"Yes, Miss Tulip."
"We'll meet in the classroom before breakfast," Erna whispered.
As she lay in bed that night, propped up on one elbow so that she could look down the mountain side to the lake, Flip had a surprising sense of homecoming. She had missed, without realizing that she had missed it, being able to see the lake and the mountains of France from her bed, and they seemed to welcome her back. And when she lay down, the familiar pattern of light on the ceiling was a reassuring sight. As she began to get sleepy she sang in her mind, On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree, and reached up to feel the silver pear on its slender chain about her neck.
8
"At last!" Erna said the next morning as the three of them slipped into the classroom.
"Go on, quick, before someone comes in." Jackie stepped onto the teacher's platform and climbed up onto the table, sitting on it cross legged.
"Yes, do hurry," Flip begged, sitting on her desk.
"Well, I have to begin at the beginning and tell you how I found out."
"Is it tragic?" Jackie asked.
"Yes, it is, and Percy was a heroine."