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always going ior my legs.'
    MI
    'Learn to swim then,' said Sally. 'Get some coaching! You always slip out of any coaching. Look out - here comes somebody else alter your legs!'
    Poor Jo! However much she swaggered and boasted and blew her own trumpet out of the water, she was of less account than the youngest first-former when she was in the pool!
     
     
    D^rrefi Given
    Darrell hoped that her last term would go very very slowly. So did Sally.
    'I want to hold on to every moment, this last term,' said Darrell. 'I know quite well we'll have a wonderful time at St Andrews, when we leave here - but I do so love Malory Towers, and I want the time to go as slowly as possible, f want to go away remembering every detail of it. I never want to lorget.'
    'Well, we shall remember all the things we want to remember,' said Sally. 'We shall remember all the tricks we've ever played on Mam'zelle, for instance - every single one! We shall remember how the pool looks on a sunny day - and how the sea looks from the classroom windows - and what it sounds like when the girls pour out of school at the end of the morning.'
    'And you'll remember dear Gwen and her ways,' said Alicia, who was nearby. 'You'll never forget those!'
    'Oh, GwcnV said Darrell, exasperated at the thought of her. 'I wouldn't mind forgetting every single thing about her. She's spoiling our last term with her silly behaviour!'
    Gwen really was being very trying. She had never liked Malory Towers, because she had never fitted in with its ideas and ideals. She was spoiled, selfish and silly, and yet thought herself a most attractive and desirable person. The only other girl in the form at all like her. Maureen, she detested. She could see that Maureen was like her in many many ways, and she didn't like seeing herself so olten in a girl site disliked.
    18
    Gwen never slopped talking aboul her next and last >diool. 'It's in Switzerland, you know,' she said a hundred nines. 'The best school there. It's called a linishing school, and is very very select.'
    'Well, I hope it will finish you oil properly,' said Alicia. 'It's time something put an end to you!'
    'That's not lunny, Alicia,' said Gwen, looking dignified. "Very first-iormish.'
    'You always make me leel first-lormish,' said Alicia. 1 think of silly things like putting out my tongue and saying "Yah!" when you start talking about your idiotic school. Why you couldn't have gone this term, and left us io enjoy our last term in peace, I simply can't imagine.'
    'I had an awful fight to go,' said Gwen, and the others groaned. They had already heard far too often about Gwen's 'fight'. Each time she told them, she related worse and worse things that she had said to her lather
    I bet she didn't say half those things,' said Alicia to Darrell. 'No father would stand it - and Mr Lacey has put Gwen in her place plenty of times before!'
    However, it was true that Gwen had said some very cruel things to her lather during the last holidays, backed up by her mother. Mrs Lacey had been so set on sending Gwen to a linishing school where she could 'make nice inends', that she had used every single means in her power to hack Gwen up.
    Tears and more tears. Reproaches. Sulks. Cruel words. Mrs Lacey had brought them all out, and Gwen added to ;hem. The old governess, Miss Winter, who adored Gwen and thought the world of Mrs Lacey, had been shocked.
    Gwen related it all to her unwilling listeners. 'Miss Winter was an idiot. All site could say was. "Your lather is tired, Gwendoline. He's not been well lor some time. Don't you think it would be better not to worry him so much?" She's silly and weak - always has been.'
    'Shut up,' said Sally. 'I'd hate to treat rnv father
    like that.'
    'I said to my father, "Aren't I your only daughter? Do you grudge me one more year's happiness?'" went on Gwen, throwing herself into the part with all her heart. '1 said, "You don't love me. You never did! If you did, you would let me have this one small thing I want -