"Angela!" Linda hissed.

"We can"t get the police involved!"

"Either you want it found or you don"t."

"Of course I want it found!"

"Then leave it to me."

The door opened. Victoria Eggleton, the English teacher, stood there.

"Yes, Angela?"

"Please, Miss, Linda"s bag has been pinched."

"Bag? What bag?"

"It had all my stuff in it, Miss Eggleton," Linda ventured.

"What sort of stuff, Linda?"

"Gym kit, money, some books, that sort of thing."

"How much money?"

"I don"t know exactly, Miss. My Grandmother just sent me a postal order, that was for five pounds, and I hadn"t cashed it yet."

"I see. And you keep your bag in the dormitory?"

"Normally, yes. But today I left it in the changing rooms."

"Well, we"d better go and check, I think. Make sure you haven"t missed it. Maybe the janitor tidied it away. We"ll call at his office on the way, just to make sure. Come along."

"Yes, Miss."

"When did you have your gym lesson? This morning?"

"Yes, Miss," Angela confirmed. &#x2018For what it"s worth, Hamilton and her cronies were still in there when Linda and I left to go to the refectory."

Miss Eggleton closed the common-room door quietly behind her and set off along the corridor towards the gym.

Mary frowned. It was obvious what Angela and Linda were up to. She raced up to the dormitory and quickly told Ros, Gloria and Jen what had happened.

"The beast!" Ros exclaimed. "That"s just like Linda. Always trying to get one of us in trouble. She"s jealous, you see."

"I got the impression it was Angela who was doing the talking," Mary said. "Anyway, what should we do about it?"

"Nothing at all," Ros told them. "None of us would want to pinch her rotten bag, would we?"

The others shook their heads and went on with what they were doing. A few moments later, Ros and Jen left the dorm to go swimming, while Gloria announced that she was going into the village to cash a postal order. For a split second, Mary frowned, but then got out her English homework book and settled down to read. After perhaps a half hour, she discovered that she needed a copy of Shakespeare"s plays, and thought about going down to the library, then remembered that it was now closed for the weekend.

"Bother! I"m sure Gloria had a copy earlier this week – I wonder if she"d mind me borrowing it, just for this evening. I can pick up a copy in the village bookshop tomorrow," she said to herself, and pushing her chair back, she dived over to Angela"s bed and rifled through the pile of books on the chest of drawers.

"Not there! Oh, what"s she done with it? Under the bed? I wonder….."

She threw herself onto the floor and peered under the bed. Sure enough, there was good old William Shakespeare. But as she reached for it, her hand came into contact with something larger and more bulky – a bag! She pulled it out, and just had time to peer inside it, where she saw a ruler with Angela"s name carved on it with the point of a compass, and then she heard voices and footsteps in the corridor. She hurriedly gathered the bag together and held it tightly, not daring to move, wondering what to do with it. If Gloria had pinched Angela"s bag, she must have had a jolly good reason….. Then she remembered why Gloria was going into the village – to cash a postal order!

"Gosh! Surely not! Not Gloria!" Mary breathed. The footsteps were getting closer, and now she could hear that it was Miss Eggleton, accompanied by Angela and Linda. "Oh, crumbs, what should I do?"

She looked anxiously around the room. If the Egg suspected that someone from their dorm had pinched Angela"s bag, she would insist on a thorough search. Mary dashed to the window and looked out. Her dorm was on the second floor. No-one about. Friday afternoons tended to be taken up by games, swimming, walks to the village at low tide, or just quietly lazing about before tea. Fifteen feet below was the shrubbery. Again, Egg would probably search there as well, and if they found the bag beneath Gloria"s dormitory window, it would look bad. She opened the window and swung the bag with all her strength, then let it go to the left and watched with satisfaction as it landed some twenty feet away, beneath the next-door dormitory. She waited breathlessly to see if anyone came out to see why someone was throwing bags around the place, but there was no-one.

A moment later the slender figure of Miss Eggleton glided into the dorm, with Angela and Linda in tow.

"Miss Eggleton," Mary said, smiling.

"This is a serious matter, Mary, please wait outside. I have to search your dormitory." "Whatever for, Miss Eggleton?"

"As if you didn"t know!" Linda said, scowling unpleasantly.

"That will do, Linda. You and Angela will wait outside with Mary until I have finished my search."

"Perhaps we could help – it would save time. Besides, we know they took it!" Angela ventured.

Miss Eggleton turned to face the young girl, and said with a deep sigh, "I asked you to wait outside, Angela. This will not take long. I do not expect to find anything. It is far more likely that you left it somewhere and forgot where!"

With that she closed the dormitory door and left the three girls standing in the corridor.

"What is it you"ve lost?" Mary enquired pleasantly. In reality, she felt far from pleasant. Gloria had gone into the village to cash a postal order, and she had found Angela"s bag beneath Gloria"s bed. Everything pointed to the fact that Angela was a thief! Yet she simply could not believe it. It was true, Mary had only known the other three girls in the dorm for a few weeks, but she could not bring herself to believe that one of them was a thief.

"You know very well, Hamilton. Anyway, where are the others?"

"Well, Jen and Ros have gone swimming, and Gloria has gone to the village."

"Why?"

"She didn"t say," Mary said, and immediately felt bad. She was not used to telling lies, or even fibbing, and felt really uncomfortable. She felt her face flush and knew that they would suspect she was lying.

"Perhaps she"s gone to cash a postal order," Linda said with a malicious gleam in her eyes. Mary realised that she was the only who knew that Angela was missing a postal order. All she had told the others was that Angela"s bag had gone missing. Gloria had seemed perfectly calm when she told them she was going to the village post office, and in that moment Mary realised that she might have misjudged her best friend. Gloria could not possibly be a thief.

"I really don"t know," Mary said, and again felt her tummy flutter as she fibbed. For another two minutes there was complete silence. Mary kept her eyes away from the others". Then the door swung quietly open and Miss Eggleton emerged, a sad smile on her face.

"Nothing at all," she said. "I think you must have left it somewhere and forgotten where, Angela."

"Are you sure, Miss?" Angela asked.

"Yes, Angela, I"m sure."

"Did you look under the beds?" Linda demanded.

Miss Eggleton flashed an angry look at the young girl. "Yes, I looked under the beds, Linda. Why do you ask?"

It was Linda"s turn to colour. "I just wondered, Miss. I don"t suppose I would have thought to look under the beds….."

"I suggest you go and look for it elsewhere, girls. Sorry, Mary, but I had to look."

"That"s all right, Miss," Mary said, and went back into the dorm, shutting the door quietly behind her, knowing that Angela and Linda would be furious. Now she knew exactly what had happened. One of them, probably Linda, had hidden the bag under Gloria"s bed, then suggested to Miss Eggleton that one of them was responsible. There was no love lost between their dorms, and they would seize any opportunity to get them into trouble with the teachers. Mary was shocked that they had hoped to find the bag in their dorm, thus being able to accuse Gloria of being a thief, but at least she"d found it first!

As she was going down the stairs to the refectory for tea, Gloria came in through the front entrance. Linda and Angela were standing by the refectory doorway.

"Cashed my postal order, Bancroft?" Angela asked sweetly. Gloria frowned.

"Didn"t know you had one, Ryan."

"Yes, it was in my bag. I think you know about that."

"Don"t know what you"re talking about. Excuse me, I"d like to get some tea."

"Miss Eggleton searched. She didn"t find it," Mary said, joining them.

"Searched what? Our dorm? Why would she do that?" Gloria said furiously, her forehead creased with a frown.

"Well, you were probably the last person to see it, in the gym, this morning," Linda said innocently. Gloria"s fists clenched.

At that moment, Ros and Jen came in, and Jen was carrying Angela"s bag, which was covered with earth from the flower bed.

"This yours, Angela?" Jen asked. "Miss Eggleton just this minute found it in the flower bed directly beneath your dorm."

Angela scowled. Linda made some excuse and started to walk away. The four chums went in to tea, laughing, their arms linked together.

"My guess is that Linda pinched it, with or without Angela"s knowledge, and hid it in our dorm," Mary said. "I was looking for Shakespeare and found it under your bed!"

"All"s well that ends well!" Gloria cried, and they laughed
"Only one way to sort this out. We must tell one of the staff. They"ll call the police and then it"s out of our hands."