A Genius at the Chalet School by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer Read Free Book Online Page A

cheap as standing. Are you really in Va or was Maeve jiggling us? She's a demon and she loves pulling people's legs."
   Luckily for Nina, the door opened just then to admit Vi and Barbara and before long the room was full and Nina had been introduced to so many people that she felt bewildered. Mercifully for her, a bell sounded five minutes later and the noise of laughter and chatter ceased with what, to the new girl, was uncanny suddenness. She had yet to learn that while rules at the Chalet School were comparatively few, they were obeyed implicitly as a rule. The girls lined up at the door, Vi pulling Nina into place in front of her. A second bell sent them marching from the room and along the corridors to a very long room where tables, laid with gay cloths, coloured glasses and napkins to match the cloths ran in three rows of three tables each, while a tenth stood across them at the top of the room. Pretty peasant chairs were set at each place and Vi pushed Nina to one between herself and Mary-Lou, who gave the new girl a broad grin as she took her place.
   There was a silence, followed by the arrival of the staff to the top table. Miss Annersley, sitting in the middle, bowed her head and spoke a brief Latin Grace and they all sat down to bowls of thick vegetable soup, very savoury and smoking hot. The baskets of rolls and twists were handed round and the girls fell to with appetite. They were hungry after the long journey and all their excitement.
   Only Nina regarded her portion with dismay. She had a small appetite at the best of times and the prefects at the head of the tables served generously. When the soup was followed by risotto, the new girl's face caught Mary-Lou's attention. She had been talking eagerly to everyone. Now she turned and touched Nina gently.
   "What's wrong?" she asked. "Don't you like it?"
   "Oh, yes," Nina said. "But I'm so very sorry, I really can't eat all this. The soup was so - so - "
   "So very filling," Mary-Lou finished for her with a friendly grin. "I know. Don't look so floored. Eat what you can and leave the rest. I'll speak to Katharine in a moment. Anyhow, it'll be only stewed fruit or something like that to follow."
   Nina looked her gratitude as she took up her fork. But it really was too much for her. She was finished long before the others. Mary-Lou accounted for her own share and then calmly rose and went to the head of the table where she had a word with the prefect who laughed and nodded. As a result, when the bottled gooseberries and custard were served, Nina was able to clear the small portion that reached her.
   Supper, or Abendessen as they called it here, was followed by Prayers, when Nina had to part from her friends. Vi put her in charge of Clare Kennedy, a girl of misleadingly nun-like appearance, and when Miss o'Ryan had finished Prayers for the Catholic girls, she marched them all back to Hall where Miss Annersley told them that she had nothing to say to-night. Many of them were very tired and they would all go to bed in a few minutes.
   "That is, all but the prefects," she added with a smile at those stately young women. "They have another half-hour. I hope you'll all sleep well and wake up fresh and ready for unpacking after Früstück. That is all, girls. Stand! Good-night, everyone. Sleep well! Thank you, Miss Lawrence."
   Miss Lawrence at the piano struck up a march and the school marched out to bed.
   Nina was so muddled with all the new impressions she had received, that she was thankful to undress, say her prayers and snuggle down under her plumeau from which Vi had helped her to remove and fold the blue counterpane. She was asleep almost at once and she never stirred until the clanging of the bell woke her at half past seven next morning to a realization that Cousin Guy had got his way after all and she was at school and felt she was going to enjoy it.

CHAPTER 5
SETTLING IN

    "Hello, folks! Here we come!" Thus Mary-Lou in her