PAT PROVED it. She proved it as conclusively as any one could without getting sworn witnesses or a signed affidavit.
She did it by the simple expedient of calling up Flash Feeney. Flash attended Westbrook High. He was a born newspaperman and published his own paper which he called Feeney's Fleet Street. It was an amusing, bright little journal, appearing twice a month and snatched up eagerly by students of all the surrounding towns because it contained news items about themselves and their friends that did not get into school or town papers.
In addition to his own venture, Flash contributed to six or seven school periodicals as "visiting correspondent." Moreover, he did space writing for the Brampton Crier, the New Sharon News, the Brighthaven Gazette, the Greenport Chronicle, and the Westbrook Hour. Flash was, in short, quite a boy.
He enjoyed calling at the Patterson home, not only be cause Pat's popularity made it a rich source of information, but because he was devoted to Pat. His short, wiry body, topped by a clean face distinguished by a slightly cynical smile and crowned with curly black hair, was con stantly seen popping in and out of the basement playroom.
"If anyone knows what's going on," Pat said to Mike as they monopolized the telephone in the upstairs hall, "it's Flash. What he doesn't know, he finds out."
Mike listened while Pat talked to him. "Flash, this is confidential. Jeff Parker from Brighthaven asked my sister for a date. Yes, my sister Mike. This afternoon after the game. He was waiting for her when she came out of the locker room. Never spoke a word to each other before. Know what's going on?"
Mike, with her ear to the telephone, could hear Flash's hoarse answer. "No, but I'll ask some questions. Give me five minutes. Ten at the most."
The telephone was slammed down at the other end. Pat and Mike looked at each other, not talking. Pat's face wore the indignant expression it had assumed from the moment she had heard about the date. All through dinner, Mike had watched her sister chafe with impatience to ferret out what was behind Jeff Parker's invitation. This was not mere officiousness on Pat's part. Mike understood that Pat had a genuine interest in her welfare. From early childhood Pat had always been the more so cially informed. Under normal circumstances, Mike let Pat keep guard over her, watching in tolerant amusement.
Tonight Mike was not amused. She was worried. If she had had her say about it, Pat would not have put through that call to Flash Feeney. There was an old adage Mike liked. Let sleeping dogs lie. She subscribed to that theory. Especially when by waking them up, they might deprive you of a date with Jeff Parker.
It was not long before the telephone rang. Pat glanced at Mike for a moment before she picked it up, and for that moment Mike thought she saw regret cloud Pat's pretty face. Then, with swift poise, she reached for the telephone.
"Hello. Any news, Flash?" Pat turned her back on Mike, cupping the telephone with her hand, so this time Mike heard only the staccato accents of Flash's quick speech.
"Thanks, Flash," Pat said. "I'll never breathe a word." She put down the telephone. It was a second or two be fore she turned toward Mike. "Maybe we ought to forget the whole thing, Mike," she said. "Maybe if you just called Jeff Parker up--or let me call him for you-and said you couldn't make it...." Her sentence trailed off into deep thought. She started for their bedroom. Mike followed her and, catching up before she reached the door, swung Pat around.
"Tell me what Flash said," Mike demanded. "Look, let's forget the whole thing, Mike. I'll call Jeff up and..."
Mike cut in. "You started this. Now finish it. I want to know what Flash said."
"Come inside first," Pat answered. They walked into their room, Pat switching on the nearest lamp. The room was arranged so that each sister could enjoy her own possessions. The walls were a soft shade of rose, Pat's choice, and Pat's side of the room was distinctly feminine with a rose-colored heirloom bedspread, a skirted vanity table, fluffy pillows, perfume bottles, powder jars, lip sticks, and mementoes of dances and parties. She still kept her favorite doll, blond and beautiful like Pat herself, sitting in her baby rocker near her bed.
Mike's side of the room was, at best, functional. She too had kept her favorite doll from childhood, a raffish sailor with a bulbous nose, a wicked grin, and huge, staring eyes. His hair was almost gone, but wisps of red suggested what it might have been. His clothes were utterly disreputable. Mike had always given her posses sions hard wear. "Sealegs" was his name and he claimed the center of attention on Mike's side where a school banner and a horseshoe comprised the only other ornaments. Unless books might be called ornaments and of these there were dozens, piled up on the bed, the desk, and the chairs, or lying on the floor where Mike had tossed them.
Pat went to her desk and stood, her back to Mike, lost in thought. Pat's posture suggested humiliation and it trou bled Mike, because she sensed that the humiliation was felt for her.
"Pat, will you please tell me what Flash found out?" "He didn't find out anything. That's just it. He called several boys in Brighthaven and everyone was hush-hush about it. The date seems to be very top secret."
"There, you see. Maybe all your suspicions were false. Just plain imagination." "That's not what Flash thinks." Pat turned, defending her previous doubts about Jeff Parker. "Flash seems to think that it has something to do with the VIP Club Especially since no one will talk."
" The VIP Club What's that?"
"You know, Mike. The Brighthaven clubs that each year elects the ten boys outstanding for their contribution to the school. Jeff was sure to be one of these very imporant person
"What's that got to do with me?" Mike asked. "Mike, the boys who are elected to V.LP. have to do some bold and daring act before they can become members. But they're not supposed to tell what they've been assigned to do. Sometimes it slips out. Sherm Jennings had to play his cornet every day for two weeks at five o'clock in the morning. Big Walt Benson had to ride his kid brother's tricycle to school for heavens only knows how long. Things like that get around." Mike got the idea fast. "You think Jeff Parker has been assigned to take me out on a date. For that V.LP. Club."
"I don't think anything." "But Flash thinks that."
"Flash mentioned V.I.P. He says it's possible to put two and two together. This is the time of year VIP. names its new candidates. Flash was able to find out that all their assignments must be completed by tomorrow night."
Now it was Mike's turn to walk away, with her back to her sister. She sauntered over to her desk. It looked like a battlefield in which the victory had gone to no one. The notes for two term papers were spread around be tween reference books and unanswered letters. With one nervous push, she swept aside the whole mess. "So I'm an assignment for V.I.P. Club," she muttered from clenched teeth. "Dating me is in a class with playing the cornet every morning at five o'clock to wake up the neigh borhood or riding a kid's bike to school." She crumpled some papers angrily into the basket and wheeled on Pat who stared over in distress.
"I'm a joke," she ranted on. "Just something to laugh at. Getting a date with me is a great big hilarious joke. Take a good look at me, Pat. I'm unique. One of a kind. The only girl within a radius of twenty miles who b ever been an assignment for the VIP. Club."
"Mike" Pat's voice was soft with sympathy, "Don't talk like that. Boys are crazy. They have no sense. Even the best of them. They don't think how their pranks affect other people."
"Pranks! That's a mild word. This hurts, Pat. This cuts to the quick. I feel it in here." She stabbed her middle so viciously that it really did hurt and she let out a spontaneous,"Ouch!"
The exclamation liberated her. She saw the humor of the situation and her sense of balance was restored Throwing back her head, she laughed heartily. Pat came over, but she did not join in the laugh.
"Mike," she said, "don't upset yourself about a rotten trick."
"It's funny, Pat. Honestly, I mean it. I can see how comical it really is."
"Well, I don't think it's a bit funny." Pat was still incensed. "Doing a thing like that to my sister!"
"Pat, you're wrong. And I was wrong to take it so seriously. Look, it is comical. Something that should go down in history. The girl who couldn't get a real bona fide date until the V.I.P. Club took notice of her." She sobered.
"Pat, I must be pretty awful." She went to the long mirror on the door of Pat's closet. "Maybe I should have listened to you and Mother a long time ago. For years you've both tried to get the idea across to me that I'm a sight."
"You're not a sight. You're a fine girl. Very brainy, and we're all proud of you, Mike. You," Pat stammered for the words, "you have character."
There was reproach in Mike's voice. "Who ever heard of a boy falling for character or brains?" she asked scomfully. "It's looks they want. And charm. Charm's the thing. Read a few books and you'll find out." She hit the side of her head with her fist. "Pat, in some ways I'm smart, but in some ways very dumb. I've been reading books all my life and I haven't learned the most essential thing in the world."
What do you mean?" Pat asked.
"I mean this. I haven't learned how important it is to be attractive. Oh. I've heard about such things, but I just never took the trouble. I couldn't be bothered. Look at me. Hair looks like a lawn mower had been run over it.Clothes? Just stuff to keep me from freezing. No color, no style. Of course, my face is something I can't help. It was wished on me."
"It's not a bad face at all. As I said, it has character." Mike stalked over to her, "Character! If you use that word once more, so help me, I'll throttle you!"
They stared at each other and then started laughing. Mike sank down on a chair. "It's funny, you see. Those V.I.P. boys had a point. I'm as bad as playing the cornet every morning at five o'clock." She jumped up again, sud denly determined. "Pat, I'm going to keep that date." "You're not!"
"I am. I'm going out tomorrow night with Jeff Parker."
"You can't. It will get all over Brighthaven. Westbrook,too. They'll make a laughingstock out of you."
Mike's eyes slanted knowingly. "They'll make no laughingstock of me," she said. "Let it get around, but it won't be a joke. I'm going to show up the V.I.P. Club. I'm going to make everyone who thinks I'm funny eat crow."
"How?"
"That's a very good question, Pat. I know we can't work miracles overnight. I won't be a glamour girl, but at least I can be reasonably attractive." She grabbed hold of her sister. "Is it so impossible? Is it too late, do you think?"
The expression of incredulity on Pat's face disappeared. She smiled. "It's not a bit too late," she said. "It's never too late." She stood back, taking stock. "Let's sec, you could wear the red dress you've never worn because you wouldn't stand still long enough for Mother to alter it. We'll give you a fitting tonight." "Say, I forgot all about that dress. It's not bad."
Pat nodded. "Red does something for a girl, especially a girl with brownish hair like yours, Mike. You could get a haircut tomorrow afternoon and have the ends o I lend you a pair of heels. The black gets with the bag to match."
"Pat, you're swell."
Pat was all steamed up. "Some lipstick, some perfume. Who says you won't have any glamour?" She shoved Mike down on the vanity bench, and reached for one of many lipsticks. "This is a good shade for you." Pat said. She bent over Mike, fascinated, absorbed in working transformation. "There, even that much is better. It does help," she announced triumphantly.
"Pat."
"Hah?" Pat was still absorbed in her work.
"Those outside things are fine, but there's more to being attractive than that. I don't know boys the way you do, but I'm sure it must take more than fine feathers and a little lipstick to catch them. There must be thing to do and say when you're with them. All those little things you've seemed to master, Pat, that make a girl charming Pat pursed her lips in thought. "There are certain rules, I suppose, but it's hard to name them."
"When you're with boys what do you do, for instance, to bold their attention? Lots of boys are crazy about you. It's partly because you're so good-looking, sure, but it must be more than that. There are other pretty girls who aren't half so popular."
Pat put away her cosmetics. It was a while before she spoke. Then her voice was quiet and casual. "For one thing, Mike, you might try being less critical of boys. Take this afternoon, for instance. I could tell the minute Taylor Watkins got in the car that you resented him. Even if you feel things like that, you shouldn't show them"
"Rule one," Mike counted off on her fingers. "More tact"
"And don't do everything in such a hurry. Take your time. Be more serene, more deep. Bays like to guess what pirt is like and what she's thinking. If you tell every thing, they soon get tired of you."
"Rule two: Slow up and be mysterious. More like a femme fatale." Pat shrugged off the humor. "Do you want me to be really honest?"
"Sure I do."
"You do talk an awful lot, Mike. Too much, honestly, and mostly off the top of your head. Whatever comes into your mind, you blab out without thinking."
"Thanks," Mike said drily. "I'll take a six weeks' course in holding my tongue."
"There, you're hurt and you promised not to be."
"I'm not hurt. I'm enchanted. This is a new subject to me. It's like learning Latin. An awful grind, but whew! What you've got when you've mastered it!"
"There, you're being sarcastic. Humorously so, but even witty sarcasm isn't always appreciated. You mustn't make a joke out of everything. Not with boys. They enjoy a sense of humor but they like it to be more subtle and never cutting. Don't ever let a boy get the idea you're laughing at him."
"Now that will really be work," Mike said with good natured cynicism. "To spend a whole evening with a boy and not want to burst out laughing at him even once!"
"You can want to laugh at him, but you mustn't do it."
"I get the distinction. Anything else?"
"You have to act as if you're fascinated by them. You've got to pretend to be absorbed in the things that interest them even when you're almost fainting from boredom."
"Maybe it would be easier to just go ahead and faint," Mike quipped as she rumpled Pat's blond hair. "Thanks, I'm grateful to you, Pat. I wouldn't be at all surprised if this little session were making of a new Mike Patterson."