The Girls of Central High at Basketball: or, The Great Gymnasium Mystery

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“‘Why,’ says Lil, ‘she said she didn’t notice anything unusual in your actions.’

“Wasn’t that a slap? And now Lil is letting Purt run around with her and act as if he owned her – just because he’s a good dancer.”

“My dear!” yawned her mother. “I should think you’d join that dancing class.”

“I’ll wait till I’m asked, I hope,” muttered Hester. “Everybody doesn’t get to join it. We’re not in that set – and we might as well admit it. And I don’t believe we ever will be.”

“I’m certainly glad!” complained her mother, rustling the leaves of her book. “Your father is always pushing me into places where I don’t want to go. He had a deal in business with Colonel Swayne, and he insisted that I call on Mrs. Kerrick. They’re awfully stuck-up folks, Hess.”

“I see Mrs. Kerrick’s carriage standing at the Beldings’ gate quite often, just the same,” muttered Hester.

“Yes – I know,” said her mother. “They make a good deal of Laura. Well, they didn’t make much of me. When I walked into the grounds and started up the front stoop, a butler, or footman, or something, all togged up in livery, told me that I must go around to the side door if I had come to see the cook. And he didn’t really seem anxious to take my card.”

“Oh, Mother!” exclaimed Hester.

“You needn’t tell your father. I don’t blame ’em. They’ve got their own friends and we’ve got ourn. No use pushing out of our class.”

“You should have gone in the carriage,” complained Hester.

“I don’t like that stuffy hack,” said her mother. “It smells of – of liv’ry stables and – and funerals! If your father would set up a carriage of his own – ”

“Or buy an automobile instead of hiring one for us occasionally,” finished Hester.

For with all his love of display, the wholesale butcher was a thrifty person.

With Lily so much interested for the time in other matters, Hester found her only recreation at the athletic field; and for several days after the mysterious raid upon the girls’ gymnasium there was not much but talk indulged in about the building. Then new basketballs were procured and the regular practice in that game went on.

In a fortnight would come the first inter-school match of the fall term – a game between Central High girls and the representative team of East High of Centerport. In the last match game the East High girls had won – and many of the girls of Central High believed that the game went to their competitors because of Hester Grimes’s fouling.

There was more talk of this now. Some of the girls did not try to hide their dislike for Hester. Nellie Agnew did not speak to her at all, and the latter was inclined to accuse Nellie of being the leader in this apparent effort to make Hester feel that she was looked upon with more than suspicion. The mystery of the gymnasium raid overshadowed the whole school; but the shadow fell heaviest on Hester Grimes.

“She did it!”

“She’s just mean enough to do it!”

“She said she hated us!”

“It’s just like her – she spoils everything she can’t boss!”

She could read these expressions on the lips of her fellow students. Hester Grimes began to pay for her ill-temper, and the taste of this medicine was bitter indeed.

CHAPTER VI – THE FIRST GAME

It would have been hard to tell how the suspicion took form among the girls of Central High that Hester Grimes knew more than she should regarding the gymnasium mystery. Whether she had spoiled the paraphernalia herself, or hired somebody to do it for her, was the point of the discussion carried on wherever any of the girls – especially those of her own class – met for conference.

Older people scoffed at the idea of a girl having committed the crime. And, indeed, it was a complete mystery how the marauder got into the building and out again. Bill Jackway, the watchman, was worried almost sick over it; he was afraid of losing his job.

Bobby Hargrew was about the only girl in Central High who “lost no sleep over the affair,” as she expressed it. And that wasn’t because she was not keenly interested in the mystery. Indeed, like Nellie, she had seen at the beginning that suspicion pointed to Hester Grimes. And perhaps Bobby believed at the bottom of her heart that Hester had brought about the destruction. Bobby and Hester had forever been at daggers’ points.

Bobby, however, was as full of mischief and fun as ever.

“Oh, girls!” she exclaimed, to a group waiting at the girls’ entrance to the school building one morning. “I’ve got the greatest joke on Gee Gee! Listen to it.”

“What have you done now, you bad, bad child?” demanded Nellie. “You’ll miss playing goal guard against East High if you don’t look out. Miss Carrington is watching you.”

“She’s always watching me,” complained Bobby. “But this joke can’t put a black mark against me, thank goodness!”

“What is it, Bobby?” asked Dorothy Lockwood.

“Don’t keep us on tenter-hooks,” urged her twin.

“Why, Gee Gee called at Alice Long’s yesterday afternoon. You know, she is bound to make a round of the girls’ homes early in the term – she always does. And Alice Long was able to return to school this fall.”

“And I’m glad of that,” said Dorothy. “She’ll finish her senior year and graduate.”

“Well,” chuckled Bobby, “Gee Gee appeared at the house and Tommy, Short and Long’s little brother, met her at the door. Alice wasn’t in, and Gee Gee opened her cardcase. Out fluttered one of those bits of tissue paper that come between engraved cards – to keep ’em from smudging, you know. Tommy jumped and picked it up, and says he:

“‘Say, Missis! you dropped one of your cigarette papers.’ Now, what do you know about that?” cried Bobby, as the other girls went off into a gale of laughter. “Billy heard him, and it certainly tickled that boy. Think of Gee Gee’s feelings!”

Not alone Bobby, but all the members of the basketball team were doing their very best in classes so as to have no marks against them before the game with the East High girls.

Mrs. Case coached them sharply, paying particular attention to Hester. It was too bad that this robust girl, who was so well able to play the game, should mar her playing with roughness and actual rudeness to her fellow-players. And warnings seemed wasted on her.

Hester never received a demerit from Miss Carrington. In class she was always prepared and there was little to ruffle her temper. The instructors – aside from Mrs. Case – seldom found any fault with Hester Grimes.

The game with the crack team of the East High girls was to be played on the latter’s court. The girls of Central High had been beaten there in the spring; this afternoon they went over – with their friends – with the hope of returning the spring defeat.

Bobby had been in the audience and led the “rooting” among the girls for Central High at the former game. Now she had graduated from a mere basketball “fan” to a very alert and successful goal guard.

This was Eve Sitz’s first important game, too; but the Swiss girl was of a cool and phlegmatic temperament and Laura Belding, as captain, had no fears for her.

The audience was a large one, and was enthusiastic from the start. The girls of Central High always attended the boys’ games in force and applauded liberally for their own school team; so Chet Belding and Lance Darby, with a crowd of strong-lunged Central High boys at their backs, cheered their girl friends when they came on the field with the very effective school yell:

“C-e-n, Central High!
C-e-n-t-r-a-l, Central High!
C-e-n-t-r-a-l-h-i-g-h, Central High!
Ziz-z-z-z —
Boom!”

The teams took their places after warming up a little, their physical instructors acting as coaches, while the physical instructor for West High School of Centerport was referee. The officials on the lines were selected from the competing schools.

It was agreed to play two fifteen-minute halves and the ball was put into play by the referee. The girls of Central High played like clockwork for the first five minutes and scored a clean goal. Their friends cheered tumultuously.

When the ball was put into play again there was much excitement. “Shoot it here, Laura! I’m loose!” shouted Bobby, whose slang was always typical of the game she was playing.

“Block her! Block her!” cried the captain of the East High team.

Most of the instructions were supposed to be passed by signal; but the girls would get excited at times and, unless the referee blew her whistle and stopped the play, pandemonium did reign on the court once in a while. Suddenly the ball chanced to be snapped to Hester’s side of the court. Her opponent got it, and almost instantly the referee’s whistle blew.

“That Central High girl at forward center is over-guarding.”

“No, I’m not!” snapped Hester.

The lady who acted as referee was a bit hot-tempered herself, perhaps. At least, this flat contradiction brought a most unexpected retort from her lips:

“Central High Captain!”

“Yes, ma’am?” gasped Laura Belding.

“Take out your forward center and put in a substitute for this half.”

“But, Miss Lawrence!” cried Laura, aghast.

“You are delaying play, Miss Belding,” said the referee, sharply.

Laura looked at Hester with commiseration; but she did not have to speak. The culprit, with a red and angry visage, was already crossing the court toward the dressing rooms. Laura put in Roberta Fish, and play went on.

But the Central High team was rattled. East High got two goals – one from a foul – and so stood in the lead at the end of the half. The visiting team did not work so well together with the substitute player, and the captain of East High, seeing this fact, crowded the play to Roberta Fish’s side.

“My goodness!” whispered Bobby Hargrew, as they ran off the field at the end of the half. “I hope that’s taught Hester a lesson. And this is once when we need Hester Grimes badly.”

“I should say we did,” panted Laura.

“We’ve got to play up some to win back that point we lost, let alone beating them,” cried Jess Morse.

Nellie Agnew was the first to enter the dressing room assigned to the Central High girls. She looked around the empty room and gasped.

“What’s the matter, Nell?” cried Bobby, crowding in.

“Where is she?” demanded the doctor’s daughter.

“Hessie has lit out!” shouted Bobby, turning back to the captain and her team-mates.

“She’s got mad and gone home!” declared Jess Morse. “Her hat and coat are gone.”

“Now what will we do?” cried Dorothy Lockwood.

And the question was echoed from all sides. For without Hester it did not seem possible that the Central High team could hold its own with its opponents.

CHAPTER VII – THE SECOND HALF

The dressing room buzzed like an angry beehive for a minute. It was Laura Belding, captain of the team, who finally said:

“Hester surely can’t have deserted us in this way. She knows that Roberta is not even familiar with our secret signals.”

“She’s gone, just the same,” said her chum, Jess. “That’s how mean Hester Grimes is.”

“Well, I declare! I don’t know that I blame her,” cried Lily Pendleton.

“You don’t blame her?” repeated Nellie. “I don’t believe you’d blame Hester no matter what she did.”

“She hasn’t done anything,” returned Lily, sullenly.

“How about the gym. business – ”

Bobby Hargrew began it, but Laura shut her off by a prompt palm laid across her mouth.

“You be still, Bobby!” commanded Nellie Agnew.

“You’re all just as unfair to Hessie as you can be,” said Lily with some spirit. “And now this woman from West High had to pick on her – ”

“Don’t talk so foolishly, Lil,” said Dora Lockwood. “You know very well that Hester has been warned dozens of times not to talk back to the referee. Mrs. Case warns her almost every practice game about something. And now she has got taken up short. If it wasn’t for what it means to us all in this particular game, I wouldn’t care if she never played with us.”