"I did put them in my locker, but somebody's taken them out!" protested Rhoda.
"Well, I didn't, at any rate! I've never even seen your shoes!"
In a violent hurry the girls rushed away, leaving Rhoda alone in the dressing-room, still searching for her missing property. It was only when she had examined every one of the long row of lockers that she discovered her shoes stowed away under the books of Mabel Pollitt, who was absent that day, and therefore could not possibly have appropriated them. Changing as quickly as she could, Rhoda ran out to the hockey ground, to find the captain in a ferment.
"We've been waiting five minutes for you, Rhoda Somerville! Why can't you be punctual? I shan't allow time to be wasted, and if you're late again you may stop away altogether, so I give you fair notice!"
"I couldn't find my shoes!" panted Rhoda.
"A very poor excuse. Have them ready next time, and then there won't be all this trouble!"
Carrie Lowman was nudging her chum, Beatrice Blair, and the two were giggling with such open amusement that it was not difficult for Rhoda to know to whom she might attribute her loss. She taxed them with it, but they only burst into peals of laughter, and refused to answer her.
"I'm sure they did it," said Doris Brewer, who was friendly to Rhoda. "I saw them sniggering over something in the dressing-room."
"Next week I shall put my shoes inside my desk, so that no one can play tricks with them," declared Rhoda. "It's much too bad to rag me like this."
Carrie and her chums considered Rhoda, as a new-comer, fair game for any sport, and they were prepared to take advantage of her ignorance in many ways. Rhoda's mathematics were decidedly below the standard of the rest of the Form; and one morning, when she had been even less successful than usual, Carrie approached her after school.