“New building across the street. Well, if you aren’t going, I am. Shall I bring you something? Maybe I’ll have a sandwich, too.”
“If you can get one for ten cents–no, here are some coppers. Hurrah!”
Evidently the girl behind Betty was emptying her store of small funds into the hand of the other girl. There was giggling and a scrambling after a copper that had dropped and rolled. Then one girl left and the other strolled over to join a group of girls by a window.
Betty wished that she had brought a chocolate bar which by the irony of fate she had taken out of her bag to leave it home! But she could go without a meal if she had to do it. She could get something to eat as soon as she reached home.
Rested now, she thought she would go over to the building which housed the junior high school and see if Doris and Dick were also waiting around. It was quite a little walk, or seemed so to Betty, but it was interesting when she reached the place and entered it. Scarcely any children were to be seen. She walked through vacant halls and decided that Doris and Dick had already gone home. She hoped that her mother would not be worried about her. There was no way of getting her word, though she had seen a telephone in the office. But of course she could not use that.
Time slipped by in some fashion. She went back to the auditorium, now about deserted. She watched the time, determined to be one of the first at the office door, and as all things come to an end at last, she found herself talking to a sober, dignified, yet kindly man in the office, arranging her schedule or, more properly, answering questions about the work she had covered, and receiving a “slip” to present to her “home room teacher” the next day.
It was all more or less puzzling to the young freshman from away; but she understood the next step and where she was to report on the following day. That would have to be enough. A somewhat breathless, excited, and very hungry Betty reached home at about two o’clock in the afternoon, welcomed by her mother as a returning prodigal and directed to where she would find the “fatted calf” or a more attractive substitute.
[CHAPTER IV: A REAL FRESHMAN AT LAST]
Mother suggested putting up a lunch for the children on the second morning of school, but Dick said that they would not need any. “One of the kids said that we get out the same time tomorrow,” said he. And Betty corroborated Dick’s statement.
“I’ll not have to wait in line today, Mother,” said Betty. “That’s all attended to. I know just what to do. You go to your home room, do whatever you are told to do and I guess you report to your different teachers. We get out at twelve-thirty. After we really have classes and two sessions there will be a place to get lunches, somewhere upstairs.”