“Well, we don’t,” Straight reminded her sharply, “so it’s no use wishing. We’ve worn ourselves out before this trying to guess. The thing to do is to think of some regular picnic of a stunt that they’ll just wish they’d thought of first. Then they’ll respect us more, and realize what a mistake they made in having a snippy little 19— society, when they might have had us in it too.”
“S-h!” ordered Fluffy impatiently. “Nobody can think of anything while you chatter along like that. Let’s keep perfectly still for five minutes—just eat and think. I’m sure we shall get at it that way. Georgia, you’ve got a watch that goes. Tell us when time’s up.”
Georgia was too much occupied with keeping track of the time limit to hit upon an idea, and when Straight’s sundae gave out at the end of the second minute, she could not keep her eyes and her mind from a furtive consideration of the menu. So nobody interrupted Fluffy when, at Georgia’s “Time’s up,” she shot out a triumphant, “I’ve got it!”
“I’m not sure whether it’s four minutes or five,” said Georgia anxiously, “but if you’ve got it, Fluffy, fire away.”
“Well, only the general plan,” explained Fluffy modestly. “I think we ought to set a silly fashion. We can—girls are like sheep, and we’ve made a reputation for doing interesting things that all the others wish they could do too. We can call the thing the ‘C. I.’s’—that’s for Complete Idiots—and not tell a soul what it means until we’re ready to back out and let our devoted followers feel as silly as they have to. It will be a circus pretending to be keen for it ourselves and egging the others on, and it will just show the B. C. A.’s that we’re not as young and simple-minded as maybe they think us.”
“That sounds good to me,” agreed Georgia, “only what fashion shall we set?”
Fluffy frowned and rumpled her hair absently. “I can’t think of anything silly enough. Big bows and pompadours and coronet braids and so on are as silly now as they possibly could be. Shoes without heels wouldn’t be extreme enough. Prexy wouldn’t let us wear a uniform, even if we could think of a ridiculous enough one. I guess it can’t be anything about dress.”
“Some fad for our desks, like ploshkins,” suggested Straight.
“Only not a bit copy-catted from that, because some of the B. C. A.’s helped start ploshkins,” amended Georgia.
“Let’s take another think,” said Fluffy.