# The Girls of Central High on the Stage/Chapter 23

CHAPTER XXIII
"CAUGHT ON THE FLY"
The last few days before the first performance of "The Spring Road" was a whirl of excitement for most of the girls of Central High, and all those belonging to the M. O. R's. or who were to take part in the play. Mr. Sharp, on his own responsibility, announced a general holiday for Friday, with certain lessons to be made up to pay for the deducted time.
"It is my opinion that little work can be expected from either the young ladies or young gentlemen on the momentous day," he said. "Besides, I understand that Miss Gould desires to have a final rehearsal of the play on Friday morning on the stage upstairs. Therefore, mere matters of education may be put aside."
He was quite good natured about it, however, and entirely approved of the attempt of Central High pupils to do something upon the stage that was really "worth while." And Jess Morse's play was indeed far above the average of amateur attempts.
​"You girls are invited to a dash on the Blue Streak after the rehearsal to-morrow, Sis," Chet Belding said to Laura at dinner Thursday evening. "Lance and I will show you some sport."
Mrs. Belding looked doubtfully at her husband. "Do you think that ice-boat Chet has built is really safe for the girls, James?" she asked.
"Bless your heart, Mother!" returned the jeweler, his eyes twinkling, "it's quite as safe for Laura and Jess as it is for the boys."
"Ye—es, I suppose so," admitted the good woman. "But it doesn't seem so safe. Girls are different from boys."
"Not so different, nowadays," grumbled Chet "You ought to see some of those husky Central High girls going off with Mrs. Case on their skis. And ski running is as dangerous as ice-boating—believe me!"
"I do believe you, my son. I have no reason to doubt your word," returned Mother Belding, quietly.
"Oh, Mum! that's only an expression——"
"Please stick to English—and facts, Chetwood," advised his mother.
"I declare!" grumpily remarked her son. "A meal of victuals at this house has got to be just like attending one of Old Dimple's lectures."
​"Chet!" spoke his father, sternly.
"Well! I guess I didn't mean it just that way—not the way it sounded," the boy said hastily. "But mother does pick a fellow up so——"
"I have been doing that all your life, my son," said his mother. "Whenever you stub your toe, mother has been their to comfort you."
"Got you there, Chet," laughed Laura. "And you used to be a terrible 'stumble heels,' too."
"Say! you're all down on me," declared her brother, but in a milder tone. "I reckon I'm not so popular in this house as I thought I was. But that isn't the answer to my question, Laura. Do you and Jess want to fly with us to-morrow just after lunch?"
"Of course we do," replied his sister. "I don't suppose mother has any real objection?"
"My objections to your sports and athletics seem to have very little reality about them, children," said Mrs. Belding. "Even my husband will not give me backing."
"When I see Chet and Laura anemic, or otherwise sickly, as the result of their out-of-door sports or gym. work, you will find me up in arms with you against such activities, Mother," ​declared Mr. Belding, jovially. "I'd a good deal rather have little Mother Wit here half a Tom-boy——"
"Which I'm not, I hope, Papa Belding!" cried Laura, quickly.
"I should hope not," said her mother.
"All right," laughed Mr. Belding. "But I would rather you were than like a few of the girls who attend your school. Some of them are growing up to womanhood too quickly to suit me. There's that Pendleton girl——"
"What do you know about Lily Pendleton, Father?" asked Laura, quickly.
"Why, she dresses like a girl of twenty-five—and acts that grown up, too," observed the jeweler. "She was in the store a week or so ago. Now! there's another bad thing. Her mother lets her do just about as she pleases, I guess."
"Mrs. Pendleton has always been very lenient with Lillian," agreed his wife.
"The girl brought into my store a jewel box in which were things valued at more than a thousand dollars, I believe. Old-fashioned jewels left her by her grandmother. She thought of having some re-set. And she really wanted me to buy some of them. She said her mother wouldn't care what she did with them."
​"Of course, James, you did not give the girl money?" exclaimed Mrs. Belding.
"Of course I did not! I am not a pawnbroker. But I valued the stones for her, and she took them away. I wonder what she really meant by trying to sell them?"
Laura listened and flushed; but she remained silent. Since her visit to the Plornish tenement, and since she had read the playbill from Keyport that Jess had brought her, Laura had been very gravely exercised in her mind regarding Lily Pendleton. But she could not bring herself to the point of taking either her father or mother into her confidence. It was not her own secret; it was Lily's.
The following morning the rehearsal of "The Spring Road" went with a snap and vim that delighted everybody. Miss Gould could not praise the girls and boys too highly. Even Mr. Pizotti signified his satisfaction with the way in which the play proceeded. Really, the actual production of the piece would go on well without his presence, although the sum they had agreed to pay the stage manager covered the three performances of the play already arranged for.
Laura and Jess went down to the lake after luncheon to meet the two boys. The Blue ​Streak, fresh in a new coat of paint, and with every part of the mechanism guaranteed in perfect order, was already hauled out upon the ice.
The surface of the lake was not as it had been when the girls had taken their first ride on the aero-iceboat. Then the ice was like glass; but now it was pebbly, broken in spots, and not a little "hummocky." There was a stiff wind blowing, too, and this broke up the thinner ice around the water-holes. The course for sleighs and for ice-boats was fairly safe, however, all the way to Keyport.
"Say! we just saw Lily going driving with that sleek little foreigner," said Lance, as the two girls appeared. "I should think Mrs. Pendleton would send a chaperone with her daughter. Old Mike, the coachman, is right under the girl's thumb."
"What do you mean, Lance?" asked Laura, quickly.
"Why, Lil Pendleton and the stage manager are out there in the Pendletons' sleigh. They're aiming for Keyport. And Lil has a big box in the sleigh. Guess they are taking lunch along."
"Lunch!" ejaculated Chet. "Why, that yellow box would hold enough for an army."
"My goodness me! A yellow box?" cried Jess. "Was it that box in which Lil has been ​bringing her costumes to and from the rehearsals?"
"Dunno," said Chet, not much interested.
But Jess turned to her chum, eagerly.
"You know, Laura, she insisted in packing the dresses all into that box again this noon and taking them home with her as usual, although every other girl left her costume in the dressing-rooms. Did you notice it?"
"No," said Laura, slowly.
"Maybe she doesn't expect to get back until it's time to go on for the evening performance," suggested Lance.
"That's not it," returned Laura, quietly.
"What do you suppose that girl has got in her mind, Laura?" demanded Jess, as the boys were making the final preparations for their start.
"I do not know. But I believe she is the 'talented young amateur' advertised to appear at the Keyport Orpheum to-night," said Laura, gravely.
"You don't mean it!" gasped Jess. Then she added, with sudden excitement:
"Why, she'll spoil my play!"
"If she is not here to play her part she will certainly interfere sadly with the success of 'The Spring Road,'" admitted Laura.
​"Oh, oh! That mean, mean thing!" cried Jess, under her breath.
"She is taking her costumes to wear in the production of her own play, which she has renamed 'The Lady of the Castle,'" said Laura. "She will make a lovely 'Duchess of Doosenberry,' as Bobby nicknamed it, in those robes, Jess."
"Why, Laura, I believe you are not sympathetic," cried Jess.
"Don't you be afraid, dear. Miss Lily will not appear as 'the talented yong amateur, Greba Pendennis,' if that is what she really intends to attempt. I have fixed that."
"What do you mean?" demanded Jess. But just then the boys shouted to them and they had to hurry to take their places in the ice-boat.
"Chet," said Laura, to her brother, as she settled herself aboard, "run down near the Pendleton sleigh if you can. I want to speak to Lil."
"Just as you say, Sis," returned her brother. "All ready? Let her go, Lance! We'll show these girls some traveling, eh?"
The Blue Streak was off in a moment and the way she tore over the ice always gave the two girls, at first, a feeling as though a wreck were imminent. But in a minute or two the feeling ​subsided, and through the automobile goggles they both wore they dared look ahead.
On this cold afternoon there were not many sleighs or ice-boats on the racing course between Centerport and Keyport. But suddenly Lance looked around, grinned through his mask, and waved his hand toward the shore. The girls immediately knew that he had sighted the Pendleton sleigh.
Laura turned to look at her brother, and he nodded at her reassuringly. Lance reduced the speed, and the Blue Streak began to move shoreward.
The girls could now see the sleigh plainly. The yellow box in which Lil carried her costumes was a splotch of color against the white fur robes. And there was Lil herself and the black figure of the little stage director.
The Blue Streak ran closer and of a sudden the young folks aboard the ice-boat saw that something was amiss with the Pendletons' horses. The dapple grays were fat, well fed beasts, and the coachman was old and rheumatic. Perhaps the appearance of another ice-boat that had just passed the sleigh had startled the horses.
However that might be, old Mike was suddenly flung from his seat, and the horses charged down the lake at a gallop, swinging the sleigh ​behind them at a pace that threatened to overturn it at any moment!
The four friends on the aero-iceboat could hear Lil scream. And up sprang the little black figure of Pizotti, alias Plornish, and the next moment he had leaped to the ice!
The horses tore on, and Lil was really in peril. But Chet guided the Blue Streak right down to the runaway, coming so close that Lance Darby was able to leap into the driver's seat from the running ice-boat.
It was a feat that called for agility and coolness; but the boy did it bravely. The next moment he was out on the tongue, had recovered the trailing lines, and the dapple grays were soon brought to an abrupt stop.