"Oh dear! And I shall be sixteen on Wednesday!"
"Is it your birthday next Wednesday?"
"Yes, but it won't be much fun. We're not allowed to do anything particular, worse luck."
It was one of the Brackenfield rules that no notice must be taken of birthdays. Girls might receive presents from home, but they were not to claim any special privileges or exemptions, to ask for exeats, or to bring cakes into the dining-hall. In a school of more than two hundred pupils it would have been difficult continually to make allowances first to one girl and then to another, and though in a sense all recognized the necessity of the rule, those whose birthdays fell during term-time bemoaned their hard fate.
It struck Marjorie as a very cheerless proceeding. She found an opportunity, when Irene was out of the way, to talk to her room-mates on the subject.
"Look here," she began. "It's Renie's birthday on Wednesday. I do think it's the limit that we're not supposed to take any notice of it. I vote we get up a little blow-out on our own for her. Let's have a beano after we're in bed."
"What a blossomy idea! Good for you, Marjorie! I'm your man if there's any fun on foot," agreed Betty enthusiastically.
"It'll be lovely; but how are we going to manage the catering department?" enquired Sylvia.
"Some of the Juniors will be going on parade to Whitecliffe on Wednesday. I'll ask Dona to ask them to get a few things for us. We must have a cake, and some candles, and some cocoa, and some condensed milk, and anything else they can smuggle. Are you game?"
"Rather! If you'll undertake to be general of the commissariat department."