s scared. But I'd be too scared to
tell anyone."

Pip-Emma stretched out a skinny arm and pulled Janet up beside her.
"What you scared of?"

"'Most everything."

"Why?"

Janet sighed. "It's something wrong with me. The doctors say
it's--it's a complex. An in--inferiority complex."

"What's that?"

"It's a thing you get, like measles."

Pip-Emma looked at Janet dubiously. "I don't see no spots."

"You don't have spots. You just feel mean. You want dreadfully to do
things. But you know you can't. So you don't."

"What things?"

"Well, like the swimming race next Saturday. Mummy and Dad are coming
up for it. Prissy says I could win the Penguin Trophy if I didn't have
my complex. But Clara knows she's going to win. So she will. She
hasn't got any complex. She just overeats."

They sat side by side in melancholy silence. But Pip-Emma's misplaced
toothache was easing off. Janet might not be the Gang. But she
belonged to Emma. Ever since Emma had said she wasn't a dumb cluck
she'd followed Emma round like a little lost dog that had been found.
If anyone belonged to you like that, you had to look out for them.

"I wish my Pop and Ma were coming up," Pip-Emma said suddenly.

"Why? Are you homesick, too, Emma?"

"I dunno. I want Pop and Ma."

"It's no good wanting, is it?"

"Well, you've got yours, haven't you?"

"Not really. Not together. I mean--they don't live together."

"Why not?"

"They don't have to. Dad's got a place in Florida and Long Island and
Maine and New York. So when they quarrel, they just go off. Different
places. And I can't be with either of them because the other won't let
me," Janet choked. "I guess they'll quarrel Saturday," she said.

"Gee, that's tough." Pip-Emma gave a small hoarse chuckle. "Pop and Ma
get mad sometimes. But Ma says, 'You old son-of-a-gun, I guess I
gotter live with you and like it.' And Pop says, 'I like it fine, you
old so-and-so.' And he takes us out and gives us a sundae at the
drugstore. Ma says you can't stay mad in two rooms."

"I wish we lived in two rooms," Janet said.

Pip-Emma knitted her black brows. "Maybe," she said, "you might tell
'em so."

"I'd be too scared."

But Pip-Emma was after her thought like a terrier after an elusive
rabbit. "If my Pop and Ma were here, I'd jump into their darned old
water. I wouldn't care how cold it was. I wouldn't be scared. Maybe if
your Pop and Ma are along, you'll win the race, and then you'll never
be sc