Free The Naughtiest Girl in the School by Enid Blyton Page B

tennis.”
    “Joan, it was decent of you to speak up for me,” said Elizabeth. “Thanks awfully. But don’t do it again, because, you see, I want everyone to think I’m too bad for this school, so that I’ll be sent home,”
    “Oh, Elizabeth, do get that silly idea out of your head!” said Joan. “I’m quite sure that the school won’t send you home, and you’ll only go on getting yourself into more and more trouble. Do be sensible.”
    “Do you really think they won’t send me home, however badly I behave?” said Elizabeth in dismay. “But surely no school would want to keep a really bad child?”
    “Whyteleafe School has never expelled anyone yet,” said Joan. “So I don’t expect they’ll start on you. You’ll just have a perfectly horrid time, instead of having a lovely one. You’d have much more chance of going home if you went to Rita and said you’d be good if only she would do her best to get you home because you were so unhappy here.”
    “Really?” said Elizabeth, astonished. “Well, I didn’t think of that. Perhaps I’ll go to Rita. I’ll see. I am really getting a bit tired of remembering to be bad. There are so many nice things to do here, that I can’t help enjoying myself sometimes.”
    “I think you’re a silly goose,” said Joan. “Come on down. It will soon be seven o’clock, and you know you’ve got to go to bed directly after supper for a whole week, instead of at eight o’clock.”
    Elizabeth frowned. “I’ve a good mind to go at eight o’clock, just to spite them!” she said.
    “Oh, don’t be foolish,” said Joan. “Do you suppose the Meeting cares if you go to bed at seven or eight? You’ll only be hurting yourself, not anyone else, if you’re silly.”
    “Oh,” said Elizabeth, seeing for the first time that she was spoiling things for herself far more than she was spoiling them for other people. She sat and thought for a minute.
    “Listen, Joan,” she said, “I’ll do as I’m told this week, See? I’ll obey the orders of the Meeting, and go to bed early, and miss all the things I love and at the end I’ll go to Rita and tell her I’m so unhappy that I simply must go home, and I’ll see what she says. I’m sure she could tell Miss Belle and Miss Best and they could write to Mummy for me.”
    “Well, you do that,” said Joan, getting a bit tired of Elizabeth’s curious ideas. “Now do come on-bother- there’s the supper-bell, and we’ve wasted all this time!”
    They had supper and then poor Elizabeth had to go straight upstairs to bed. Nora popped in to see that she had obeyed the orders of the Meeting and felt quite surprised to see Elizabeth under the sheets.

    “Good gracious!” she said. “You are learning to be sensible at last! Now just you listen to me, Elizabeth -the Meeting hates punishing anyone as much as they have punished you this week so be good and sensible and obedient, and you’ll find that everything will be all right at the next Meeting. By the way, I’ll take up your bedside rug the cleaner comes tomorrow, and I’ll see that it’s put ready for him to take.”
    “Thank you, Nora,” said Elizabeth, in a very good voice.
    The week that followed was not a pleasant one for Elizabeth. She had to see the others go out riding without her. She had to sit indoors and copy out sums instead of going out sketching with the painting class. Worst of all she had to tell Mr. Lewis that she couldn’t have her music lessons that week.
    Mr. Lewis was disappointed. “Well, aren’t you a little silly?” he said, patting her on the shoulder. “What a pity! And we were going to do something rather exciting this week too-I’ve got Richard Watson to learn a duet, and I thought you and he could play it together. Duets are fun.”
    “Oh dear,” said Elizabeth in dismay. “I’ve never played a duet, and I’ve always thought it would be fun, Could you wait till next week, do you think, Mr. Lewis? I might get all my punishments