Polly's Senior Year at Boarding School Part 36

"Thank goodness!" from Polly. "Now we can breathe in peace. Oh, but I'm glad!"

"Wasn't it fortunate I happened to come up," Mrs. Baird laughed. "You might have waited all afternoon. I really came to tell you that I have made arrangements at the hotel for all your families for the night before Commencement, and to find out if you expected any one here for the game to-morrow. Your mother and father are coming, Betty. I heard from them to-day."

"My uncle is coming if he possibly can," Polly added.

"Mother and Dad will surely be here," Lois said, "and so will Bob; but he'll be late."

"There will be more visitors than usual for to-morrow, won't there?"

Mrs. Baird asked. "You'll have to win the game, Polly."

"If I don't, I'll hide somewhere and never show my face again," Polly answered. "Think how awful it would be to lose on our own floor, and with visitors to witness the defeat."

"Well, don't worry about it," Mrs. Baird advised. "You know the best team always wins."

"We beat last year. So this year it's their turn," Angela teased.

The next day the visitors began to arrive on the noon train. All morning the girls had been busy decorating the gym and practicing songs. By luncheon time everything was ready, and the Fenwick school team arrived in one big carryall, followed by another, filled with their friends and well-wishers. Polly, as captain, was so busy with her duties that she had only a minute now and then to think of the game.

Dr. and Mrs. Farwell came among the first guests and she and Lois happened to be in the front hall when they arrived.

"Where's Uncle Roddy?" Polly asked, after she had greeted them, "and where, oh, where is Bob?"

"Roddy will be up later," the doctor told her.

"And Bob may not be able to come," Mrs. Farwell explained. "You see he wants to be here surely for the dance--"

"Jim's coming too, isn't he?" Lois interrupted. "He wrote he would."

"Yes; they'll both be here to-morrow without fail," her mother a.s.sured her. "And Bob will come to-day, if he possibly can."

But there was no sign of him when Polly glanced up at the visitors'

gallery, as the Seddon Hall team marched into the gym at two o'clock.

"There's a train due now; maybe he's on that," Lois whispered under cover of the singing.

"What a bunch of people," Betty exclaimed, looking around the room.

Every seat in the gallery was filled with friends and relatives, and the girls had been forced to find places on the floor downstairs.

The teams stopped and faced each other in the center of the floor.

Polly's heart sank; somehow the Fenwick team looked more imposing in gym suits than she had expected, and she remembered that one of the guards had told her they had won every game they had played that year.

"Perhaps," she thought, "it's just as well Bob isn't here."

They took their places on the floor, and Miss Stewart blew the whistle.

In a game that really counts, there is no sound so exciting as that first whistle. It means so much. Betty rose to her toes at the sound of it, and faced the opposing jumping center.

"I think I'd like the first ball," the Fenwick girl said, laughing.

"Sorry, but you can't have it," Betty replied, bounding into the air; "it's mine!" She batted it back towards f.a.n.n.y.

"Good!" Polly whispered to Lois, and raised her left hand above her head.

But the Fenwick side center intercepted f.a.n.n.y's pa.s.s and, before they knew it, the ball was down at the other end. Evelin failed to guard her forward and, after a high toss, the ball fell into the basket.

Dorothy Mead, as official score keeper, drew a 2 slowly on the blackboard. f.a.n.n.y felt the fault was entirely hers and turned appealing eyes to her captain.

"Cheer up!" Polly called. "That's only one; dodge her next time."

But f.a.n.n.y didn't get a chance to even touch the ball, for Betty lost the toss up, and the ball was spirited away to the other goal. Evelin fought hard, but Eleanor was so busy thinking about the lines that the Fenwick team made another basket.

"Oh, this is awful! I never saw Eleanor so slow," Lois said.

Betty lost the next toss up, too, but, fortunately, Evelin stopped it and threw to f.a.n.n.y. She pa.s.sed to Betty, and Lois waited for it near the line, but her guard kept her from getting it. They fought hard in the center for the next few minutes. Eleanor got so excited that she stepped over the line, the whistle blew, and the Fenwick forward made a basket. The score was five to nothing.

Eleanor looked at Polly, but she shook her head.

"The first half is almost up," she said to Lois. "I don't want to change yet."

f.a.n.n.y fumbled the next ball Betty sent her.

"That's inexcusable," Lois declared, angrily, and Betty stamped her foot in rage. f.a.n.n.y began to cry.

"That's the end," Lois said; "you can't put a sub in for her."

"No; but I can do something equally as good," Polly replied, quietly.

"Wait till this half is over." It was like her to be carelessly hopeful, when everybody else was in despair.

The Fenwick team scored again before the longed-for whistle blew.

"There's Bob and Uncle Roddy," Polly said, just as the ball dropped into the basket. "He's looking at the score," she added, laughing.

Lois stared at her in amazement.

"Poll, what's the matter with you?" she demanded. "Do you realize that the score is seven to nothing!"

"Yes," Polly replied in unruffled tones, "but there's another half, and you seem to have forgotten that."

The school broke into a song and the teams sat down for a much needed rest. Polly looked up at the gallery and nodded merrily to Bob. Then she went up to Eleanor.

"I'm sorry; but I'm going to put Maud in the next half," she said.

"Oh, thank goodness!" Eleanor exclaimed. "I've lost my nerve."

"Get ready, Maud," Polly said, going over to the subs; "you've got a hard job ahead."

"Righto!" Maud said, instantly; and Polly walked over to f.a.n.n.y. She was crying on Betty's shoulder.