CHAPTER THIRTEEN: A BLUE MONDAY

"Phyl, do come away from that window; you've been staring out into the dark ever since dinner." Janet spoke from the depth of her favorite chair where, as usual, she was ensconced with a book and Boru. To-night Sir Galahad was cuddled down on her shoulder as well, for his own mistress was restless company. Boru eyed the interloper with open disapproval. There was a truce of  sorts between the two animals; a truce not In any way to be confused with a peace. Boru's bared teeth and Sir Galahad's arched back were constant signs that a state of war existed between them.

"What under the sun are you looking at?" Janet went on impatiently. "You give me the fidgets."

"Oh, read your book," Phyllis said without turning. "I'm only star gazing."

"Read? How under the sun can I, with Galahad and Boru making faces at each other under my very nose. Come and take your cat, or I will dump him on the floor; he's making Boru miserably jealous."

Phyllis sighed and turned reluctantly from the window.

"Poor old kittens, didn't his Aunt Jan love him? Well it was too bad! Come to his own mistress." She picked up the eat and held him in her arms. Galahad purred contentedly and rubbed his silky ear against her soft cheek.

Unconsciously Phyllis returned to the window. There was a light in the window of the house across the yard. It was the same window where only a few days ago the caretaker had fitted the wire screen with so much care. To-night the shade was down, but a shadow passed and repassed, looming large and mysterious behind it.

"What under the sun is he doing in that room?" Phyllis pondered, encouraging the mysterious reasons that flitted through her head and enlarging, upon them.

A prodigious sigh from Janet interrupted the most thrilling story of all, and she gave up and returned to her place on the sofa.

"Do you realize that just forty-eight hours ago we were having the time of our lives?" Janet demanded.

"It seems years ago to me," Phyllis replied. "What fun it was! I don't think I ever had a better time at any party I ever went to."

"Well, I never went to any other party," -- Janet laughed -- unless you'd call the church fair at Old Chester a party, and I don't. I call it a nightmare." She made a wry face as memories assailed her.

"How about the tea party we gave at grandmother's?" Phyllis inquired. "We had fun at that, wearing each other's dresses, do you remember?"

"Of course, but I wouldn't call it a party," Janet frowned, trying to think of a better word. "I think it was an experience," she said at last.

Phyllis laughed. "What makes you say that?" she asked.

"Well, if you had heard the things those girls said about me to me, thinking I was you, why, you'd understand," Janet said, and she smiled a little wistfully.

"Jan," Phyllis asked suddenly, "tell me some thing honestly and truly. Do you ever miss Old Chester?" Janet thought for a minute and then shook her
head.

"No, I honestly don't," she said slowly. "And I can't make myself, somehow."

"Do you try?"

"Yes, sometimes."

"But why?"

"Because I think I ought to. It seems so thankless of me to go whole days without even remembering there is such a place."

Phyllis jumped up from the couch, tumbling Galahad to the floor and threw her arms around her.

"Oh, you darling!" she exclaimed. "I could hug you to death for saying that. You're such a queer dick that sometimes I get seared to death and think surely you are pining for the country, and then I want to die of misery. You're so quiet and queer sometimes."

Janet return her twin's hug with interest.

"You want me to be like you," she laughed, "and I never will be. I suppose I've been quiet so long that it is a habit. I just can't help thinking long thoughts, I always have, you see, but, oh, Phyl, they're all happy thoughts these days,"

"And you don't miss a single person, ever?" Phyllis persisted.

Janet hesitated; she wanted to be quite honest.

"Well," she said at last, I do miss Peter once in a while; that is, I wish he were here to talk things over with, and sometimes when I read something I like awfully much I sort of wish I could tell him about it," she finished lamely.

Phyllis nodded in perfect understanding. She knew that Peter Gibbs held the same place in Janet's thoughts that her girl friends held in hers.

"I wish I had seen him" she mused. "It's so much more fun to talk about a person you know than to have to imagine all about them. Whatever possessed him to run away just before I came? I think it was downright mean of him, and some day I'm going to tell him so."

"Tell him Christmas vacation, " -- Janet laughed. "He is going to be with Mrs. Todd at the Enchanted Kingdom, and so we'll probably see him."

"And so we will probably see him," -- mimicked Phyllis. "I guess there won't be much doubt about that," -- she yawned, and as if in answer to her thoughts the clock struck nine.

"Let's go to bed; school to-morrow," she said sleepily. "Thank goodness Christmas is not so very far away. I'm going to lie in bed just as late as ever I want to, in Old Chester."

Janet smiled to herself. She pictured Martha's shocked surprise at the very idea of staying in bed just for the fun of it, but she did not disillusionize Phyllis.

Monday morning is always a restless time at school, for the girls are all too busy living over the events of the week end to settle down to lessons, and this particular Monday, coming as it did just after Muriel's party, made it even harder than ever.

The four girls, Phyllis, Janet, Daphne and Sally, were the center of attraction, for the rest had only heard in part the story of their exchange of partners and they wanted it all.

"I heard that Jerry Dodd was sick in bed all yesterday," Rosamond teased. "He laughed so hard that he broke something in his side."

"You mean he ate so much," drawled Daphne. "I told him if he insisted upon eating the sixth chicken pattie he would be sorry, and now I hope he is."

The girls were all sitting on desks as near as they could get to Sally and Janet.

"Dancing school begins next week," Eleanor announced. "Who's going this year?"

"You and Janet are, aren't you?" Rosamond asked Phyllis.

"I haven't asked Auntie Mogs yet, but I suppose we are," Phyllis replied. "How about you, Daphne? "

"Oh, yes, might as well." Daphne knew all there was to know about dancing, but she did not consider that any reason for stopping.

"We're going of course," Eleanor said, "and, Sally, of course you'll come."

But Sally shook her head. She had been unusually quiet, but none of the girls had noticed it. Now they all looked at her in surprise.

"Oh, but, Sally, why?" Rosamond demanded.

"What's all this?" Madge Camion stopped to join the group on her way to senior row. "Sally not going to dancing school? Preposterous! It won't be any fun without her. What's the trouble?"

"Wouldn't be worth while," Sally said shortly."

"Worth while! Sally Ladd, what are you talking about!" Phyllis demanded. Something in the expression of Sally's eyes made her realize that she was not joking.

"I mean I won't be here after Christmas," Sally said in a dull level tone, and she stared straight before her as she spoke.

"Won't be here?" -- the girls gazed at her in stupefied astonishment.

"You don't really mean that you are going to boarding school?" Eleanor demanded. "You said something about it at the beginning of school but no one believed you."

"Well, it's true," Sally said dismally. "Mother had a letter this morning from the head of the school and it's all arranged."

"Oh, Sally -- " the girls were speechless, each tried to picture the loss of Sally, first to herself, and then to the school; then they looked at Phyllis and Janet and then at Daphne, and realized that their sorrow could not be compared to theirs. One by one they slipped away, and the four girls were left alone. 

"Oh, Aunt Jane's poll parrot, do say something, " Sally said at last. There were tears in her voice, and the girls were quick to notice them.

"Oh, Sally, why didn't you tell us?" Phyllis asked.

"Didn't get a chance," Sally replied; "and anyway I couldn't somehow."

Janet put her hand over her friend's and squeezed it. There was nothing to say.

"It's -- it's all wrong, " -- there was more feeling in Daphne's voice than her usual drawl permitted.

The bell fell on their silence a minute later.

It was not until the study hour was almost over that Phyllis realized that Muriel had not come. Sally's news had completely swamped all other thoughts. She put up the lid of her desk and under its cover slipped a note back to Janet. She read it and passed it to Sally, who shook her head and looked puzzled.

"Hope she isn't sick," she whispered.

Muriel did not arrive until study hour was over, and the girls were chatting in the ten-minute interval. 

"Hello!" Phyllis greeted her as she slipped into her seat. One look at her face made her add: 

"Why, what is the matter?"

Muriel's eyes were red and swollen, and she looked as though she had been crying for hours. Phyllis did not show as much concern as she might have, for it was a well-known fact that Muriel cried very easily. 

At Phyllis's question, she buried her head in her arms and started to sob.
"Something terrible has happened," she managed to say. "I'm so nervous I simply can't stop crying. I've been interviewed by policemen and detectives all morning and I am frightened to death."

Phyllis put her arm around her consolingly.

"But what has happened, dear? Tell us," she begged.

"Oh, it's too terrible for words!" Muriel was certainly prolonging the agony.

"What is?" Sally demanded sharply.

"Chuck's little cousin has been kidnapped!" It was out, and Muriel looked up long enough to judge the effect on her hearers and then fell to sobbing again.

Phyllis felt something in her throat contract.

"Little Don?" she asked.

"Yes, and, oh, dear, just because I'd seen him in the park yesterday I had to answer all kinds of questions, and I'm all nervous and tired out."

The girls looked at the crumpled heap in disgust. It was like the Muriel of this year to insist on being the central figure.

They went back to their desks in thoughtful silence.

Phyllis sat beside Muriel, quite unconscious of her tears; her hands were clenched, and her eyes saw nothing but Don's impish little face.

Continue to chapter 14