CHAPTER XX
AN AFTERNOON AT GYM
It happened to be wet that Thursday afternoon, and as all hockey practice was scratched in consequence, a gymnastic class was hastily arranged for the Middle School, to take the place of the outdoor exercise.
This quite met with the approval of the girls, the majority of whom were as keen on gymnastics as they were on hockey. An extra practice such as this, too, was specially enjoyable, for drill would be reduced to a minimum, and exercises upon the various apparatus would be the order of the day. The Middle School included the Lower Fifth, the Fifth Remove, and the Upper, Middle, and Lower Fourth Forms; and directly after dinner the girls concerned hurried to their cubicles to change into their gymnastic dresses.
Gerry was not looking forward to the afternoon with quite the same enjoyment as the rest of the Middle School. She was not at all keen upon gym. In fact, she would much rather have played hockey, which, now that she had grown used to it a little, she was really beginning to enjoy. Gym to her was still a very formidable affair, and the giant's stride, rings, vaulting horse, and parallel bars filled her with terror. So far she had escaped very lightly. Miss Caton, the gym mistress, had seen how nervous and frightened the new girl was of all the feats the other girls performed so gaily upon the different apparatus, and she had contented herself with initiating Gerry very slowly into their mysteries. But this afternoon Miss Caton was not taking gym practice. Muriel Paget and three other athletic members of the Sixth were officiating in her place, as Gerry found when she wandered into the gymnasium rather earlier than most people, because her changing had not been delayed by all the talking and excitement prevalent amongst the other girls. There was nobody to come into Gerry Wilmott's cubicle in search of a mislaid hair-ribbon, or to borrow a darning-needle to cobble up holes in a stocking which the scantiness of the gymnastic costume might display to the eyes of authority.
The four seniors were gathered at one end of the gym, discussing what exercises they should give the school. Gerry made her way down to the other end, where, curled up against one of the radiators by which the room was warmed, lay Bruno, whom Gerry had not seen for some days past.
She stooped down to pat and caress him, pleased at seeing him again. Much to her surprise, however, he growled and showed his teeth for a moment, a very unusual thing for Bruno to do. She had never known him anything but good-tempered hitherto, and from the very beginning he had always shown a marked affection for her.
"Why, Bruno, what's the matter? Don't you know me?" Gerry said, keeping, nevertheless, at a safe distance from him. At the sound of her voice the dog rose to his feet, wagging his tail in a deprecating manner and thrusting his nose into her hand as though apologising for his irritability.
"Poor old fellow," said Gerry, cautiously stroking his head. "Wasn't he feeling well then, and did it make him cross?"
A group of girls drew near the radiator, Phyllis Tressider and Dorothy Pemberton amongst them. Gerry, in her absorption in Bruno, did not notice them at first, but Dorothy's sharp eyes soon discovered Gerry.
"Hullo! Look at German Gerry—she's found the black dog!" she said teasingly.
Gerry looked up with a start and flushed scarlet, but she made no reply, and Myra Davies, a girl from the Upper Fourth, inquired curiously:
"What on earth do you mean, Dorothy?"
"Why, German Gerry's found her black dog!" came the jeering answer. "It was sitting on her shoulders all the morning and she couldn't get it off. I knew it was a pretty big one, didn't you, Phil?" she added, seeing from Gerry's rising colour how surely her remarks were going home, "but I'm hanged if I knew it was such a big one as that."
Gerry closed her lips firmly and braced herself to bear the teasing in stoical silence. She knew it would do no good to say anything. Both Dorothy and Phyllis were far too quick-witted and too ready with their tongues for her to hope to compete with them in repartee. Besides, she knew quite well that if she were to venture to say a word, she would be greeted with a cool and astonished stare, while somebody would murmur something about "Germans," and so effectually silence any remonstrance she might try to make.
Fortunately for her self-control, Muriel turned round at this moment and called out orders for the forms to take up their places; and in the hurry of obeying the head girl's command, Gerry and her black dog were forgotten for the time being. Just before beginning the drilling, however, Muriel caught sight of Bruno, and sharply demanded to know who had let him into the gymnasium.
"Please, Muriel, I think he belongs to Gerry Wilmott," said Phyllis maliciously.
Muriel frowned severely at the girl.
"Don't talk rot, Phyllis," she said squashingly. "I don't know if you think that's funny—but if you do I'm sorry for your sense of humour. Gerry, did you bring Bruno into the gym?"
"No. He was here when I came in," answered Gerry, still hot and flushed, but very grateful to Muriel for so promptly crushing Phyllis's witticisms. She had been very much afraid that her enemy might have gone on to disclose Miss Burton's remarks in form that morning about the little black dog.
Muriel accepted her explanation without comment.
"Somebody had better turn him out," was all she said. "Phyllis Tressider, you seem to know a good deal about him—you can do it."
Phyllis cast a resentful glance at Gerry. Whenever Phyllis or Dorothy got into trouble with the head girl, they appeared to put it all down to Gerry's account, however unreasonably. There was nothing to be done in the present instance, however, but to obey the order, and Phyllis, leaving her place in the ranks, laid her hand rather roughly on Bruno's collar.
"Come along!" she said impatiently, attempting to drag the dog to his feet.
Bruno resisted her efforts to move him, and gave an ominous growl and snap which caused Phyllis to remove her hand from his collar with alacrity.
"I don't know what's the matter with him, Muriel, but he looks as though he was going to bite!" she exclaimed.
The head girl came over to her side.
"Nonsense!" she said. "Bruno bite? Why, he's the best-tempered dog I ever came across!" and she held out her hand coaxingly to the big black fellow.
But Bruno resisted all her blandishments, retreating farther into his corner, and at last Muriel thought it wiser to let him alone.
"Oh, well, perhaps he'd better stay," she said. "He seems very bad-tempered and unlike himself to-day. He won't be much in the way if he stays where he is now. Everybody will have to take care not to tread on him while marching round, that's all. Now, are you ready? Right turn! Lower Fifth, lead off in single file. Go!"
After some ten minutes or so of marching and arm and body exercises, Muriel ordered the girls to stand aside while the various apparatus were made ready. This was the time for which the girls were longing. Soon they were divided into four sections and sent to different parts of the room to practise on the apparatus under the supervision of the four prefects. The giant's stride was perhaps the most popular. This was a form of gymnastics in which the whole school delighted, and many envious glances were cast at the Lower Fifth, to which, as the most senior form in the Middle School, the giant's stride had fallen first of all.
"Come on, Gerry, here's a rope for you!" called Muriel to the new girl. Muriel had undertaken to direct the operations on the stride. But Gerry hung back.
"Please, Muriel, need I? I can't do it, really I can't. Miss Caton always lets me off it."
"Nonsense! Come along at once!" said Muriel impatiently. "I'll help you for the first round or two. You'll soon get used to it." And without heeding Gerry's remonstrances, she insisted upon the girl coming into the ring and taking her place at a rope.
"Hold on firmly with both hands to the bar," the prefect directed. "Swing your body well forward when we begin to move and I'll give you a good push-off."
Gerry hated this particular form of merry-go-round. It made her feel sick and giddy, and she was unable to work her body backwards and forwards rhythmically enough to keep her place in the magic circle. She gasped for breath and held on tightly while Muriel ran her two or three times round the ring, and endeavoured to work her body as the other girls were doing. But the result was a hopeless failure, and when the head girl, having given her pupil what she thought was a super-excellent start, left go her hold, Gerry swung helplessly at the end of her rope, getting into the way of the girl who was swinging behind her, and finally bringing them both to an ignominious finish in the middle of the ring.
"What a donkey you are!" said Margaret Taylor angrily. She stooped down to rub her ankle, which Gerry had kicked rather hard in her efforts to keep herself going. "I was having a perfectly lovely swing, and now you've made me lose my turn." And she continued to glare angrily at the unfortunate new girl until the other striders dropped out one by one and the ring finally stopped.
Muriel made Gerry have one more try, but with no better results than before. After that, the new girl was handed on to Monica Deane, who was superintending the vaulting-horse. Gerry fared no better at this, and although each prefect in turn tried their hand upon her, none of them could find anything in the nature of apparatus upon which the new girl could perform with any measure of success.
Muriel Paget had been keeping her eye upon Gerry, and saw the hopeless exhibition the Lower Fifth girl was making of herself. But the prefect was determined to conquer the nervousness which was such a handicap to her protégée; and acting upon the plan which had succeeded so well with Gerry at hockey, she cast about in her mind for something to set her to do which would help her to make a start.
Finally she thought of the rope ladders.
"Nobody, not even the most hopeless duffer at gym, could make an utter mess of them, surely," she thought to herself, and ordered the ladders to be let down. But even here she had reckoned without Gerry's nerves! The girl was in a desperately overwrought state by this time. The troubles of the last few days culminating in her disgrace in class that morning, added to the hopeless exhibition she had been making of herself all through the afternoon, had rendered her unfit for even the simplest thing. When ordered to climb the rope ladder she obeyed dumbly, much in the way a condemned man might obey the order to walk to the scaffold; and, spurred on by Muriel's urging from below, she did succeed in mounting to a fair height. But rope ladders are not such easy things to climb as a novice might suppose. They have a nasty knack of doubling up and slipping away from you when you least expect them to, and when she was some thirty feet up this was what happened to the one Gerry was endeavouring to mount. And instead of trying to regain her balance, the girl gave way to the panic that had possessed her more or less all the afternoon.
She clutched desperately to the rope with her hands, and pushed hard with her feet, which, of course, only had the effect of turning her still more upside down.
"Let your body hang limp until you are in a proper position again," called Muriel. But Gerry was far too terrified and unnerved to act upon her directions, even if she had been able to take in exactly what they meant.
"Muriel! I—I can't get right way up," she gasped, struggling to keep her self-control. But Muriel did not realise quite how frightened Gerry really was. She spoke impatiently as she answered her, while a gale of laughter at the unsightly figure poor Gerry made as she clung to the rope like a drowning man, went through the gymnasium.
"Don't be such a little goat, Gerry!" cried the head girl. "Come down again if you can't go any farther, but for goodness' sake make an effort of some sort!"
Making an effort of any sort was quite beyond poor Gerry's power at the moment. It seemed to her that she would soon be hanging quite upside down, and when that happened she was sure that she would have to release her hold. Already everything was swimming around her; black specks danced before her eyes, and at last she gave vent to her terror in an anguished cry for help.
"Oh, Muriel! Muriel! I'm going to fall!" she cried, with a piteous note in her voice. And seeing that she really was in extremities, the head girl was obliged to run up the ladder herself and bring her down.
"Well, you are a little funk!" she said in some disgust, as she set Gerry on her feet again, and stood surveying her white face and trembling figure; while the Middle School, amused and interested spectators of the scene, pressed about the two at a respectful distance. She might have said more, but at that moment someone in the background exclaimed audibly:
"Why, of course! Isn't it German Gerry? What else do you expect her to do but funk!"
The head girl swung round sharply, but she could not identify the speaker.
"Who said that?" she demanded angrily. But nobody would give the culprit away. However, the remark had the effect of cutting short her reproof to Gerry, and with a dry: "Well, you'd better ask Miss Caton to let you have extra gym practice until you get into it a bit, I should think," she let the matter drop.
"That's enough for this afternoon. Fall in, please, order of forms," she said, addressing the assembled girls. Monica Deane went to the piano and struck up a lively march. And to the tune of "The Coster's Wedding" the Middle School marched out of the gymnasium and repaired to its various dormitories to get ready for tea.