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Janet arranged them at the foot of Courtney’s bed. Then Courtney ran to the other closet and threw out her own, and Janet jumped onto Courtney’s bed and arranged them while Courtney ran around the beds and turned out the light. Then they both rolled into their own beds laughing, and pulled the covers over themselves to hide the fact that they had not changed into their pajamas yet. The entire operation had taken less than a minute.
    The next day couldn’t make up its mind between rain and clear weather, but the two athletic periods had been held outdoors. Sue Alberts and Brookie Clarke were both on the Junior hockey team of which Courtney was a member, so they all had first-period athletics together. As the other two girls put their pinnies in the basket after the practice, Courtney lingered on the pretext that she had to be sure all the pinnies were in, because she had been on the non-pinnie scrub team. As they walked back to the main building Sue announced that she was going to get a piece of cake in the tearoom, but Brooks Clarke, a lovely, tall girl with lank blonde hair and a little Boston in her speech, had reminded the slightly plump Sue that she was on a diet, so they had passed the tearoom by. Courtney hung with them and the other girls were hardly aware of her presence, although Courtney was going through agonies of unsureness and watching them closely to see if they resented her presence. They had all climbed the stairs, hot from their two hours of hockey, and gone into Alberts and Clarke’s room.
    Their room was antiseptically neat, unlike Courtney and Janet’s with its casual disorder. It looked as though they were expecting inspection any minute. But then, Alberts and Clarke wanted the ten-bar honor of having served ten months on the committee, and they wanted to hold the important offices and be esteemed by the faculty. By this, their fourth-form year, they were both on the Lit Review and had been on the committee for one term. By their senior years, the personable and popular Brookie was to be head-committeeman and editor of the Lit , while her roommate was business manager and a committee member, controlling the school through her influence over Brookie and her in with the faculty. They were to carry their successful combination into Vassar as well, and were always well liked. Janet was right that they would make powerful friends.
    â€œWant an orange, Court?” Brookie asked pleasantly.
    â€œOh, thanks.”
    â€œSplit one with you, Brookie,” said Sue. Courtney noticed that they were splitting an orange while they offered her a whole one, as a guest and an outsider.
    â€œGee, we haven’t seen much of you lately,” Brookie said, trying to put Courtney at her ease.
    â€œI’ve been doing a lot of studying,” Courtney lied.
    â€œOh, that’s right, you’re a brain,” Sue said.
    Courtney didn’t answer and Brookie said hastily, “How was your spring vacation—did you go to Hollywood?”
    â€œNo, I stayed in New York.”
    â€œIf I lived in Hollywood,” said Sue wistfully, “you’d never get me out of there. Tell me, what’s it like?”
    â€œOh, it’s all right. There are a lot of parties and there’s a lot of drinking and all that, and people work terribly hard for spurts of time.”
    â€œI’ll bet there are a lot of stars sleeping with their directors, and a lot of fairies and all that.”
    â€œNo, not really. Not any more than on Broadway and not many more than in a business like writing or art,” she said. She hated people to make statements like that, but she didn’t let Sue know it.
    â€œI’ll bet you know a lot of gossip,” Brookie said.
    â€œI guess so.”
    â€œTell us about people like Gregory Peck and Tyrone Power and Susan Hayward and all,” she said. “What are they really like?”
    â€œI don’t really know those people very well.