Chapter SIX: The Prisoner Freed (1)

Flip was lying at the bottom of the ocean and all the weight of the sea was upon her, pressing her down into the white sands, and bells were ringing down at the bottom of the sea, ringing and ringing, and the tides came and went above her and the waves were wild in the wind and the breakers rolled and she lay with all the waters of the world pushing her down onto the floor of the sea and the bells rang and rang until finally they were dissolved into icy darkness.

She opened her eyes and she saw Paul's white face. She turned towards him and whispered weakly, "I didn't get the picture, Paul," and then she moaned because the movement of turning her head seemed to bring the waters of the ocean down on her once more. She tried to push the weight of the waters away from her but her fingers closed on a handful of cobwebs. She felt that she was being lifted and then again she was drowned in darkness.

When the darkness finally raised it was a quiet and almost imperceptible happening. She felt the bright warmth of winter sunlight on her eyelids and she thought at first that it was a morning back at school and in a moment the bell would ring and she would have to get up. And then she remembered that now it was winter and it was dark until after breakfast and if she had been in bed at school the sun would not be warm against her closed eyes.

And then she remembered the night before, the man who said he was Paul's father, and she remembered the chateau and the picture, and the waters of darkness suddenly bearing down upon her and she was afraid to open her eyes. Her lids still shut tight she stirred faintly upon the pillow.

"You're all right, Flip. You're absolutely all right, darling."

Now she opened her eyes and there was Madame Perceval standing beside the bed saying, "Everything's all right, Flip. Everything's all right. Close your eyes and go to sleep, my darling."

So she closed her eyes and this time the waters were gentle and she felt that she was slowly drifting down a river of sleep and when she woke up she was no longer afraid to look.

She opened her eyes and she was lying in the big four poster bed in the room in the gate house that Madame Perceval used; and Mlle. Duvoisine, not in her uniform but in a tweed skirt and the sweater she had been knitting the day of Flip's laryngitis, was sitting in a chair by the window, reading. As Flip moved Mlle. Duvoisine rose and came quickly over to the bed. She put her fingers lightly against Flip's wrist and said,

"Well, Philippa, how are you?"

"I guess I'm fine. Where's Paul, please? Is he all right? I couldn't get the picture!" Flip started to sit up in her anxiety but as she tried to raise her head it felt as though a crushing weight were holding it down and a wave of nausea swept over her.

"You'd better lie still," Mlle. Duvoisine warned her. "You'll probably have that headache for a couple of days."

"Why? What happened?"

"A piece of one of the shutters blew off the chateau and gave you what your roommate, Gloria Browne, would call a bop on the bean." Mlle. Duvoisine smiled at her with a warmth Flip had never seen in her eyes before.

"Is Paul all right?"

"Yes." Mlle. Duvoisine assured her. "You can see him in a few minutes. You're a foolish little girl, Philippa. Did you know that?" But she didn't sound as though she thought Flip foolish at all.

"How did you get here, please?" Flip asked her.

"I came to look after you till Madame Perceval gets back from Montreux. I'm staying at the school chalet in Gstaad and I'm going back this evening since you're all right and won't need me any longer. Now if you're a good girl and promise to lie still and not get excited I'll let Paul come in. He's been waiting at your door all morning."

"I'll lie still."

Flip lay very still while Mlle. Duvoisine was gone but she could not keep her heart from thumping with excitement. Paul opened the door and came in.

"Flip! Are you all right!"

"Paul! Are you all right!"

They spoke simultaneously and then they both laughed and Paul came over to the bed and kissed Flip and then stood looking down at her. Flip smiled up at him and strangely her eyes filled with tears.

"I thought he'd killed you," Paul said.

"No, I'm fine, Paul. Are you all right?"

"Yes, Flip. Yes, I'm all right and there's so much to tell you only Mlle. Duvoisine from your school said that I mustn't excite you and of course she's right."

"You won't excite me. Please tell me."

Paul climbed up onto the foot of the bed and sat there, leaning his dark head back against one of the posts. His eyes were ringed with black and his face looked white and tired and as though he had not slept.

"Tell me, Paul, please," she asked gently.

"He's not my father." Paul closed his eyes and a look of relief came into his face. "He's not my father, Flip."

"He _couldn't_ have been your father," Flip said. "Not that man."

Paul opened his eyes and tried to smile at her. "After you locked me up in your room I shouted and banged and my father--I mean Monsieur Laurens--never even noticed." Flip opened her eyes wide because it was the first time Paul had corrected himself when he called Monsieur Laurens his father. He continued, "He said he heard something but he thought we were having some kind of a game with Ariel. He'd forgotten Aunt Colette had Ariel with her. Then Aunt Colette came home and let me out and I told her everything and we ran downstairs and roused father and then we went to the chateau. Father took his gun. Sometimes he can be a very active man, Flip. It's only when he's writing that he seems to forget the world. We saw the man who said he was my father coming out of the chateau and father captured him and the man told us a piece of shutter had struck you on the head and he thought it had killed you and he had put you in the chateau to protect you from the wind and he kept crying out that he did not want to be a murderer. And Aunt Colette and I rushed into the chateau and found you and--" Paul paused for a long time. Then he said, "I thought you were dead. But Aunt Colette said you weren't and then you said something and moaned and we carried you home and called the doctor and Mlle. Duvoisine from your school."

"Where's Madame?" Flip asked him.

"She's down in Montreux with the man who said he was my father. They're at the police office. You see, Flip, that's what he's been doing. I mean, it's his profession. He went around finding out about people who didn't know who they were and then he pretended he was related to them and got money from whoever had become their new families. Aunt Colette said he was ill and not right in his mind. He admitted that he wasn't my father but it wouldn't have mattered if he hadn't because when I saw you lying there all in a little heap inside the chateau in the dark and I thought you were dead, I remembered. I remembered who I was, Flip."

Flip lay very quietly on the bed. She didn't dare move, partly because it hurt her head to move, but mostly because it was another of those times when she knew it would be best for Paul if she was very still and very silent.

Paul put his head down so that his cheek pressed against Flip's feet and a lock of his dark hair fell across his forehead. "I'll try to be clear, Flip," he said, "but I want to say it as quickly as possible because it's a hard thing to say. My father was a writer. We lived in an old chateau--something like _our_ chateau, Flip--that had always been in our family. During the war my father worked with the maquis. He was the editor of one of the most important of the underground newspapers. I had an older sister, she was fifteen, then, and she helped. So did my mother. Sometimes they let me run errands. Everybody helped who could possibly be used and sometimes I could do things without arousing suspicion that an older person couldn't do." He paused for a moment, and then went on. "One evening I was coming home after dark. I went in through one of the French windows. The room was dark and I stumbled over something. It was my sister. She was lying there just the same way you were lying in the chateau last night when I thought you were dead. I saw you lying there and you _were_ my sister and it wasn't last night at all but the night my sister was shot. It was shortly after that that all of my father's work was uncovered and we were sent to a concentration camp.... I think if you don't mind very much I'll have to let Aunt Colette tell you the rest."

Again Flip wanted to say something that would give Paul comfort, but she knew that she was unable to. She lay there and felt the pressure of his cheek against her feet, until he lifted his head and stared up at her and his eyes were the grey of the lake and seemed to hold in their depths as much knowledge and suffering as the lake must have seen. He stared up at her and now Flip knew that she must say something. She pushed herself up very slowly on one elbow, raised herself up and beyond the pain that clamped about her head, and reached down and gently touched Paul's dark hair. She suddenly felt much older, and unconsciously, she echoed Madame Perceval's words. "It's all right, Paul. Everything's going to be all right."

2

After a while Mlle. Duvoisine came back into the room and sent Paul away and Flip slept again. When she awoke Madame Perceval was in the room and she took Flip into her arms and held her as her mother had held her.

"You were very brave, little one," Madame told her.

Flip started to shake her head but stopped as the abrupt movement sent the pain back again. "I wasn't brave. I was scared. I was--I was like pulp I was so scared, Madame."

"But you went on for Paul's sake, anyhow. That was brave."

"Can you be brave and scared at the same time?" Flip asked.

"That's the hardest and the biggest kind of braveness there is."

"Oh," Flip said, and then, because the thought of being brave somehow embarrassed her, she asked, "Madame, will this make me miss any skiing? I'm all right, aren't I?"

"Yes, dear, you're fine. It's a miracle, but you didn't have a concussion. You're just a bit bruised and battered. The doctor will look in on you again later this evening but he says you'll be up and about in a couple of days and I'll work with you every minute the rest of the holidays to make up for the time you'll miss. Now. Paul's asleep. Georges is writing and Mlle. Duvoisine's gone back to Gstaad. How about eating something? Chicken soup and a poached egg? Thérèse will be miserable if you don't eat. She blames herself for last night's episode and she was very upset about losing her new boy friend."

"I'll eat," Flip promised. "Madame ... Paul told me about himself ... about having remembered...."

Madame Perceval looked at Flip gravely. "It will be better for him now, Flip," she said, "in spite of the pain of the memory. Before, he had lost his parents completely. Now he can never lose them again."

"And Madame ... there was more that Paul said you would tell me."

"All right," Madame Perceval said. "I'll just run down and get your tray from Thérèse first. I won't be long."

When Madame returned with Flip's tray she sat down beside the bed and said, "Mlle. Duvoisine thought I should wait till you were up to tell you about Paul, but he has already told you so much and he's anxious for you to know everything so that the knowledge won't be between you. I think you're strong enough to hear. But eat your supper first."

"Yes, Madame."

When Flip had finished Madame said, very quietly, "Paul's parents were put into the gas chamber. He saw their bodies dumped with a pile of others afterwards. The following month his little brother died in his arms. It happened not only to Paul, you must understand. It happened to thousands of other children."

After a long silence Flip said, "We don't know, do we, Madame? We can't know. I mean none of us at school who haven't been through it. I thought it was awful when my mother was killed and they didn't tell me for a week and I couldn't understand why she didn't come to me, but it wasn't like that. And even Gloria losing her teeth in the blitz. She doesn't know."

"No, Flip. Gloria doesn't know."

"I feel it deep inside, Madame. But I don't know. How can you do anything to make up, Madame? How can you help?"

"Just never forget," Madame Perceval said. "Never take it for granted."

"I don't see how anyone _could_ forget."

"It's far too easy," Madame Perceval told her. "But it's important for us to remember, so that we can try to keep it from happening again. That's one reason I'm not going back to school after Christmas."

"You're not going back!" Flip cried, and almost upset her tray.

"Steady," Madame Perceval said. "I hadn't meant to tell you so soon."

"Oh, Madame," Flip wailed. "_Why_ aren't you coming back!"

Madame got up and walked over to the window, looking out at the fresh white world, swept clean by the wind the night before. "I feel that I've outlived my usefulness at the school. After the war when my aunt started it up again she needed me to help her, because she's not as young or as strong as she once was. But the school's reëstablished now. Everything's running smoothly. I'm not really needed any longer. As a matter of fact," Madame Perceval turned towards Flip with a half smile, "you're partly responsible for my leaving."

"Me? How! Why!" Flip cried.

"I think if I hadn't seen your father's letters with their drawings of forlorn and frightened children I might not have been quite so ready to accept when a friend I worked with during the war wrote and asked me to come and help her in a hostel for just such children. So that's where I'm going after the holidays, dear. It's on the border between Switzerland and Germany, right where I was during most of the war, so it will be good for me in many ways to make myself go there. Now, my Flip, I've talked to you far too long already. You're supposed to be resting. Mlle. Duvoisine will be angry with me if I've excited you."

"You haven't excited me," Flip said, and her voice was low and mournful. "Only I don't see how I'll bear it back at school if you aren't there."

"I'm surprised at you, Philippa." Madame Perceval spoke sharply. "I didn't expect to hear you talk that way again. I thought that was the old Philippa we'd left behind. Bear it! Of course you'll bear it! Things won't be any different without me than they were with me. I've never shown any favoritism at school and I never would."

"I didn't mean that!" Flip cried. "Madame, you know I didn't mean that! It just helps me if I know that you're there, and it's _because_ you're so fair and--and just."

Madame Perceval took her hand quickly. "I apologise, dear. Please forgive me. I've been very unjust to you. I know you'd never expect favors of any kind. I should have been accusing myself, not you. I said that because I've been afraid that I might show how particularly you interested me--and I've always prided myself on complete impartiality. But you remind me so much of Denise--my daughter.... She died of pneumonia during the war. You look very much like her and she had your same intense, difficult nature and artistic talent.... I said we weren't going to talk any more and I've been going a blue streak, haven't I? Take your nap and Paul will come in when you wake up. Mlle. Duvoisine and the doctor both say that security and happiness are the best medicine he can have, and you can give him a great deal of both. By the way, his real name was Paul Muret. Its nice that we can go on calling him Paul. Of course it's a common name, but Paul says he's always felt _right_ being called 'Paul.' It was my husband's name."

As Madame Perceval bent over her to put the covers about her, Flip reached up and caught her hand, whispering, "I can't imagine anybody who would make a more wonderful mother than you."

3

During the remainder of the holidays Madame Perceval took Flip and Paul on long skiing expeditions every day. Once they got on the train in the morning and traveled all day and then took two days to ski home. Flip was beginning to feel more at ease on her skis than she was on her own feet. When she put on her skis her clumsiness seemed to roll off her like water and her stiff knee seemed to have the spring and strength that it never had when she tried to run in a relay race or on the basket ball court or on the hockey field. Flip and Paul grew brown and rosy and the shadows slowly retreated from Paul's eyes and Flip looked as though she could be no relation to the unhappy girl who had moped about the school and been unable to make friends. Now when they met other young people on their skiing expeditions she could exchange shouts and laugh with them, safe in her new security of friendship with Paul, confidence in her skiing, and Madame Perceval's approval and friendship. She tried not to think that someone new would be taking the art teacher's place at school.

"By the way, Flip," Madame Perceval said once. "When the question comes up at school about the ski meet, don't mention my part in the surprise. Just say that it was Paul who taught you to ski."

"All right, Madame," Flip said, "if you think it would be better that way."

"I do." Madame Perceval looked after Paul who had skied on ahead of them. "After all, the credit is really Paul's anyhow."

In the evenings after dinner they sang Christmas carols. Flip had taught them her favorite, _The Twelve Days of Christmas_. She had loved it when she was very small because it was such a long one, and when she was told that she could choose just one more song before bedtime, that would be it. So she loved it for its memories and now for its own charming tune and delicate words, from the first verse,

_On the first day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
A partridge in a pear tree,_

to the twelfth verse when all the twelve gifts are sung with a glad shout.

On Christmas Eve Georges Laurens stirred himself from his books and they all went out and climbed up the mountain and brought home a beautiful Christmas tree. Flip and Paul had been making the decorations in the evening after dinner, chains of brightly colored paper, strings of berries and small rolled balls of tinfoil; and Flip had carefully painted and pasted on cardboard twenty delicate angels with feathery wings and a stable scene with Mary and Joseph and the infant Jesus, the kings and shepherds and all the animals who gathered close to keep the baby warm. When the tree was trimmed they sang carols, ending up with _The Twelve Days_. Paul took Flip's hand and threw back his head and sang,

"_On the twelfth day of Christmas
My true love sent to me
Twelve drummers drumming
Eleven pipers piping
Ten lords a'leaping
Nine ladies dancing
Eight maids a'milking
Seven swans a'swimming
Six geese a'laying
Five gold rings,
Four calling birds
Three french hens
Two turtle doves,
And a partridge in a pear tree!_"

4

On Christmas morning they sat in front of the fire and opened their presents. Paul saved his gift to Flip till the last and then held out the small square box shyly. Flip opened it and lifted out of pale blue cotton a tiny silver pear on a chain.

"I couldn't find any of the gifts from the carol," Paul said, "but this is a pear from the tree the partridge was in."

Flip looked up at Paul's eager face and her own was radiant. She wanted to say something to express her happiness but she couldn't, so she just flung her arms wide as though she wanted to embrace them all.

"Why Miss Philippa," Georges Laurens said, "I never realized before what a little beauty you are. We should have Christmas every day!"

"Do you like the pear?" Paul asked.

Flip, her eyes shining, whispered, "More than anything."

5

Towards the end of the holidays Flip persuaded Paul to stop off at the school chalet one day when they were skiing at Gstaad. She felt that perhaps it wasn't very nice of her to want to show Paul off, but she couldn't help wanting it.

"The really nicest ones went home for the holiday which is too bad," Flip told him. "Gloria's all right. Oh, and I think Maggie and Liz Campbell stayed and they're awfully nice. Maggie's in my class and she's always been polite and everything, not like some of the others, and Liz is two classes above. Jackie and Erna and Solvei are the one's you'll like best, though. You'll have to meet them when they come back."

"Erna's German, isn't she?" Paul asked.

"Yes," Flip answered quickly, "but Jackie Bernstein's father was in a German prison near Paris for six months until he escaped and Erna is Jackie's best friend. And you'll like Erna anyhow because she's going to be a doctor, too."

"Well--" Paul said, "let's get this business at Gstaad over with before we worry about anything else. The important thing is for you to get used to the snow conditions at Gstaad before the ski meet."

The trip to Gstaad went off very well. Flip was so preoccupied with putting Paul at ease that she forgot to be shy and awkward herself and astounded the girls by making jokes and keeping up a rapid stream of talk at the dinner table. And she and Paul kept having to remember that they mustn't talk about skiing, or let on that they weren't returning by train but had left their skis at the Gstaad station.

On the last night of the holidays Madame Perceval came up to say good-night to them, and sat beside Paul on the foot of Flip's bed.

"It's good-night and good-bye, my children," she said. "I leave on the five thirty-two, tomorrow morning, and Georges will take me to the train and be back before you're awake."

"Couldn't we see you off?" Flip begged.

"No, dear. I don't like leave-takings. And in any case it's best for you to be fresh and have had a good night's rest before you go back to school. Work hard on the skiing; Paul will help you on week-ends, though you don't need much help any more, and I expect to hear great things of that ski meet. So don't disappoint me. I know you won't."

"I'll try not to, Madame," Flip promised; and she knew that both she and Madame Perceval meant more than just the skiing and the ski meet.

"Paul," Madame said, "take care of your father and take care of Flip. I'll keep in touch with you both and maybe we can all meet during the spring holidays. Good-night, my children. God bless you." And she bent down and kissed them good-night and good-bye.

6

After the Christmas holidays, the exciting and wonderful holidays, there seemed to be a great difference in Flip and her feeling towards the school. As she ran up the marble staircase she no longer felt new and strange. She realized with a little shock that she was now an "old girl." Almost every face she saw was familiar and the few new ones belonged to new girls who had replaced her as the lonely and the strange one. She stopped at the desk where Miss Tulip was presiding as she had on the day when Flip first came to the school with her father and Eunice. Miss Tulip checked her name in the big register and handed her a letter. It was from her father.

"Oh, thanks, Miss Tulip," she cried, and slit it open.

"My darling Flippet," she read, "I told you not to worry if you didn't hear from me for a week or so while I was traveling. I did get you off that one post card while I was in Paris having twenty-four hours of gayety with Eunice and now I am in Freiburg in Germany and will be traveling about for a month or so around here and across the border in Switzerland. It seems a shame that I will be so close to you and not be able to come to you at once, but I missed so much time while I was in the hospital with that devilish jaundice that I must work double time now to try to make up. However, I _think_ I may be able to manage to be with you for your ski meet. I shall try very hard to make it. I want to see you ski (but darling don't worry if you don't win any prizes. The fact that you have really learned to ski is more than enough) and I want to see your Paul. I don't know where I shall be during your Easter holidays but wherever it is I promise you that you will be there too and we'll sandwich in plenty of fun between sketches. And don't expect much in the way of correspondence from me for the next few months, my dearest. You'll know that I am thinking of you and loving you anyhow, but my work often makes me unhappy and tired and when I stop at night I fall into bed and it is a great comfort to me to know that you are warm and fed and well cared for and that you have learned to have fun and be happy. I know that it was difficult and I am very proud of my Flippet."

With the letter he enclosed several sketches and Flip thought that Madame Perceval would have liked them--except the ones he had done of his twenty-four hours in Paris with Eunice. Flip crumpled the Paris sketches up but put the others carefully in the envelope with the letter, slipped it in her blazer pocket and started up the marble stairs just as a new group of girls came into the hall and started registering with Miss Tulip.

On the landing she bumped into Signorina. "Have good holidays, Philippa?" the Italian teacher asked her.

"Oh, yes, thank you, Signorina, wonderful! Did you?"

"Lovely. But it is good to get back to our clean Switzerland. So we have lost our Madame Perceval. I shall miss her."

"Yes," Flip said, "Yes, Signorina."

Erna and Jackie came tearing up the stairs. "Hello, Signorina! Hello, Flip!"

"Pill, mon choux, it's good to see you!" Jackie cried as Signorina went on up the stairs. "When did you get here? Isn't it wonderful to be back?"

"Flip, meine süsse!" Erna shouted.

Perhaps it was not wonderful, but neither was it terrible.

A group of them congregated in the corridor, since Miss Tulip was downstairs and could not reprimand them. They all talked at once, laughing, shouting, telling each other about the holidays. Gloria could not wait to show them the black lace and silk pajamas Emile had sent her for New Year, nor to tell them about Flip's visit to the school chalet with Paul.

"You should _see_ Pill's boy friend," she shouted, "you should just _see_ him!"

"That child? We saw him," Esmée said in a disinterested voice.

"Out the window the day the hols began? Don't be a dreep, Es. He's no child. You're just jealous. Pill brought him to the chalet for lunch and he's dreamy, positively dreamy, isn't he Sal?"

Sally grinned and nodded. "He really is. I never thought Pill had it in her. She must have a whopper of a line after all."

"All I can say is hurrah for Flip," Maggie Campbell said. "I'd hate to see Esmée get her claws into someone as nice as that."

Esmée turned angrily towards the laughing Maggie but Jackie broke in, "I went to six plays and two operas. What did you do, Esmée?"

Esmée announced languidly, still with a baleful eye on Maggie, that she had gone out dancing every night and worn a strapless evening gown.

"Strapless evening gown my foot," Jackie whispered inelegantly to Flip. "She'd look gruesome in a strapless evening gown."

Solvei had spent the holidays skiing with her parents. "I bet _I_ could teach you to ski, Flip," she said.

Oh, horrors, Flip thought. What shall I do if she really wants to try?

Later that evening Erna pulled Jackie and Flip out of the Common Room and onto the icy balcony, whispering, "I have something to tell you but it's a secret and you must promise never to tell a soul."

"Cross my heart and hope to die," Flip said, thrilled to be included in a secret that Erna was sharing with Jackie.

"Jure et crâche," Jackie said, and spat over the balcony, imitating the tough boys on the city streets.

Erna was satisfied. "Well, it's something I learned during the holidays," she started. "Maybe you know it already, Flip. It's about Madame Perceval."

Jackie grabbed Erna's arm. "Don't tell me it's the story of Percy's past!" She almost shrieked.

Erna nodded. "You're _sure_ you won't tell anybody?"

"I said jure et crâche, didn't I?" And Jackie spat over the balcony again. Unfortunately in her excitement she had not seen Miss Tulip walking below, and the matron jumped as a wet spray blew past her face.

"_Who_ is up on the balcony!" she exclaimed.

"Please, it's only us, Miss Tulip," Jackie called down meekly.

"I might have known it," Miss Tulip said, craning her neck and looking up at them. "Naturally it would be Jacqueline Bernstein and Erna Weber. And _with_ Philippa Hunter. I am sorry to see you keeping such bad company, Philippa. Get back indoors at once, girls, or you'll catch your deaths of cold, and you may each take a deportment mark."

They retired indoors, Erna sputtering, "the old hag! On the first day after the hols, too. No one else would have given us a deportment mark."

But Jackie was giggling wildly. "I spit on her! I spit on Black and Midnight." Then she said seriously, "Percy would never have given us a Deportment Mark for that. I don't know how we'll ever get on without her. School won't be the same. Go on about what you were going to tell us about her, Erna."

"I can't in here. They'd see we were having a secret and all come bouncing about. We'll have to wait till Gloria goes to brush her teeth," Erna said, looking around as a girl with beautiful honey-colored hair curling all over her head opened the glass doors and came into the Common Room, looking diffidently about her.

"Can you tell me--" she started.

Gloria, anxious to prove that _she_ was an old girl, went dashing across the room to her. "Hello, are you a new girl? The seniors' sitting room is on the next floor, just over the Common Room."

"I'm Miss Redford, the new art teacher," the girl said, smiling warmly. "I was looking for someone by the name of Philippa Hunter."

"Oh. That's me. I mean I." Flip stepped forward and Gloria retired in confusion.

"Oh, hullo, Philippa. Could I speak to you for a moment?"

Flip followed Miss Redford into the Hall, and the teacher smiled at her disarmingly. "Madame Perceval wrote me that you were the best art student in the school and that you'd show me around the studio and give me a helping hand till I get settled. I feel terribly new and strange coming into the middle of things like this and this is my first job. I'm just out of the College of London and I'm afraid I shall make a terrible muddle of things."

She laughed, and Flip thought,--Well, if someone _had_ to take Madame's place, this one couldn't be nicer.

"Would you like to see the studio now?" she suggested. "I have about half an hour before the bell."

"I'd love to," Miss Redford said. "I've been up there, poking around. It's really a wonderful studio for a school. I looked at some of your things and I see that Madame Perceval was right." She paused and panted, "I wonder if I shall ever get used to all these stairs!"

Flip was so used to the five flights of stairs that she never thought of them, but Miss Redford was quite winded by the time they reached the top.

"Of course my room is on the second floor so I shall always be trotting up and down!" she gasped.

Much as Flip liked Miss Redford she was glad the new art teacher was not to have Madame Perceval's rooms.

"Now, Philippa," Miss Redford said, "if you'll just show me where things are kept in the cupboards I'll be tremendously grateful. I thought we might do some modelling this term, and maybe if any of the things are good enough we'll have them fired. I found the clay but I would like to know where everything else is kept."

Flip opened the cupboard doors and showed Miss Redford Madame Perceval's places for everything. She had just finished when the bell rang, and she said, "There's my bell so I'll have to go downstairs or Miss Tulip will give me a Tardy Mark. I'm glad Madame Perceval thought I could help."

"You've been a great help." Miss Redford said warmly, "and if you don't mind I'll probably call on you again. Good-night, and thanks awfully."

7

The others were in the room when Flip got downstairs. "Was I embarrassed!" Gloria exclaimed. "What did she want?"

"Oh, just to have me show her where Madame kept the things in the studio. Golly, I'm hungry. We always had something to eat before we went to bed during the hols."

"Honestly," Gloria said, "I think she might have let us know she was a teacher and not just come in like a new girl."

"She didn't have a uniform on," Jackie said reasonably.

"Well, lots of girls don't when they come. I think teachers should look like teachers." Gloria was not ready to be pacified.

"Percy didn't look like a teacher."

"Yes, but she didn't look like a girl, either. What's she like, Pill, this Redburn or whatever her name is?"

"Redford," Flip said, "And she seemed awfully nice."

"If you think she's nice she must be, you were so crazy about Percy."

"She said we were going to do things in clay," Flip said. "Aren't you going to go brush your teeth, Gloria?"

"I've brushed them."

"You have not," Erna cried. "You just this minute finished getting undressed."

"I brushed them before I got undressed."

"Oh, Glo, you fibber!" Jackie jumped up and down on her bed.

"You're just plain dirty," Erna said rudely but without malice.

"I am not!" Gloria started to get excited. "I did brush my teeth before I got undressed. So there!"

"All right, all right!" Jackie said hastily. "Don't get in a fuss. I'm going to go brush _my_ teeth, though," and she looked meaningfully at Erna and Flip, who echoed her and followed her out into the corridor.

"I bet she hasn't brushed her teeth," Erna whispered. "She just knows I have something to tell you that I'm not going to tell her. My father said I wasn't to go around telling people, but you're so crazy about Percy, both of you, I thought it would be all right."

Miss Tulip bore down on them. "Girls! No talking in the corridors! What are you doing?"

"We're just going to brush our teeth, please, Miss Tulip."

"Go and brush them, then. I don't want to have to give you another Deportment Mark. Step, now."

"Yes, Miss Tulip."

"We'll meet in the classroom before breakfast," Erna whispered.

As she lay in bed that night, propped up on one elbow so that she could look down the mountain side to the lake, Flip had a surprising sense of homecoming. She had missed, without realizing that she had missed it, being able to see the lake and the mountains of France from her bed, and they seemed to welcome her back. And when she lay down, the familiar pattern of light on the ceiling was a reassuring sight. As she began to get sleepy she sang in her mind, _On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me a partridge in a pear tree_, and reached up to feel the silver pear on its slender chain about her neck.

8

"At last!" Erna said the next morning as the three of them slipped into the classroom.

"Go on, quick, before someone comes in." Jackie stepped onto the teacher's platform and climbed up onto the table, sitting on it cross legged.

"Yes, do hurry," Flip begged, sitting on her desk.

"Well, I have to begin at the beginning and tell you how I found out."

"Is it tragic?" Jackie asked.

"Yes, it is, and Percy was a heroine."

"What did she do?"

"Stop asking questions and I'll tell you!" Erna exclaimed in exasperation. "First of all, I had perfectly wonderful holidays. I stayed most of the time with a nurse from the hospital. My mother and father are getting a divorce and I'm glad." And she stared at Flip and Jackie defiantly.

"Oh, Erna," Jackie cried.

"Well, mutti's not a bit like your mother," Erna said, "and she's never liked me. But my father was just wonderful and Marianne, she's the nurse, was awfully nice, too, and took me to the movies when she was off duty. And she told me my father was a great surgeon and a wonderful man and I saw an operation and I didn't faint or anything and my father told me he was very happy I was going to be a doctor and he'd help me all he could. And he talked to me lots and lots and said he was sorry he never had time to write me or anything but he loved me just the same and he'd try to write me more. And then he told me he and mutti disagreed about many things and they disagreed about the world and Germany and people and things in general. They'd disagreed about the war and the Nazis only father couldn't say anything because of my brothers and mutti and me and everything. He said all the injured and wounded people needed to be taken care of and it wasn't their fault, mostly, not the fault of--what did he call them? the--the little people. So he felt all right taking care of them and he was glad I was here at school because he thought it was the best place in the world for me right now. And it was really wonderful, kids, because he'd always been so kind of stern and everything and I'd never really known him before or felt that I had a father the way you two do, and now I have, even if mutti still doesn't love me."

Flip and Jackie listened, neither of them looking at the other or at Erna because there was too much emotion in the room and they both felt full of too much pity for Erna even while she was telling them how happy she was. But they caught the sorrow in her voice when she spoke of her mother, and Flip felt that having your mother not love you would be the bitterest way of all to lose her.

"Well, I expect you're wondering what all this has to do with Percy," Erna continued, her voice suddenly brisk. "My father's brother, my uncle Guenther, is a doctor, too, and he used to know Percy's sister, the singer, and he knew about this school and that's how I happened to come here. He was a Nazi for a while and then he wanted to stop being one and they put him in a prison but they needed surgeons and so they let him out and he had to pretend he was a Nazi but all the time he was trying to work against them. Really he was. I know lots of them say that now because it's--what's the word father used--expedient--but Uncle Guenther really did try, and then he just took care of the hurt people like my father did because hurt people should be taken care of no matter who they are."

"It's all right," Jackie said. "We believe you. Do go on about Percy."

"Well, Percy's sister sang in Berlin for the Americans and Uncle Guenther came to see her and they got to talking about old times and everything and then they talked about the war and how it was awful that friends should be enemies and they each said they'd wanted to be on--on the side of life and not on the side of death. And Percy's sister said she hadn't been able to do anything but sing. Madame and her husband had been living in Paris where he taught history at the Sorbonne and Percy taught art at one of the Lycées. They were both wonderful skiers and they left and came to Switzerland, to the border between Switzerland and Germany, and they became guides who helped people escape into Switzerland. Their daughter had died of pneumonia just at the beginning of the war and it made Percy very serious. Uncle Guenther said that before that she had been very gay and used to love to go to parties and things. Anyhow, they became these guides, I mean Madame and her husband did, and once when they were bringing a party over the border they were discovered and Percy's husband was shot just before they got into Switzerland."

Tender-hearted Jackie had tears in her eyes and Flip's face was pale.

"Well," Erna said, "I just thought you'd want to know and you were the only two people in school I could tell it to."

"Oh, Erna!" Jackie cried. "Oh, Erna! How awful! And it's just like an American movie, Percy helping people to escape and everything."

"Golly, it's going to be awful without her the rest of the year," Erna said. "I'm glad this Miss Redford seems nice."

"Thank you for telling me, too, Erna." Flip slid down from her desk as the breakfast gong began to ring.

"Oh, well, I knew you were crazy about Percy. Come on, kids, time for food." And Erna hurried them out of the classroom.

9

The days really began to go by as Flip had never thought days at school could go. She remembered in the movies how the passage of time was often shown by the pages of a calendar being turned in rapid succession, and it seemed now that the days at school were being flipped by in just such a way. She would get up in the cold dark of early morning, dress, shivering, make her bed, and rush out to practice skiing.

"Where _do_ you go every morning, Flip?" her roommates asked her.

"It's a secret," she finally had to tell them, "but I'll tell you as soon as I possibly can."

"What kind of a secret?"

"Well, I _think_ it's going to be a nice secret," Flip said.

She spent Sundays skiing with Paul and usually stayed at the gate house for the evening meal.

"Flip, have you ever seen the others ski?" Paul asked her.

"No. Sometimes on walks we pass the beginners and you can see them from the windows of the gym. But the others usually take the train up to San Loup and I haven't seen them."

"Then you don't really know what you're up against?"

"No."

"So you can't really tell how you'll stand the day of the ski meet."

"No."

"Well--" Paul threw out his arms and pushed back his chair. "There's no use worrying about it. Aunt Colette said you should definitely sign up with the intermediates and she certainly ought to know."

There was a letter one day from her father. "I'm sketching at the hostel where your Madame Perceval is teaching," he wrote. "She's doing amazing work with the children here and they all adore her. She speaks affectionately of you and sends you her regards."

And Paul told her, "My father had a letter from Aunt Colette. She's met your father."

One Sunday while they were at the table Flip said to Paul, "Why don't you ski back down to school with me if your father will let us, and then I could sort of show you around and he could come and get you."

"No," Paul said.

"Why not?"

"I just don't want to."

"Why don't you go, Paul?" Georges Laurens put in. "It would do you good."

"Please, Paul," Flip begged. "School's been lots of fun since Christmas."

"You've certainly changed," Paul said, looking down at his plate.

"Yes, I have. And it's lots nicer. I'm not the most popular girl in school or anything but they don't hate me any more, and Erna and Jackie and Solvei and Maggie are nice to me and everybody likes it because I draw pictures of them. Anyhow, you don't have to come in or say a word to anybody if you don't want to, you can go on avoiding institutions. But I want to ski back to school and I can't unless you go with me because I'm not allowed to be out alone."

"There you are," Paul said. "Rules again."

"Honestly!" Flip cried, and for the first time in speaking to Paul her voice held anger. "Prisons and concentration camps and things aren't the only place where you have rules! You have to have rules! Look at international law."

"You look at it," Paul said.

Flip was getting really furious. "All right, I will! And I'll see what happens when nations go against it! You have wars and then you have bombs and concentration camps and people being killed and everything horrible. You _have_ to have _some_ rules! Hospitals have rules and if you're going to be a doctor you'll be working in hospitals. It's just plain common sense to accept some rules! It's just plain courtesy! I never thought I'd see you being _stupid_, Paul Laurens! And if you're going to tell me you're afraid of a few girls I won't believe you."

Paul stood up, knocking over his chair, and walked out of the room.

Flip sat down and she was trembling. She looked across the table at Georges Laurens, her eyes wide with dismay. "I've upset him. That was awful of me. I'm sorry."

"It's all right," Georges Laurens said. "Losing your temper that way was the best thing you could have done. Finish your tart."

Flip picked up her fork and began eating again but now the tart that had looked so delectable when Thérèse put it in front of her was only something to be forced down. She had just swallowed the last bite when Paul came back and stood in the doorway.

"All right," he almost shouted at Flip. "Get your skis. Please come for me in an hour, papa."

"An hour it shall be," Georges Laurens said.

It took them less than half an hour to ski back to the school. Flip took Paul into the ski room while she put her skis in the rack. "I didn't mean to make you angry," she said. "I'm sorry, Paul. Please forgive me."

Paul shook his head. "No. You were quite right. Everything you said. I don't know what's the matter with me."

"Would you--" Flip asked tentatively, "would you mind if I brought Jackie and Erna down for just a minute? They're dying to meet you and it's--it's strictly against the rules."

Paul laughed. "All right. Go ahead."

Flip went tearing along the corridor and up the stairs. She slowed down when she came to the lounge because Fräulein Hauser was on duty, and walked as quickly as possible to the Common Room. Luckily Jackie and Erna were off in a corner together, reading a letter from Jackie's mother.

"Get permission from Hauser to go to the libe and meet me in the room," she whispered. Then she hurried away and ran up the stairs, pulling off ski jacket and sweater on the way. Jackie and Erna came in as she was throwing on her uniform.

"What's up?"

"Come on down to the ski room with me," Flip panted.

"Are you crazy?" Erna asked. "Hauser won't give us permission. The basement at this time of night is strengt verboten."

"Don't be a nut," Flip said, "Paul's down there. He came back with me. We can slip down the back stairs. Oh, come on, kids, do hurry."

Both Erna's and Jackie's faces lit up when Flip mentioned Paul and they followed her excitedly down the back stairs. For a moment when they got to the ski room Flip thought that Paul had run out on her, but no; he turned to meet them with a grin.

"Hello," Paul said, pulling off his cap and bowing.

"Paul, this is Erna and Jackie," Flip said quickly. "Kids, this is Paul Laurens, Madame's nephew."

They all said hello and sat down on the benches.

Flip began to talk quickly. "Erna and Jackie are my roommates, Paul. You remember. I told you about them. I would have brought Gloria--you know, she's our other roommate--but she can't ever keep a secret. If you want anything spread all over school you just take Gloria aside and tell it to her as a dead secret and you know everybody'll know about it in a couple of hours. She's lots of fun, though. Oh, and you know what we did to her!"

"What?" Paul asked, rather taken aback by this jabbering Flip.

"The ears," Flip said to Erna and Jackie, and the three of them went off into gales of laughter. "You tell him, Jackie," Flip said.

"Well, Gloria _never_ used to wash her ears," Jackie began, "so we wrote her a letter pretending it came from Signorina del Rossi--she's the teacher on our corridor. We didn't dare make it from the matron because she'd have given us Deportment marks but Signorina's a good sport. Anyhow, Flip wrote the letter, and she imitated Signorina's handwriting, and it said that Gloria was to go to Signorina every morning right after breakfast for ear inspection. Black and Midnight--she's the matron and sleeps on our corridor, too--inspects our fingernails every morning but she doesn't look at our ears. So Gloria got this letter and that evening we heard her washing and washing in her cubicle and the next morning we hid behind the door to the back stairs because that's opposite Signorina's room, and Gloria came and knocked on Signorina's door and we heard her tell Signorina she'd come for ear inspection. And Signorina was just wonderful. She never let on that she didn't know what it was all about but looked at Gloria's ears and told her they were very nice and as long as she kept them that way she needn't come back."

Paul laughed obligingly, then said, "it's time for me to meet my father now, but I'll see you all at the ski meet. It's pretty soon now, isn't it?"

Erna hugged herself in anticipation and said, "Fräulein Hauser told us at dinner that it was definitely going to be next Saturday. The lists go up on Friday, and it's tremendously exciting, signing up for things."

Paul gave Flip a nudge. "I suppose you'll all be signing up for things."

"All except Flip," Erna said, and Paul gave Flip another nudge.

They said good-bye at the foot of the back stairs. Paul bowed gallantly and told Erna and Jackie how much he'd enjoyed meeting them, and then he and Flip went out to meet Monsieur Laurens.

"Just a week more, Flip," Paul whispered.

"I know," Flip whispered back, and shivered.