"Take your seats," she now commanded, rapping vigorously on the desk and fixing them with her best school-teacher stare. "Violet Farrington, go to the board—"
But she got no further, for with an indignant cry the girls had rushed on her. Dropping both her air of command and her dignity, Billie scurried wildly around the room, keeping the desks between her and her pursuers.
"You can't catch me! You can't catch me!" she taunted them, as she dodged nimbly in and out among the desks. "I could keep this up all day, I could—"
"Oh, you could, could you?" cried Laura, and, making a desperate lunge, she almost had her hand on Billie's dress. "We'll see about that. Billie! what are you doing?"
For Billie had suddenly doubled on her tracks, rushed to the back of the room, put her foot upon a steam radiator pipe and was trying to clamber to the top of a bookcase.
It was a tall bookcase, and on the top of it stood a marble statue.
"Billie, look out!" screamed Violet as the bookcase shook and the statue seemed about to topple over by reason of Billie's wild scrambling.
"You won't catch me this time," Billie was defying them, when—the awful thing happened!
The marble statue toppled once more, trembled as though it were not quite sure whether to fall or stay where it was, then came tumbling to the floor with a crash.
The girls cried out, and then stood dumbly looking at the pieces.