Behind the Green Door

Penny Parker, clad in a new black and red snowsuit, twisted her agile young body sideways, causing the small rug upon which she stood to skip across the polished floor of the living room. She wriggled her slim hips again, and it slipped in the opposite direction toward Mrs. Weems who was watching from the kitchen doorway.

"Coming down the mountain, my eye!" exclaimed the housekeeper, laughing despite herself. "You'll be coming down on your head if you don't stop those antics. I declare, you've acted like a crazy person ever since your father rashly agreed to take you to Pine Top for the skiing."

"I have to break in my new suit and limber up my muscles somehow," said Penny defensively. "One can't practice outdoors when there's no snow. Now watch this one, Mrs. Weems. It's called a telemark."

"You'll reduce that rug to shreds before you're through," sighed the housekeeper. "Can't you think of anything else to do?"

"Yes," agreed Penny cheerfully, "but it wouldn't be half as much fun. How do you like my suit?" She darted across the room to preen before the full length mirror.

A red-billed cap pulled at a jaunty angle over her blond curls, Penny made a striking figure in the well tailored suit of dark wool. Her eyes sparkled with the joy of youth and it was easy for her to smile. She was an only child, the daughter of Anthony Parker, editor and publisher of the Riverview Star, and her mother had died when she was very young.

"It looks like a good, practical suit," conceded the housekeeper.

Penny made a wry face. "Is that the best you can say for it? Louise Sidell and I shopped all over Riverview to get the snappiest number out, and then you call it practical."

"Oh, you know you look cute in it," laughed Mrs. Weems. "So what's the use of telling you?"

Before Penny could reply the telephone rang and the housekeeper went to answer it. She returned to the living room a moment later to say that Penny's father was in need of free taxi service home from the office.

"Tell him I'll be down after him in two shakes of a kitten's tail!" Penny called, making for the stairway.

She took the steps two at a time and had climbed halfway out of the snowsuit by the time she reached the bedroom. A well aimed kick landed the garment on the bed, and then because it was very new and very choice she took time to straighten it out. Seizing a dress blindly from the closet, she wriggled into it and ran downstairs again.

"Some more skiing equipment may come while I'm gone," she shouted to Mrs. Weems who was in the kitchen. "I bought a new pair of skis, a couple of poles, three different kinds of wax and a pair of red mittens."

"Why didn't you order the store sent out and be done with it?" responded the housekeeper dryly.

Penny pulled on her heavy coat and hurried to the garage where two cars stood side by side. One was a shining black sedan of the latest model, the other, a battered, unwashed vehicle whose reputation was as discouraging as its appearance. "Leaping Lena," as Penny called her car, had an annoying habit of running up repair bills, and then repaying its long suffering owner by refusing to start on cold winter days.