Read Online The Naughtiest Girl in the School by Enid Blyton - Free Book Online

me, Elizabeth. What’s the matter? Are you unhappy?”

    “Go away,” said Joan in a fierce whisper.
    “I shan’t,” said Elizabeth. “It makes me unhappy myself to hear you crying all alone. Are you homesick?”
    “Go away,” said Joan, beginning to cry softly again.
    “I tell you I shan’t,” said Elizabeth, “Listen, Joan. I’m unhappy too. I was so bad at home that no governesses would stay with me–—so my mother had to send me away to school. But I love my Mummy, and I can’t bear to be sent away from home like this. I want my dog and my pony and even my canary - so I do know how you feel if you are homesick.”
    Joan listened in surprise, So that was why Elizabeth was so horrid -partly because she was unhappy too, and wanted to be at home.
    “Now, Joan, tell me what’s the matter with you,” begged Elizabeth. “Please do. I won’t laugh, you know that. I only want to help you.”
    “There’s nothing much the matter,” said Joan, wiping her eyes. “It’s only that I don’t think my mother and father love me and I do love them so much. You see they hardly ever write to me and they never come to see me at half term and it’s my birthday this term, and everyone knows it and I shan’t get a present from them or a birthday cake or anything  I know I shan’t. And it makes me feel so dreadful.”
    “Oh, Joan!” said Elizabeth, and she took the girl’s hand in hers and squeezed it. “Oh, Joan, That’s awful! When I think how my Mummy spoilt me and gave me everything I wanted  and fussed me and I was cross and impatient all the time! And here are you, just longing for a little tiny bit of everything I had. I feel rather ashamed of myself.”
    “Well, so you ought to be,” said Joan, sitting up. “You don’t know how lucky you are to be loved and fussed. Goodness! I should be really thrilled and frightfully happy if my mother wrote to me even once in a fortnight and yours has sent you cards and letters almost every day. It makes me jealous.”
    “Don’t be jealous,” said Elizabeth, beginning to cry herself. “I would share everything with you if I could, Joan; I really would.”
    “Well, you can’t be quite so horrid as everyone thinks you are then.” said Joan.
    “I think I am rather horrid, but I do make myself much worse,” said Elizabeth. “You see, I mean to be sent back home as soon as possible.”
    “That will make your mother very unhappy,” said Joan. “It is a great disgrace to be expelled from school, sent away never to come back. You are very queer you love your mother, and she loves you, and you want to go back to her and yet you are willing to make her very unhappy. I don’t understand you. I’d do anything in the world for my mother, and she doesn’t love me at all. I try to make her proud of me. I do everything I can for her, but she doesn’t seem to bother about me. You’re as bad as you can be, and I expect your mother will love you all the same. It isn’t fair.”
    “No-it doesn’t seem fair,” said Elizabeth, thinking hard. She was glad her mother wasn’t like Joan’s. She made up her mind to be very nice to her mother when she went back home, to make up for making her unhappy by her behavior at school.
    “You see, Elizabeth, the other girls see me waiting for letters every day, and they laugh at me behind my back, and think my parents must be very queer people,” said Joan. “And I do hate that too. Last term I sent some letters to myself, just so that I should have some but the others found out and teased me dreadfully.”
    “It’s a shame,” said Elizabeth, “Joan, don’t worry so. Perhaps things will come right, Couldn’t we be friends, please? Just whilst I’m here. I don’t mean to be here for long, but it would be nice to have somebody for a friend for a little while.”
    “All right,” said Joan, and she took Elizabeth’s hand. “Thank you for coming to me tonight, I’m so glad you’re not as horrid as I thought. I think