Rosalind pounced on the paper. "Oh, that's it. It's my essay. Where in the world did you find it?"
"It was in my English book. How it got there I can't imagine. It was certainly not there when I saw the book last. I lent it to Marcia. She said you had borrowed hers, and she didn't like to go and rummage in your room while you were out——"
"She wouldn't have had to rummage. It was right on the table," said Rosalind simply. "Did you read this, Alison? It's dreadful—"
"I couldn't help seeing the title and the first few sentences, but of course I didn't read any further. Honestly, Rosalind, I am puzzled to guess how your essay could have got into my book. Can you think?"
Rosalind frowned and puckered up her sunny face in a great mental effort.
"I haven't any book, myself," she confessed. "Mine fell out of the window, and I forgot to pick it up, and it rained in the night, and ruined it. It was so sopping wet, it just fell to pieces. So I've been getting along by borrowing the other girls' books. I borrowed Marcia's the other day, and forgot to return it to her—"
"So a lot of the trouble is due to your bad habit of forgetting to do things," said Alison severely. But she smiled as she said it, and Rosalind took the reproof with her usual sweet temper. "I know it was. But what then, Alison?"
"Then she borrowed mine, to study. She returned it to me, all right, but she forgot to explain what your essay was doing in it. I went out to track meet, and left Marcia studying for her essay. I hadn't looked through my book carefully, and if I saw any papers sticking out, I thought they were just my own notes. That is all I know about it, till I found your essay just now."
"Well, it's all right, now I've found it," said Rosalind easily. "They have to be handed in tomorrow. I'm so glad I'm on time, for once."
And with a relieved mind she danced lightly away, just as Marcia entered.