“Be here early, girls,” cautioned Grace, as they parted after school that day.  “Perhaps we may get in a little practice before the people begin to come.”

Grace hurried through her own dinner as fast as she could, on the eventful Saturday.

“I shall be glad when this final game is over, child,” exclaimed Mrs. Harlowe anxiously, “I really think you have had more athletics this winter than has been good for you, what with your walking, and skating, dancing, and now basketball.”

“You’ll come, won’t you, mother?” cried Grace, seizing her hat and rushing off without listening to Mrs. Harlowe’s comments.  “We are sure to win,” she called as she waved her a good-bye kiss.

There was no one in the school building when Grace got back; that is, no one except the old janitress, who was sweeping down the corridor, as usual.  The other girls had not been so expeditious and Grace found the locker-room deserted.

With trembling eagerness she was slipping on her gymnasium suit and rubber-soled shoes, when she suddenly remembered that she had left her tie in the geometry classroom.  She had bought a new one the day before, placed it in the back of her geometry and walked out of the classroom, leaving book, tie and all behind.

“I’ll run up and get it right away, before the others come,” she said to herself.

Running nimbly up the broad stairway, she entered the deserted classroom and hurried down the aisle to the end of the room where she usually sat during recitation.

“Here it is,” she murmured, taking it out of the book and tying it on.  Then, sitting down at the desk, she rested her chin in her hands.  The quiet of the place was soothing to her excited nerves, and since it was so early she would rest there for a moment and think.

Grace might have dreamed away five minutes when she heard the distant sound of voices below.

“Dear me,” she exclaimed, laughing, “they’ll scold me for not being on time.  I must hurry.”  So she hastened up the aisle to the door, which was shut, although she had not remembered closing it after her.

She turned the knob, still smiling to herself, but the door stuck fast.  It was locked!

Grace was so stunned that for a moment she hardly comprehended what had happened.  She sat down and tried to collect her thoughts.  Locked up in an upper classroom on the afternoon of the great game!

She tried the one other door in the room.  It also was locked.  As for the great windows, they were too large for her to push up without a pole.

“I’ll try calling,” she said.  “They may hear me.”

But her calls were fruitless, and beating and knocking on the door panels seemed nothing but muffled sounds in the stillness.

“Oh!  Oh!” she cried, rushing wildly from doors to windows and back again.  “What shall I do!  What shall I do?”

In the meantime, it was growing late.  The sophomores had assembled and were confidently waiting for their captain.