The Girls of Central High Aiding the Red Cross Part 11

"And Hester," cried Bobby, "is in the Dress Parade. What did I tell you?

Gee Gee was just hoping to queer us."

"It is Hester Grimes who has queered us," Laura said, much more sternly than she usually spoke. "And we were all warned to be so careful!"

"Now, don't blame Hessie!" cried Hester's chum angrily.

"I'd like to know who we are to blame, then?" demanded Jess Morse, with disgust, "Knowing that Gee Gee is what she is, why couldn't Hester keep her own temper?"

"Well! I just guess--"

But after all it was Mother Wit who, though greatly offended, became peacemaker.

"There, there!" she said. "Enough is done already. We shall miss Hester.

But we mustn't get angry with each other and therefore spoil the whole Dress Parade. That masquerade should be the most spectacular number on the program."

"But who will take Grimes' place?" demanded Bobby.

Laura stood beside Janet Steele, whose eyes were wide open, her cheeks glowing, and even her lips ajar with excitement. Laura had a very keen mind, and already she had apprehended that Janet was more deeply interested in this discussion, and the subject of it, than a stranger naturally would be. She turned now to stare into the Red Cross girl's face.

"Oh, Miss Steele!" she said, "didn't you tell us that you loved to skate?"

"Ye-es," admitted Janet.

"And she's as big as Hessie Grimes!" exclaimed Jess on the other side, and catching her chum's idea.

"Would you take Hester's part in the masquerade?" asked Laura pointblank.

"But she doesn't belong to Central High!" wailed Lily Pendleton.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Jess. "What does it matter? This is all for a show.

It is no compet.i.tion with other members of the League."

"Right-o, Jess!" crowed Bobby Hargrew.

"We-ell!" murmured Lily doubtfully.

"Come, Miss Steele--Janet," said Laura, pleadingly. "I know you can help us. Hester, being the biggest girl, was to lead in certain figures on the ice. You could easily learn them. And you can wear her costume, I know."

"Why--I----"

"You don't know anything of the kind, Laura Belding," snapped Lily, interrupting Janet. "I don't believe Hessie would let any other girl wear her masquerade suit."

"Sure she wouldn't!" exclaimed Bobby, with disgust. "She'll crab the whole game if she can. Hester Grimes always was a nuisance."

But Laura suddenly clapped her hands in real joy. "Oh, no!" she cried. "We won't ask Janet to wear any other girl's costume. I know what would be fine."

"Let's hear it, Laura dear," said Jess, eagerly. "Of course, you would have a bright idea. You always do."

"Why," said the pleased Laura, "if Janet will come and skate with us, she need only wear the very cloak and veil she has on now. What could be more fitting for a leader of our costume parade? The whole carnival is for the Red Cross, and with a Red Cross girl to lead the procession, and Chet in his Uncle Sam suit to lead the boys--Why! it will be the best ever."

"Hooray!" shouted Bobby, wild with enthusiasm.

"It is splendid!" agreed Jess.

Everybody in hearing agreed, save, perhaps, Lily Pendleton. Laura turned to Janet again and clasped her gloved hands over the new girl's arm.

"Will you, dear? Will you help us out?" she asked.

CHAPTER IX

THE ICE CARNIVAL

"Oh, Miss Laura! Do you really mean it?" murmured Janet Steele, her full pink cheeks actually becoming white she was so much in earnest.

"Of course we mean it," Jess Morse said practically. "And glad to have you."

"I don't know--"

Janet looked for a moment at the sulky-faced Lily Pendleton. Jess immediately pulled that young girl forward.

"Why, Lil isn't half as bad as she sounds," declared Jess, laughing. "This is our very particular friend, Janet Steele, Lil. You've got to treat her nicely. If you don't," she added sharply, "you'll never get a chance to go camping with us girls again as you did last summer. You and your Hester Grimes can go off somewhere by yourselves."

Really, Lily Pendleton had improved a good deal since the time Jess mentioned, and the latter's blunt speech brought her to a better mind at once.

"Well, of course," she said, offering Janet her hand, "I did not mean it just that way. You know how cranky Hessie is when she does get mad. But Laura has suggested a perfectly splendid idea. Miss Steele as a Red Cross girl and Chet as Uncle Sam will be fine to lead the grand march on skates."

So it was decided, and they hurried Janet down to the girls' boathouse, which had a warm, cozy clubroom at one end where Mr. G.o.dey, the watchman, stayed, and where, at this time of year, he was often busy sharpening skates. Laura found a pair of skates for the Red Cross girl, and for an hour the latter practiced with the girls of Central High the steps and figures of the masquerade parade, which Laura and her friends already had worked out to perfection.

"Don't worry a bit about to-night, Janet," Laura told her, when they all hurried away from the lakesh.o.r.e about dusk. "We'll push you through the figures. Jess and I will be on either side of you, except when we pair off with the boys. And then you will be with my brother Chet. And if he isn't nice to you he'll hear from me!" she added with vigor.

"Oh, but Laura!" whispered Jess Morse, as they separated from Janet, "Chet mustn't be too nice to her. For Janet Steele is an awfully pretty girl."

"Now, dear!" exclaimed her laughing chum, "don't develop incipient jealousy."

With only two hours before them in which to do a hundred things, the girls were as busy as bees for the remainder of the afternoon. That Hester Grimes had been forbidden to take part in the carnival by Gee Gee troubled the girls of Central High less than they might have been troubled had it been almost any other of their number that the strict teacher had demerited.

For, to tell the truth, Hester Grimes was not well loved.

The daughter and much-indulged only child of a wealthy butcher, Hester had in the beginning expected to be catered to by her schoolmates. With such rather shallow schoolmates as Lily Pendleton, Hester was successful. Lily toadied to her, to use Bobby Hargrew's expression; nor was Lily alone in this.

Upon those whom Hester considered her friends she spent her pocket money lavishly. She was not a pretty girl, but was a tremendously healthy one--strong, well developed, and tomboyish in her activities. Yet she lacked magnetism and the popularity that little Bobby Hargrew, for instance, attained by the exercise of the very same traits Hester possessed.

Hester antagonized almost everybody--teachers and students alike. Even placid, peace-loving Mother Wit, found Hester incompatible. And because Laura Belding was a natural leader and was very popular in the school, Hester disliked her and showed in every way possible that she would not follow in Laura's train. Yet there had been a time when Hester had felt under obligation to Laura.

Laura was secretly glad to see Lily Pendleton weaned slowly away from the butcher's daughter. The last summer had started Lily in the right direction, and although the overdressed girl had still some weaknesses of character to overcome, she had greatly improved, as this incident of the afternoon revealed.