Free First Term at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton Page B

I haven't a wicked tongue like Alicia, or scornful eyes like Darrell. Why don't you make friends with me? I shouldn't jeer at you for any little kindnesses, I can tell you.”
    Mary-Lou looked at Gwendoline doubtfully. She really didn't like her, but Gwendoline smiled at her so sweetly that she felt grateful. And Alicia and Darrell really had been horrid to her when she had tried to do things for them. Then she remembered how Gwendoline had held her under the water.
    She took her arm away from Gwendoline's. “No,” she said, “I can't be friends with you, Gwendoline. You were very cruel to me that day in the pool. I've had dreams about it ever since.”
    Gwendoline was angry to think that the stupid, feeble little Mary-Lou should refuse to be friends with her. But she still went on smiling sweetly. She took Mary-Lou's arm again.
    “You know I didn't mean anything that time in the pool,” she said. It was just a joke. You've often seen the others being ducked. I'm sorry I ducked you so hard. I didn't realize you were so frightened.”
    There was something very determined about Gwendoline, when she had made up her mind about anything. Mary-Lou didn't know how to get away. So, as usual, she surrendered.
    “Well,” she said, hesitatingly, “Well—if you really didn't mean to hurt me, that time in the pool, Gwendoline, I'll be friends. But I'm not going to talk against Darrell or Alicia.”
    Gwendoline gave her arm a squeeze, bestowed another honeyed smile on the perplexed Mary-Lou and walked off to think out her suddenly conceived plan in peace.
    “It's marvellous!” she thought. “Everyone knows how fed- up Darrell is with Mary-Lou, because she's always tagging after her, and soon everyone will know how cross Alicia is because she has broken her mother's photograph. So, if I start playing a few tricks on Mary-Lou, everyone will think it is Darrell or Alicia getting back at her! And oh goody, goody. Alicia has to sit by Mary-Lou now! That makes it easier still.”
    She sat down in the Court and thought out her plan. She meant to revenge herself on the three people she disliked. She would scare Mary-Lou to death—but she would make everyone think it was Alicia and Darrell! Then they would be blamed, and punished.
    “And if I make close friends with Mary-Lou nobody would ever think I had anything to do with things,” thought Gwendoline, in delight. “Really, I'm very clever. I bet no one else in the whole of the first form could think of a plan like this.”
    She was right. They couldn't—but not because they weren't clever enough—but just because they weren't mean enough. Gwendoline couldn't see that. She couldn't even see that she was doing a mean thing. She called it “giving them all a lesson!”
    She laid her plans very carefully. She would wait her time, till Alicia or Darrell were carrying out the duty of tidying the classroom and filling the vases with water. Then everyone would know they and they only had been in the classroom and so had the opportunity of slipping anything into anyone's desk, or taking something out.
    She would pop a black beetle into Mary-Lou's desk—or a few worms—or even a mouse if she could get hold of it. But no—Gwendoline quickly ruled out mice because she was so scared of them herself. She didn't much like black-beetles or worms either, but she could manage to scoop those up into a matchbox or something.
    She could do that. And she could remove Mary-Lou's favourite pencils and hide them in Alicia's locker. That would be a cunning thing to do! She might put one or two of Mary- Lou's books in Darrell's locker too. And how sympathetic she would be with Mary-Lou when she found out these tricks!
    Gwendoline began poking round the garden to see what insects she could find. Jean, who was a good gardener, and liked to give a hand with the school garden at times, was most amazed to see Gwendoline poking about in the beds with a trowel.
    “What are you doing?” she asked. “Looking