“Why, Gee Gee had been expatiating at great length on the impossibility of really creating, or annihilating, anything—the indestructibility of matter, you know.”
“I see,” said Laura, nodding.
“Oh, she brought up the illustrations in ranks and platoons, and regiments. I guess she thought she had got the fact hammered home at last, for she said: ‘You absolutely cannot make anything.’ And then Bobby speaks up, just as innocent, and says: ‘But, Miss Carrington, can’t we make a noise that didn’t exist before?’
“And what do you think?” cried Jess, giggling, “Poor Bobby got a black mark for it. Gee Gee said she did it to make the class laugh.”
“And Bobby did, didn’t she?” said Laura, but laughing, too.
“Oh, we laughed all right. But the lesson was practically over. Gee Gee ought to be glad if we can leave her class room in anything but a flood of tears!” completed Jess, as they came to Central High School.
CHAPTER III—A REAL ALARM
A bevy of girls were lingering on the steps and in the portico of the High School building. Mr. Sharp had given permission for the girls interested in the formation of the athletic association to meet in the small hall—“the music room” it was called,—on the third floor of the building, next to the suite given up to the teachers’ offices and studies.
Laura and her dearest friend, Josephine Morse, were welcomed vociferously by many of the waiting girls. Among them was Bobby Hargrew, but Laura did not tell her of the result of her practical joke in the window of the grocery store. Indeed, there was no opportunity to speak privately to Miss Harum-scarum. She came running to meet the chums just as Dora and Dorothy Lockwood, who were twins, crossed their path, arm in arm.
“There!” cried Jess Morse, “which of you two girls did I lend my pencil to yesterday in chemistry class? I declare I meant to mark the one I lent it to somehow; but you were dressed just alike then, and you’re dressed just alike now. How do you ever tell each other apart?” she added, shaking both twins by their arms.