“‘GRACIOUS, GIRL! TURN OFF THE WATERWORKS!’”
“Whichever you like, so long as you look congratulatory and happy-in-our-school-days and love-our-teachers, and all the rest of it. What you want is to spread the butter on thick, then, when there’s an atmosphere of smiles, ask for a holiday and suggest the river. Yes, my children, I said the river. You didn’t misunderstand me; I speak quite clearly.”
“Whew! She’ll never let us! Might as well ask for the moon. Why, our river expedition was knocked off after that little business of the Zepp scare!”
“All the more reason why we should have it now.”
“Ray, you’re the limit!”
“Hope I am, if it means getting what we want. I propose a deputation to the Bumble, to state that the gratitude and devotion of the hive can only work itself off on water. Yes, Ardiune Coleman-Smith, I did say ‘the hive’, my sense of poetry being more highly developed than my love of exact science. You needn’t lift your eyebrows, it’s not a pretty habit.”
“Who’s going to make the deputation?” asked Fauvette.
“You, for one. You’re our strongest point. You look naturally affectionate and clinging and docile, and ready-to-be-taught-if-taken-the-right-way, and easily led, and all the rest of it. You’ll burble forth something pretty about wanting to have an expedition with our Principal in our midst, and mention what a wet day it was last year, and how disappointed we all were.”