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

“Very well!” thought Billie. “If that’s the way you feel about it, I’ll tell you nothing!”

She went down to breakfast with her nose in the air and a hurt in her heart. She had counted upon Laura and Vi, and they were failing her.

At nine o’clock the school bus drew up to the door, and those of the girls who were lucky enough to have secured permission for a day’s holiday in Fleetsburg came thronging out, all clad in their prettiest, faces turned with bright eagerness toward this break in the school routine.

The girls were like a flock of butterflies in their gay clothes and smart trappings; all save Edina Tooker who, in her mannish tweed coat, heavy boots, and queer hat looked like something out of a curiosity shop.

The worst of it was that Edina realized to the full the gulf that separated her from these smart, happy, “just-right” girls. Every amused glance in her direction was a keen shaft of pain in her heart. She clung to Billie as though the girl were her one protection against intolerable suffering.

Billie, herself a little dream of “just-rightness” in a coat of some soft, greenish-gray material, gray slippers, sheer stockings, a small gray cloche with a green buckle snuggled over one ear, felt her heart burn with indignation at what she considered the callous cruelty of her fellow students.

“Never you mind,” she whispered to Edina, whose face was grim and more than ordinarily plain. “We’ll show them! Coming back will be different. Oh, very, very different!”

Under her breath, Edina said fiercely:

“They’re horrid! I hate them! I’ll always hate them!”

Billie sighed. At that moment she realized, more clearly than ever before, how difficult a problem she had undertaken. The self-appointed guardian of an Edina Tooker could expect no easy time of it!

As the bus started off, Billie looked among the crowd that had gathered on the school steps to see them off. Laura and Vi were not there. They had not even come out to see her off!

However, she caught sight of Amanda Peabody and Eliza Dilks, standing close together, giggling, and pointing toward Edina Tooker.

Billie turned away. Her color was heightened, her lips set.

“I won’t let anyone spoil this day’s fun for me! I won’t!” she cried, and was angry past all bearing because there were tears of exasperation in her eyes.

However, the morning was fine; Billie was young and about to perform a fascinating experiment. The school bus had barely lumbered through the gates of Three Towers and started out along the lake road before Billie had forgotten her vexation in eager anticipation of what the next few hours might bring forth.

The girls were all in high spirits, bandying jokes back and forth and laughing at their own witticisms until it seemed a wonder the bus did not rock with their mirth.

Billie took her fair share of the merrymaking, answering quips in her inimitable way until Miss Arbuckle herself began to smile and the driver of the bus looked back over his shoulder from time to time with a wide-mouthed grin.

During all the fun, Edina sat grim and unsmiling. The merry sallies were never addressed to her. Had they been she would not have been able to retort in kind. She was as aloof as a snow-capped mountain. Perhaps only Billie Bradley guessed that under her aloof exterior Edina was as much a girl as any of them and that she suffered intensely because of her inability to join in their fun.

The bus passed through Molata at a merry pace and rattled on toward Fleetsburg.

Billie turned to Edina, her face radiant.

“We’ll be there soon. And then such an orgy of shopping as we’ll have! I hope,” she hesitated and regarded the other girl laughingly, “I do hope you have brought plenty of money with you!”

Edina looked anxious.

“I’ve brought five hundred dollars. Will that be enough?”

Billie was staggered.

“Five hundred! Why, Edina, what did you think we were going to do – buy the town?”

“Well – how was I to know? Everything these girls wear looks as if it would run into a heap o’ money.”

“So it does. Nevertheless, five hundred dollars should give us a pretty good running start! Here we are, Edina! Come along!”

There was a riotous exodus from the bus, and in the general confusion Billie nearly lost sight of Edina. She found her finally on the edge of the crowd, clinging to her pocketbook and looking scared.

“Come along,” said Billie. “I’ve already fixed things with Miss Arbuckle. We’re to meet the girls at the Busy Bee at twelve o’clock sharp. Until then, our time’s our own.”

When they reached the center of town, Billie paused and looked about her thoughtfully. Then her eyes came back from their tour of investigation and rested musingly on her protégé.

“It must have been fate that made us stop before this barber shop,” she dimpled. “Come inside, Edina. You are going to have your hair cut!”

Edina protested. She shied like a skittish pony at the barrier. But Billie had her way.

“Either you do as I say or you don’t,” cried Billie sternly. “Do you want to go back to Three Towers Hall as you are?”

“No!” said Edina.

Like a prisoner marching to execution, she entered the barber shop.

CHAPTER XI

EDINA GETS HER HAIR CUT

Edina Tooker’s hair, released from the hard knot into which she had bound it at the back of her head, proved to be luxuriant and soft to the touch. The barber, a dark-skinned, effusive little fellow, was charmed with the color and texture.

“It is a long day since I have seen such a head of hair. And now it must be cut off, shorn like the wool of a sheep. Eh, well, it is the fashion. These ladies,” with a twinkling glance at Billie, “must be in the fashion or die, is it not?”

The barber took up a pair of gleaming shears. Edina’s eyes met Billie’s in an agonized look of appeal.

Billie smiled reassuringly, but remained adamant.

“She is the boyish type, don’t you think?” she said, cajoling the barber. “It seems to me her hair would look nice short, quite short, and maybe tucked behind the ear on the left side.”

“Leave it to me,” returned the little dark man with a flourish of the shears. “I will make her ravissant. So she will not know herself. Now then! Attend!”

At the first rip of the shears through her heavy tresses, Edina shrank deep into her seat and shut her eyes tight. She did not open them again until the barber announced in a pleased tone that all was finished.

“Will you please to look at yourself in the mirror, Miss?”

Edina looked, batted her eyes and looked again.

“It ain’t so bad,” was her final pronouncement. “But it ain’t me!”

Billie thought the haircut a triumph of art. It was cut short in the back, fitting Edina’s admirably shaped head like a soft black cap. In the front it was longer, but not too long, falling back from the girl’s broad forehead like the sweep of a raven’s wing.

Billie reached forward and tucked a lock of ebony hair behind a shapely ear.

“You have nice ears and you should show them. Ears are an asset these days, if they are not positively deformed. Pay the man now, Edina, and let’s go on about our business.”