For an hour no sound was heard but the scratching of pens and the rustling of paper, except now and then when a long-drawn sigh escaped the lips of one or other of the girls, as she realised her inability to solve a difficult problem.
By that time Olive had come to the end of her resources and could do no more, so she fastened her papers together and then began to look about at the other girls with a view to seeing how they were getting on. Her desk was in one corner of the room, and Monica (who long since had had to be moved to a distance from Olive, on account of whispering) was in the centre of the second row quite near the front. Lily Howell and her ally, Maggie Masters, were next to each other in the opposite corner from Olive's.
A glance at Monica showed her to be still hard at work over her paper, so Olive turned her attention elsewhere. As she looked across at Lily, their eyes met, and Olive turned away quickly, for she did not want to get into trouble with Miss Churchill, who might think they were communicating with each other in some way; but a peculiar expression she had seen in Lily's light grey orbs impelled her to look again a few seconds later, and then what she saw horrified her, and her eyes seemed rooted to the spot! For Lily was positively making copious use of the contents of some little note-book or paper, (Olive could not detect which) that was cleverly hidden, on the desk, by Maggie's pencil-box, from Miss Churchill's view.
"The horrid, mean, hateful sneak!" Olive, in her anger and contempt could not find enough opprobrious epithets. "She's got all her tables, and a whole lot of hints copied out, I do believe, and of course, now she'll go and beat Monica; but I'll be even with her! A nice scrape she'll get into!" And Olive chuckled to herself at the thought of what was in store. "Perhaps she'll be expelled, and a good job, too. I'd better nudge Gipsy, and make her see, in case the sneak goes and declares she didn't cheat."
Olive glanced over into the other corner again, but--nothing wrong was to be seen! All trace of the notes had vanished, and Lily was neatly ruling her manuscript paper as if no such thing as cheating had ever entered her head!
"Oh, you wretch!" And Olive felt as if she could have done anything to her, so exasperated was she to think that she had been "done"; for not once again, during the time that remained for the arithmetic paper, did she catch a glimpse of the missing paper. At length the gong sounded, and whether completed or not, the girls had to fasten their sheets together and hand the papers in to Miss Churchill.
They were glad enough to stretch their cramped limbs, and let their tongues loose during the recreation that followed, in discussing the questions and comparing their answers. Olive, of course, told Monica what she had seen Lily doing, and how vexed she was to think she could not prove it to Miss Churchill, if she were to tell her.
"Oh, let it be," said Monica, who loathed telling tales; "she'll be so mad if you tell, and she'll be sure to declare it wasn't a crib."
"I shall tell if she comes out top."
And Monica could not persuade her otherwise.