Billie Bradley and the School Mystery: or, The Girl From Oklahoma

If Billie was sensitive to the only partially disguised amusement that followed them wherever they went, Edina was even more so.

She noticed, even before Billie did, that subtle drawing off of the other girls, even from their adored Billie. Edina spoke of this one day, in her clumsy, blundering way.

“You’re gettin’ yourself in a heap of trouble, tryin’ to be nice to me. I seem to make trouble for every one I – like. I’d best go back to Oklahoma to Paw and Maw and leave you in peace.”

“Nonsense!” said Billie, eying her protégé sharply. “You aren’t getting cold feet at this late date, are you?”

Edina shook her head.

“No, I’m willin’ to stick. The girls ain’t been so mean since you’ve been nice to me. I’m gettin’ some book learnin’, too,” the round face shone suddenly with eagerness. “I don’t do so bad in my classes.”

“You are doing splendidly,” Billie encouraged her. “I was speaking to Miss Arbuckle about you yesterday, and she said that if all her students were as eager to learn as you, her task would be much easier. She was as pleased as punch with you, Edina.”

The girl’s face beamed with a sudden radiant happiness.

“That sort of makes up for all the rest,” she said eagerly.

Edina in this mood was very attractive to Billie. She eyed her with sympathetic interest for a moment, then said curiously:

“You’ve something on your mind, Edina. Out with it!”

“I was thinkin’ about you,” returned the girl hesitantly, stammering and flushing as she spoke. “The girls you go around with don’t like me. Oh, it don’t take a microscope to see that,” with sudden bitterness, as Billie made a negative gesture. “And because you’re nice to me they – they are sort of drawing off from you, too.”

Billie was startled. In a vague way she had noticed some such thing herself. Was her friendship for Edina Tooker imperiling her popularity?

When she did not speak, Edina continued:

“You’ve been the most popular girl up here. It didn’t take a microscope for me to see that neither – either. There’s no use your sp’ilin’ – spoilin’ – all that for me. I’d best go back to Oklahoma, like I said.”

Billie roused herself. She laughed and her mouth compressed itself into a rather fierce straight line. This was Billie Bradley’s “fighting face.”

“I think you are wrong, Edina. I’m pretty sure you’re wrong. But if there’s a chance in the world that you’re right – then I want to know it. Don’t you see? I’d simply have to be sure!”

Edina was watching her with a half-fearful eagerness.

“Then you mean – ”

“I mean we will go ahead with our plans just as we planned them!” said Billie. She jumped to her feet with swift decision. “I have already spoken to Miss Walters about a shopping tour to Fleetsburg.” Fleetsburg was the next town to Molata, a fairly cosmopolitan place with several large stores and a theater. “Some of the girls want to go to a matinée and Miss Arbuckle is to chaperone them. We are to go in the school bus and may have the whole day to spend as we like. We will buy clothes and other pretties till we’re weary. You and I, Edina Tooker, are going to have a very large time!”

Edina caught her breath. The wistful longing in her round, red face was pitiful to Billie. She caught Billie’s hand and squeezed it hard.

“You’re awful good to me. Seems like I never thought anybody could be so good.”

“No thanks, please!” cried Billie gaily. “Anyway, my work will bring its own reward. When we return to Three Towers Hall to-morrow you are going to be everybody’s ideal of what a perfect, modern schoolgirl should be!”

Edina’s gratitude, her eager anticipation, warmed Billie’s heart. She carried her mood of elation to bed with her and woke with it in the morning.

“To-day is going to be one of the most interesting I have ever lived through,” she thought. “The look on the girls’ faces when they see my new edition of Edina will be worth all the trouble. Only,” her face clouded, “I wish Laura and Vi could share the fun with me.”

CHAPTER X

A TRIP TO TOWN

For the first time during all the years of their mutual association and friendship, there was a rift between Billie Bradley and her chums. Edina Tooker was the cause of it, as Edina herself very well knew.

Laura and Vi did not like Edina. They saw her as raw, uncouth, ill-tempered. Edina, who was always one to return either friendship or enmity with interest, did not go out of her way to alter their opinion of her. She disliked Laura and Vi openly, and this they took as a personal affront.

The fact that their adored Billie, despite all that had been said and done to discourage her, still clung to her original intention in regard to this girl, they also took as a personal affront.

“It seems that she might consider our feelings in the matter!” Laura had exclaimed on one occasion when she felt that her patience had been taxed to the limit. “Can’t she see that our fun is being spoiled by having that Edina Tooker dragged into everything we do? Why, Billie had her out on the tennis courts yesterday, coaching her, actually coaching her!”

Vi nodded and giggled reminiscently.

“I was watching,” she confessed. “Edina has a service that would smash everything in sight if she ever should get it going properly.”

“Yes, and she’s death on tennis balls. She wrecked two yesterday and lost a third. It was a scream. Connie and Rose Belser and Nellie Bane were on the sidelines, laughing themselves sick. And all this time,” she added resentfully, “I was dying to have a set with Billie myself.”

“Not much fun for us,” agreed Vi, with a thoughtful shake of the head. “You know Billie promised to help me with my math – I am worried about that, Laura, and with good reason – but these days she has no time for anything but Edina. Old friends don’t count.”

“I heard her offer to help you yesterday afternoon,” Laura remarked.

“Yes, while that horror was with her,” flared Vi. “Do you think I could concentrate on three unknown quantities with Edina Tooker looking over my shoulder?”

It was Laura’s turn to chuckle.

“I could imagine easier things,” she admitted.

There was a moment of silence, while Billie’s two closest chums reviewed their grievances. Laura asked suddenly:

“What about this mysterious trip to Fleetsburg to-morrow? Billie’s taking Edina, isn’t she?”

“So I understand.”

“Do you know what’s on the carpet?”

“Haven’t the slightest idea. Two or three times I’ve hinted to Billie, hoping she might have a change of heart and confide in me, but she’s been as mum as a clam.”

“There you are! Having secrets with this western coyote that she can’t or won’t confide to her dearest friends. If that’s loyalty, then I don’t know it!”

Laura took an excited turn or two about the room, then came to stand before Vi, her hands in the pockets of her sport coat, her chin thrust forward aggressively.

“I tell you, Vi, if it was anybody but Billie I wouldn’t stand for it for a minute! I’m just about fed up with this lion cub! I wish she’d go back to her mountain cave where she belongs!”

This was Laura’s angle of it, and Vi’s. Billie’s was quite different.

Angered by the open hostility of her friends toward Edina, hurt by what she considered a misunderstanding of her own motives in regard to the girl, Billie had repressed a natural desire to confide in Laura and Vi concerning her plans for Edina. While they felt that Billie had failed them, Billie was equally sure that they had failed her. So began the gradual rift in their long and loyal friendship.

Several times during the process of dressing on the morning of the shopping expedition in Fleetsburg, it was on the tip of Billie’s tongue to confide, belatedly, in Laura and Vi. But the two girls, nursing their resentment, were cool and distant, assuming an attitude discouraging to confidences.