She reached for a pencil to make a sketch of Madame Perceval to put in the letter to her father, and knocked her history book off the corner of her desk. It fell with a bang and she felt everybody's eyes on her. She bent down to pick it up. When she put it back on her desk she looked at Madame Perceval, but the teacher was writing quietly in a note book. Flip sighed and looked around. There was no clock in Study Hall and she wondered how much longer before the bell. Erna, sitting next to her at the desk by the window was evidently wondering the same thing, because Flip felt a nudge: she looked over, then quickly took the rolled up note Erna was handing to her. She read it. "How many more dreary minutes?"
Flip reached across the aisle and nudged Solvei Krogstad, who had a watch. Solvei took the note, looked at her watch, scribbled "ten" on the note, and was about to pass it back to Flip when Madame Perceval's voice came clear and commanding.
"Bring that note to me, please, Solvei." Flip was very thankful that she wasn't the one who had been caught.
Solvei rose and walked up the aisle to the platform on which the teachers desk stood. She handed the note to Madame Perceval and waited. Madame Perceval looked at the note, then at her own watch.
"Your watch is fast, Solvei," she said with a twinkle. "There are fifteen more dreary minutes, not ten."
Very seriously Solvei set her watch while everybody in the room laughed.
After Study Hall while they were all gathered in the Common Room during the short period of free time before the bell that sent them up to bed, Gloria said to Flip, "I say, that was decent of Percy, wasn't it?"
Flip nodded.
"Imagine Percy being the Dragon's niece!" Then Gloria yawned. "I say, Philippa, have you any brothers or sisters?"
Flip shook her head.