CHAPTER XVI--FIVE IN A TOWER

But the girls climbing the stairs to see the rainbow had no idea that anybody below was playing a trick on them. After school was dismissed and the pupils left the building, and the teachers were gone, there was nobody but old John, the janitor, on the premises.

From any other floor he could be summoned by alarm bells. But there were no push-buttons in the tower. Therefore, when Purt Sweet turned the key, and stole away from the door at the bottom of the tower stairs, he had imprisoned the five girls as effectually as though they were in the tower of some ancient castle.

The five went up the stairs, however, without any suspicion that they were prisoners.

"Come on! come on!" urged Bobby, who mounted much quicker than the others. "Oh, this is glorious!"

They came out into a square room, through which the air blew freshly. The rain had evidently blown into the place during the shower, for it lay in puddles on the stone floor. The windows had no panes--indeed, they were merely narrow slits in the stone wall, like loop-holes in old fortresses.

"Dear me!" cried Jess. "How small the people look in the park--do you see? Just like ants."

"Some of 'em are uncles, not 'ants,'" laughed Bobby.

"Punning again!" exclaimed Nell. "You should be punished for that, Bobby."

"Huh! that's worse than mine," declared Bobby.

"Look at that sky!" cried Laura.

"It is very beautiful," agreed Eve, quietly.

"Look at those clouds yonder--a great, pink bed of down!" murmured Jess.

"And this arch of color," said Laura, seriously. "I suppose that is just what Noah saw. How poetic to call it the Bow of Promise!"

The girls enjoyed looking at the wild colorings of the clouds and the beautiful bow. A half an hour elapsed before they proposed descending.

As they went down the stairs, Bobby still in the lead, she stopped suddenly with a little cry.

"What's the matter now, Bobs?" demanded Jess.

"Oh! don't you see it?" cried the other girl. "It's a spider."

"He won't eat you," said Jess. "Go on."

"I know he won't. I declare! he's spinning a web."

At that moment she came to the bottom of the stairway.

"Guess the draught pulled the door shut," she exclaimed. "Hullo!"

She tried the knob, but the door would not open.

"Why, what's the matter, Bobby?" cried Laura. "That is not a spring lock."

"Huh! I guess not," returned Bobby. "But somebody's sprung it on us, just the same."

"What do you mean?" demanded Nellie Agnew.

"The door's locked," declared Laura, reaching the bottom step and trying the knob herself.

"You bet it is," said Bobby.

"It's a joke!" gasped Eve.

"I should hope so," returned Laura. "If they were in earnest it would be bad for us. John will leave the building soon, and how will we attract anybody to release us?"

"Oh, Laura!" cried Nell. "Nobody would be so mean."

"It may be," said Eve, thoughtfully, "that somebody went past, saw the door open, and closed and locked it with no idea that we were in the tower."

"Well!" exclaimed Bobby, at that. "We're in a nice fix--yes?"

"Who would have done it?" wailed Nellie Agnew.

"Maybe the janitor himself," observed Laura, thoughtfully.

"My goodness! but you're the cheerful girl," returned Bobby. "Do you want to scare us to death right at the start, Mother Wit?"

"We might as well admit the seriousness of the situation," said Laura. "I can't imagine that anybody would shut us up here for a joke."

"Some of the boys?" suggested Eve.

"That Short and Long is full of mischief," added Nell.

"Chet would wring his neck for a thing like this," declared Jess, with confidence.

"I don't care who did it, or what it was done for," said Bobby, finally. "The fact remains: The door is locked!"

"That is the truest thing you ever said, Bobby," sighed Jess. "Come on back to the tower room. Do you suppose we can call loud enough to attract the attention of people on the street?"

"Not in a thousand years," groaned Bobby.

"Oh, we won't have to remain here that long," said Laura, cheerfully.

"Hope not," growled Bobby. "I'm getting hungry."

"That won't do you any good," said Jess. "It's useless to have an appetite when there is nothing in sight to satisfy it--just as useless as the holes in a porous plaster."

"Who says the holes in a porous plaster are useless?" demanded Bobby, quickly. "They're not."

"What are they for, then?" asked Eve, mildly.

"Why, to let the pain out, of course," declared Bobby, boldly.

"I wish there were some holes here that would let _us_ out," sighed Nellie Agnew.

"Don't lose heart, Nell!" advised Laura. "There never was a situation that didn't offer some release. We'll find a way of escape."

"Sure!" scoffed Bobby. "Any of us can crawl out through one of these slits in the wall."

"And then what?" demanded Jess.

"Why, jump!" cried Bobby. "There'll be nothing to stop you."

"Don't talk so recklessly," said Mother Wit. "This is really a very serious problem. Mother will be very anxious about me if I don't come home by six."

"It's an hour and a half to that yet," said Nellie, looking at her watch.

Bobby was striving to squeeze through one of the open windows in the tower and look down upon the street. But it was nonsense to expect anybody on the walk to see them up there in the tower.

"And we could shriek our heads off without attracting a bit of attention," declared Nellie, half crying. "What _shall_ we do, Laura?"

"Keep cool," advised Laura. "Why lose all our courage because we are locked into this tower? We will be found."

"Maybe," spoke Bobby, gloomily.

"You have become a regular croaker," declared Jess. "I'm ashamed of you, Bobs."

"That's all right!" cried Bobby. "But hunger is an awful thing to suffer."

"Ha! you make me laugh," cried Eve. "Just think of me! If I don't catch that 5:14 train I'll not get supper till nine o'clock."

"But what a supper it will be when you _do_ get it!" exclaimed Bobby. "Oh, girls! when I was at Eve's house last week they had thirteen vegetables for supper, besides two kinds of cold meat, and preserves and pickles. Talk about the poor farmer! Why the sort of supper Eve's folks have every night would cost city folks two dollars a plate."

"I am afraid you are stretching your imagination, Bobby," laughed Eve.

"Never! They've got bins and bins of vegetables--and rows and rows of ham in the meat house--and bar'ls and bar'ls of salt pork! Listen here," cried the whimsical Bobby, who had a doggerel rhyme for every occasion. "This is just what Eve Sitz hears whenever she goes down into the cellar in the winter. She can't deny it!" And she sang:

"Potato gazed with frightened eyes, King corn lent mournful ear, The beet a blushing red did turn, The celery blanched with fear, The bean hid trembling in its pod, The trees began to bark, And on the beaten turnpike road The stones for warmth did spark, The brooklet babbled in its sleep Because the night was cold; The onion weeps within its bed Because the year is old."

"You are so ridiculous," said Eve. "Nobody believes the rigamaroles you say."

"All right!" returned Bobby, highly offended. "But you're bound to believe one thing--that's sure."

"What is that?" queried Nellie.

"That we're up in this tower, with the door locked--and I believe that John, the janitor, goes home about this time to supper!"

"Oh, oh!" cried Nellie. "Don't say _that_. However will we get away?"

"Let's bang on the door!" exclaimed Jess.

So they thumped upon the thick oak door--Bobby even kicked it viciously; and they shouted until they were hoarse. But nobody heard, and nobody came. The only person who knew they were locked into the tower was a mile away from Central High by that time--and, anyway, he dared not tell of what he had done, nor did he dare go back to release the girls from their imprisonment.