"Oh-Gee Gee! Of course. To keep us up in our deportment," said Jess, making a face.

"You all find her so strict," observed Laura, seriously. "She treats me nicely."

"Why, you know very well, Laura, that you never in your life did anything to get a teacher mad."

"I don't know what you mean by that. We don't go to school to play tricks on the teachers. I want them to respect me. And father and mother would be disappointed if I brought home a bad report, especially in deportment."

"Oh, I know!" said Jess. "For a girl who likes fun as you do, you do manage to keep concealed all your superabundance of spirits-in school, at least. But some of us have just _got_ to slop over."

"'Slop over!'"

"Yes, Miss Nancy. Don't be a prude in your English, too," laughed Jess.

"Say! did you hear how Bobby got Gee Gee going yesterday in chemistry cla.s.s?"

Laura shook her head, seeing that it would be useless to take her chum to task further on the topic of slang.

"Why, Gee Gee had been expatiating at great length on the impossibility of really creating, or annihilating, anything-the indestructibility of matter, you know."

"I see," said Laura, nodding.

"Oh, she brought up the ill.u.s.trations in ranks and platoons, and regiments. I guess she thought she had got the fact hammered home at last, for she said: 'You absolutely cannot make _anything_.' And then Bobby speaks up, just as innocent, and says: 'But, Miss Carrington, can't we make a noise that didn't exist before?'

"And what do you think?" cried Jess, giggling, "Poor Bobby got a black mark for it. Gee Gee said she did it to make the cla.s.s laugh."

"And Bobby did, didn't she?" said Laura, but laughing, too.

"Oh, we laughed all right. But the lesson was practically over. Gee Gee ought to be glad if we can leave her cla.s.s room in anything but a flood of tears!" completed Jess, as they came to Central High School.

CHAPTER III-A REAL ALARM

A bevy of girls were lingering on the steps and in the portico of the High School building. Mr. Sharp had given permission for the girls interested in the formation of the athletic a.s.sociation to meet in the small hall-"the music room" it was called,-on the third floor of the building, next to the suite given up to the teachers' offices and studies.

Laura and her dearest friend, Josephine Morse, were welcomed vociferously by many of the waiting girls. Among them was Bobby Hargrew, but Laura did not tell her of the result of her practical joke in the window of the grocery store. Indeed, there was no opportunity to speak privately to Miss Harum-scarum. She came running to meet the chums just as Dora and Dorothy Lockwood, who were twins, crossed their path, arm in arm.

"There!" cried Jess Morse, "which of you two girls did I lend my pencil to yesterday in chemistry cla.s.s? I declare I meant to mark the one I lent it to somehow; but you were dressed just alike then, and you're dressed just alike now. How do you ever tell each other apart?" she added, shaking both twins by their arms.

"Only one way there'll ever be to tell 'em apart," broke in Bobby Hargrew. "When they get good and old, mebbe one will lose her teeth before the other does-like the twins back in the town my father lived in."

"How was that, Bobby?" asked Jess.

"Why, those two twins, Sam and Bill, were just like Dora and Dorothy.

Their own fathers and mothers didn't know them apart. But Bill lost all his upper teeth and wouldn't buy store teeth. So folks that knew got to telling them apart. You see, if you put your finger in Bill's mouth and he bit you, why 'twas Sam!"

A rather tall, stately looking girl-taller, even than Jess Morse-drew near the group while the girls were laughing over Bobby's story.

"Oh, Nellie!" cried Laura. "I'm glad to see you here. What does the doctor say about the scheme of our forming an athletic a.s.sociation?"

"I don't know what he thinks about the proposed a.s.sociation," returned the physician's daughter; "but I'm sure he approves of athletics for girls. He told mother only yesterday that I ought to do at least half the sweeping, and so relieve mother and the maid," and Nellie Agnew laughed. "What do you think of that? Father says I am getting round shouldered and flat chested. I do hope we'll go in for athletics. I don't like housework."

"Lazy girl!" said Laura. "That is the way it will be with lots of them-I know. If it is play, they'll like it; but anything like real work--"

"There goes Laura Belding again-telling us all how we should be good and proper," said a sneering voice behind Laura. "Really, I should think you'd be tired of telling us all how to conduct ourselves. You ought to run a 'Heart to Heart Talks' department in the _Evening Awful_."

"Hessie Grimes! Mean thing!" hissed Jess in Laura's ear. But the latter turned an unruffled countenance upon the rather overdressed, red-faced girl whose strident voice had broken in upon the good-natured conversation of the group.

"Oh, no, Hester. I don't think my forte is journalism. We'll let Jess take that position," Laura said. "I see you and Lily Pendleton are both here, so there is n.o.body else to wait for. We can go upstairs, I guess."

"Oh, I don't know as I want to join the silly old society," giggled Lily, who was a slender, white faced girl, who always clung to Hester and instead of giving the more a.s.sertive girl the benefit of her support, "clung like the ivy to the oak-tree's branch."

"Lil and Hessie expect to be 'touched' for the M. O. R.'s," said Jess, quickly.

"Huh!" exclaimed Bobby Hargrew. "Perhaps they've another guess coming.

The Middle of the Road Girls are not taking in many Sophs-we can make up our minds to that."

"And do Hessie and Lily wish to join such a solemn conclave as the Mothers of the Republic," demanded Nell Agnew, laughing, and making another play upon the initials of the most popular society of Central High. "I wouldn't believe it."

"You don't know whether I wish to join or not, Miss!" snapped Hester Grimes.

"Say!" cried Bobby. "Heard the latest? Know what Chet and Lance and Short and Long call the M. O. R. girls?"

"What is it?" asked the twins, in chorus.

"The Mary O'Rourkes! And Mary O'Rourke is a member-she's a senior, you know, and just the nicest girl! But her initials are the same as the society's-and n.o.body knows what the initials stand for. That is, n.o.body outside the society."

There had begun a general advance into the school building and up the broad stairway, ere this. Chattering and laughing, in little groups and by couples, the girls mounted the two flights and advanced slowly into the hall, or into the main office next to it. The windows of this office were over the front entrance of the building, and although the room was a very long one, it was brilliantly lighted, the windows reaching almost from ceiling to floor.

A large globe of water with goldfish and some aquatic plants and coral in it had the post of honor on a stand in the center of the bowed windows. Before the window was Princ.i.p.al Franklin Sharp's great table-desk, and a big rubbish basket beside it. The janitor had not yet dusted and cleaned these rooms for the week, knowing that the girls were to hold their meeting there.

"Mrs. Case and Gee Gee are here already, girls," whispered Bobby Hargrew, after peering in somewhat cautiously at the door of the music room.

Laura and her chum, with the doctor's daughter and some of the older girls, approached the hall where the meeting was to be held. There were already fifty or more girls gathered in the music room and as many more were strolling through the corridors, or in the office.

Suddenly a burst of half-stifled laughter arose from the office. A crowd of the more mischievous girls were about Bobby Hargrew. Miss Carrington stepped down from the platform at the end of the music room and marched steadily toward the office.

"Oh! Bobby's going to catch it again!" whispered Jess in Laura's ear.

But there was no opportunity for her friends to warn the sprightly Clara of the approach of her nemesis. And when Miss Carrington, otherwise Gee Gee, came to the doorway and through her eye-gla.s.ses beheld the heinous offense of Bobby the teacher was, indeed, very much horrified.

Bobby was perched on the corner of Mr. Sharp's desk, in a most unladylike att.i.tude, and apparently just removing a burning cigarette from her rosy lips! The blue smoke curled away from the horrid thing, and Bobby was leaning back, with her roguish glance following the smoke-rings, and apparently enjoying the weed immensely.

"Miss Hargrew!"

The awful voice startled everybody but Bobby herself. Perhaps the wicked one had been expecting it.

"What do I see, Miss Hargrew?" demanded Gee Gee, in a tone of cold horror.