Eventually, I told the Tree Sisters about the panto horse thing. There was silence from them at first and then they laughed for about a year. I felt even more stupid and lonely. The bell rang for last period and we had to go to Monty’s reading class.

I cannot believe he’s reading War Horse to us. He says it’s for the “interesting narrative perspective,” but they have puppet horses in it, don’t they? Has he been talking to Dr. Lightowler?

Vaisey whispered to me, “Come to the dorm at the end of the day for a special emergency Tree Sisters’ meeting. To be held in Flossie’s bed for warmsies.”

After the final bell, as we went up the stairs, Vaisey gave me a hug and said, “Don’t worry, your sisters won’t let you down. I’ll help you like you helped me.”

It was freezing in the dorm and the tarpaulin roof was flapping. We all got into Flossie’s bed and Jo said, “Funnily enough, when I was Bob’s assistant, we fixed this bed. There were some dodgy wooden slats and he used a prototype slat made out of glue, newspaper, and—”

At which point the whole bed collapsed, and we had to go into Vaisey’s bed.

Vaisey said, “You didn’t fix this one as well, did you?”

When we’d bounced up and down and found that the bed didn’t collapse, we settled down again. The Tree Sisters gave me a pep talk. I had to write the main points down to put in my Darkly Demanding Damson Diary later so I wouldn’t forget.

The main points are:

1. Dr. Lightowler is mad.

2. As a snake.

3. But even madder.

4. So get over it.

We went into morning assembly on Friday and Sidone swept onto the stage in a man’s formal evening suit.

“Be careful what you dream of, my girls! Such excitements. Such joyful news!! Sound out the bells!”

Then she waited and said again, “Sound out the bells!”

Gudrun was on the side of the stage with her gong. Gradually she seemed to notice the silence. Especially as Sidone was holding her arms out towards her. She struck her gong.

Sidone came to the front of the stage and began. “Mr. Legge . . .”

Gudrun sounded her gong again.

Sidone said, “Thank you, thank you, Gudrun, enough. Mr. Legge has just telephoned with a marvelous, a simply inspired idea.”

We looked at each other. Jo said quietly, “Who is this Mr. Legge when he’s at home?”

We shrugged.

Sidone continued.

“Yes, girls, When Mr. Legge brought his young men to our humble artistic temple to see our lunchtime performance, he was so impressed.”

Oh, now we got it. She meant Hoppy!!!

I whispered to the others, “You see what this means . . . we’ve struck comedy gold. Hoppy, who has only got one leg, is actually called Mr. Legge. Please, please tell me that his first name is Arthur. Then he could be Mr. A. Legge. Or if he’s a Cockney . . . Arf-a-legge!!!”