In the Fifth at Malory Towers by Enid Blyton Page B

at the top of the stairs.
    “ Tiens !” said Mam’zelle, stopping in surprise. “ Que faites vous , Maureen? What are you doing with that curtain?”
    Maureen cast a horrified look at her “train” and rushed back to the dormy. She unpinned it and put the curtain back into its place. Feeling rather subdued she went downstairs to find Gwen.
    Gwen was getting very very tired of Maureen. The new girl had fastened on to her like a leech. She related long and boring stories of her people, her friends, her old school and especially of herself. She never seemed to think that Gwen would like to talk too.
    Gwen sometimes broke into the middle of Maureen’s boring speeches. “Maureen, did I ever tell you about the time I went to Norway? My word, it was super. I stayed up to dinner each night, and I was only thirteen, and...”
    “I’ve never been to Norway,” Maureen would interrupt. “But my aunt went there last summer. She sent me a whole lot of post-cards. I’ll find them to show you. You’ll be interested to see them, I’m sure.”
    Gwen wasn’t interested. She was never interested in anything anyone else ever showed her. In fact, like Maureen, she wasn’t interested in anything except herself.
    The only time that Maureen ever really listened to her was when she told unkind tales of the others in the form. Then Maureen would listen with great interest. “I wouldn’t have thought it of Darrell,” she would say. “Good gracious, did Daphne really do that? Oh, I say — fancy Bill being so deceitful!”
    Gwen was forced to play games and not only that but to take part in a lot of practices. She was made to do gym properly, and never allowed to get out of it by announcing she didn’t feel too well. She had to go for every walk that was planned, fuming and furious.
    It was June that enlightened Maureen about all this assiduous attendance at games, gym and walks. She told her gleefully the history of Gwen’s weak heart the term before.
    “Gwen wanted to get out of the School Cert, exam, so she foxed and said she’d a weak heart that fluttered like a bird!” grinned June. “Her mother took her home. And then it was discovered Gwen was pretending and back she came just in time for the exam — and ever since she’s been made to go in for games and gym like anything. She’s a humbug!”
    June had no right to say all this to a senior, and Maureen had no right to listen to her. But, like Gwen, she loved a bit of spiteful gossip, and she stored the information up in her mind, though she said nothing to Gwen about it.
    The two girls were forced to be together a great deal. Almost everyone else in the form had their own friend. Moira had no particular friend, but went with Catherine, who was always at anyone’s disposal. So Gwen and Maureen, being odd ones out, had to walk together, and were left together very often when everyone else was doing something.
    Gwen grew to detest Maureen. Horrid, conceited, selfish creature! She hated the sound of her voice. She tried to avoid her when she could. She made excuses not to be with her.
    But Maureen wouldn’t let her go. Gwen was the only one available to be talked to, and boasted to, and on occasion, when she had fallen foul of Miss James, to be wailed to.
    Maureen thought she could draw as well as Belinda — or almost as well. She thought she could sing beautifully — and, indeed, she had an astonishingly powerful voice which, alas, continually went off the true note, and was flat. She was certain she could compose tunes as well as Irene. And she even drove Darrell to distraction by offering to write a few verses for her.
    “What are we to do with this pest of a Maureen?” complained Janet, one evening. “She comes and asks if she can help me and then if I give her the simplest thing to sew, she goes and botches it up so that I have to undo it.”
    “And she had the sauce to come and tell me she didn’t like some of my chords in the opening chorus of Cinderella