12 SHARP WORDS
THE Spider Affair, as it was called, went all over the school before the day was out. It caused a greatdeal of laughter. When Mam'zelle Rougier heard of it she sneered¹.
'To think that a Frenchwoman should be so foolish!' she said. 'Now / do not mind spiders or earwigsor moths² or even snakes! Mam'zelle Dupont should be ashamed to make such an exhibition ofherself!'
The first form talked about it more than anyone else, of course. They squealed³ with laughterwhenever they thought of poor Mary-Lou, Mam'zelle, and Gwendoline all falling victims to the samespider.
'Jolly clever spider! said Irene. 'It knew the only three people in the form that would be scared of it. Itake my hat off to that spider.'
'I can't think why it chose my desk,' said Mary-Lou.
'No. That was a shame,' said Gwendoline. 'Poor Mary- Lou! It must have been an awful shock foryou when you saw it. 1 wonder who put it there?'
There was silence. For the first time it occurred to the first form that the spider might have been putthere on purpose. They looked at one another.
'It was a dirty trick to put it into poor Mary-Lou's desk,' said Jean. 'She can't help being scared ofthings, I suppose, and she almost jumped out of her skin when she saw it. I should have thought anyjoker in our form would have been decent enough to have popped it into, say, Alicia's desk!'
'Not if it happened to be Alicia who popped it in!' said a sly voice. 'You do so love playing tricks,don't you, Alicia?
You and Darrell were in the first-form room before afternoon school. And I'm sure we all rememberyou saying you'd like to put a spider down Mary-Lou's neck!'
It was Gwendoline speaking. Alicia glanced at her. 'Well, I didn't do it,' she said. 'Nor did Darrell.
Sorry to disappoint you, darling Gwendoline Mary, but we just didn't. If it was anyone, I should thinkit was you!'
'Mary-Lou is my friend,' said Gwendoline. T wouldn't do that to her.'
'Well, if you'd almost drown her one week, I should think you could quite well bring yourself to put aspider in her desk the next week,' said Darrell.
'It's pretty funny that you and Alicia were the only ones in the classroom before afternoon school,'
persisted Gwendoline, angry that no one seemed to have agreed with her suggestion.
'Shut up,' said Katherine, shortly. 'We know it wasn't either Darrell or Alicia, because they say so!
The spider must have got in there by accident, and that's that.'
'Well, I think...' began Gwendoline, but the class took up a chant at once.

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