Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School Part 22

"I'll run up and get it right away, before the others come," she said to herself.

Running nimbly up the broad stairway, she entered the deserted cla.s.sroom and hurried down the aisle to the end of the room where she usually sat during recitation.

"Here it is," she murmured, taking it out of the book and tying it on.

Then, sitting down at the desk, she rested her chin in her hands. The quiet of the place was soothing to her excited nerves, and since it was so early she would rest there for a moment and think.

Grace might have dreamed away five minutes when she heard the distant sound of voices below.

"Dear me," she exclaimed, laughing, "they'll scold me for not being on time. I must hurry." So she hastened up the aisle to the door, which was shut, although she had not remembered closing it after her.

She turned the k.n.o.b, still smiling to herself, but the door stuck fast. It was locked!

Grace was so stunned that for a moment she hardly comprehended what had happened. She sat down and tried to collect her thoughts. Locked up in an upper cla.s.sroom on the afternoon of the great game!

She tried the one other door in the room. It also was locked. As for the great windows, they were too large for her to push up without a pole.

"I'll try calling," she said. "They may hear me."

But her calls were fruitless, and beating and knocking on the door panels seemed nothing but m.u.f.fled sounds in the stillness.

"Oh! Oh!" she cried, rus.h.i.+ng wildly from doors to windows and back again.

"What shall I do! What shall I do?"

In the meantime, it was growing late. The soph.o.m.ores had a.s.sembled and were confidently waiting for their captain.

"She's late for the first time," observed one of the girls, "but we'll forgive her under the circ.u.mstances."

"Maybe she's in the gymnasium," suggested Anne, hurrying off to look for her friend. In spite of herself she felt some misgivings and she meant to lose no time in finding her beloved Grace.

The gallery was already half full of people. Anne moved about looking for David, or some one who could help her. Just then Mrs. Harlowe appeared at the door.

"Where is Grace, Mrs. Harlowe?" Anne demanded eagerly.

"I don't know, dear," answered Mrs. Harlowe "She ate her dinner and went off in such a hurry that I hardly had time to speak to her. She told me she wanted to get back to meet the girls."

Anne ran back to the locker-room.

"Grace left home hours ago," she cried. "I just felt that something had happened."

Jessica opened Grace's locker.

"Grace must be in the building," she exclaimed "Here are her clothes."

The girls began to rush about wildly, looking for their captain in the various rooms on the bas.e.m.e.nt floor.

In a few moments a junior came to the door.

"The game will be called in ten minutes," she said. "Are you ready?"

"Yes," answered Nora calmly. "Be careful," she whispered. "Don't let them know yet."

Anne ran again to the gymnasium.

"I'll get David this time," she said to herself. "Something will have to be done if Grace is to be found in time."

David was sitting at one side of the gallery with Reddy and Hippy.

He looked very grave when Anne whispered the news to him. The place was packed with impatient spectators. The junior team was already standing on the floor talking in low voices as they waited impatiently for their opponents to appear at the opposite end.

"She must be somewhere in the building," David e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed. "That is if she has on her gymnasium suit. Have you looked upstairs yet?"

"No," replied Anne, "but we have been all through the downstairs' rooms."

As they ran up the steps they heard the shrill whistle that summoned the players to their positions.

"Come on," cried Nora. "Miriam, you will have to take Grace's place, and Eva Allen will subst.i.tute for you."

It still lacked a few moments of the toss up; the whistle having been blown sooner to hurry the dilatory soph.o.m.ores, who seemed determined to linger, unaccountably, in the little side room.

But in that brief time a remarkable change had taken place in the demeanor of Miriam Nesbit. Two brilliant spots burned on her cheeks, and her black eyes flashed and glowed with happiness. The other girls were too downcast and wretched to notice the transformation. They walked slowly into the gymnasium and stood, ill at ease and downcast, at their end of the hall.

A wave of gossip had spread quickly over the audience, that sat waiting with breathless interest for the appearance of the tardy soph.o.m.ore.

What had happened? Had there been an accident?

No; it was all a mistake. There they were. And tremendous applause burst forth, which died down almost as soon as it had begun. Where was Grace Harlowe, the daring captain of the soph.o.m.ore team, who had boasted that her team would win the game if it took their last breath to do it?

There was a great craning of necks as the spectators looked in vain for the missing Grace.

Hippy dropped his chin upon his breast disconsolately.

"I feel limp as a rag," he groaned. "Where, oh, where, is our gallant captain? I'll never believe Grace deserted her post."

In the meantime poor Grace, locked in the upper cla.s.sroom, had concentrated all her thoughts and mental energies on a means of making her escape in time. She sat down quietly, and, folding her hands, began to consider the situation. In looking back long afterwards upon this tragic hour, it seemed to her that it was the blackest moment of her life. The walls were thick. The doors heavy and ma.s.sive. The ceilings high. There was no possibility of her cries being heard below. It is true she might break a window, but what good would that do? She couldn't jump down three stories into a stone court below. She went to the window and looked out.

"If I hung by this window sill," Grace said aloud, "I believe my feet would just reach the cornice of the second-story window."

Seizing a heavy ruler from one of the desks, she ran to the window and deliberately smashed out all the plate gla.s.s in the lower sash. Then, hoisting herself onto the sill, she looked down from what seemed to be rather a dizzy height. But nerve and determination will accomplish anything, and Grace turned her eyes upward.

"I shall do it," she kept saying to herself over and over.

Clinging to the window sill, she gradually let herself down until her feet touched the top of the cornice underneath. Then, steadying herself she looked down. The cornice ledge was quite broad; broad enough to kneel on, in fact. She was glad of this, for she had intended to kneel on it, whatever its width.

With infinite caution, she gradually slipped along the ledge until she was kneeling. Resting her elbows on the stone shelf, she lowered herself to the next window sill. There she stood for a moment, looking in at the empty cla.s.sroom.

The door into the corridor stood open, and as she clung to the narrow ledge, her face pressed against the window, she wondered how she was going to get in.

"Unless I b.u.t.t my head against this plate gla.s.s," she exclaimed, "I really don't think I can make it. I can't kick in the gla.s.s, for fear of losing my balance."