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

CHAPTER XVI

FIGHTING FOR LIFE

Locked in Edina Tooker’s unbreakable embrace, Billie Bradley gave herself up for lost.

Edina was stronger than she, and now her strength was the desperate strength of mortal fear.

Billie writhed and twisted, striving to wrench herself free; but in her heart she knew her efforts were vain. Edina’s grip was the grip of madness. She was dragging them both down to death.

Billie wondered why her lungs did not break with the fearful pressure on them. After a long moment of agony she almost wished they would break – to have done with the torment.

Suddenly something swam close to her. There was a sharp jolt and, through glazing eyes, Billie saw Edina’s head snap backward. The hard grip about her neck relaxed, the weight that had been holding Billie to the bottom of the lake slumped away.

Billie felt suddenly as light as air. With all the strength that remained to her, she fought her way to the surface of the water.

Like a benediction, air swept into her tortured lungs. She lay upon her back and let herself float, gasping.

Edina was safe, she knew. It was Paul Martinson who had dealt the merciful blow on the point of Edina’s chin, saving her life and Billie’s. Paul would take care of Edina. Paul liked Edina —

Billie felt hands tugging at her, pulling her up on something that was hard and rough. The pier!

“Were you going to lie there forever and catch your death of cold?”

It was Vi’s voice scolding, and Billie thought no voice had ever sounded so pleasant in her ears.

She was being pulled to her feet now, supported by loving arms, a ring of anxious faces about her. They were all scolding her, but she did not care. It was nice to have someone care whether she was alive or not.

“Edina?”

“Edina’s all right. Paul has her. Now we are going to smuggle you both up to the hall and into dry clothes before you die of pneumonia, or something equally uncomfortable. Come along!”

While Paul Martinson ruefully wrung out his sodden clothes, refusing meanwhile to listen to a word of thanks, Billie and the half-dead Edina were hustled to the Hall for a change of raiment.

They approached the house by a circuitous route, carefully avoiding the groups of girls loitering in the school grounds. Entering by Clarice’s immaculate kitchen and leaving a telltale stream of water across it, they hurried up the back stairs and by great good fortune managed to gain the dormitory unobserved.

“Now get out of those dripping clothes and be quick about it,” ordered Laura, then added with a heartless giggle: “Two such drowned puppies I never did see.”

“You needn’t laugh,” retorted Billie, stripping off her wet stockings. “For a second or two, there we were as near being truly drowned as I ever care to be. How about it, Edina?”

The girl turned a stricken face to Billie.

“It was all my fault!” she said, in a low voice. “You tried to save my life and I paid you back by doin’ my best to drown us both! Seems I’ll never get over bein’ ashamed o’ myself.”

It was a full ten minutes before the combined efforts of the girls reassured Edina to the extent of persuading her to exchange her dripping outfit for a dry one.

“Tell me what you want to wear and I’ll sneak down the back stairs and get it,” offered Laura. “In your present low mood,” she added, with a chuckle, “I’d be afraid to leave you alone. You might hang yourself to the nearest convenient chandelier.”

“I might, at that,” returned Edina, with a reluctant smile. “I don’t know why you girls are so nice to me. I sure don’t deserve it.”

“People so seldom get their deserts in this life,” chuckled Laura. She tossed an impish smile in the direction of Edina’s long face and disappeared.

She reappeared a few minutes later with an armful of clothes and an exciting account of the adventures encountered in their acquisition.

“I just missed Miss Johnson and bumped head-first into Debsy. ‘Must you dash about in this frantic manner?’ inquired Debsy in a hurt voice. If I’d stepped on her toe she couldn’t have sounded more injured! Here, Edina, these are all I could find. Hope they’ll do.”

“Guess they’ll have to.” Edina regarded Laura’s offering without enthusiasm. “But I won’t look near as nice as I did before. I spent an hour gettin’ ready for that duckin’ out on the pier.”

The girls giggled hilariously.

“Love’s labor lost,” said Vi, wiping her eyes. “Edina, you are putting a lot of joy into my life!”

So they made a joke of what easily might have been a tragedy. When they rejoined the boys on the dock, Edina had lost much of her former self-consciousness and was ready to laugh with the rest over what she termed her “clodhopper clumsiness.”

“Where’s Paul?” asked Billie.

“Gone to change his clothes,” replied Teddy. “He hasn’t yet learned the art of falling into the lake without getting wet.”

“Said he’d join us at the island,” added Ferd Stowing.

They made a great to-do about launching Edina safely. Ted and Chet and Ferd held one of the rowboats close to the pier while Laura and Vi, doubled with laughter, assisted their new friend into the craft. Edina looked red and sheepish, but she joined in the good-natured merriment at her expense. Edina was learning!

“Stand back, Billie,” cried Laura. “If this girl tries another high-diving act, it’s our turn to dash to the rescue. Look out there! Ah, now she’s all right! Come on, everybody. Let’s go!”

The little fleet was launched safely at last – Vi and Laura both in Chet’s boat, since Paul Martinson was missing.

They had gone only a few hundred yards from the dock when they saw Paul himself rowing toward them from the direction of Boxton Military Academy.

“Didn’t take him long!” shouted Billie, from her comfortable place in Teddy’s boat.

“Ain’t boys wonderful!” Laura shouted back.

Having arrived at the island, which was well out in the lake and removed by a considerable expanse of water from both Boxton Academy and Three Towers Hall, the boys and girls disembarked and began the real business of the day.

“Take care of those lunch baskets,” shrieked Billie, as the boat in which they were rocked perilously. “Ferd Stowing, you nearly dumped them in the lake!”

“Well, I can’t take care of both the lunch and Edina,” asserted Ferd, grinning. “Lend me a hand, someone!”

At the thoughtless words of the lad who would not willingly hurt a fly, Billie saw Edina color painfully.

“All this fun at Edina’s expense has gone far enough,” she thought indignantly. “It’s got to stop! I could slap Ferd Stowing!”

“Why the frown, l’il Billie?”

Billie looked up to find Paul Martinson at her elbow, smiling quizzically down at her.

“You look mad enough to bite a nail in six pieces,” continued the lad. “Just what appears to be wrong?”

An inspired thought chased the frown from Billie’s face. She smiled at the tall, good-looking young cadet.