Paying Patty Out

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 234, 2 October 1937, Page 2 (Supplement)

Paying Patty Out

A SCHOOL STORY FOR GIRLS

Poor old Monica! You never sajr such . a face of despair in your life. IJut when I stole a glance'at her lialf-way 1111 <• ii<■ li the lesson she was smiling in •ui odd little way 1 knew of old. Thanks to having lived in France once, I had .i part in the senior play, and for the next week we were so busv rehears - in» that i hardly saw anything of Monica.

I'M going to betrin by saying thai I don't Maine Monica, a bit. Apart • from her being my chum, I think *ny other girl at t'lulT Chase College Would havo done just, the saint', if only aho'd had the wit to think of it. You *hm\ Patty Dcnliam was so frightfully try iiig. .She was a now girl that term, and one of the worst possible specimens. Naturally, ono expects new girls to be rather quiet for the first few weeks, and grateful to anyone who takes notice of them. How's a girl ever to get looked up to (till she gets into the fifth or sixth, I mean) unless the new arrivals <lo it? Po you will understand when I say that from, the very lirst moment Tatty 1 >enliam »over looked up to anybody. Far from it. What she evidently expected was that everyone else should fall down and worship her.

T hey did it, too. 'Hie first time I ever saw her, thongh she had not been in i lie school more than three hours she was holding forth to half a dozen admiring youngsters.

" K very body has to bring at least four dresses to school every term," we heard l,et! ice Middleton say. (Monica was with me. of course.) Lettice was rather a silly little thing in the second, who, wore lots of imitation jewellery. <>h. (hat's nothing!" said Patty with a tenilie air. "hour dresses! Why, at mv last school a girl was sent home If s.ie It.i.ln tat least six, and, of course, I always brought far more than that." Ihe stupid little girls aU round her gasped. "How many frocks have you brought lierc : asked Joan Dering. "Oh, I can't count them all," swaggeied l.itty. "there are crowds of irocks, not to mention hats and shoes and other things, in my trunks." "Trunkal" shrilled Jx-ttice. "Why, Were only allowed to bring one each!" "i'h. you may be." i'atty snitTed as she put a handkerchief, simply reeking with scent, to her nose. "1 brought tJnee and a hat box." I looked at Mon a arid Monica looked ' could see that she was bursting with rage. With one accord we bullied aero-s the room to squash this a ma'in:,' new girl. There's nothing timid aliciiit my chum; she dashed into I lie middle of the group und interrupted i'atty. I.ook here, new girl, whatever your name she said in no friendly voice, "you just stop stuffing the little ones with all these silly tales. New girls should be seen and not heard." Monica has a way with pushing people that is positively crushing, and I waited to see I'atty Denham wither up. She did nothing of the sort. She just looked, smiling, round the little circle, and then straight at Monica.

"'What very large feet yon have!" she ob»erv(jd sweetly. And at the same time she lifted her skirt just a little so that nobody could help seeing a small, silk stockinged ankle and slender brown shoe.

Monica wont ns red as fire. She hasn't at all bad feet, really, but they ceitamly were clumsy compared with i'attv.s fairy like ones, and the thick brogues site had on made them look linger than I hey were. Patty pointed her little shoes daintily, and the girls round her began to titter. on mu-t take quite a large four," the new girl went 011 mercilessly. ".Now, my t-i/e is a narrow two," •Monica nearly choked. She only takes threes, which is about the average <,/ L . i n our form. I thought it was time to speak. 011 won t find the teachers here go by leet. but by brains!" 1 said hotly; and mv shot went home (we found out later- that Patty was backward for her age 1, lor the upstart new girl stamped her beautiful little shoe with rage. "lint you just wait, Sybil," said Monica furiously, as we stalked away. "You just wait. I'll pay that hateful girl out, it I have to wait all the term to do it! " I knew she would. Monica is like that. She doesn't often get angry, but when she does she'll do anything—absolutely anything—without caring a pin lor 1 lie consequences. She believes in cutting oil' her nose to .spite her face. I or a tew davs after that I expected nil e\pli>«ion at any minute, but it. did ii"t conic, although Patty Denham very soon made hersell a power, especially aiding the lower forms. She was put. into the third, for which we of the foiiith were \ery thankful, and soon she! \\ni-, a soi l ot acknowledged queen of the three junior forms. 1 don't know how ••he did it. for none of the little ones really liked her. She was always boa-ting about her wealth and her importance at home, and especially about her small feet, of which she was rii'kcniugly proud. Hut she had heaps of pocket money, which she spent on sweets and presents for her favourites, and nearly all the juniors toadied toller, though none of the older girln could bear her.

At ( luir ( liiiMo College we «ro great on I hen I rica Is. We have two or three phi\s almost every term, und all the 1 111 renl s who 1i ve near enough come to t-''e I hem. The entertainment is always about tin* ini<hllo of the term, «o it makes :i lovely lireak, wliich We all look )'«>r\\ ;i nl 10. This particular term Miss -M;i<'ken/.ie, the head, had decided on a French play, which the seniors were to a<(, and a musical version of "Cinderella" for the juniors. I'n 11 y Den ham danced with joy when phe heard this. "< >f course, I shall be chosen for Cinderella because I've got sucji tiny feet!" she boasted openly. She wan chosen, too, to our intense annoviinee; really for her acting, which was licitcr (hail that of most of tile junior-', hut phe persisted in giving the « i • • 111 lo her beautiful feet. In a few (l.i \ those feet of hers were like a red i ■ a hull to the whole of the senior " I hut tin? little ones still hung •'"in .1 h• ■ i-. Hi l t erinjf and admiring. "Ih.uiU I'm not acting with • I I" liv «■ I'd liite her head olf if ' 1 -aid .Monica vindictively to , "" "i n. in ~ni- seats waiting for 11 hii-imv I < —',ii. iiihl just at that Mi-" M.i I'l-. i'ii zie sailed in. ~' 1 '!*' 1 listers in the junior ''"• V :l dillicult solo," shi! .snid, "and 'is none of the younger ones can manage tin. f" U< !. t " import a girl from \hit'il I , l ' t " l '£ c thu vnt- -M»nioa ITandsford thinks J" t l.e most suitable member of her • >„ will to rehearsal n the music room aftj-r tea to-day "

I lie next thing that happened, three day* before the performance, was the. mysterious disappearance of Patty's silver shoes, which her mother had hail specially made for her to wear as Cinderella. For days the school had rung with stories about their beauty and costliness and wondcrlul smulliiess. 1 really thought Patty would go out of her mind when they vanished suddenly Irom their box in her wardrobe. "My beautiful, beautiful shoes!'' she raved. "They're stolen! Someone's jealous because my feet are so small, and has hidden them out of spite." tf h« looked straight at Monica, her bitterest enemy, as she spoke, and, unseen by her, Monica looked at me, and very slowly winked. I can tell you, mv heart stood still to think of her recklessness. But the very next day, to the immense surprise of everybody, the shoes reappeared in the box in Patty's wardrobe, exactly where they had been lost. Of course, half the school declared that Patty must have dreamt the whole thing, although everybody had seen the empty box the day before. Patty was teased a good bit, and when she declared angrily that the shoes were stretched now, so that they no longer fitted her minute feet, nobody would believe her. Even Miss Mackenzie was inclined to think that Patty had imagined the whole tiling, though she soothed her by promising that the matter should be thoroughly investigated as soon as the play was over. On the programme "Cinderella" came first, and the French play did not follow- until after the visitors had had tea. Ihifi left me free till 5 o'clock, so with Betty Milson, another fourth form girl, 1 squeezed on to a windowsill at the back of the hall, to u to hear Monica's solo.

It was in tho first act, and went off splendidly. Hetty and I clapped her lor all we were worth, but not harder than other people did. She had to give the last verse again. We could have shrieked with joy, for Patty Denham hod 110 encores. The second act was the ballroom scene, where Patty wore her famous silver slippers, and dropped one ns she fled on the atroke of 12. There it lay, in the middle of the stage, and everyone could see how exquisitely >*mnll it was! I fairly boiled with rage.

Then came the third and last act, at Cinderella's home, when the herald brought round the slipper to find tho lady it fitted. l'hyllis Crowe, the other ugly sister, had to try it on first, and, of course, it was far too small. We could eee Patty, in her tatters, smirking away in the background. She •smirked more than ever when the herald knelt before Monica, with the shoe on a red satin cushion. Again all the audience could see how £.mall and dainty it was.

-Monica took off her own shoe very slowly. Still more slowly she lifted (lie silver one from the cushion. She j in-lit down and very slowly indeed she began to tit it on. Suddenly Betty clutched my arm in I the wildest excitement. I stared and [ stared, hardly believing my even. For i Monica, who by all rules and regulations should have tried that shoe and found !it hopelessly small —had got it on! j There she stood, with Patty's cherished footgear on her despised large foot, and a smile of wicked glee lighting up her face. "it fits! The slipper fits!" she said clearly, speaking words that were not in her part at all. JJetty stared; I stared; the audience stared. Putty stood spellbound, with the smirk wiped right off her face; then, without warning, she sat down and burst into tears! We agreed afterwards that it was the most awful thing that had ever happened at the college. A girl crying on the stage, in full view of the audi" cncel Only for a minute, though; then the curtain rattled down, and" in a curiously small voice Miss Mackenzie i>Tinouneed that tea was ready. Weil, Monica had had her revenge; at last she had paid Patty out, and well I'atty deserved it. No one, 1 noticed that afternoon, was louder in condemning the queen of the lower school than the juniors were. Perhaps that was why, in spite of iny utter scorn of her liabyishness, I began to feel sorry for Patty lien ha in. "\Y ell, old girl," I said to Monica, as we undressed that evening, "you got your revenge all right. It was the cleverest plot I ever heard of in my life." Goodness, why couldn't I feel more enthusiastic about it? Monica was brushing her hair. She shook it well over her face before she answered. '•Yes, I've paid Patty out, and she won't forget it in a hurry. Of course, you've guessed that when her shoes disappeared it was I who took them, to put them on trees a size too big, so that they <1 stretch a bit. I managed to get them on, though they pinched like anything. Only"-—was her voice really shaking?—" Sybil, I wish I hadn't done it."

I had plenty to think about before I went to sleep that night. The next day, of course, there was a row royal; both .Monica and Patty were in it. Monica had a frightful time because of what the head called her "peculiarly mean trick," and Patty, who we'd expected would be pitied and comforted, just as bad a one because she had disgraced the school by losing her presence of mind. Mis* Mackenzie is great on presence of mind and coolness in emergencies, and Patty had not shown either. Both the girls were crying hard when th£y came out of the head's study, and found me waiting for Monica in the passage. "tome on, Mon," I said, not quite liking to look at Patty, who for once wiiis very humble. "All right, Sybil," said Monica, in a tired port of way. She turned red/ and hesitated. Then she went up to Patty and put an arm round her. "I pay—forgive me. I was frightfully mean," she half whispered. "And I've been a horrid, vain pig/' sobbed Patty on her shoulder. "Forgive me, too, Monica. If only you and Sybil would be friends with me, p'r'aps I'd be a dec-enter girl. It served me right about the Fhoes." "Shake hands on it," I paid, and Patty put her hand first in mine and then 1" Monica's.