"What's the monitress been doing?" she demanded sharply. "Marjory, come here at once and clean the board. Can you make a little more noise about it?" (as Marjory clumped her way to the front). "Where's the duster? Now be careful. You'll have the whole thing over. There! I told you."
For Marjory's vigorous and ungentle scrubbing had overbalanced the easel, and away crashed the blackboard on to the floor, breaking the pegs, and only just missing the window by a merciful inch. The form giggled, and Lesbia scolded as she helped to pick up the wreckage. The pegs were smashed and she had to sharpen them with a penknife before they would fit into their holes in the easel, and once more support the board. All this took considerable time and delayed the lesson. The girls watched as if it had been a specially provided entertainment. Marjory's face was not at all contrite; she unrolled the map so roughly that Lesbia took it from her and hung it up herself.
"Go to your seat," she commanded, catching a smile exchanged between Marjory and Ella, "and if I've any more trouble I shall report you."
The monitress shuffled back noisily between the rows of desks, giving a pinch to Gladys as she passed, an episode which Lesbia, anxious to get on with the lesson, judged it expedient to overlook. She had opened her book, ready to begin, when suddenly an unexpected thing happened. Through the open window sailed a queen wasp, and headed straight for the desks. It was, of course, very early in the year for wasps, but the queens fly abroad as soon as the spring stirs, and this one no doubt was intent on nest-building.
Instantly the form was in panic. The girls squealed, and dodged about, and ducked their heads.
"O-o-h! Look at it!"
"It's coming at me!"
"It's a hornet!"
"Mind, Ella!"
"I don't want to get stung!"