1 Darrell goes back to School with Felicity
Darrell Rivers was very excited. It was the day to return to Malory Towers, her boarding-school—and this time she was taking her young sister Felicity with her.
Felicity stood on the front steps beside her fifteen-year-old sister, dressed in the same brown and orange uniform, feeling excited, too. She was almost thirteen, and should have gone to Malory Towers two terms before, but she had been ill and had to stay at home.
Now it was the summer term, and she was to go with Darrell at last. She had heard so much about her sister’s school—the fun they had there, the classrooms overlooking the sea, the four towers in which the two hundred and fifty girls slept, the great swimming-pool hollowed out of the rocks on the shore . . . there was no end to the things that Darrell had told her.
“It’s a good thing we’re going by train this time, not by car,” said Darrell. “You’ll travel down with the girls then, and get to know some of them. Sally’s going by train, too.”
Sally was Darrell’s best friend, and had been ever since her first term at Malory Towers almost four years ago.
“I hope I get a friend like Sally,” said Felicity, nervously¹. “I’m shyer than you, Darrell. I’m sure I shall never pluck up enough courage to speak to anyone! And if Miss Potts gets cross with me I shall sink through the floor!”
Miss Potts was the first-form mistress, and also the house mistress for North Tower, the tower to which Darrell belonged, and to which her young sister would go, too.
“Oh, you needn’t be afraid of Potty,” said Darrell, with a laugh, quite forgetting how scared she had been of her when she was in the first form. “Dear old Potty—she’s a good sort.”
Their father’s car drew up at the front door, and the two girls ran down the steps. Mr. Rivers looked at them and smiled.
“Both off this time!” he said. “Well, I remember quite well Darrell going off alone for the first time almost four years ago. She was twelve then—now you’re fifteen, aren’t you, Darrell!”
“Yes,” said Darrell, getting into the car with Felicity. “And I remember you saying to me, ‘you’ll get a lot out of Malory Towers—see that you put a lot back!’?”
“Daddy’s said that to me, too,” said Felicity. “I’m jolly lucky to have an older sister to show me round—though honestly I feel as if I know every corner of Malory Towers already.”
“Now, where’s Mother?” said her father, and he

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