"But what are we going to do?" asked one girl, helplessly.
"We could run 'em out, I suppose," said one of the older girls gloomily. "But I suppose we'd be run out ourselves as soon as Miss Walters got back."
"I don't see why Miss Walters left 'The Pickles' in charge, anyway," spoke up another of the girls fretfully. "She knew how horrid they were and how they've all the time been picking on us girls."
"Well, I don't see that it makes any difference why Miss Walters did it," Billie broke in, and there was something in her tone that made the girls stop talking and look at her expectantly. "The fact is, she has left the 'Dill Pickles' in charge and they're trying to starve us to death. Now what I want to know is this: Are we just going to stand around and let them do it? Or are we going to fight?"
"Fight!" they cried, their pale faces beginning to flush with hope.
"What do you want us to do, Billie?" asked Laura eagerly.
"Listen and I'll tell you." She leaned forward and one could almost have heard a pin drop in the room. "There's only one way I know of that we can get food that 'The Pickles' don't give to us."
"And that?"
"Is to raid the pantry and storeroom," said Billie, her eyes gleaming. "We'll probably find plenty of cooked things in the pantry, and if we don't, we'll go on into the storeroom and get canned sardines and vegetables and soup. I know I don't care what I eat, as long as I get enough of it."
The girls were silent a minute, staring at Billie half hopefully, half fearfully. To raid the pantry and storeroom? It had never been done in all the history of Three Towers. It would be open rebellion! And yet they were hungry—terribly hungry—two of them had been faint and sick from lack of food.