"That's not likely, considering you're half my size," said the tall girl. "But you should look. What's your name?"
"Jocelyn Graham. What's yours?"
The tall girl frowned. "I am Ingrid Latimer, Senior Prefect here," she said coldly, and Joey understood that she had done the wrong thing in asking that off-hand question.
She became rather flustered. "Oh, are you? Then—when do you want your boots put on?" she asked nervously.
Ingrid frowned more alarmingly. "What on earth are you talking about?"
"I got the scholarship—don't I have to put your boots on?" faltered Joey. Now she came to put it into words it did sound an extremely silly thing to say. Somehow she wasn't surprised by the crushing tone of the Senior Prefect's answer.
"Please don't try to be funny; we've no use for that sort of thing here. Who put you up to all this?"
A light began to break upon Joey. Something hot surged in her chest. "Oughtn't I to have tidied the Lab either?" she asked, with the courage of desperation.
"Tidied the Lab! Why, no one's allowed there without Monsieur or the Chemistry Mistress. Look here, my good child, are you trying to be funny—I shouldn't, because it won't pay you—or are you the outsidest edge of imbecile new kids that ever came to Redlands?"
Joey was silent. She was trying to adjust things in her mind. The girls had had her on, and oh how easily! She was the outsidest edge in imbeciles, she supposed.