Dreier was the other boys’ dorm, mostly for freshman and sophomores except for the proctors.
“I don’t know. But Tim is in a panic. So are Stocky and the others.” She turned to me. “Wes seems to be calm and collected. Didn’t you ever use the room?”
I shook my head and could feel the color spread from my neck over my cheeks. Daria just smirked at me.
“The virgin princess,” she mocked.
“Well, what’s going to happen?” Jan asked. “I mean, are they going to do a full on police state search and seize, make us all rat each other out, toss seniors out before graduating them? They can be really hateful. Oh shit, is Bleaker part of this?”
“Speaking of old bat Bleaker, did you see what she did last night at the dance?” Brady turned to examine her face in the mirror.
“What?” Jan asked. “I knew she’d be a part of this. But how could she be sleuthing in the boys’ dorm. I thought she and Mr. Henderson hate each other.”
Mr. Henderson was in charge of Wilkins Dorm and he pretty much let the boys do what they wanted so long as no one smoked or got totally drunk over there. It was the girls who were watched with an eagle eye all the time, so it was surprising that they were searching the boys’ dorm for a key.
“Someone must have ratted,” Daria said. “Otherwise they’d have no clue about any key anywhere.”
“Right,” said Brady. “But that’s not what Bleaker was on the attack about at the dance.”
“Well then, what else is there?” Jan asked.
“She went after Moll big time.”
“MOLL?” I was so startled I raised my voice more than I intended. “What did Moll do?”
“Are you talking about that little mouse who always dresses in brown sacks?” Daria was grinning. “What . . . did Bleaker tell her to get a new wardrobe? One that she could be seen in public wearing?” She giggled.
“She sort of did,” Brady answered her. “I was standing to one side of the door and Bleaker was down on the other side a little farther away when Moll walked in and stood there.”
“I saw her,” I said. “She was wearing some bright red dress or blouse. I remember thinking how un-Moll it was. And I was really surprised, like, to see her at the dance at all.”
“Well, that’s not all she was wearing,” Brady nodded. “Bleaker really lit into her.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, now more interested in Moll than in the stupid key.
“I heard the whole thing,” Brady said. “It happened just as Donald Wingart crossed the gym. He said ‘Hi’ to Moll and that’s when Bleaker appeared next to them from the other side. She took Moll’s arm and kind of shook her a little. Like she was some stuffed doll. And then she said—I couldn’t believe this, it was so cruel, I mean even to Moll—‘What do you think you’re doing?’ She said it really mean, in a low voice. And then, ‘Who told you to put all that disgusting stuff on your face? You look like a tramp. If you wear makeup, it should be applied with a light hand so no one really sees it. You’ve made yourself look ridiculous and the message you’re sending is unacceptable at this school. I don’t know what you’re trying to accomplish but you should be ashamed of yourself making such a display. Now, go and wash your face and change your clothes.’”
“What?” Now I almost screamed. “She said that? Really? Oh God, poor Moll.”
“Yes, and just when I had everything set up so perfectly,” Daria said.
“What do you mean?” I asked her. “What did you have set up?”
Daria laughed, tossed her hair and turned to the mirror to examine her lipstick.
“Oh, just that I sent her a KOB.”
“What do you mean?” Brady asked her this time. “Why would you send her a KOB?”
“I sent it from Donald Wingart—her beloved. I wrote that I had been thinking about her and hoped she would be at the dance. I said, and oh man, this was so much fun, I wrote, ‘I really think you’re special.’”
I was too dumbfounded to say anything. I couldn’t believe Daria would be so cruel, using what I’d told her. At that moment, I didn’t know what to think or say or how to feel. The one feeling I did acknowledge was guilt. I shouldn’t have told Daria about Donald or anything Moll had told me. I would have to find Moll and make it right somehow.
“Well, she never came back to the dance,” Brady said. “And poor little Donald. I thought he was going to melt.”
“Wait a sec,” Daria held up her hands in a stop-now motion. “I want to know what’s going to happen about the key. Do we have to play defense here? Because if we do, we need to stick together. We know absolutely nothing about any key or any room. In fact, except to pick up or drop off our laundry, we never go to the basement. All agreed?”
Everyone nodded, of course. It was Daria speaking.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Disappearances Can Be Deceiving
BY THE TIME THE DINING HALL DOORS OPENED FOR LUNCH, the news had stampeded through the school. There were differing versions. One was that some boys had been using the mattress room for drinking parties. Another was that one or two girls were meeting boys down there. Another was that there were a bunch of keys passed around by numerous students and that they’d been having parties in the mattress room. It was impossible to tell how many teachers or deans were aware of the gossip blazing through the student body but it was certain some of them knew.
The silent minute at lunch felt like the calm before a hurricane moved in. Bowed heads all over the room, but with eyes peeking up at each other, all wondering, who had keys, what did they do in there? I kept trying to pick Moll out of the lunch tables but it was impossible to see beyond a few tables near me. When the minute was over, a general murmur began. Midway through lunch, I got up to fill my water glass at the drink window near the kitchen so I could wander around and look for her. Daria would be in hyper self-protection mode by now so there was nothing I could add to their efforts at eluding capture. Anyway, I figured, how would the faculty ever be able to find one key? Even if they were looking for multiple keys to something, everyone had keys and anyone who had the mattress room key would have ditched it by now. Daria was the last one to have it and she’d given it to Tim. No one really knew if there were duplicates or not. There certainly could have been.
I didn’t see Moll anywhere but I did spot her roommate, Eleanor DeLuca, so I stopped at her table with my full glass of water.
“Hey, Eleanor.”
I smiled down at her. The faculty member at the head of her table was Miss Alderton, who liked me. She gave me a little wave and went on eating her salad. Miss Alderton was in great shape. Besides swimming, she was a runner and had that healthy look of someone who spent a lot of time outdoors.
“Hi,” Eleanor looked up at me, surprised to see me standing there I was sure. I had never spoken one word to her before this.
“Hey, where’s Moll?”
Eleanor’s eyes got big at that and she dropped a spoon on the floor. She leaned down to get it and when she came up she looked scared.
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I want to talk to her.”
“Why?”
“What do you care? I just do.”
“I don’t know.”
That was odd, I thought. If she didn’t know, why didn’t she say that at first?
“Well, I don’t see her here at lunch.”
“So?”
“So is she in the infirmary?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you see her last night?”
“Yes.”
This was really irking me.
“Why don’t you just tell me where she is then?” By then my face was right up in hers.
“Because, as I told you before, I don’t know.” She backed her chair away from me and looked over at Miss Alderton.
The bell rang. With lunch officially over, I slammed my water glass on the table and squeezed my way ahead of everyone through the open doors. I had a free period after l
unch, when it had been my intention to translate how Orgetorix died and what Caesar did after that to unite all Gaul under Roman control. But right now I was concerned about Moll.
Bleaker was such a bitch, was all I could think about as I stomped up the fire stairs to the third floor on the west side of Fox. With every clangy step on each flat metal plate, my brain worked through memories like a film winding fast in reverse. Picking on the small and defenseless, just like my mother, I thought. Never would stand up to someone equal to her in power. Easy to make someone who couldn’t fight back feel helpless and under your control. You damned bitch. I pictured Bleaker with her tight-bunned, black hair and her pinched, white face. My mother had black hair, too, but she was a looker who knew how to manage men to get what she wanted. When there was no one around to stop her, that was when she turned off the charm and turned on the fire hose. I hate her. I hate her. I hate her.
I reached the first landing and turned the corner fast, continued up, step-by-step, pounding the unforgiving metal of the fire stairs, my anger not blowing itself out with the climb. What have I done? I encouraged Moll to go to the dance. Even to meet Donald. It was all my fault. No it wasn’t . . . my rational brain kicked in for a second. It was not my fault that Bleaker was such a bitch. No other teacher would have said anything to her. No one but Bleaker would purposely inflict that kind of shame on a student. What was wrong with her? Didn’t she have any feelings at all?
I reached the third floor finally and pushed open the fire door. Moll’s room was all the way at the other end so I rushed down. The door was open, which was unusual so I walked in. Both beds were neatly made. Eleanor’s desk had books half open and a few pens lying on them. Moll’s desk was clean of anything. Not one piece of paper. Not one pencil or pen. No books, notebooks, nothing.
“What are you doing here?”
I turned around to see Eleanor standing in the doorway.
“Where’s her stuff?”
“Look, what is wrong with you? I told you I don’t know where she is. She never talks to me. It’s like living with a phantom. I don’t know where her stuff is. Maybe she’s in the library. Maybe she took all her books with her to study.”
“She wasn’t at lunch, though.”
“So, what if she wasn’t? Go ask the deans where she is if you want to find her. I have to get ready for my next class. Go back to your upper class friends and leave me alone.”
“Thanks, Eleanor. I’ll remember this if you’re ever the butt of Bleaker’s wrath. But don’t expect any sympathy.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked as she gathered up her books.
“Never mind.” She obviously had no idea what Bleaker had done, so it was a waste of energy talking to her anymore.
“And by the way,” she said, “I hope they kick all of you out when they find that key.”
Now it was my turn. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I guess you will when Miss Bleaker calls you in to ask about it.”
She started to walk past me but I blocked the doorway. “Just so you know, I’m about to go down to the dean’s office and ask if they know where Moll is and the first thing I’m going to tell them is you’re acting really strange about her. So if you have anything to tell me, now’s the time.” I folded my arms across my chest and waited.
Eleanor stepped back. Her shoulders slumped forward and her chin wobbled a little. I noticed that her forehead was broken out and she’d tried to hide it with her hair. Then she said, very softly so I could barely hear her, “I went to bed early. When I got up this morning, her bed was made and it looked like she had gotten up really early. And that’s all I know.”
She came toward me so I stood aside. When she was right next to me she added, “It seemed like her bed looked the same as yesterday, as if she hadn’t slept in it at all.” Then she slipped by me and ran down the hall, clutching her books.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Where’s Moll?
AT A PLACE LIKE FOXHALL, OR MAYBE ANY PLACE THAT’S monitored for rule breaking or law breaking or infringement of the social code, you tend to keep your head down. You don’t want to make waves. At least most of you don’t. There are the exceptions, of course. The China’s of the community, who are hell-bent on letting everyone know just how pure they are in soul and spirit, the professional do-gooders, who lord their selflessness over the rest of us so that we may see what a shining example they provide. Of course we disdain them for it. And distrusted them utterly.
But Moll’s roommate, Eleanor, wasn’t one of those. At least, as far as I was aware. After I left their room, it occurred to me that she seemed more than nervous. That lashing out at me was a cover. She was trying to head me off. And then I had one of those A-HA moments. She was scared. But of what? I got that they didn’t ever talk. I had no roommate but the other girls did and most of them were buddies and told each other everything. At least the ones who’d chosen to share a room. But Moll was like me, a new girl. She’d been stuck in with Eleanor. And the way Moll was, well, it wasn’t hard to imagine her not warming up to her roommate. The idea that she hadn’t slept in her bed was ludicrous. Where else would she have spent the night?
I had about thirty minutes left before my class, so back at my room I gathered the books I’d need and headed outside, followed the cement walk around Fox until I got to the part that veered off to the infirmary. The nurse on duty, Mrs. Waller, was reputed to be okay, especially with girls who arrived at the infirmary complaining of bad cramps. They had some pills she’d hand out and sometimes, if a girl was really having a bad time, Mrs. Waller would let her stay in an infirmary bed for the day and she’d supply a heating pad laid under the hips.
“Hi,” I said as she looked up from her desk.
“Yes? What’s the problem, dear?”
“I’m having a really bad time this month,” I lied.
“When did it start?”
“My sheet was bloody this morning. I had to strip it down and make a special trip to the laundry. It’s just so heavy my back is aching.” I sat down on a wooden chair for emphasis.
“Do you think you can go to classes?”
The look of concern on her face almost made me feel guilty, so I decided not to pour it on too heavy. “I think so. Maybe I just need some medicine.”
“All right, dear. What’s your name?”
I told her and she wrote it down in a chart before she took a bunch of keys and went to another room. There was a board by the door that led to the infirmary rooms. Everyone who was there at any given time was logged in on that board. Everyone knew it. I stood and quickly glanced at the board. There were only two names. Both boys. One had a broken ankle that I’d heard about. The doctor had set it late the night before and they were waiting to take him for an X-ray this morning. The other boy had strep. No Moll.
Mrs. Waller came back in and handed me a little envelope. “This should last you for a couple of days. It should let up by then but if not, come back to see me. Okay?”
“Sure. Thanks a lot.”
So that was that. Where else could she be? Not knowing her class schedule, the only place left to check on her was the dean’s office, where they kept track of everyone all the time. If the roll takers hadn’t logged her at breakfast, the deans would know. If she hadn’t gone to her first class, her teacher might report her missing. If she were in the infirmary, a note would have been sent to the dean’s office. In fact, there was no way to escape the system, unless, of course, you or one of your friends was a role taker and she marked you in, but that would have been prearranged and nobody skipped a Monday morning breakfast. If you were going to skip, it would be a Saturday morning or Saturday night. You would have stuffed your bed, made sure your roommate had agreed, or told your roommate you were sleeping in a friend’s room for the weekend. But Moll had no roll taker friends and it didn’t seem like her roommate, Eleanor, would have lied for her. And then there was bed check every night. Moll couldn’t have esca
ped that. So, the way I figured it, if Moll was MIA, the deans would know about it pretty soon.
The first class period of the day was almost over. I had to get to my Latin test and then I had English but, before lunch, I would stop in at the dean’s office on some pretext and nose around. By this time, I was determined to find Moll. I had pretty well convinced myself that she was hiding out somewhere, crying or feeling too ashamed to show her face. In a way, because I had encouraged her, and because I had talked Donald Wingart into going to the dance, which made what must have been an awful scene even worse, I felt responsible. But there was also my own history. I knew what it felt like to be shamed in front of other people. Like the day my mother picked me up from school to take me to the doctor for a checkup. Right there in front of a bunch of kids waiting for the bus, she told me my hair looked “ratty” like I’d slept on it.
“Don’t you carry a comb with you?” she asked. She took a comb out of her purse and started messing with my hair while all the other kids stood there watching.
“A lady doesn’t ever go out without a comb and a hanky. You should have a hanky in your lunch box at all times.”
For the next few weeks until we got off for Thanksgiving break, I would find Kleenex dropped on my desk by the other kids with notes that said: Use your hanky.
So yes, I knew. How many times had I been told to wear my skirt long enough to cover my knees because my knees were ugly, or to wear my hair over my ears because my ears stuck out and didn’t look pretty, or what girls I shouldn’t be friends with because they were not like “us.” Meaning they were not wealthy, educated, of our class, and couldn’t possibly do anything to enhance our standing. Once she did this in the car while two of my other friends were sitting in the backseat. To this day I can’t remember the name of the condemned girl. But I remember lying to my mother about not having been at the girl’s house two days later. And I remember how triumphant I felt when she bought the lie. So it was with a dogged determination that I sat through my two classes, in what had become a personal mission no less benevolent than serving soup to the needy because in my world, neediness had little to do with wealth and everything to do with feelings of injustice.
The Other New Girl Page 17