10 A QUEER FRIENDSHIP
IT was very hot. The girls simply lived for their time in the swimming-pool. They groaned¹ when thetide was out and they couldn't bathe. Fortunately the pool was an enormous one, and would takepractically the whole school when the tide was in.
Darrell loved to have a game of tennis and then sprint² down to the pool to bathe. Oh, the deliciouscoolness of the water then! She couldn't understand how Gwendoline or Mary-Lou could possiblyshrink from getting in. But they insisted that the hotter the day, the colder the water felt, and theydidn't like it.
'But that's what's so lovely about the water," said Darrell. "Feeling so cold on such a blazing hot dayas this! If you could only make up your minds to plunge³ in instead of going in inch by inch, you'dlove it. You're awful cowards, both of you.'
Neither Mary-Lou nor Gwendoline liked being called cowards. Mary-Lou always felt very hurt whenDarrell so carelessly lined her up with Gwendoline, and scorned her, too, for her timidity. She triedher hardest to make Darrell pleased with her by running after her more than ever, even to tidying herlocker in the common room, which exasperated⁵ Darrell because Mary- Lou always altered herarrangement of things.
' What s happened to my sweets? I know I put them in the front here. And where's my writing-pad?
Blow, and I'm in such a hurry, too!'
And out would come every single thing in the locker⁴, higgledy-piggledy on the floor! Mary-Louwould look on mournfully.
'Oh—I tidied them all so nicely for you,' she would say.
'Well, don'tV Darrell would order. 'Why don't you go and bother with somebody else's things? Youalways seem to make a bee-line for mine. You seem to have got a craze for tidying things and puttingthem away. You go and do Alicia's—they're much untidier than mine! Just leave mine alone!'
i only do it to help you,' Mary-Lou would murmur⁶. It was awful to have such an admiration⁷ forsomebody and for them to find it a nuisance. Perhaps Darrell would like her to tidy Alicia's things.

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