4 All Together Again
Going to bed on the first night was always fun, especially in the summer term, because then the windows were wide open, daylight was still bright, and the view was glorious.
It was lovely to be with so many girls again too, to discuss the holidays, and to wonder what the term would bring forth¹.
“School Cert. to be taken this term,” groaned² Daphne. “How simply horrible. I’ve been coached for it all the hols, but I don’t feel I know much even now.”
“Miss Williams will keep our noses to the grindstone this term,” said Alicia, dolefully.
“Well, you don’t need to mind,” said Bill. She had spoken very little so far, and the others had left her alone. They knew she got, not homesick, but “horse-sick” as she called it, the first night or two back at school. She was passionately⁴ attached to all the horses owned by her parents and her seven brothers, and missed them terribly at first.
Alicia looked at her. “Why don’t I need to mind?” she said. “I mind just as much as you do!”
“Well, I mean you don’t really need to work, Alicia,” said Bill. “You seem to learn things without bothering. I’ve been coached in the hols, too, and it was an awful nuisance just when I was wanting to ride with my brothers. I jolly well had to work, though. I bet you weren’t coached in the hols.”
“Mavis, are you going in for School Cert.?” asked Darrell. Mavis had been very ill the year before, and had lost her voice. It had been a magnificent voice, but her illness had ruined it. She had always said she was going to be an opera singer, but nobody ever heard her mention it now. In fact, most of the girls had even forgotten that Mavis had had a wonderful voice.
“I’m going in all right,” said Mavis. “But I shan’t get through! I feel like a jelly when I think of it. By the way—did you know my voice is getting right again?”
There was a pause whilst the girls remembered Mavis’s lost voice. “Gosh! Is it really?” said Sally. “Good for you, Mavis! Fancy being able to sing again.”
“I mayn’t sing much,” said Mavis. “But I shall know this term, I expect, if my voice will ever be worth training again.”
“Good luck to you, Mavis,” said Darrell. She remembered that when Mavis had had her wonderful voice they had all thought the girl was a Voice and nothing else at all—just a little nobody without an ounce of character. But now Mavis had plenty of character, and it was quite difficult to remember her Voice.

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