7 In The Third Form Common-Room
It was sunny but cold the first week or two of that Easter term. The girls squabbled over getting the seats by the radiator¹ in the common-room. Gwendoline, Mavis and Daphne were the ones that complained most of the cold—but they were the ones who took as little exercise as they could, so of course they always got chilblains and colds.
Bill didn’t seem to feel the cold at all. She was still tanned, although it was early in the year. Darrell and Alicia liked the cold, and they loved rushing out to play lacrosse in the afternoons.
They went out ten minutes before the others to practise catching². Gwendoline couldn’t understand it, and she and Mavis became friends again in sympathizing with each other over the cold, and jeering³ at Alicia and Darrell for being so hardy⁴.
Zerelda, of course, being a fourth-former, was now not very often able to be with any of the third-formers, so Gwendoline had had to give up any idea of being her best friend. Zerelda did not seem to be very happy in the fourth form, Darrell thought. She often came slipping into the third form common-room in the evening—saying she wanted to borrow a book or a gramophone record—and then stopping to talk to Darrell and the others.
“Got a special friend yet?” Darrell asked her one evening.
Zerelda twisted one of her curls carefully round her finger and then shook it back into its proper place.
“No,” she said. “Stuck-up things, the fourth form! They seem to think I don’t pull my weight. And they think the end of the world has come because I don’t want to try and get into the third match-team for lacrosse!”
“Well, you’re so tall, you could do well in the team,” said Darrell, considering her. “You ought to be able to take some fine catches. Can you run?”
“Run! I don’t want to run!” said Zerelda, astonished. “As for that games captain—what’s her name—Molly Ronaldson—well, I ask you, did you ever see such a girl? Big as a horse and just about as clumsy! Shouts and dances about on the field as if she had gone mad!”
Darrell laughed. “Molly Ronaldson is one of the finest games captains we’ve ever had. We’ve won more matches with her than ever before. She’s got an absolute genius for picking the right people for the match-teams. My goodness, if I could get into one of the teams I’d be so thrilled I wouldn’t be able to sleep at night.”

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