21 A SHOCK FOR DARRELL
IT was Jean who saw the smashed pen first. She came into the common room to get a book, andstopped short when she saw the ink on the floor, and the bits and pieces of the blue pen.
'Golly!' said Jean. 'Who's done that? What a mean trick!'
Emily and Katherine came in. Jean pointed¹ to the pen. 'Look,' she said. 'There's a nice little bit ofspite for you.'
'It's Mary-Lou's pen,' said Katherine, in distress². 'What a mess. Who could have smashed it? It's notan accident.'
Mary-Lou came in with the quiet Violet. When she saw her pen, she stood and wailed³ aloud. 'Oh!
Who's done that? I had it for my birthday from Mother. And now it's all smashed!'
All the girls gathered round. Darrell and Sally and Irene were astonished to see such a silent circlewhen they came chattering⁴ in. They joined it, and were not surprised when Mary-Lou's wails⁵ brokeout again.
'What will Mother say? She told me to take great care of it if I took it to school.'
Alicia came whistling in, and she too was amazed to see the smashed pen, surrounded by its pool ofdeep violet ink. What a hateful thing to do to anyone!
'Who did it?' she demanded. 'It ought to be reported to Potty. I bet it's Gwendoline—spiteful littlebeast.'
'Where is Gwendoline?' asked Katherine. Nobody knew. Actually she was just outside the door,about to come in and pretend to be surprised and disgusted at the broken pen too. But. hearing theangry voices of the girls, her heart failed
her. She stood hesitating and listening.
'Look here,' said Alicia, 'there's one certain way we can find out who did this—and we will too.'
'What's that?' asked Katherine.
'Well, whoever stamped on this pen and smashed it must have got violet ink on the underneath⁶ oftheir shoes,' said Alicia grimly.
'Oh, yes,' said the others. 'Of course!'
'That's clever of you, Alicia,' said Katherine. 'We'll examine every pair every pair of shoes in ourNorth Tower lockers

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