Free Third Year at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton Page A

should keep flying upstairs to look at Thunder's picture if I had a really good one. And I'm sorry about making Mary-Lou do my duties after Jean had told me about it. I'll tell her I'll do them all next week to make up.”
    “Right,” said Belinda. “I'll draw you a fine picture of Thunder, with you on his back, if you like, if you keep your word. But—I shall jolly well take it away if you start being silly, because I'm only going to lend it to you till I see if you'll keep your promise.”
    Bill laughed. She liked Belinda. She liked Irene, too. They both did the maddest, silliest things, but they were fun, and you could always trust them to do the decent thing. She longed for a picture of Thunder—she only had a very bad photograph of him. Now she was going to get a lovely drawing!
    Jean quite thought that it was a belated result of her ticking off that made Bill offer to do Mary-Lou's duties the next week. She was pleased.
    Belinda kept her word and gave Bill a beautiful picture of Thunder, done in black charcoal, with Bill on his back in her riding breeches and a yellow jersey. Bill was absolutely thrilled. She made Mary-Lou walk into the village with her to try to get it framed at once. She couldn't buy a frame there, so she took one of the horse-photographs out of its frames on her dressing table and put Thunder's picture in it, neatly trimmed to fit.
    Everyone admired it. “Now you remember, Bill, it's not yours yet,” Belinda warned her. “It's only lent. The very next time you dodge out of duties or third form activities you'll find that picture gone!”
    But although Bill was better from that day in trying to do some of the things her form thought she ought to do, she still didn't get on very well with Miss Peters. She would sit and gaze out of the window, She would forget that her name was Wilhelmina, she would daydream and not pay any attention to either Mam'zelle or Miss Peters.
    Mam'zelle complained bitterly, “This girl is not even polite! I say to her, “Wilhelmina, do not dream,” and she does not even bother to hear me and answer. I say to reply to me. Never, never will she learn any French-except for ‘ le cheval ’ Miss Peters. The only time I get that girl to turn round to face me is when I say suddenly the name of her horse. ‘Thunder!’ I say, and she turns round at once. She is mad that girl. All English girls are mad, but she is the most mad.”
    Miss Peters began to punish Bill in the way she resented and hated most. “Here is a returned maths lesson,” she said to Bill. “Do it please, and until you have brought it to me again you must not go to see Thunder.”
    Or she would say, “Wilhelmina, you have paid no attention in class this morning. You will not go to the stables at all today.”
    Bill was angry and resentful—and disobedient! She was not going to stop seeing Thunder for anyone in the world. Least of all for Miss Peters! And so, to Jean's disgust, she ignored Miss Peters” punishments and slipped off to see Thunder whenever she liked.
    Miss Peters did not even dream that Bill would disobey. “One of these days she'll find out, Bill,” said Alicia. “Then you'll be for it! You really are an idiot.”
    What with Bill and her horse, Zerelda and her ways, Irene and Belinda with their feather-brains, and Mavis and her opera-singing, Miss Peters considered that she had the most trying form in the school. “And all from North Towers too!” thought Miss Peters. “Really, I'm sorry for Miss Potts, their house-mistress. They must drive her mad! Now I wonder when Wilhelmina is going to bring me that returned geography lesson. She won't go to see that horse of hers till she does!” But Miss Peters was wrong. At that very minute Bill was in the stable and Thunder was nuzzling into her hand for sugar!

Alicia has a parcel
    THE days flew by. It was still very cold and Gwendoline and Mavis complained bitterly, and they huddled near the fire in the common room, or sat almost on