A Matter of Class Read Online Free PDF Page A

landed on the little girl’s arm, though she was standing too far back to get soaked.
    Fortunately.
    â€œThat was very splendid indeed,” she said admiringly after he had shaken his head like a wet dog and then used his skinny arms to haul himself out onto the bank again.
    â€œI bet you couldn’t do it,” he said, sneering.
    â€œI bet I could ,” she said, stung. “But if I did, I would get my hair wet and Nurse would want to know why. And then she would know that I go exploring in the afternoons while she sleeps, and I would not be able to do it any more.”
    The boy had his hands on his hips again.
    â€œYou have a nurse, ” he said contemptuously.
    â€œI do,” she admitted. “Don’t you ?”
    He rolled his eyes upward.
    â€œI am eight years old,” he said. “I will be going to school in the autumn. I have had a tutor since I was five.”
    â€œI will have a governess when I am six,” she said.
    â€œTo teach you painting and embroidery ,” he said with undisguised scorn.

    â€œYou are the Mason boy,” she said. “And you talk strangely.”
    â€œAnd you are the Ashton chit,” he said. “And you talk as though you had a plum in your mouth.”
    â€œYou are rude and horrid,” she told him. “I don’t think I like you.”
    â€œShould I weep?” he asked her, pulling a silly face.
    She poked out her tongue and shook her head from side to side, which was a dreadfully unladylike thing to do, but she had been severely provoked.
    â€œI bet,” he said, “you couldn’t even climb the tree.”
    â€œWell, there you are wrong,” she said, eyeing it with considerable misgiving. But she had her pride even if she was only five, and she was not going to let this nasty, vulgar boy have the final word.
    She strode over to the tree, considered removing her shoes and stockings since the leather of the former might get scuffed and the silk of the latter might acquire holes. But she did not like the thought of her bare feet against the rough bark. She did remove her spencer, though, since it might get in the way, and her bonnet, which might impede her vision. She folded the spencer neatly and set it down on the grass close to the untidy
heap of the boy’s garments, and centered her bonnet carefully on top of it.
    â€œMind you don’t get a crease or a speck of dirt on them,” the boy jeered.
    Annabelle turned her head and eyed him severely.
    â€œDid your Mama never teach you manners?” she asked, and she proceeded on her way up the tree without waiting for an answer.
    It really was not very difficult at all, except when she glanced downward to see how far she had come. She almost froze with terror, but could not do so because the boy was sure to be watching. She did not look down again, though. She looked steadily upward. And her little taste of disobedience during the afternoons must have made her bold, for she did not stop, as she might have done, beside the branch from which the boy had dived. It was not good enough simply to prove that she dared go as high as he had gone. He had annoyed her. She suspected that he had sneered for two particular reasons: that she was a girl and that she was five years old. And so she continued on her way upward, and when she came to another broad branch, she sat on it and edged outward until she felt rather than saw that she was right over the water.

    Which, she sensed, was far, far below.
    She had probably never been more frightened in her life. In fact, she was sure of it. Never even half as frightened.
    And that horrid boy was down there somewhere all ready to gloat if she started to cry.
    â€œYou see?” she called with quavery gaiety and almost fell off the branch when she risked a downward glance to make sure he was still there to observe her triumph. He was standing where she had left him, his hands still on his hips, his head tilted