Ms. Rapscott's Girls by Elise Primavera

Author:Elise Primavera
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2015-02-18T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

THE SEASKIMMERS

Overnight the temperature changed, and in the morning Ms. Rapscott bustled into the dorm, her hair all a-frizz. The fisherman’s sweater was gone. In its place she wore a navy blue bathing suit with a large skirt that came to her knees and her same old heavy-duty boots.

The girls tried not to laugh.

As Ms. Rapscott clomped around, cheerfully opening up all the windows, she asked, “The first step to Finding Your Way is what, class?”

“Getting Lost on Purpose!” they all answered from their beds.

“When we get Lost on Purpose we never bring a what?”

“A map,” Mildred moaned, and put the covers over her head.

“Here we go again,” Annabelle muttered.

“Is it a full moon and a high tide?” Fay asked eagerly.

“It is indeed!” Ms. Rapscott exclaimed.

The girls could feel that the weather had turned. A balmy salt breeze blew gently through their room.

“In your boxes, each of you will find your regulation Great Rapscott bathing suit.” Ms. Rapscott paused at the stairs. “Please wear it to Morning Meeting today.”

“B-but I can’t swim, Ms. Rapscott.” Mildred’s heart began to thud in her chest, and she hadn’t even gotten out of bed yet.

“Girls of busy parents can never swim, Mildred.” Ms. Rapscott disappeared down the stairs, and her voice sounded hollow as she called up to them, “Besides we’re not going swimming today—we are going skimming.”

Skimming? Bea, Fay, and Annabelle confirmed that none of them could swim or skim either—whatever that was.

At Morning Meeting Lewis and Clark were busier than usual. Lewis was synchronizing his watch by the big clock on the wall, and Clark was putting things into their backpacks. This made Mildred even more nervous. She remembered the last time Lewis synchronized his watch, and it wasn’t much later that she was flying through the air wearing a parachute.

Beatrice, Mildred, Fay, and Annabelle lined up in their nautical-looking one-piece navy blue Rapscott bathing suits with the white piping, the school seal emblazoned on their chests.

Ms. Rapscott stood before them in her oversized bathing suit, but now there was nothing funny about her. “As you all know the conditions are perfect today to find Dahlia Thistle. This will be an opportunity to continue your studies in How to Find Your Way.” Ms. Rapscott glanced at the clock that ticked loudly on the wall. “Are we ready? Lewis? Clark?” Both corgis looked more than ready in their life preservers. “At nine o’clock we will begin. Goggles on, class!”

“G-Goggles?” Mildred stammered. “For what? We’re inside.”

“Life preservers on, girls!” Ms. Rapscott hurried to get hers. The teacher leaned forward with her arms straight out, and Lewis and Clark slipped her bright orange life preserver over her head and pulled it tightly around her waist.

Bea and Fay went about putting on theirs, while Mildred and Annabelle hesitated.

“I don’t see why we need a life preserver to learn How to Find Our Way or Dahlia Thistle,” Annabelle said sharply.

“Because, Annabelle, you cannot swim, and if you fall into the water you will sink like a stone and drown.

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