The Daring Game (19 page)

“I still can't believe she actually did it,” said Pam.

A
FTERWARDS, ELIZA WONDERED
what instinct made her say to her aunt, an hour later, “Can we go back to school now?”

“Now! But, Eliza, what about dinner? I've just put the roast on!”

“I don't feel well,” said Eliza. “I think my stomach is upset. I'm sorry, Aunt Susan, but I'd really rather go back now.”

“Poor dear—but why don't you lie down here for a while?” Eliza insisted, however, and the others said they would return with her.

Eliza's stomach
was
upset, with anxiety, by the time they reached Ashdown. What if Helen wasn't here? And she hated the puzzled look on Aunt Susan's face. Eliza had always kept her boarding life and her Saturday life in strictly separate compartments. This dare was mixing them up too uncomfortably.

There was no one in the hall to greet them. “Shall I go and look for a matron?” said Aunt Susan.

“It's all right,” said Eliza hastily. “We'll find one.”

They could hear the baby screaming in the car. “You be sure to tell her to put you right to bed, Eliza,” said her aunt. “I'll phone you tomorrow to see how you are.”

Miss Monaghan and nine boarders were in the dining room, noisily making lemonade. The matron looked up with surprise. “What are all of
you
doing here?”

“My aunt and uncle had to go out unexpectedly, so they brought us back early,” said Eliza tightly. Another lie—how many had she told today? She thought of a Scott quotation they had memorized that week: “O what a tangled web we weave / When first we practice to deceive.” But there were more urgent matters to worry about than lying: where was Helen?

Miss Monaghan squeezed a lemon vigorously. “That's too bad. But sit down and have some lemonade. Helen must still be studying over in the library—that's unusual! Why don't one of you go and fetch her? I have to lock the school building soon anyhow.”

“I will!” offered Eliza.

She returned, puffing heavily, a few minutes later. “Helen says she doesn't want any lemonade. I don't either. Miss Monaghan, can we play outside until supper? Carrie and Pam, do you want to come?” She looked at the other two desperately.

Miss Monaghan shrugged. “As you wish. Supper is at five—I'll ring the bell.”

H
ELEN HAD NOT RETURNED.
The three of them sat on the swings in silence trying to absorb this fact. Struggling not to cry, Eliza scraped the dust with her toe every time her swing came forward.

They had searched everywhere—all the classrooms, the dorms, the gym, the tennis courts, the woods and the playing field. “We'll just have to fake it until she comes,” said Eliza finally. “Maybe she's only late.”

“But she can't walk in the gate now. Someone might see her!” said Carrie. Already Miss Tavistock's little grey car had pulled up, and the matrons who had the day off would return any moment.

Pam put on her dorm-head look. “I think we should tell Miss Tavistock. Something could have happened to her. Helen's not used to large cities. She may have been hit by a car!”

“Or kidnapped!” added Carrie.

“Stop it!” Eliza stood up and faced them. She couldn't check her tears now. “
Please,
let's wait a little while at least. If we tell, we'll all be in terrible trouble—especially Helen. She could still sneak in. We just have to cover for her until she does.”

Finally she persuaded them to wait two hours, but Pam said she would tell after that. Eliza realized there wasn't much choice—perhaps something
had
happened to Helen. But she pushed this thought out of her mind as they tackled the immediate problem of what to do about supper.

S
ICKNESS SEEMED TO WORK
as an excuse for anything. Now it was Helen who languished upstairs with an upset stomach. “I'll just nip up and check on her,” said Miss Monaghan, turning into a nurse at once when they had told her this.

“Oh, no—she's gone to sleep and she doesn't want to be disturbed,” said Carrie guilelessly. Eliza watched her earnest face; Carrie was a much better liar than herself.

“Well … after supper then,” said Miss Monaghan. She showed them all how to make an Egg-in-a-Hole. Normally they would have enjoyed being allowed to cook, but none of the members of the Yellow Dorm could eat much.

After supper Eliza and Carrie dashed upstairs. Carrie got into Helen's bed and pulled the blankets over her face. Eliza drew the curtains and turned out the lights. Then they waited for Miss Monaghan.

“Is she any better?” the nurse whispered, peeking in at the door.

“Still asleep,” said Eliza, coming out and closing it behind her. “I was just checking.”

“She
should
go into the sickroom, but it probably isn't anything catching, and I don't want to disturb her. I have to go out now. You be sure to let Miss Bixley know she's ill.” Miss Monaghan hurried away humming. It was her night off, and she probably had someone to meet as usual.

They were fairly safe now until it was time to get ready for bed, and that was more than three hours away. Saturday evenings were usually a blur of confusion. People started
returning from their days out around seven, and before that those who had stayed in could do as they liked.

Eliza, Carrie and Pam decided to watch TV. They had replaced Carrie under the covers with Pam's pink rabbit. With its ears folded back under its head, it looked just like a person rolled up in the blankets. Miss Bixley, who had returned and accepted their story easily, was now safely established in the matrons' sitting room.

Television made a convenient vacuum in which to think. Eliza stared at the screen blankly, her mind in a frantic whirl. Pam's two-hour grace period had passed, but she seemed to have forgotten, or else she was just working up her courage to tell.

What should they do? A horrible suspicion had lodged itself in Eliza's mind: what if Helen had run away? She remembered her look of contentment on the beach because nobody knew where she was. Eliza
thought
Helen seemed happier now, but it was always hard to tell with her unpredictable friend. Surely she would let Eliza know if she was planning something so drastic. But would she? Eliza remembered the Pound Money and wriggled with anxiety.

She had just decided they would have to go to Miss Tavistock when the phone rang.

“It's for you, Eliza,” called Miss Bixley. “It's your aunt.”

Bother fussy Aunt Susan; Eliza hoped she hadn't told Miss Bixley she was supposed to be sick. Fortunately the phone was located in a private alcove away from all the sitting rooms and Miss Tavistock's study.

“Eliza? It's me. Don't act surprised, just listen very carefully. I had a hard enough time faking your aunt's voice.”

Relief flooded through Eliza. “Are you okay, Helen?” she whispered.

“Sure, but I'm really in a fix. I did a dumb thing—I got off the bus and hung around Dunbar Street, and I forgot I had no more money to get on it again.”

“Where
are
you?”

“In a park near the Dunbar Theatre. Have they discovered I'm gone?”

“Not yet. We're saying you're sick in bed.”

“Great! Keep it up. I'll wait until it's dark and no one can see me, then I'll come up the fire escape.”

“Oh, please be careful, Helen! We'll do our best.” Eliza's hand trembled as she replaced the receiver.

She got Carrie and Pam away from the TV and they had another conference in the gym, after informing Miss Bixley they were going to practise basketball shots.

“We have to tell,” insisted Pam, as soon as they left the residence. “It's way past the time I said I'd wait.”

“Shh!” Eliza hurried her inside the gym door, then she told them. “Helen phoned! She's okay! It could all work out now, Pam, you have to see that! She's counting on us.”

Carrie was worried about Helen wandering the streets on her own. Pam was even more reluctant. “Something could still happen to her, especially when it gets dark. It's just not right not to tell someone.” But Eliza finally
convinced them that, if Helen could get in safely, all of them would escape Miss Tavistock's wrath and the risk would be worth it.

Jean arrived back at eight. Their story terrified her so much that they knew she wouldn't say anything. The rabbit-dummy of Helen dozed on peacefully. When Miss Bixley appeared at a quarter past nine, their lights were already out. “In bed so soon? Good girls. Now no chattering, so you don't wake Helen. Goodnight, everyone.”

Lying in the darkness, Eliza felt some of the extraordinary tension of the day disappear. All they could do now was wait. At least she could stop worrying about concealing Helen's absence; now she just had Helen herself to be anxious about. She tried to fill in the gaps in the brief account Helen had given on the phone. What had she been doing all this time? And where was she now? She was taking so long …

Pam got out of bed, “Where are you going?” Eliza asked her jumpily.

“Just to the bathroom—don't be so suspicious, Eliza.”

Suspicious? Why would she be suspicious? She didn't have time to think of a reason, because as soon as Pam had disappeared there was a tap at the window, and in tumbled Helen.

“Let go, let go!” she gasped, as Eliza hung around her neck, and the others all started talking at the same time. “Just let me get undressed and then we'll be safe.”

She scrambled into her pyjamas and jumped into bed, pitching out the rabbit with a chuckle. “Whew!
What an incredible day! I'll never do
that
again! Wait till you hear …”

Eliza could only half-listen, she suddenly felt so drained. Some things were too exciting. But everything was all right now.

Then Helen stopped in the middle of a sentence. “Where's Pam?”

Before they had time to wonder, there were sharp rapid footsteps in the hall; then the lights flooded the room. “So you're back, Helen. Get up, everyone,” said Miss Tavistock, in the coldest voice Eliza had ever heard her use, “and tell me if what Pamela has just told me is true.”

17

Isolation

T
here were no tears left to cry. Eliza lay on the narrow sickroom bed and stared at the darkening sky outside the window. It was the same bed she'd been in when she was here in March. Part of her thought fleetingly of how much she had already cried into this mattress. But that period in the sickroom had turned into a healing rest; this time was becoming worse and worse.

She was in solitary confinement. Somewhere over in the New Residence, Helen, too, was isolated in a room. Or perhaps she had already left. How did they expel someone? Would she be smuggled away at dawn? Would Eliza ever see her again?

Her ears rang with words, all the words that had crowded the air in Miss Tavistock's study, spoken last night and today. She tried to stop them, but they kept repeating themselves in a relentless chorus. And the dominating voice was Miss Tavistock's.

First they had all been interviewed together, huddled on the couch, while the clock outside the study chimed the late hour. Eliza was squished between Helen
and Carrie, their bodies pressing against hers with a comforting warmth.

The story had emerged quickly, drawn out by the headmistress's piercing questions. It became painfully evident how large a part Eliza had played, by agreeing to stage the dare at her aunt and uncle's in the first place and by being the ringleader of the concealment. Eliza was glad that Pam's initial role was also revealed; but she knew that, by telling, Pam had cancelled out much of her wrongdoing. At least nothing had been said about any of the other dares. Miss Tavistock still thought this was a single occurrence.

“I am not going to tell you tonight,” she said, in the same icy voice she'd used all during the interview, “what I think of this dreadful behaviour, except to say you are in very serious trouble. Helen and Elizabeth, you will each sleep in isolation. The rest of you go upstairs without a word. None of you will go to church, and I will speak to each of you separately tomorrow.”

Eliza woke up with the Sunday rising bell and was handed a breakfast tray and her clothes by a silent and disapproving Mrs. Renfrew. She choked down some bacon and toast, terrified of the approaching interview. It was so lonely, not being able to talk to the others—at least Carrie, Jean and Pam had that consolation. Ever since the lights had flashed on last night, she had felt as if she were dreaming.

It wasn't until the end of the morning that she was finally back in the headmistress's study. At least she
was being allowed to sit down. Miss Tavistock, erect in her straight-backed chair, looked tired. Her usually immaculate hair was escaping in wisps from its bun. Eliza glanced once into her clear blue eyes, then looked away. She also avoided the eye of Miss Peck, looking down at her reproachfully from the portrait. I will
not
cry, she thought stubbornly and dug her thumbnail hard into her little finger to keep from doing so.

The first sentence of the lecture was the hardest to bear: “I am talking to you last, Elizabeth, because it is you in whom I am most disappointed.” Then the headmistress proceeded to list all of Eliza's transgressions.

Eliza felt removed; she could only whisper, “Yes, Miss Tavistock,” at appropriate intervals. Shocked at her detachment, she noticed that everything Miss Tavistock was saying began with a “D”: “Deceit,” “Deliberate Defiance,” “Dangerous” and “Disloyalty.” As the level voice continued she squirmed with guilt, wishing the headmistress would finish telling her what she already knew and get on to the most important part: What was going to happen to her? And to Helen?

When the stinging words finally ended, Eliza tried to make her voice work without her ready tears interfering. “I'm sorry, Miss Tavistock. It was a stupid thing to do, although we didn't know it would turn out to be so complicated, and we didn't deliberately rebel against the school. I really am sorry.” She sat limply and waited for the headmistress to pronounce her sentence.