14 Bill is Caught
Alicia had not been allowed to forget the sneezing trick. All the form begged her to do it—except Sally. Sally still said she thought it was a dangerous joke to play, but Alicia laughed at her.
“You only say that because it’s my trick!” she said, knowing that Sally was jealous of her friendship with Darrell. “If it was Irene’s joke or Jean’s you’d be thrilled.”
Jean was torn between her desire to see the trick played and her feeling that as head-girl she ought not to be too encouraging. Still, head-girls couldn’t be too strict and prim—and she did badly want to see what would happen!
“There’s to be a maths test next week,” said Alicia. “That’s the time to do it! I bet we’ll get out of the test all right. A-tish-oo!”
Everyone laughed. Darrell hugged herself. Oh, school was such fun! She enjoyed every single minute of it. She loved her work and her play, she loved the company of the chattering¹ girls, she loved being third reserve—oh, everything was wonderful! This was the nicest term she had ever had.
Then she saw Bill looking anything but happy. Poor Bill! She was worried because Thunder was still not himself. Nobody else seemed to notice it—but Bill knew. Thunder wasn’t just homesick, as she had thought at first. He wasn’t well. She was very worried about him—and the more worried she got, the less attention she paid to her work, and the crosser she made Miss Peters.
“Wilhelmina! Will you please pay attention! Wilhelmina! Will you repeat what I have just said? Wilhelmina, I will not have you in my class if you persist in looking out of the window and dreaming!” It was “Wilhelmina! Wilhelmina!” all the time.
It was dreadful. Bill was really very miserable² now, but she said very little unless anyone actually asked her about Thunder. She knew that Jean disapproved³ strongly of her continual disobedience. But she simply couldn’t help it! She must, must see Thunder each day, especially just now.
Miss Peters was beginning to be puzzled over Bill. If the girl was so fond of her horse, why did she keep earning punishments forbidding her to see him? Miss Peters thought back a few days. Why, Bill couldn’t have seen her beloved horse all the week. And yet she hadn’t complained about it!
A suspicion came into Miss Peters’ mind. Was Bill being disobedient? Surely not! Disobedience was not a thing that Miss Peters had to deal with very often. Girls rarely dared to disobey even her slightest word. She was

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