The Jolliest School of All by Angela Brazil (the best ebook reader for android TXT) 📖

"Yes, thanks, but please what's a sorority?" ventured Irene meekly.

Two or three distinct snickers were heard from underneath the black masks, but a voice murmured, "Order!" and the sounds promptly ceased.

"A sorority is a secret sisterhood," explained the President, "just the same as a fraternity is a brotherhood. We call ourselves 'The Camellia Buds,' and we're members of the Transition who have banded ourselves together for the purposes of mutual protection. It's a great honor to be elected. There are only nine of us so far, and we've waited ever so long to choose a tenth. I hope you appreciate the privilege?"

"I do indeed!"

"You're ready to take the vow? Then the initiation may proceed. Sword-bearers, guard the door, please."

There was a Masonic quality about the proceedings. Two dark figures, armed with rulers, placed themselves at the threshold, prepared to settle all intruders, and to preserve the absolute secrecy of the ceremony.

"Will you give your word of honor to be a loyal member of the Sorority of Camellia Buds, and never to do a dirty trick so long as you remain at this school?" asked the President.

"I promise!" replied Irene.[47]

At that somebody switched on the electric light, and the members, pulling off their black masks, disclosed their laughing faces.

"You stood it A-1. I was quite prepared for you to start hysterics and had the sal volatile bottle ready right here," chirruped Delia gayly.

"We call it our 'strength of mind' test," explained President Agnes, blowing out the guttering candles.

"If I had screamed what would have happened?" inquired Irene.

"Probation for another week till you got your nerves. We'd a business with Sheila just at first; she's rather fluttersome. Well, anyway, you've got through the ordeal, and now you're a full-fledged 'bud.' Aren't you proud?"

"Rather! Is the society limited to ten?"

"Sorority, please, not society. It's limited because there isn't anybody else in the Transition who's worth asking to join. Most of them are a set of utter sneaks. They may take Rachel's oath about preserving their nationality and all the rest of it, but if they're to be counted specimens of Anglo-American honor it makes one blush for one's mother country whichever side of the ocean it happens to be on. Oh, you don't know most of them yet! Wait till you find them out."

"You'll be glad then you belong to us."

"Not that we're perfect, of course."

"We don't set up as Pharisees."

"On the whole we're rather a lot of lunatics."[48]

"We just have a little sport among ourselves to keep things humming."

"Well, now Irene understands, we'd best get her fixed up with a 'buddy' and close the meeting."

"But I don't understand. What, for goodness' sake, is a buddy, and why must I have one?" demanded Irene tragically.

"Sit down there, child, and let Grannie talk to you," replied President Agnes. "If you haven't heard of a buddy yet it's time you did. They're the latest out. They had them at all the camps last summer, in England as well as in America. A buddy is a chum with whom you're pledged to do everything, and who's bound to support you. For instance, when the bathing season is on you must never swim unless your buddy is swimming with you; if you go on an excursion you stick to each other tight as glue, and if one of you is lost the other is held responsible. You're as inseparable as a box and its lid, or the two blades of a pair of scissors, or a bottle and its cork, or any other things you happen to think of that ought to go together, and aren't any use apart."

"We only realized buddies last term," explained Peachy, "but the idea caught on no end. We all went simply crazy over it. I don't mind guessing that every girl in this school who's worth her salt has got her buddy. She mayn't let it be known outside her own sorority, but we aren't blind."[49]

"Are there other sororities in the school then besides the Camellia Buds?" asked Irene.

"Bless your innocence! I should think there are. There's a rival one in the Transition. I rather fancy they've snapped up Mabel already. I gave Winnie a hint she wasn't to tackle you, because you'd come to school with an introduction to me, so I ought to have first innings. The prefects have a sorority all to themselves, and the seniors have one, and as for the juniors, silly little things, they're as transparent as glass, with their signaling and their grips and their cypher letters. Any one can see through them with half an eye. But we're wasting time. We've got to fix you up with a buddy, and we must be quick before the bell rings."

"May we choose?" asked Irene, and her eyes fell longingly on Peachy.

"No, we mayn't!" said President Agnes firmly. "We have to take what the fates send us. It's Kismet. Every time we elect a new member we draw lots again for buddies. It's a kind of general shuffle. If we're an uneven number somebody of course has to be odd man out."

"I was the 'old maid' last draw, and I haven't had a buddy this term," remarked Sheila plaintively.

"Never mind, ducky! You're bound to find a partner now," consoled Delia. "It might even be my little self, so live in hope."

"No such luck," groaned Sheila. "I'll probably[50] get Joan, and you know she always uses me as a door-mat."

Agnes meantime was writing ten names on ten separate pieces of paper and folding them in identically the same fashion. Peachy offered the loan of a hat, and into this treasury they were cast and shuffled.

"The newest member draws," murmured Agnes, and the others pushed Irene forward. She chose two folds of paper at a venture, and twisted them together, then performed the like service for another pair, until all the ten were assorted. The thrill of the ceremony was when Agnes opened the screws of paper and read out the names. Fate had mixed the Camellia Buds together thus: