Macdonald Hall #2: Go Jump in the Pool

Just one of those things

"Scrimmage's is crawling with cops!" Boots exclaimed from his vantage point halfway out the window. "I told you I heard sirens!"

Bruno made no reply, but a familiar fiendish grin spread across his face. "Let's go!" he cried, throwing on his bathrobe. He tore out the door into the corridor, with Boots right behind him. As they ran, they banged on every door. "Red alert! Scrimmage's is being raided!"

Before long, all of Dormitory 3 was milling around in confusion on the dark campus.

"What's going on?"

"Miss Scrimmage got busted!"

"The girls are in danger!"

"Bunny rabbit slippers, Fred?"

"Who woke me up?"

"I never did trust Miss Scrimmage! She has small eyes!"

The growing din woke up the other two dormitories, and in a matter of minutes the entire population of Macdonald Hall was howling and surging across the road and onto the grounds of Miss Scrimmage's Finishing School for Young Ladies. Girls in pink nighties fluttered out to meet them.

Cathy Burton's voice boomed over the school's public address system: Our beloved leader is falsely accused! Save Miss Scrimmage!

At the very instant that Bruno and Boots arrived on the scene, Miss Scrimmage was being escorted out the front door by two extremely large police officers. The crowd went wild, blocking their passage.

Diane Grant ran up to Bruno and spun him around. "Bruno, you've got to do something!"

"All right. I'll bake her a cake with a file in it."

"Bruno, this isn't funny!" Diane exclaimed, quite upset. "It's all your fault anyway!"

"My fault?" Bruno repeated.

"His fault?" Boots echoed.

Cathy's high-pitched voice came over the speaker again: Don't forget, Miss Scrimmage, you have the right to remain silent!

A desperate-looking policeman shouted to his partner, "Barney, where the heck did all these kids come from?"

"I don't know," Barney called back, "but stay away from the girls. They kick! Ouch . They scratch too!"

"Do something!" Diane screeched. "Cathy! Cathy!"

Cathy Burton burst out onto Miss Scrimmage's balcony and screamed, "All right, girls! Lie down in front of the cars!"

Amid cheers from the students of both schools, the girls flopped down on the ground all around the police cars.

"We demand to hear the charges!" Cathy screamed again.

One of the officers held up both hands for order and replied in a loud voice that could be heard by all, "The charge is armed robbery!"

Silence fell like a stone. Even Bruno Walton was unable to react with anything but mute astonishment. A full sixty seconds went by, and then the crowd began to murmur.

"Armed robbery?"

"Miss Scrimmage?"

"I knew it! Small eyes will tell!"

"I wonder where she stashed the loot."

"She'll get twenty years for this!"

"Maybe she's innocent!"

"People with small eyes are never innocent!"

Suddenly a quiet voice penetrated the din. "I will have order!" Again the crowd fell silent. Even the policemen came to attention. Mr. Sturgeon, in his red silk bathrobe and bedroom slippers, had arrived on the scene.