sported a silver cup on their mantelpiece, a trophy which had been won six years ago, in an open tennis tournament, by Gladys Hellier and Joan Mayfield, the then champions of the High School. On the possession of this cup the Sixth were considered quite unduly to give themselves airs.

"It isn't as if any of them had actually won it with their own rackets," objected Calla. "Yet they go cock-a-doodling about that wretched cup as if each of them separately had been champion."

"A very reflected kind of glory _I_ call it," agreed Bernadine.

"It's six years since the school won anything publicly," croaked Phillis, wrinkling her eyebrows.

"Humph! Yes! Time it bucked up and did something," endorsed Ermie smartly.

"We beat Moreton College in the hockey match," put in Lesbia, always anxious for the credit of her own school.

"Yes, that's all right, but you don't get prizes for hockey matches. We want something we can stick on our mantelpiece, and crow over the Sixth. I should like to take down their pride."

Just at present there did not seem any immediate prospect of winning a trophy and thereby humbling the upper form. It is one thing to be wildly anxious to compete, but quite another to crystallize your efforts into a definite shape.

"There ought to be Olympic Games in Kingfield every year for all the schools in the town, and the Corporation ought to give the prizes," decided Lesbia. "It could be paid for out of the rates and taxes."

"It will be when schoolgirls get votes," nodded Marjorie emphatically.

Meantime the Corporation did not see its opportunities, and the over-taxed rate-payers of Kingfield would probably have gone on strike at the suggestion of an increase for the purpose of supplying prizes for Olympic Games for school children. Ermie Hall, whose father was a city councillor, did indeed broach the subject at the family breakfast-table, but was squashed flat by her amazed and indignant parent.

"Olympic nonsense," he grunted. "We don't want an extra halfpenny on the rates. I don't know what the present generation is coming to. In my young days we played on the meadows by the river and never bothered our heads about trophies. The Education Committee gives a prize or two for book learning, and quite right too, but the City Council would see the children at Jericho before it offered them rewards for playing. Stick to your lessons, child; they're quite enough to keep you busy, I'm sure. Your last report wasn't up to much, so far as I remember."

"Of course Dad's rather out-of-date," commented Ermie, reporting the interview to an elect circle in VA. "I told him Miss Tatham said 'the physical side of education is as necessary as the mental', but I couldn't get him to see it. He was quite raggy, and jammed the lid on the bacon dish, and told me to get on with my breakfast and not talk any more rubbish. So there you are. What can you do, even if your father _is_ on the City Council?"

"It's hopeless," agreed Calla, with a gusty sigh.

"Put not your trust in corporations," grunted Kathleen gloomily. "I do think the town might do something for us schoolgirls."

It was on the third day after this rebuff that Lizzie Logan covered herself with glory. Lizzie Logan, of all people in the world, the shyest girl in the form, an absolute retiring young she-hermit, who always blushed crimson when she had to answer a question, and generally scuttled out of the dressing-room in a hurry as if she did not want to walk home with anybody else, and looked scared to death if she was asked to join a game in the gymnasium. She came into school one morning carrying a local newspaper, and, after reddening up to the very roots of her hair and down to the margin of her V-shaped blouse, she handed it to Marjorie, murmuring something utterly unintelligible.

"Hello, old sport! What's this for?" demanded Marjorie, opening it at a large advertisement of face powder. "Nothing doing here, thanks! I haven't gone in for titivating my complexion yet. You'll have to be content with me as nature made me. _What_ do you say? An advertisement? Why can't you speak up? Show it to me, then! Oh, _I say_! Girls, just look here! What do you think of this?"

A circle at once crowded round Marjorie, peeping over her shoulder. Others, on the outer limit, denied a sight of the paper, demanded explanation.

So Marjorie read the advertisement aloud:

"'KINGFIELD ARCHÆOLOGICAL SOCIETY

"'The Committee offers first, second, and third prizes to school pupils who shall submit the best essays on the ancient history and associations of the city. Full particulars can be obtained from the Hon. Secretary, Mr. E. Johnson, St. Gilbert's, Thorwald Street.'"

"Hi cockalorum! What an absolutely jinky idea!" rejoiced Calla.

"Ancient history of the city, too! That's quite in our line," purred Lesbia.

"_Ra_-ther! It might have been specially made for us," triumphed Kathleen.

"It was," fluttered Lizzie Logan's meek little voice.

"What d'you mean, child?" demanded Marjorie. "Here, speak up! We're not going to eat you!"

Lizzie's complexion turned from carnation to damask rose, and deepened into shades of pæony or even beetroot.

"Well, you see," she explained, "my uncle is on the Committee of the Archæological Society, and I was telling him what we do at school on Fridays, and I said I wished there was a prize we could try for, and he said it was worth thinking about, and he'd ask the President, and last night he sent me this paper; so I brought it to show you."

Lizzie finished with a kind of gasp. It was quite a long speech for her to make. Marjorie patted her encouragingly on the back.

"Lizzie Logan, you're coming on. You'll be a credit to VA before we've done with you. Now I call this really public spirited. We must set to work hot and strong and see what can be done."

"Lesbia, you ought to be a champion at this business."

"We must all 'champ'," agreed Lesbia. "Is it a one-man-show or may we club together?"

"I don't know. We'd better some of us go round to Mr. Johnson's for particulars."

There were, so it seemed, several classes in the competition, some for elementary, and others for secondary schools. Among the latter a prize was offered for the best joint scrap album--the work of any one form--recording the history of the city in writing, photographs, old prints, drawings, newspaper cuttings, or other methods. The idea appealed immensely to VA. They had never before agreed on a joint effort.

"It will be ever so much nicer to do it all together," opined Marjorie, "than each to have our own scrap-book, and go sneaking off to get photos of places you hope nobody else has found out."

"Yes, when they're all put together it will make so much better a book," agreed Marion.

"What about the prize?" ventured Aldora.

"Why, of course, they'll give a trophy to the whole form."

"Ripping!"

"We haven't got it yet, though."

"The Sixth will have an innings!"

"And we're not the only school in the town, either."

"Never mind, we can but try."

"And we'll have a jolly good try, too!"

"You bet we will."

With such a goal to work for it became a point of honour with each individual member of VA to make some adequate contribution to the scrap album. In order that its contents should not be indiscriminately miscellaneous they appointed a committee of selection, and only admitted what was considered entirely worthy. It really gave them a great deal of interest and amusement. Armed with cameras they went out in little parties and took photographs of numerous old buildings, mediæval carvings, or antique objects, such as the town stocks or the ancient pillory. On the whole, owners of property were indulgent, and though a few jibbed at first at admitting a crew of lively schoolgirls into private premises, they relented when the object of the visit was explained to them. Some born collectors in VA turned over the contents of the stalls in the Kingfield Market to find old prints of the city, grandfathers and grandmothers were appealed to and asked to ransack their memories for forgotten legends, and their drawers for sketches or newspaper cuttings. The amount of material forthcoming was really quite considerable. The most unlikely girls would often produce quite choice specimens.

It was decided--in committee--that the album should be made of large sheets of brown paper, and that its back should be of dull-green cardboard, painted with a floral design, and the words "Scrap Album, VA, Kingfield High School" in artistic lettering. By general vote the construction of the cover fell to Lesbia. She was the only one in the form who had much initiative in art matters. Nobody else in fact dared to venture upon it. She accepted the honour, inwardly jubilant, but with an outer display of due diffidence.

"Oh, I don't think I can!" she objected.

"Rubbish! Don't be affected," snapped Calla.

"It's got to be done, so you'd best fire away and get a move on with it."

"Anybody who could do the lotus pattern on the wall could do a book-back!" declared Carrie.

"Be sporting, Lesbia," urged Kathleen.

"It's all very well for you to talk, but you forget the _time_ it will take me. I've my prep to do, the same as the rest of you, and you know what Miss Pratt is. She's about as much consideration as a slave-driver. 'Your tasks, your daily tasks' are what she's out for and we have to 'make bricks without straw', that's to say, learn things without the time to do it in. How'm I going to manage?"

"We've all got to make sacrifices for the school," said Calla briskly, "and yours must be doing this book-back. If it takes your prep time and you get into rows with Miss Pratt, well that can't be helped. You'll be suffering in a good cause."

"That's all very well, but it's _I_ who'll get the scoldings, and they'll be the limit."

"Cheerio, chucky. We'll all slack a little and bring down the standard, so that you won't seem so conspicuous. _You_ won't mind a bad mark or two, will you, Marjorie?"

"Not at all," beamed that damsel shamelessly. "It's not the first time by any means."

"We'd better have a rota to slack prep" (Carrie's voice was eager), "three of us can do it every day in turns, then Miss Pratt won't be too down on any special one. Bags me to-morrow. I want to go out to tea anyway."

"Right you are. See how we're backing you up, Lesbia. Isn't it noble of us? I think we're absolute mascots if you ask me."