Read In the Fifth at Malory Towers for Free Online

world, and there was a place for the Moiras and Gwens and Maureens, thought Darrell, and for the Sallies and Irenes and Belindas as well.
    “Only they’re so much nicer to know!” Darrell said to herself.
    “We’d better choose a committee of seven or eight,” went on Moira. “And we’ll choose it in the usual way — each of us writes the names of the girls they’d like to have on the committee and we’ll put them all into a box. Then we take them out, open them, count them, and see who’s got the most votes. We’ll do that tonight.”
    “Oh, I hope I’m on the committee!” thought Darrell. And Alicia hoped the same. Alicia badly wanted to have a finger in this pie. She felt perfectly sure she could run the whole show, if only she was allowed to!

Half an hour in the sun
    When’s dear Gwendoline Mary coming back?” asked Alicia, as they all lay out in the sun after their dinner at a quarter to two that day. It was so warm and sunny that it was like summer. All the girls had found warm places out of doors, and the grounds were full of little companies of girls happily sunning themselves.
    “Gwen? Oh, she’s arriving at tea-time,” said Darrell. “ Dear Gwendoline Mary! Would you think she’s what Catherine would call a “pet-lamb”?”
    “I could think of much more suitable names than that,” said Belinda, busy drawing Mavis, who had gone to sleep with her mouth open.
    “Is Gwendoline nice?” asked Maureen. “She sounds nice, to me.”
    Darrell winked at Alicia.
    “Nice? Oh, you’ll love her!” she said. “ So sympathetic and ready to listen! So interesting to talk to — and the tales she tells about her family and her dogs and her cats — well, you could listen for hours, Maureen.”
    “Is she fond of sports?” asked Maureen, who quite definitely wasn’t. “At Mazeley Towers we didn’t do games unless we wanted to. I mean — they weren’t compulsory, as they are here — such a mistake, I think.”
    “Oh, Gwen hates games,” said Alicia. “But because she’s fat she has to do them as much as possible and walk miles, too.”
    “Poor Gwendoline!” said Maureen, sympathizing deeply with the absent fifth-former. “We shall have a lot in common, I can see. Has she — has she a special friend, do you know? Of course — that’s a silly question I know — a girl like that’s bound to have a special friend. But I just thought — you know, I’m rather one on my own — it would be so nice to find someone here who wasn’t already fixed up with a companion for walks — and talks.”
    “Let me see,” said Alicia, blinking up at the sky. “ Has Gwendoline Mary a friend?”
    Everyone appeared to think very deeply.
    “Well — perhaps not a special friend,” said Irene, with a small snort of laughter. “Let us say she’s a little-friend-of-all-the-world, shall we?”
    “Ah — you’ve just hit the nail on the head,” said Darrell, trying not to giggle. “I think she’d like Maureen, don’t you?”
    “She’ll love her,” said Belinda, with the utmost conviction “Wake up, Mavis, and see how beautiful you look when you’re asleep.”
    “Beast!” said Mavis, taking a look at Belinda’s comical sketch of her lying asleep with her mouth open. Maureen took a look as well.
    “That’s quite a clever drawing,” she said. “I can draw, too. I was one of the best at Mazeley Manor. I must show you my sketches sometime, Belinda. They’re very much the same style as yours.”
    Belinda was about to say something short and rude when Irene frowned at her, and then spoke in a sickly-sweet tone to the unsuspecting Maureen.
    “I suppose you can sing, too, can’t you — and can you compose?”
    “Oh, I can sing,” said Maureen, pleased with all this attention. “Yes, I had special lessons at Mazeley Manor. The singing-master said I had a most unusual voice. And I’ve composed quite a few songs. Dear, dear — you mustn’t make me talk about myself like this!”
    She gave