Sue wasn’t serious but Mimi jumped at the idea.
“Sue, you angel!”
She hugged her and turned her around a time or two.
“You think of the grandest things! That’s exactly what we will do and we’ll have a midnight feast—a roof garden party!”
There! The plans had been made that quickly. Sue had no difficulty buying and preparing the food. On the promise of three sandwiches, a college freshman went to the grocery for her. The rest had been easy. The girls who would have to sleep out were the ones who had trouble. They couldn’t sleep on the bare tin roof, but how could they get the mattresses out? They figured and planned. Finally, Mimi worked it out.
There were only seven to sleep out. All right, they would sleep crosswise; four on one mattress, three on the other. They would take the two mattresses out of Tumble Inn and get them out the sitting room window onto the porch roof. Sue and Chloe objected loudly until they heard the arrangements made for them. Chloe was to sleep with Madge’s roommate and Sue with Jill’s.
The whole plan must be kept secret. That was hard, almost as hard as tugging and rolling and pushing the mattresses out. They had to wait until dark, and from the time they were out, until she saw Mrs. Cole’s light go out, Mimi worried for fear Mrs. Cole would find Tumble Inn vacant and the beds torn up. That would be too bad!
There was, also, a threat of rain. If it would just hold off until the feast was over, surely the roommates of the beauty cult could not be so cruel as to leave them shivering and wet. But long before the weather changed, and for an entirely different reason, the girls were taken from the roof, but not before they had had a feast.
Sue had done well. It was quite the swankiest spread of the year—paper napkins if you please and as a big special surprise, ice cream suckers. The man had packed them in dry ice and sealed them in a carton. They were still frozen hard when Sue proudly passed them around.
Mimi ate and ate.