Enough of that. I was just carving my name on my desk-lid—very deep and nice it was to be—when all at once I noticed that Mr. Gorrisen was looking at me. He stared as if he were staring right through me, stared steadily as he came across the room.
Oh, my unlucky ear-tip! His fingers held it as tight as a vise. Up I must get from my seat and across the floor was I led by the ear to the corner of the room. There he let go of me.
Well! Imagine that! A pretty sight I made standing in the corner on Examination Day! If only Mrs. White and Madam Tellefsen had not been sitting there! They would surely go and tattle about it all over town.
Truly I would not stand there any longer. Mr. Gorrisen was reading a piece aloud just then, so all at once I lay flat down on the floor and crept over to the desks. Once I had got under the desks, it was easy enough. Kima Pirk gave me a horrid kick in the back, and Karen whacked my head when I was directly under her desk, but that was only because I pinched them as I passed. I could hear them all whispering and whispering above me—it was great fun—and I crept farther and farther. I thought I would go to the last desk, you see. There, now I had reached it. I got up and settled myself in the seat, wearing a most innocent expression.
I looked at Mrs. White. Her face seemed to get sharper and narrower just from severity; but Madam Tellefsen laughed so that she had to hold the end of her French shawl over her face. I had got very warm and my hair was very dusty from that expedition under the desks, but I didn't mind that.
Fully five minutes passed before Mr. Gorrisen saw me. But all at once when I had begun to feel pretty safe, came:
"Why, Inger Johanne! Have you walked out of the corner without permission?"
"No, I have not walked, Mr. Gorrisen," said I.
"She crept," the others murmured faintly.
"She crept," said Kima aloud from her desk in the front row.