Billie Bradley and Her Classmates: or, The Secret of the Locked Tower

“Please let me explain – ” began poor Billie, but the teacher interrupted her.

“Yes, I want you to,” she said. “Only not just now. Come to me to-morrow morning at nine, Billie. And I want you to be there also, Amanda. In the meantime,” she added to the latter, “you will make no mention of this affair in any way. Do you understand?”

Amanda nodded sullenly and at Miss Arbuckle’s command the small group of girls that had gathered dispersed to their various dormitories, talking excitedly of what had happened.

Billie was too tired and cold and worn out with conflicting emotions to talk much at first. But under the tireless cross-questioning of the girls she gradually began to give them the story of her remarkable adventure.

They were very much excited about Nick Budd and the cave, and declared that they must visit it and Billie must show them the way.

But Billie, who was comfortably stretched out on her bed with Vi rubbing one half-frozen hand and Laura the other, absolutely denied that she would do anything of the sort.

“It sounds very interesting now,” she said. “But I tell you I was scared to death while it lasted. I wouldn’t go back to that place for a million dollars. Oh, girls,” she added, stretching luxuriously, “you don’t know how heavenly it feels just to be where it’s warm.”

“Didn’t Teddy keep you warm?” asked Rose Belser, wickedly, but just then the door opened and Amanda came into the room. Needless to say, Billie did not answer the question.

Promptly at nine o’clock the next morning Billie went to Miss Arbuckle and told her the story of the yesterday’s adventure just as it had happened, and Miss Arbuckle, to Amanda’s immense disgust, believed her. A little talk by the teacher on the wisdom of taking fewer chances in the future ended the interview to which Billie had been looking forward with not a little dread. And Amanda found herself once more facing the problem of how “to get even with Billie Bradley.”

The girls talked and wondered about the queer little cave and simple Nick Budd, but as the days went on and they were whirled into a veritable mælstrom of quizzes and examinations, they gradually forgot the incident.

It seemed that the school work was to be unusually interesting that year. There were the usual number of essays to be written, and for one Miss Walters had offered a prize to the girl turning in the best work.

The title of the essay was “The World’s Greatest Generals,” and any girl in the school was entitled to try for it. There were other prizes offered, too, but Billie, whose mark in English was usually the highest in her class, thought that she would try for the composition prize.

Laura and Connie and Rose Belser were going to enter the lists with her, but Vi and Nellie Bane decided to try for the highest mark in geometry.

“Working for a prize makes the work seem more like a game,” said Connie as she happily looked up her “greatest generals.” “I’m as excited as if I were going to a party.”

“Well, you’d better not get too excited,” advised Vi, pulling a lock of her hair absently in order to solve a particularly steep problem in her beloved geometry. “Billie is sure to come off with the essay prize.”

“Oh, she is, is she?” spoke up Rose, who had set her heart on the essay prize herself and who could never quite stifle her former jealousy of Billie. “Well, maybe she is, but I’m going to give her a run for her money just the same.”

“Good!” cried Billie, looking up from her book and smiling sunnily at Rose. “That’s the kind of game I like to play.”

“And how about us?” said Laura, smiling ruefully over at fluffy-haired Connie. “We don’t seem to be in this at all.”

Besides their studies, the girls had the Ghost Club to think about and the importance of initiating new members. They had decided upon two of the freshmen for the honor, one, a fair-haired intelligent girl named Ann Fleming and the second a laughing imp of a girl with red hair and red-brown eyes who bore the name of Ada Slope.

Both girls stood well in their studies and showed a remarkable popularity among their classmates considering the short time they had been at the Hall.

And of course they were overwhelmed with joy when Billie drew them aside one day and ordered them to be in the gymnasium at not later than nine o’clock that night.

They were there before nine, shivering in the darkness of the big gymnasium and wishing that this fearful business of being initiated were over and done with.

A few minutes later the “ghosts” arrived and put the girls through a series of trials that tested their courage and endurance to the limit.

They were made to “walk the plank” blindfolded; they were prepared for “branding with a red-hot poker” and then touched with a lump of ice that made them cry out in imagined pain; they were handed all sorts of slimy things, harmless in themselves but terrifying to the overstrained nerves of the girls.

But they came out of the test with flying colors, and the members of the club were well satisfied with their choice.

“And now,” said Rose Belser – who was still president of the club – as the handkerchiefs were removed from the eyes of the new members, “we are about to put to the test a new rule suggested by a fellow ghost.”

The girls held their breath, for the announcement was a surprise to all but Billie, who had herself made the suggestion.

“It occurred to this fellow-member of our illustrious club,” Rose went on in a deep voice, looking very weird and ghostly in her long white ceremonial robe, with only slits cut in it for the eyes and nose and mouth, “that it is only fair to the new members who have stood the test, to suggest some difficult feat for one of the old members to perform – this person to be chosen by the new members of the club.”

The girls were silent for a moment, sitting there like so many actual ghosts in their white robes, and they thrilled with excitement as they realized the possibilities of the new rule if it should be accepted.

It was fair, for it would give the girls who had gone through the hazing a chance to “get even,” and it would also be lots of fun for themselves. So when Rose called in a sepulchral voice for a vote, there was a unanimous cry of “aye.”

Billie smiled under her white mask gleefully. She had known that the girls would be good sports.

“The suggestion has been unanimously accepted,” Rose rumbled on in the deep voice she adopted for such occasions. “Fellow ghosts, we will now withdraw and give our fellow members a chance to consult upon this important topic.”

“You don’t have to withdraw,” cried red-haired Ada Slope, with a giggle that she could not entirely suppress, despite the “seriousness of the occasion.” “I’ll give a nickel to any girl who will climb up into tower number three with only a candle to see by.”

“And I’ll give a dime,” said Ann Fleming decidedly.

A ripple of very human laughter ran through the ghosts, and Rose had to demand order three times before she was obeyed.

“Very well,” she said then. “Our new members have decided. It now remains for them to select one among our number to do this mighty deed. Advance, new members of the Ghost Club! Choose!”

Ann Fleming put out her hand and touched one white-robed figure.

“I choose this one,” she said.

“’Tis done!” cried Ada Slope, dramatically.

Oh, poetic justice! For the chosen one was Billie!

CHAPTER XIV – A BLOOD-STAINED HANDKERCHIEF

The next problem was to find the candle for the “ghost” to carry up to the gloomy heights of tower number three. Ada Slope, little minx that she was, had chosen this particular one of the three towers for which the Hall was named, because of a legend among the girls, starting from goodness knows where, that this tower was haunted.

Now Billie was not by any means a coward, and she had proved by her behavior in the spooky old mansion at Cherry Corners that she was not inclined to belief in or fear of ghosts.

Yet when Ada Slope ran hastily up to her room and returned bearing a tiny Christmas candle, which was all that Billie was to have to accompany her on her perilous journey, it must be admitted that her heart began to beat a little faster and she was guilty for a moment of wishing that Ada Slope had picked on any other girl but herself.

However, she acted so perfectly that there was not one of her chums but who thought that she was delighted at the chance to explore the gloomy old tower – with one little candle for company!

“Suppose – ” she thought to herself as Laura lighted the candle for her – or at least she thought it was Laura; they all looked pretty much alike in their ghostly robes – “suppose it should go out when I reach the top of the tower and I should have to find my way back in the dark!”

“Courage,” Rose Belser cried, as she pushed Billie toward the door, the candle flickering in her hand. “There are those who say that tower number three is haunted. But let me remind you, friend, that a ghost is never afraid of a ghost. Farewell!”

This was not a very encouraging speech, though Billie could not help giggling about it as she climbed the back stairs to the first floor.

The house was as still as death, for it was after ten o’clock now, and everybody, even Miss Walters, seemed to be in bed.

Billie almost ran up the second and third flights, stumbling over her white robe and shielding the flickering candle with her hand for fear it would go out.