16 Gwendoline Makes a Plan
Half-term would soon be coming! The school was giving all kinds of displays—an exhibition tennis match played by four of the crack school players—a swimming and diving display—and a dancing display in the middle of the great courtyard.
“And after that,” said Daphne, gloomily, “after that—the School Cert. exam! I feel awfully¹ depressed² whenever I think of it.”
“Think how light-hearted you’ll be afterwards!” said Belinda.
“Yes—like you feel after going to the dentist,” said Clarissa. “You get all gloomy beforehand and then after you’ve been you feel awfully happy.”
Everyone laughed. They knew that Clarissa had had bad times at the dentist, and they knew that she hated the wire round her front teeth, put there to keep them back. She was hoping she could have it off before long.
“Once I’ve got rid of that wire and my glasses you won’t know me!” she said, and shook back her mass of auburn hair.
She had been riding quite a bit with Bill, and Gwendoline had felt rather out of things. Clarissa rode extremely well, and could apparently³ manage any horse in the school stables—and had actually been permitted to try Thunder!
Gwendoline found the everlasting⁴ horse conversation between the two very trying indeed.
“I once rode a horse who ran away with me and jumped over a hedge before I had even learnt how to jump!” Clarissa would begin.
And then Bill would go on. “Did you really? I bet you stuck on all right. Did I ever tell you about Marvel⁵, my brother Tom’s horse?”
Then would follow a long story about Marvel. At the end Gwendoline would try to get a word in.
“I say—Clarissa, do you know where we are going for this afternoon’s walk?”
“Not yet,” Clarissa would say. “Well, Bill, I simply must tell you about my father’s old horse that lived to be over thirty. He . . .”
And so the horsy conversation would go on, till Gwendoline felt she could scream. Horses! Horrible great snorting stamping creatures! How she wished Clarissa had never gone out for that first ride with Bill.

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