7 “oy!”
soon the offending pink chalk had been vigorously brushed away by mr. lemming, who then proceeded to sit down on the piano stool himself to try out some of the bass notes, which had gone wrong. alicia and betty watched breathlessly. most of the girls, guessing that some trick was being played, watched eagerly too.
they were well rewarded when mr. lemming rose from the stool. he was wearing a long black overcoat and on it was a wonderful pattern of bright pink. mr. young stared at it in amazement.
“ah, you have it too!” he cried. “see, miss grayling, mr. lemming has brushed up against something also. i will soon put him right.”
in spite of being under miss grayling’s eye the girls began to giggle. miss grayling looked very puzzled.
“your coat was quite all right when we came along here,” she said to mr. lemming. “i am sure i should have noticed it if you had brushed against anything so violently pink as this. in any case there is no wall as pink as this chalk! whatever can have happened?”
she walked to the stool and looked at it very closely. alicia and betty hardly dared to breathe. but the invisible chalk lived up to its name and miss grayling did not see a sign of it. it did not occur to her to sit down and see if the same thing happened to her. still feeling puzzled she took mr. lemming out of the room, and the lesson proceeded again.
not until the end of it did poor mr. young sit down on that stool again. when he got up, behold! he was as pretty a sight as before, and the girls stuffed their hankies into their mouths trying not to explode with mirth. mr. young noticed nothing this time. he walked pompously to the door and gave the girls the quick little bow he always kept for them.
“good morning, young ladies!” and out he went, showing his patch of brilliant colour. as he went the bell for break rang, and the girls tore into the court, longing to give way to their pent-up laughter.
“alicia! you had something to do with it! what was it?”
“oh, it was marvellous! when he turned round to the blackboard i thought i should die!”
“betty! do tell! was it your trick? how did you do it? i looked at the stool and there wasn’t a thing to be seen!”
“that reminds me,” said betty to alicia with a grin. “i must get a wet cloth and rub it over the stool.” she disappeared, and the girls surged round alicia, begging her to tell them the secret.
meanwhile mr. young was walking down one of the long corridors, quite unaware of his beautiful decoration. mam’zelle dupont happened to come out of a room just behind him, and stared disbelievingly at the extraordinary sight. she raced after him.
“monsieur young! ha, monsieur young!”
mr. young was scared of both mam’zelles. he hastened his steps. mam’zelle ran more quickly.
“monsieur, monsieur, attendez, je vous prie! wait, wait. you cannot go out like that! it is terrible!”
mr. young swung round, annoyed. “what is it? what’s terrible?”
“this! this!” said mam’zelle, and tapped him smartly on the chalk. a cloud of it flew off at once. mr. young was horrified at being tapped so familiarly by mam’zelle and amazed at the cloud of chalk that flew from his person. he wriggled himself round to try and see it, remembering what mr. lemming’s coat had been like.
“i will attend to you,” said mam’zelle, out of the kindness of her heart, and caught hold of his arm. she hurried him to a hall-stand, took up a brush there, and with extremely vigorous strokes, she removed the chalk from his clothes.
he was angry and not at all grateful. “twice it has happened this morning,” he said angrily to mam’zelle and actually shook his fist in her face as if she was the culprit. she backed away, alarmed. mr. young snatched up his hat and went off, muttering to himself.
“he is not polite, that man,” said mam’zelle to herself. “i do him a kindness, and he puts his fist into my face. i will never speak to him again.”
the only girl who had seen this episode in the hall was darrell, and she hurried to the others with the tit-bit. “i was going past the end of the hall and i saw mam’zelle banging at mr. young for all she was worth with the clothes brush,” she panted. “he was so angry! oh, do let’s do it again, alicia. it’s a gorgeous trick!”
it is always a mistake to play the same trick twice running, and alicia knew it. but she could not resist the temptation to try it on mam’zelle dupont.
“shall we?” she asked betty, and betty nodded in glee. the girls crowded round to see the queer invisible chalk. they chuckled and laughed when they thought of the singing-lesson, and they let the first-formers into the secret too.
altogether the trick cheered up everyone considerably, and the thought that they would play it once more gave them something to look forward to.
“who can rub it on the mistress’s chair before the french lesson this afternoon?” demanded betty. “alicia and i can’t. we’ve no chance of being in the room. who is room monitor?”
“i am,” said darrell. “i’ll do it! give me the chalk! what do you do? just rub it over the chair?”
ten minutes before afternoon school darrell slipped into the second-form classroom. it was her job that week to tidy the bookshelves, clean the blackboard and see that the chalk was handy and the duster there.
it took her only a minute to do these things. then she went to the chair that stood behind the desk and took the chalk from her pocket. she was about to rub it over the seat of the chair when a mischievous idea struck her.
couldn’t she write something short so that a word would appear on mam’zelle’s skirt, and send everyone into fits? it would have to be a short word.
“i’ll write ‘oy!’?” said darrell to herself, in glee. “i’ll have to write it backwards, so that it will come off on mam’zelle the right way round.”
so, very painstakingly she rubbed the chalk on the seat of the chair in the form of the two letters o and y. oy! fancy going about with that written on you! how all the girls would yell.
the bell went for lessons. darrell slipped the chalk into her pocket and went to her place. she giggled when the rest of the form came in.
“did you do it? did you have time?” whispered the girls. darrell nodded. then in came mam’zelle, appearing to be in quite a good temper, and the door was shut.
mam’zelle sat down at once. she had very tiny feet and did not like standing. the girls watched eagerly. when would she stand up? darrell could hardly wait for her to turn her back to the class. what would they say when they saw what she had written on the chair!
jean was called to the blackboard to write something. “do it all wrong!” hissed darrell. “then mam’zelle will get up to correct it.”
so, much to mam’zelle’s surprise, the usually careful jean made ridiculous mistakes in the french words she wrote down, and appeared to be quite unable to put them right, despite mam’zelle’s exasperated instructions. at last, thoroughly annoyed, she dismissed jean to her seat, and got up to put the mistakes right herself.
the class saw her back view at once, and gasped. written across her tight-fitting skirt in bright pink letters was the word “oy!” even darrell was surprised to see it so clearly, and suddenly felt very uncomfortable. it was one thing to make a patch of pink appear on somebody’s clothes—it could easily be explained away—but how could the word “oy!” be explained? it was quite impossible.
the class gaped at mam’zelle’s back view. they were absolutely taken aback. they didn’t know whether to giggle or to be alarmed.
“darrell! you idiot! suppose she goes walking up the corridor in front of all the other mistresses with that written on her skirt!” hissed alicia. “really, you might have more sense.”
the thought of the other mistresses seeing mam’zelle’s “oy!” really alarmed the form. miss parker would certainly not approve. she would consider it most disrespectful.
but how to get it off? that dreadful pink “oy!” flashed back and forth as mam’zelle wrote on the board, turned to the class to explain, and wrote again.
“i’ll tell mam’zelle she’s got some dust or something on her skirt and i’ll brush it off,” promised darrell, in a whisper. “at the end of the lesson.”
but she had no chance to, for mam’zelle walked off in a hurry, remembering that she was late for the first form, next door. and the first-formers had the surprise of their lives when they saw mam’zelle’s pink “oy!” flashing at them every other minute!
they couldn’t keep back their giggles and mam’zelle grew more and more furious. “what is there so funny about me this afternoon?” she demanded. “is my hair untidy? is my face black? are my shoes not a pair?”
“no, mam’zelle,” said the first form, almost helpless with trying to stop their laughter.
“i am not funny and i do not feel funny,” said mam’zelle, severely. “but i shall soon do some funny things. ah, yes! i shall soon say ‘one hundred lines of french poetry from you, please, and from you and you!’ aha! i shall soon be very funny!”
with that she swung round to the blackboard and the “oy!” flashed again. the first form clutched one another in agonies of suppressed laughter.
but all the same they had the sense to grab mam’zelle before she went out of the room. “we’ll have to get that off her before she goes,” said hilda. “or else the second-formers will get into awful trouble. i expect they meant to brush it off somehow and didn’t have the chance.”
so, before mam’zelle left the first-form room, hilda politely offered to brush down her skirt, as it was all dusty with chalk.
“tiens!” said mam’zelle, looking down at it. “this blackboard chalk! it is not good for dresses. thank you, hilda, vous êtes gentille! you are kind.”
she stood like a lamb whilst hilda assiduously brushed her skirt back and front, and got rid of the pink “oy!” then she walked out of the room. the second-formers, who had finished their lesson, were watching for her, hoping to brush her down themselves before she went off to the little room she shared with miss potts.
with great relief they saw that mam’zelle’s skirt was now spotless. they went back into their form-room and sank down into their chairs.
“thank goodness!” said alicia. “we might have got into a first-class row over that. potty or nosey would certainly have reported it if they’d seen that ‘oy!’ you know how annoyed the mistresses get if they think we’ve been really disrespectful, darrell. you were an idiot. i suppose sally put you up to it. fine head of form she is!”
“shut up!” said darrell, annoyed with herself and everyone else too. “sally had nothing to do with it. i just didn’t think, that’s all!”
