“And you’re one of the ‘nice’ ones, I suppose, Miss?” scoffed Hester.
“I hope I am. I don’t lose my temper and queer my team-mates’ play. And nobody ever caught me doing mean things—and you’ve been caught before. If it wasn’t for Gee Gee favoring you, you’d have been asked to leave Central High before now,” cried Bobby.
“That’s so, too,” said one of the twins, quite as angry as Bobby, but more quietly.
“I should worry!” laughed Hester, loudly and scornfully. “What if I did leave Central High? You girls are a lot of stuck-up ninnies, anyway! I hate you all, and I’ll get square with you some day—you just see if I don’t!”
It was perhaps an empty threat; yet it was spoken with grim determination on Hester Grimes’s part. And only the future could tell if she would or would not keep her promise.
[CHAPTER II—THE KERNEL IN THE ATHLETIC NUT]
The Girls’ Branch Athletic League of Central High had been in existence only a few months. Gymnasium work, folk dancing, rowing and swimming, walking and some field sports had been carried to a certain point under the supervision of instructors engaged by Centerport’s Board of Education before the organization of the girls themselves into an association which, with other school clubs, held competitions in all these, and other, athletics for trophies and prizes.
Centerport, a lively and wealthy inland city located on the shore of Lake Luna, boasted three high schools—the East and West Highs, and the newer and large Central High, which was built in “the Hill” section of the town, the best residential district, on an eminence overlooking the lake and flanked on either side and landward, as well, by the business portions of the city. The finest estates of the Hill district sloped down to the shore of the lake.
Public interest had long since been aroused in the boys’ athletics; but that in girls’ similar development had lagged until the spring previous to the opening of our story.
In the first volume of this series, entitled “The Girls of Central High; Or, Rivals for All Honors,” was related the organization of the Girls’ Branch, and the early difficulties and struggles of a group of girl sophomores, most of whom were now on the roster of the basketball team as named in our first chapter. Laura Belding was the leading character in that first volume, and her quick-wittedness and loyalty to the school and to the athletic association really brought about, as has been intimated, the building of a fine gymnasium for the girls of Central High and the preparation of the athletic field connected therewith.