Jean glanced at her furiously, and Barbara tugged away at the bootlace and began whistling again, to show how little she cared whether Jean was angry or not. Above their heads, the gossip went on busily about the style of the first hockey eleven.
‘How about our chances against the Wilford club next month?’ some one was asking.
‘As to that,’ said Margaret, with confidence, ‘if we only keep our heads we shall have no difficulty whatever in standing––’
She did not finish her sentence, for at that instant a violent onslaught on her right foot put a comical end to it by nearly upsetting her balance. She just saved herself by seizing the arm of the nearest girl, and the hockey gossip came to an abrupt finish.
‘What in the name of wonder are you children doing down there?’ demanded Margaret, wrathfully. The knot had come undone by this time, and Jean was tugging at one end of the bootlace, while Babs, with an elfish glee shining in her bright little eyes, was keeping a firm hold on the other end.
‘You go away,’ Jean was gasping in a choked voice. ‘I’ve done this for two years, and I’m not going to give up doing it now.’
‘You told me yourself I’d got to do it, and I’m not going away till it’s done, so there!’ laughed Barbara, in reply.
She made another dash at the foot between them, and the head girl again nearly lost her balance. ‘Stop quarrelling, and leave my foot alone, you naughty little wretches!’ cried Margaret, stamping her disengaged foot vigorously. Jean, with two years of discipline behind her, awoke suddenly to the voice of authority and started to her feet, covered with terror at the enormity of her offence. But Babs uttered a yell of delight at finding the victory so easily won.
‘Why don’t you unlace somebody else’s boots?’ she shouted defiantly to her adversary. ‘There’s lots of boots round here waiting to be unlaced.’
Margaret stooped down and lifted her up bodily, and set her on her feet beside Jean.