"Suppose we were to take all their hockey sticks and hide them," was Monica's suggestion. "Think what a stew they would all be in! If the sticks didn't turn up before match day we could promise to find them on condition that Pam played in the netball match, instead of the hockey match. It is quite easy to get hold of the sticks. They are all kept in the gym room."
Prue's eyes began to sparkle. Then her face fell. "Yes, but where could we hide them so they couldn't be found? Short of digging a hole in the garden and burying them—and for that we've neither the time nor the tools—where could we put them? They'll search everywhere, every nook and corner."
Monica bent forward and whispered earnestly in the ears of the other two girls. When she had finished, Meggie was giggling and Prue smiling broadly.
"It might work," Prue admitted. "They might not think of looking there. Anyway, it's rather a lark."
"Who's going to do it?" asked Meggie. "One alone can't carry all the sticks."
"I should think we three would be sufficient," replied Monica. "The fewer in the secret the better. I shouldn't tell the other girls. A secret shared by so many would cease to be a secret, you know."
"That's true," agreed Prue. "I'll go and get the key while the staff are still at dinner. I know just where it hangs in Miss Cazalet's room, 'cause I've fetched it for her more than once. You can skirmish around and see that there's no one hanging about near the gym room. With all the Fifth and Sixth away it's an opportunity we shan't get again."
The gym room, which was situated at the back of the building, was plunged in darkness Meggie switched on the light at one end, and by the time Prue had joined them, holding up the key in triumph, she and Monica had noiselessly piled all the hockey sticks and pads they could find into three heaps on the floor. Meggie had also found three balls, one used for practices, the other two kept for matches. Each burdened with a heavy load, the three conspirators slipped out of the door that led from the gym room into the garden behind and vanished in the shadows. Ten minutes later they reappeared, and joining the girls who belonged to the indoor games club, played draughts or ludo in the library with serene and innocent faces till the supper bell rang.
While this dark deed was being planned and carried out at school, the innocent victims were enjoying themselves thoroughly at the theatre. The only one whose thoughts were not given wholly to the play was Nat, and though she laughed as heartily as the rest when Bottom was "translated" into an ass, she could not keep herself from constantly wondering how the black sheep of the form was spending her lonely evening. The part of Puck was taken by a young girl, and somehow the slight, graceful little figure darting to and fro in the dimness of the stage, bent on impish mischief, reminded Nat of Monica. Many times she had seen the cold, unfriendly expression of her little face soften and sparkle with just that look of impish roguery. She pictured her sitting alone in the study all the evening, with the hard, bored look on her small features, little dreaming that while the real Puck was busy laying traps for unsuspecting mortals on the stage, the other was similarly occupied at school.
The curtain descended on the happily united lovers, rose again for the "tedious brief scene" of young Pyramus and his love Thisbe, and descended for the last time on Puck's good night to his audience. Laughing and chattering, blinking and yawning, the party of schoolgirls caught the last train home, and by the time they entered the gates of St. Etheldreda's the clock in the steeple of the parish church was striking half-past eleven—an extraordinary time for St. Etheldreda's girls to be out of their beds.