CHAPTER VI

NAT GETS HER CHANCE

St. Etheldreda's played their first match for the shield on their own ground a couple of weeks later. As there were quite a number of schools competing and the county was rather a straggling one, the competitors had been divided into two groups, North and South. A defeated team dropped out of the competition, and the two surviving teams--one from each group--met in the Final. It was hoped to finish the tournament before the Christmas vacation, so the matches were hurried on as fast as possible.

St. Etheldreda's had had a good practice the day before the match and Deirdre Samways, having put another player into her place, was watching the team critically and felt really satisfied at the progress the first eleven had made in so short a time. She was still watching the play with close attention when a voice at her elbow remarked in calm, critical tones:

"Your wing player--Irene--isn't bad, but she isn't nearly as good as one of the other Fifth-formers."

Deirdre glanced round. The voice came from a slightly-built girl clad in a brown coat, wearing no hat and with the look of some stray elf or fay, who was standing by her side apparently taking the greatest interest in the play. For a moment Deirdre could not think who she was, then she remembered the queer new girl whose disturbing ways had caused so much talk in the Fifth.

"Whom do you mean?" she asked curiously.

"Nat Sandrich," replied Monica. "She's tremendously fast, and clever too. I can't think how it is she hasn't got a place in the first eleven."

Deirdre was not at all a clever girl. Her interests were chiefly in outdoor pursuits, particularly games, a subject on which she was always willing to talk.

"Why, what do you know about it?" she demanded.

"You see, I'm rather interested in hockey, though I don't play much myself," was the airy reply. "As for the girl I was telling you about--Nat--lots of these crack players I've seen in county matches weren't much better than her."

"County matches?" queried Deirdre eagerly. "What county matches have you seen?"

"Oh, several. And last year at that International game at--let me see, what was the name of the place?"

"Merton Abbey perhaps," interjected the hockey captain.

"Yes, that was it. As I was saying, I really can't think why you overlooked one of the best players in the school," and Monica, shaking her head wonderingly, sauntered off down the field, her hands in her coat pockets, still gazing critically at the twenty-two perspiring players rushing frantically up and down the ground. Deirdre, somewhat impressed, repeated the conversation between herself and Monica Carr to Madge and Pam Preston as they went off together at the end of the practice. (Pam had been persuaded into promising to play for the hockey club in the shield matches.)

Madge burst into a roar of laughter.

"International matches! County matches!" she gasped. "Why, Nat herself told me that the new kid didn't know a hockey stick from a cricket bat and had never bothered to watch a game of hockey in her life. I don't suppose she's even seen Nat play. I'm afraid she was just pulling your leg, Deirdre. She seems the sort that's up to anything."

"Even to cheating in a public exam," added Pam. "Or there was a rumour in the school to that effect at one time. Still, perhaps there wasn't any truth in it."

Deirdre, who was the possessor of an even, placid disposition, only smiled. "But perhaps Nat really is a good player," she said. "She's pretty good at most games, isn't she?"

"Yes, quite," replied Pam. "Only she's generally an unlucky sort of player--falls down or something just at the critical moment."

"Yes," added Madge. "Don't you remember last sports day, how she led all through the obstacle race and at the very last obstacle, when everybody thought she was bound to win, she got stuck while crawling between the rungs of the ladder and could move neither forwards nor backwards? They had to get a hatchet to knock out the spokes before they could release her."

"Of course I remember," replied Deirdre, "especially Nat's face when they appeared with an enormous hatchet. Till then she had been rather pleased at the sensation she was creating," and the three prefects went off laughing at the recollection.

St. Etheldreda's was jubilant at the result of their first match. They gained a victory by three goals to two over a large High School from a neighbouring town of some size. Allison was particularly pleased for, as she pointed out to the other Sixth-formers in the eleven, this early triumph would give the team both enthusiasm and confidence. She also declared it was her belief that this was the best team the school had ever produced.

The only fly in the ointment was the attitude of the netball partisans, many of whom were very indignant at Pam's inclusion in the team, and although they themselves had had no match that afternoon they had shown their resentment by refusing to appear on the field as spectators and supporters.

A week after this match Nat was alone in her study busily writing letters when there came a tap on the door and Madge, who was accompanied by Allison, looked in.

"There you are, Nat," she said. "I just called to say that you are down as reserve for the match next Saturday. We are playing away, you know. It will be all right for you, won't it?"

Nat nodded. "Yes, I can come, of course," she replied. It was not the first time she had been picked for the rather unenviable position of reserve in first eleven matches.

"Thanks," said Madge. Then, her glance wandering round the room, she exclaimed: "Jumping Jehoshaphat, what have you been doing to your study!"

[Illustration: "'Jumping Jehosaphat,' exclaimed Madge, 'what have you been doing to your study!'"]

Her curiosity aroused by Madge's exclamation, Allison also entered and gazed around. All the walls were covered with what appeared to be large notices, the words of which were printed in big, clear lettering, so that even a short-sighted person could not fail to read them easily. Madge turned from one wall to the other, reading aloud:

"After the gerundive the agent or doer is expressed by the dative case."

"When the English verbal noun is intransitive it is translated by the Latin gerund, when transitive by the gerundive."

"To is à before a town, en before a country."

"Verbs which take an infinitive without a preposition--aller, désirer, daigner----"

She broke off her reading to exclaim: "My goodness! What's the idea, Nat? Is this what they call the Montessori system? I didn't know you were as keen as this on educating yourself."

"It isn't me at all," replied Nat lugubriously and ungrammatically. "You don't imagine I should decorate the place in this way, do you? It's my new study-mate, Monica Carr. She spends all her odd minutes writing out these rules and hints, and when they've been up about a week a fresh lot takes their place. She says she's bound to learn them when she's always staring at them. The trouble is _I've_ got to stare at them too. Sometimes I sit here for half an hour at a time with my eyes shut."

"And you are trying to write home too, aren't you?" sympathized Madge. "You'll be putting isosceles for sausage, and parallel for pudding, and tangent for tangerine, and ending up 'Cordialement à vous' instead of 'Heaps of love'!"

Allison was smiling. "So it's the new girl, then, that's so keen on learning?" she said.

"Well, you see, she's made up her mind she's coming out top of the exams this term. She wants to crow over the Fifth, and she seems a person who can be very obstinate when she gets an idea into her mind. There's French and Latin on one wall, as you see, and maths on the second. That's the last theorem we've learnt, also the formula for arithmetical progression or something of that sort. The third wall is devoted to history and geography. Everywhere I go now I see '1832, the Reform Bill' dancing before my eyes, and when I shut them it's even plainer."

"You poor soul!"

"Yes," continued Nat, who seemed to find it a relief to air her grievances. "She took down my pictures, and when I protested she said that she wouldn't have done so if they had been Raphaels or Rubens, but as they were only pictures of dogs, and extremely ugly ones at that, it didn't matter much. I had three very nice ones, a St. Bernard, a bulldog and a bloodhound."

Madge shuddered. "I shouldn't think it's very jolly to sit looking at the picture of a bloodhound all the evening, either," she murmured.

"The other girls have nicknamed this study the Chamber of Horrors," continued Nat, "and wherever I go they sympathize with me. I'm getting so tired of it. But A. A. doesn't mind in the least."

"A. A.?" questioned Allison.

"That's Monica's new nickname. The Ablative Absolute they call her, because she's such a dab at Latin and picks out ablative absolutes with unerring instinct. Sometimes when we're about together they call us 'Accusative and Infinitive.' I object very strongly to being called an Infinitive."

"You'll survive it," said Madge consolingly, and Allison remarked: "I hope you don't find her too unbearable?"

"Oh no. We're not really bad friends at all. I can't say I liked her at first; she was so hard and unfriendly. But somehow we get on better now. I suppose we've got used to each other. At times I really find myself quite liking her."

"Then she can't be such a desperate character after all," declared Madge. "Only bad in spots perhaps."

"Like the rest of us," added Allison. "Come along, Madge. We really must be going." She nodded good-bye to Nat. "I'm so glad you two are on better terms. Only don't follow her example and work too hard, Nat."

"Couldn't if I tried," replied Nat as the two seniors departed.

Five minutes later Monica came in.

"There's a netball match on Saturday," she announced, "and I'm playing in the team. Centre-attack--though I'm not quite sure where that is. Pam's playing hockey and two others of the team are laid up with very bad colds, so they are rather hard up for players. They don't want to have a team composed entirely of youngsters, so they've called upon me to assist them in their difficulty."

"They must be in a bad way," was Nat's unflattering comment.

"That's what I told them. But Ida, who is captaining the team in Pam's absence, said I was quick and could jump, and that was pretty well all that was necessary in netball. She and Prue are awfully wild with Pam for deserting them, as they call it. What about you? Have they asked you to captain the team on Saturday?"

"No," sadly, "I'm not in it. Still, they've put me down as reserve, so I shall be able to go with the team and see the match. You also get a free tea. I know this school--last year they gave us doughnuts and cream buns."

"Well now," said Monica disgustedly, "and after all the fibs I told Deirdre Samways! My imagination strained to its furthest capacity for nothing!"

"What do you mean?"

"Never mind. You'd be shocked at all the stories I told on your behalf. Will you hear me say this theorem, to see if I can truthfully put Q.E.D. at the end, please?" and the discussion on netball and hockey was dropped for more serious subjects.

Saturday turned out cold and dry, an ideal day for hockey. The St. Etheldreda's eleven, feeling thoroughly fit and keen, set out in good time to catch the train that was to carry them to the field of action. As Irene and Glenda, two of the last to leave, were walking down the drive towards the gates, a hurrying, panting figure emerged from the house and caught them up before they were out of the school premises. It was Monica.

"Oh, Irene!" she gasped. "Miss Bennett--wants to see you--about something rather important--won't keep you--two minutes."

Irene turned round in surprise. "Whatever does Benny want me for?" she said. "Doesn't she know I'm catching this train?"

"Yes. But she said she wouldn't keep you more than two minutes," the messenger repeated.

"Right-oh! Suppose I must go. You walk on, Glenda, and I'll catch you up afterwards. Luckily we've plenty of time."

Glenda nodded. "Don't run it too close," she warned. "You don't want to miss the train."

"Pas de danger," replied Irene as she turned and hurried back into the school. Monica preceded her into the corridor that led to the Annexe. "This way," she said. "Benny came to your study to look for you, and when I told her you'd just left for the station and offered to run after you she said she'd wait for you there to save time. She didn't want to run any risk of your missing the train."

As she finished they arrived at the door of the study which Irene shared with Glenda, and without pausing Irene hurriedly pushed it open and entered.

She gazed round in anger and astonishment. "Why, she isn't here!" Barely had the words left her lips before there was the slam of a door behind her, and though she sprang round like a flash, the key turned in the lock a second before she could seize the handle and wrench the door open. In vain she tugged and shook it.

"Let me out, you little wretch!" she cried furiously. "This is one of your abominable tricks, I suppose."

There was a chuckle from the other side of the door. "'Will you come into my parlour?' said the spider to the fly," Monica sang softly and aggravatingly.

Irene banged upon the door and even kicked it in a most unladylike manner, "What have you done this for?" she demanded hotly. "Let me out at once or I shall never catch my train."

Again came that aggravating chuckle. "That's exactly what I don't want you to do," Monica replied. "Then Nat will get a look in. Don't you think it clever of us to work it out so beautifully? It isn't a bit of good banging on the door or shouting from the window. There's no one anywhere about. I looked to see before I came after you. The girls have all gone out to hockey or netball or for walks, and Miss Cazalet, the only mistress whose room is near, has gone with the hockey team, as you know. As for the window, it overlooks the kitchen garden and I'm sure there's nobody there now."

Irene glanced round in despair. According to the little clock ticking loudly on the mantel-piece it would take her all her time to catch the train even if she were released immediately. She went to the window and shouted, but there was no one in sight; her cry was apparently heard only by a few straggling cabbages below, so she returned to the door and resumed her fruitless pounding. There was no response to her calls and bangings. Evidently Monica had gone.

More than half an hour elapsed before Irene escaped from her prison.

A Second Form youngster on an errand to one of the dormitories heard her and, greatly surprised, released her by turning the kev which was in the lock on the outside.