Back at School with the Tucker Twins Part 22

"Don't you dare!"

"Oh, honey, I am so sorry! I don't know why we did not think to sneak you something. You looked so pale and wan when we left you to go to supper that somehow I never connected you with the thought of food. To think of your being hungry!" and Dum's hazel eyes got moist.

"But then's then and now's now! I reckon I can hold out 'til morning, however."

One of the peculiarities of boarding school is that if you are sick at all you are supposed to be too sick to eat. If you are really very bad off, so far gone you have to be put in the hospital, then you are fed up. If a girl skips a meal from indisposition, nothing is done about her food by the housekeeper, but if her roommate chooses to sneak some of her own supply up to the sufferer, although it is supposed to be against the rules to take any food from the table, at a time like that the infringement is winked at.

The girls were afraid to get out the alcohol lamp and make me a cup of instantaneous chocolate as we were almost sure one of the teachers would come to see how I was before they turned in for the night. As it was, they had hardly got the bowl of hot water out of the way and the room to rights before Miss Ball knocked on the door. She had a dainty tray of food for me.

"I didn't think hysterics would last so long you would not want something to eat, Page," she said archly, laying a little stress on hysterics. "I cooked this for you on my chafing dish."

The teachers, of course, used alcohol lamps all they chose. It was a nice cup of chocolate, with a marshmallow on top in lieu of whipped cream, two s.h.i.+rred eggs and a stack of b.u.t.tered crackers.

"Oh, Miss Ball, you are so good!"

We felt sneaky indeed not to tell Miss Ball the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth concerning our escapade, but we knew it would be her duty to report us and the chances were she would do her duty. So we kept mum while I devoured the very good supper.

I was pretty certain that Miss Ball did not give very much credence to the hysterics dodge. She knew me too well. I was not the hysterical type. She was too much of a lady, however, to question me and understood girls well enough to know when to let them alone.

"Isn't she a peach, though?" was Dee's comment after the kind young teacher had gone off bearing the empty tray. I had devoured the last crumb, feeling much better in consequence.

"Page," whispered Dum, after lights were out, "do you think you will be able to bear your foot to the ground by to-morrow?"

"I can't tell. I am feeling lots better now and there is no telling what a night's rest will do for me. We shall just have to take no thought of to-morrow. 'Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.'"

"Yes, just let to-morrow look after itself," yawned Dee. "We got out of the window and beat all the girls out of the building, and if one of us got a sprained ankle in consequence, we still have the glory of being out first and the thrill is still with me of sliding down that sheet.

I'd like to do it again. That reminds me, I have not had time to untie the sheets. I'll do it in the morning to destroy all traces. Good ni--"

But all of us were asleep before she got out the ght.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE REALITY.

We all slept heavily. It had been an exciting evening and weariness was the result. I dreamed a terrible dream: that I was trying to get out of a fire and one leg was tied to the bed. In my struggles to pull myself loose, I awakened and found the matter was that my whole leg had gone to sleep by reason of the very tight bandage. I rubbed it back to consciousness and then determined to see if I could bear my weight on that foot. All of our machinations would be as naught if I should be laid up indefinitely, as investigations would be sure to follow.

It was one of those hot, windy March nights. The wind had been blowing so that the ground had dried up until it was dusty. My throat felt parched and uncomfortable. I simply had to have a drink of water.

Should I call one of the girls? I knew they would be angry with me for not doing it, but they were both sleeping so peacefully. I have always hated to arouse any one from sleep. It seems such a shame to break up the beatific state you are usually in when asleep. It fell to my lot to awaken Tweedles every morning at school until I should think they would have hated me. I put my bandaged foot to the floor and found I could stand it. I reached for my bed-room slippers but they were, of course, not in their accustomed place as I had not used them the night before, so I slipped on my shoes. It was difficult to get the left one on, by reason of the bandage plus the swelling, but I squeezed into it and laced it up for support. Donning my kimono, I made a rather painful way to the bath rooms. I wondered if I could walk without limping. Certainly not to church. I began to plan a headache for next day that would excuse me from everything. It seemed to me as I wandered down the dark hall that I did have a little headache, a kind of heaviness that I might call a headache without telling a very big fib. The water tasted mighty good and I drank and drank.

What was that strange odour? It was burnt varnis.h.!.+ There was a faint light in the bath room and another far off down the hall. By that light I was sure I saw thin waves of smoke. I forgot my lame ankle and ran to the top of the steps. I could smell the burnt varnish more plainly.

What should I do? Ring the fire alarm of course! I slid down the bannisters, not only to expedite matters but to save my ankle that had begun to remind me of its existence. The gong was just outside the dining-room door.

"DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG!----DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG!

DONG!"

I rang it loud and clear; and then I thought maybe I had better repeat it, so I did. From a perfectly still house a moment before, now pandemonium reigned. The smoke was getting thicker. The smell of burnt varnish was making a tightening in my throat. The wind had increased and was blowing a perfect hurricane, as though it were in partners.h.i.+p with the fire.

I ran upstairs thankful for the laced-up shoe. Our corridor was alive with excited girls who seemed to have no idea what to do.

"Is it another fire drill?" asked one dazed freshman.

"Oh, yes! It's a fire drill with realistic smoke to make you hurry," I called. "Get on your shoes and kimonos and coats just as fast as you can and go out of the building!"

My words of command rather quieted the girls and some of them ran to do what I had said, but some of them just went on squealing.

I found Tweedles sleeping sweetly. They were so in the habit of trusting me to awaken them when the gong sounded in the morning that its ringing in the middle of the night meant nothing to them.

"Fire! Fire!" I shouted as I tore the covers off of them. "Get up and help! The hall is full of girls who need some one to lead them! The whole school is full of smoke!"

They were awake in a moment and out of bed. There was no drowsy yawning or stretching with Tweedles. They were either fast asleep or wide awake.

"Here, put on your shoes and wraps, something warm. You might as well be burnt up as die of pneumonia." Dum's pack with her pictures and deer skin had never been unrolled, so she strapped it on her back. "Don't stop for clothes, I am afraid there isn't time. We can come back for them if things are not as bad as I think." Dee had begun to empty bureau drawers into a sheet and to take things out of the wardrobe.

"Well, I might as well throw this out the window for luck," she said, tying the sheet up into what looked like a tramp's great bundle.

The hall was emptying as the girls raced down stairs, but an agonizing shriek arose from the lower hall, which was now dense with smoke. The front door could not be opened. It had been locked for the night and, according to a rule Miss Plympton had made, the key had been hung in her office. Of course no one knew this. There were many ways to get out of Gresham, so many that it was perfectly silly not to be able to get out, but that pack of silly, frightened girls came racing upstairs again. The lower hall was now too full of smoke to venture down in it again, and a lurid light was appearing, giving a decidedly sinister aspect to things.

Tweedles and I, with Mary and Annie, met the panic-stricken girls at the top of the steps. "Why didn't you go out through the dining room?" I asked sternly. I found that some one would have to be stern.

"Flames were there!" sobbed a great tall girl, the one from Texas.

Teachers in a fire are no more good than school girls. There were two on our corridor in Carter Hall, but I saw one of them go frantically back into her room and throw the bowl and pitcher out of her window and come out carefully holding a down cus.h.i.+on.

Dee was quite collected and cool.

"Come into our room, 117," she commanded all the screaming crowd.

"There is no smoke there. You can get out of our window."

She immediately began tying the still-knotted sheets to our radiator and with a sly look at me she pulled another sheet off of her bed, muttering as she attached it to the others, "So it will be sure to reach the ground."

"I can't go down there! I can't! I can't!" screamed the girl from Texas.

"Nonsense! Then let some one else go first! You go, Page!"

"I think I had better see if all the girls are out of their rooms first.

But I am not a bit afraid. See, twist the sheet around your arm this way and then catch hold with the other hand and there you go!" and I sent a s.p.u.n.ky little freshman spinning to terra firma.

Dum and Dee got all the girls out in a few minutes, while I limped through all the rooms to see that no one was left. The rooms were in the greatest confusion imaginable as the inmates had endeavoured to save their clothes and had tied them up in bundles and thrown them out of the windows. I wondered if the other parts of the building had been emptied, but felt that I had better get out myself as the smoke was so thick you could cut it. Fortunately the moon was s.h.i.+ning brightly for the electric light fuses were burnt out, and but for the moon and a few flash lights we would have been in total darkness.

All the girls were out but Tweedles and me.

"You next, Page! Be careful about your ankle, honey," and Dee tenderly a.s.sisted me out the window.