by M. E. Kerr
“Snob gases,” I said. “Gases that refuse to combine with anything else under any conditions.” I suddenly thought of something which had not occurred to me before. Was Miss Blue slyly putting in her own two cents about the E.L.A. matter? It was the main topic of the day, after all; it had been for over a week. And Miss Blue had inserted into her lesson that while Cavendish, their discoverer, had called them “noble gases” because of their elite quality, she preferred to think of them as “the snobs.”
APE was frowning and rubbing her chins with her great chunky fingers. “Snob gases?”
“Argon and neon, for example. They’re used to light advertising signs.”
“Let’s get back to the subject,” said APE, who I could tell didn’t know anything about gases of any kind. “Have you ever heard Miss Blue talking to herself in her room?”
“I don’t live near her,” I said. “But I’ve heard Agnes Thatcher carrying on in her room.”
“We’re not talking about Agnes Thatcher,” APE said. “Yet.”
“Miss Blue seems fine in every way to me,” I said.
“France Shipp said she called on her after Thanksgiving dinner, to make sure she was all right, and Miss Blue was in her room, with her door closed, chanting.”
“Maybe she was praying,” I said.
“Aloud?”
I said, “Maybe.”
“France Shipp said she was chanting.”
“Well, praying could sound like chanting,” I said.
“Flanders, I think you know what I’m getting at. It’s very noble to defend your faculty chum, if that’s what you imagine you’re doing, but you should be sick in bed about signs she’s clearly evincing of having some mental disturbance!”
“I didn’t know that, ma’am.”
“You knew that.”
“I really didn’t.”
“But you and Carolyn Cardmaker and the like are intent on being the misdemeanists.”
“Not me,” I said.
“Not I,” she corrected me.
“Not I. I’m not intent on being a misdemean anything. I just like Miss Blue a lot and think she’s an excellent teacher.”
“We’re not on that subject anymore.”
“What subject are we on?”
“Carolyn Cardmaker,” APE said.
“I like her, too,” I said.
“You more than like her, I would say. You bend to her will.”
“I don’t, ma’am, and that’s the truth.”
“You and the rest of her lackeys,” she continued, ignoring my protestation. “You and poor Agnes Thatcher. Now Agnes Thatcher didn’t decide of her own volition to make public disclosures concerning the E.L.A. Any fool in long pants knows that much. Agnes Thatcher hasn’t got a mean bone in her body!”
“Ma’am?” I said incredulously.
“She doesn’t. Now, she doesn’t, and I don’t want any more mendacity and subterfuge on the subject! A poor child like that does not spend her hours plotting and conniving the way a Carolyn Cardmaker does!” APE was highly upset, rubbing her diamond like crazy, her eyes practically putting out sparks. “You pinch the poor child when she’s trying to study, and Carolyn Cardmaker poisons the child’s mind! I never knew such unkind girls before. I never dreamed in my wildest imaginings that this brand of cruelty could exist here in Charles School. It is your duty to help Agnes!”
I couldn’t think of anything to say, much less to try and convince APE I wouldn’t even be there if Agnes hadn’t been just as capable of plotting and conniving as the rest of us.
APE said, “Go to your room. Don’t go back to study hall this evening. Go to your room immediately, and have your lights off in ten minutes. Do you understand?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Emerson said in his essay ‘Manners’: A beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form; it gives a higher pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts.”
“Yes, ma’am. I never knew he said that, ma’am.”
“Think about it! And this: So nigh is grandeur to our dust, So near is God to man,”—I had to look away from her, her voice was shaking so—“When Duty whispers low, Thou must, The youth replies, I can.” She stood up and, glaring at me, demanded, “Who wrote that?”
“Shakespeare?”
“Ralph Waldo Emerson!” she bellowed back, as though she had triumphed over me in some sort of contest of wills, wits, whatever.
Our interview was over. APE stormed away, leaving me to make my way up to Little Dorrit.
When I came to the top of the stairs on David Copperfield, I saw Miss Blue sitting in her usual spot, under the picture of Mary, Queen of Scots. She was reading the Bible, open at Revelations.
I said, “I have another Revelation for you, Miss Blue. I’ve been sent from study hall. Mrs. Ettinger has me campused on Mondays until Christmas, and I have to have my lights out immediately.”
“What did you do to deserve all that, dear?”
“I have to have my lights out practically immediately,” I said, “so I’ll tell you tomorrow.” Then I said, “Miss Blue?”
“Yes, Flanders?”
“Did snob gases have anything to do with E.L.A.?”
Her flickering smile, the slight blush to her cheeks. “Dear, you haven’t time. Practically immediately is almost past.”
“You’re okay, Miss Blue,” I said.
She nodded her head, murmuring something that sounded vaguely like “Amen,” “I am,” or “My friend.”
I never knew which.
Fourteen
IT WAS A FEW Sundays before Christmas, and there was a tree trimmed in gold and silver on the altar at church.
As we marched down the aisle at the end of the service, Cardmaker was singing: “Eternal King O, on Lead, come has march of day The—”
“Henceforth in fields of conquest,” I was singing right along, “Thy tents shall be our home.”
“Preparation of days Through,” Cardmaker sang.
“Thy grace has made us strong,” I tried to drown her out.
“Eternal King O, now And—”
“We lift our battle song.”
Before we launched into the second verse, I nudged Cardmaker in the side. “Aren’t you going to let up for Christmas?” I asked.
“Let up for Christmas?” she said. “That’s the time when we’re most appropriate! Christmas hasn’t got anything to do with God! It’s all one big hard sell!”
“Hush! Girls!” Miss Balfour turned around to raise a scolding finger. “Sing!” She was wearing a piece of mistletoe attached to her hat, and she had two round balls of rouge on her cheeks which looked like tree decorations.
Everything at Charles School was taking on a festive air. There was fake snow on the windows and tinsel hanging from plants, and there were wreaths with red bows and clumps of evergreen branches tied with colored ribbon resting on tables and over pictures in the hallways.
There was an air of excitement, too; things seemed to be in an up-tempo, everyone was busy, lively. The news was being passed that France Shipp was no longer wearing her two-carat diamond ring, and certain afternoons from the windows on Bleak House you could see her huddled in one of her heavy woolen sweaters, sitting beside Peter Rider in the gazebo on South Lawn, while the leaves blew around them in a storm.
A townie was writing to Agnes. He had seen her several times at church. “I love how you look,” he had written in his first letter. “I know you’re deaf. I made inquiries I hope you don’t mind! I couldn’t help myself!” He said he was sixteen, attended local high school, wanted to be a veterinarian, and hoped Agnes would invite him to call.
Agnes did. She wrote back that he was welcome in her room on Little Dorrit anytime he could find a way to get there. Since she was room campused, except to attend classes, chapel, study hall, meals and church, he would please plan his visit for sometime after light bell or in the early hours before dawn “when your presence along the halls will be less noticeabl
e.”
His name was Stephen Woolwine. He began writing once a week, then two and three times, delighting in Agnes’ sassy responses. She began squirming in her seat Sundays, trying to pick him out of the crowd, but he refused to help her or give her any clues. He would remain a mystery man, he wrote, until she could meet him face to face.
The drama club was rehearsing The Importance of Being Earnest, with Ditty Hutt in the lead male role as Algernon. She was running around the halls in silk knickers reciting lines like “Piano playing is not my forte,” while all of us pumped her on what exactly went on between Reverend Cunkle and Miss Sparrow. Reverend Cunkle was directing the play.
“They just crack up over anything the other one says,” Ditty said.
Miss Sparrow was wearing out a bright red velvet suit, showing up in it at every rehearsal; around her neck was a black velvet ribbon with a gold key attached to it.
“It’s a new gold key,” Ditty Hutt told us. “I’ve heard he gives her a gift at the beginning of every new venture they get involved in.”
“Keep your eyes peeled,” Cardmaker advised her. “We want a full report.”
“I don’t think anything goes on between them,” said Ditty. “I just think they turn each other on and that’s it.”
“Keep your eyes peeled anyway,” Cardmaker said.
Cardmaker was mad at everyone Episcopal, particularly the clergy. Her father had written that it would probably be the family’s last Christmas in Union, that he was being assigned to a smaller parish about 90 miles from Union.
“You can’t get much smaller than Union,” she had complained. “You practically don’t exist at all if you’re smaller than Union!”
That morning as we marched from church together, she was dressed inappropriately for the weather. She was wearing a lightweight corduroy jacket over a black nylon drip-dry dress, panty hose, heels, and a black felt beanie on her head.
After the hymn, as we were slowly filing out, I showed her the newest poem sent to me by Sumner Thomas.
You are words like “toward,” “in,” “here,” “yes,” “now,” “come,” and “part of.”
I am sliding.
You are “hush,” “dear,” “oh!,” “open,” “touch.”
I am sliding.
You are “darling”
(I can)
“always”
(not)
“love me”
(hold)
“dearest”
(out)
“my”
(much)
“beloved”
(longer)
I am a word like yours.
Cardmaker handed back the piece of Wales stationery with the poem written across it. Underneath Sumner had scribbled “Another one for you, Flanders.”
“He likes to write poetry.” Cardmaker shrugged. “What’s wrong with that? There are heads of state planning ways to suck money out of the pockets of the poor, and you meet a boy who likes to write poetry—what’s wrong with that?”
“Cardmaker, don’t always bring the world into matters,” I said. “There’s nothing wrong with a boy who likes to write poetry, but why is he making all this up between me and him?”
“Who says he is? He just says it’s a poem for you, not about you.”
“Cardmaker,” I said, “why would he send me a love poem if it wasn’t supposed to be about me?”
“Maybe he doesn’t have anyone else to send it to.”
I hadn’t thought about that. I said, “It’s still odd.”
“Of course it’s odd,” Cardmaker said. “Everything that goes on around us is odd. We’re not going to meet your simple hometown Buddy Goodboy over at Wales, any more than they’re going to meet Nan Nice here at Charles. Don’t you know by now we’re all peculiar? Unwanted people are always peculiar.”
“I’m not unwanted!” I almost shouted. “I told you that before!”
“You’re in the way, and that’s the same thing.”
“Well, what about you?”
“I wanted to come to this dump,” Cardmaker said, “but if I’d been all that wanted, I’d have been talked out of it. I’m from the extra-mouth-to-feed department.”
“I still think Sumner Thomas is strange,” I said.
“No one’s disputing that,” said Cardmaker, “but he has a lot of company, doesn’t he?”
As we were coming away from shaking hands with Reverend Cunkle and lying about how much his sermon was enjoyed, APE reached out and grabbed Cardmaker, like some hungry jungle animal who’d been waiting all along for a weaker one to pounce on.
I heard Cardmaker say, “I’m not cold!”
“Well, then you are not well dressed, either! You cannot grab any vulgar combination you choose to, and prance across to worship dressed like—”
I had to keep walking; I could not hear any more.
I knew that Cardmaker was not wearing her winter coat because she’d outgrown it. Her wrists jumped way past the sleeves, and she could hardly button it. It was too short, as well, and the belt had been broken and patched half a dozen times.
I went back to Little Dorrit wondering whether or not I was becoming peculiar myself, as Cardmaker said, and if by any chance I was already peculiar, only didn’t know it, while everyone else did and talked about me behind my back.
I was also trying to decide how to present myself as the planet Jupiter on Tuesday, for Miss Blue’s Planet Day class. Everyone had her choice of being a planet, an imaginary form of life on one of the planets, or an astronaut who had just returned from a planet.
I had decided to be Jupiter. I was attracted by the idea that it had twelve moons. I had spent a great deal of Friday afternoon in the library, reading up on Jupiter. It was the largest planet, too.
My father always said to dream on a grand scale. He would tell about a man in one of his groups who could never decide what he would wish for, if he could have only one wish. “I’d like my health,” he’d reply. “No, wait! I’d like to see my son in Georgia,” he’d continue. “No! I changed my mind. I’d rather make out with this woman in my office…or maybe come into money. I don’t know!” My father said if he had learned to dream on a grand scale, he could have wished that in the best of health, on his way to see his son in Georgia, with the woman in his office accompanying him, he wins a fortune and discovers all his wishes will come true henceforth.
“Do you understand, Flan-Tan? Treat yourself to grand-scale dreams backed up by well-organized planning, and you can’t fail!”
So I would be the biggest planet, Jupiter, with twelve moons, even though I had not answered my father’s last letter and wasn’t even sure any longer whether or not I cared to hear from him again.
As I arrived on David Copperfield, I saw the large space between Loretta Dow’s teeth, and a finger. Loretta Dow was grimacing and indicating that I should be very quiet.
“Why?” I whispered.
“It’s Miss Blue.”
“What’s wrong with her?”
“Shhhhhh. Dr. Ettinger is here.”
There stood Billy, just outside Miss Blue’s door. His little bald head was cocked, and he was cupping his ear with one of his hands.
I went up to him. “Is she all right?”
“Hush, Flanders,” he said. “Listen!”
Then I could hear it, very faintly, but very clearly: Miss Blue’s voice, calling (chanting), “He that hath an ear, let him hear.”
Loretta Dow pushed past me and said in an officious whisper, “Dr. Ettinger, I do believe she is hallucinating. I don’t know if you remember, but every Wednesday I go to a psychiatrist in Richmond, and consequently I’m on the qui vive concerning most things psychological. She is definitely hallucinating, and it’s not the first time.”
Billy was dressed in an immaculate pin-striped suit, complete with the ubiquitous Phi Beta Kappa key. He looked up at me.
“Flanders, you’re on David Copperfield nearly every day. Have you heard this before?”
I didn’t have a chance to answer. Loretta Dow said, “It doesn’t happen just on David Copperfield. She apparently chanted at dinner in Dombey and Son one evening. France Shipp told me.”
I said, “She didn’t chant. I was there.”
“Well, she was reciting this same thing, Flanders.”
“But she wasn’t chanting,” I said. I looked at Billy. “She doesn’t chant. She doesn’t bother anyone.”
“She also announced that Jesus was in her room,” Loretta said.
“I know about that,” said Billy.
“She’s very religious,” I said.
“Flanders,” said Loretta, hissing at me between her teeth, “she’s obviously ill if she’s imagining that she was in the presence of Jesus.”
“Were his disciples ill? What about all the saints?”
“Oh, yick, you’re too preposterous,” Loretta Dow said, and turned her attention back to Billy. “I do think Mrs. Ettinger should be given a full report on this, sir.”
“Oh, yes, I’ll tell her.”
“She’s not harming anyone,” I said.
“Yet,” Loretta Dow said.
“She never would.”
“This has been in the making for some time,” said Loretta Dow. “I’ve seen the symptoms developing; they were there last year.”
“She’s the best teacher at Charles,” I said.
“Except for this little passion,” said Loretta.
“So what, who doesn’t have a passion? All the faculty do, if you ask me.”
“Which nobody did!”
“How about Miss Mitchell and Miss Able?”
“Oh, shush, Flanders.”
“And Miss Sparrow.”
“Flanders, stay out of this.”
“And Miss Balfour’s passion with her own reflection.”
“Girls,” said Billy, “I don’t think this discussion is necessary.”
“And Miss Horton’s passion for John Bob White!”
“That’s a little different from having a passion for Jesus!”
“Different strokes for different folks!” I said.
“You’re absurd,” Loretta Dow said.
“You’re narrow-minded,” I said.
Billy said, “Girls! Girls!”
Then suddenly Miss Blue opened her door. “I thought I heard voices. Hello, Dr. Ettinger.”