Is That You, Miss Blue?

by M. E. Kerr

  Billy bowed. “Hello, Miss Blue.”

  Her door wasn’t open very wide, just wide enough to see the giant cross above her cot. Her room was neat and antiseptic-looking. She was wearing a black dress, and the usual silver cross.

  “I missed church,” she said. “I wasn’t ill. Did you wonder where I was, was that it?” She frowned out at us, the flickering smile vanishing only to reappear, and her cheeks were flushed. The gardenia scent was very strong.

  I said, “Yes, we were worried about you.”

  “I’ve been studying Revelations. Revelations 3:20.”

  “We thought we heard voices,” Loretta Dow said. “Or at least one voice. Chanting.”

  “My voice,” said Miss Blue. “I was repeating some of Revelations.”

  “Thank you,” Billy said in his best gentleman’s voice, bowing again. “We’re happy to know you’re feeling fine.”

  Loretta Dow said, “We wondered if Jesus was with you again.”

  I said quickly, “We did not.”

  Billy looked embarrassed.

  Miss Blue said, “I don’t think He was just now.” She managed the flickering smile again. “You heard about it then?”

  “Oh yes,” Loretta said. “It’s making the rounds.”

  Miss Blue looked slightly pleased and a little shy. “I don’t know why me,” she said.

  “Why not you?” Loretta Dow said. “Who else?”

  Miss Blue looked down at the floor modestly, her head shaking the way it did; she mumbled something which ended in “mysterious ways.”

  “We’d all better get ready for lunch,” Billy said, pulling his gold chain from his vest pocket to study his watch. “It’s getting late.”

  “I’ll see you at your table, Miss Blue,” I said.

  She shook her head. “Not today, dear.”

  “Are you going out?”

  “No, dear. I just think I’d better wait for Him.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  Billy cleared his throat nervously.

  Loretta Dow said, “For Jesus?”

  “Why yes.”

  “Why yes,” Loretta Dow said. “Naturally. Of course.”

  During Quiet Hours that afternoon, I watched the teachers rushing off to The Caravan for a smoke and I listened to Agnes cleaning out her bureau drawers. It sounded like a horde of mice building nests in the walls.

  I read some more about the planets, and Jupiter in particular, and I made sketches of a costume I was going to design for myself.

  At one point I went across to my bookshelf and got down the Holy Bible. I had used Cardmaker’s rules for remembering something. (Her home phone number was 324-2455; she remembered it by thinking: three times a twenty-four-year-old girl was raped by a twenty-four-year-old boy and a fifty-five-year-old man.)

  I remembered: It was a revelation that three twenty-year-old girls were virgins.

  Then I looked up Revelations 3:20.

  Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

  I skimmed over the whole of Chapter 3, and saw that a few times this phrase was repeated: “He that hath an ear, let him hear.”

  Then I looked at the very fine print at the beginning of the chapter. I skipped from 2 The angel of the church of Sardis is reproved to 15 The angel of Laodicea rebuked for being neither hot nor cold to 20 Christ standeth at the door and knocketh.

  I remembered all her references to footsteps coming closer and divine knocks during her graces…and I remembered the day I knocked on her door and she called out that she was expecting me, without knowing who it was.

  I was thinking about all of it when an envelope fell to the floor. I picked it up. There was writing on the outside.

  If you are looking for something in the Holy Bible, make sure it isn’t an easy answer. You will certainly find some soothing words as well as very cryptic and ambivalent meanings, affection as well as hostility, talk of peace and talk of war, not a lot about love between man and woman or marriage, and little about self-esteem.

  If you are looking for a solution to your problems, look inside the envelope. There you will see all that you need.

  With love from your father.

  Inside I found a long narrow strip of cardboard with a slender mirror affixed to it.

  Some time after light bell that evening, just after I had watched the lights go out on Tale of Two Cities, a note was shoved under my door. I read it by the light inside my closet.

  Miss Blue has been asked to leave Charles School! She is to pack on Monday and leave early Tuesday morning. The official version will be that she has asked for a leave of absence and wants a rest. APE kicked her out. Atheists Against All Cruelty is going to take action. If you care to join us as a privileged outsider, report to Hard Times tomorrow after breakfast!

  Fifteen

  IT WAS CARDMAKER’S IDEA.

  Attending the after-breakfast session of Atheists Against All Cruelty were the three members: Cardmaker, Agnes, Sue Crockett; and the privileged outsider, me. We all agreed there was nothing we could do to change APE’s decision. There wasn’t enough time, for one thing; for another, none of our parents but Agnes’ made any impression on APE. Cardmaker’s father was the scapegoat of his diocese. Sue’s mother was this merry widow who did little more than tool around in her white Mercedes all day. And my father was some kind of professional sex maniac.

  Agnes was sitting on Cardmaker’s bed trying not to sob. The noises she made when she cried were even worse than the ones she made when she snored. She would glance up at us with this face cracking from grief and moan “Ma Boooooo!” and Cardmaker would shake her hard and tell her to shut up.

  “You’re not even supposed to be here, Agnes!” Cardmaker tried to impress on her. “You’re room campused! Now keep quiet!”

  “I like the idea,” Sue Crockett told Cardmaker, “but aren’t there risks involved?”

  The idea was that if we could not prevent this cruelty about to be inflicted on Miss Blue, we could at least soften it. Since it was so close to Christmas, we would present her with a gift from the school. No one but the four of us would know about it. One of us would steal official APE stationery for the note to accompany the gift. One of us would write the letter. The remaining two would procure the gift and place it outside Miss Blue’s door.

  The gift was to be the painting of Mary, Queen of Scots, which hung at the top of the stairs, just off David Copperfield.

  Cardmaker asked Sue Crockett what risks she thought were involved.

  “What if she goes to thank APE?”

  “She won’t,” Cardmaker said. “For one thing, we’ll wait until light bell rings before we place it outside her door and knock. She is still faculty chum for Little Dorrit. You know how literally she follows the rules. She won’t leave David Copperfield. But for another thing, in the note from APE, we’ll ask her to accept it without comment and as discreetly as possible, since no one else on the faculty is being remembered this year.”

  “Another thing,” Sue Crockett said. “What will we put in the painting’s place?”

  “Nothing,” Cardmaker said. “No one ever looks at that painting but Miss Blue.”

  “Herbert does,” said Sue. Herbert was the school porter; he had been with Charles for twenty-nine years. “Herbert will notice.”

  “No,” Cardmaker said. “We’ll take the painting down at nine forty-five tonight. Miss Blue’s train leaves at seven in the morning, so she’ll be leaving the school at six thirty. No men, including Herbert, are allowed on dorm halls between seven and seven.”

  “What happens after seven? What happens tomorrow when it’s found missing?” Sue said.

  Cardmaker shrugged. “What can they prove?”

  “They’ll think it’s been stolen,” I said. “They’ll think one of us is a kleptomaniac.”

  “Let them have a little pre-Christmas problem,” said Cardmaker. “They s
ure laid one on Miss Blue!”

  Agnes’ face wrinkled up again and she began, “Ma Boooo,” but Cardmaker put her hand over Agnes’ mouth. “Cut it out!” she said. “Atheists aren’t sentimental!”

  It was decided that Sue Crockett would steal stationery from APE, since she was the only one of us not hall or room campused. Monday was an excellent day for such a theft, since it was the day off and there would be few girls or faculty members around. APE herself usually went for a drive with Billy, or stayed in their quarters on Tale of Two Cities. Cardmaker would compose the note from APE and forge APE’s name.

  Agnes and I, because of our proximity to David Copperfield, would remove the painting from the wall, wrap it, and place it before Miss Blue’s door. We would knock and run.

  “So much for that,” said Cardmaker. “Now on to official business. I’m sorry, Flanders, but you’ll have to leave.”

  “Sure,” I said getting up.

  “Unless your eyes are finally opened.”

  “If I’m anything, I’m maybe an agnostic,” I said.

  “That’s wishy-washy, spineless, and dull,” said Cardmaker.

  “That’s what my mother says she is,” said Sue Crockett. “She says it’s safer that way. It’s less offensive, in case there is a God.”

  “In case there is, I don’t want to offend Him,” I said.

  “Or Her,” Sue Crockett said. “My mother always says she doesn’t want to offend Him or Her.”

  “A woman would never be God,” Cardmaker said. “Not any God of this universe. Her maternal instincts would prevent it. She wouldn’t be able to stand it! Only men like making war and money!”

  “But my mother can sure spend it,” Sue Crockett said.

  “Sue,” said Cardmaker, “how did a meeting of Atheists Against All Cruelty get turned into a discussion of your silly mother!”

  “My mother isn’t silly! Just because you’re rich doesn’t necessarily mean you’re silly!”

  “I’ve seen some pretty silly high Episcopalian ministers in my time,” said Cardmaker, “flouncing around in their handmade robes and their gold this and that, and they were all filthy rich!”

  “How did a meeting of Atheists Against All Cruelty get turned into a discussion of High Episcopalian ministers?” Sue demanded angrily.

  “So long,” I said. “Since there won’t be a Planet Day, I have to go back to Little Dorrit and destroy my design of a gown with twelve moons hanging off it.”

  “I was going to be Jupiter, too!” Cardmaker said.

  I said, “It figures.”

  “Oz!” Agnes shouted.

  “Write it down, don’t talk,” Cardmaker said. “I don’t know how to translate, and someone will hear you, besides.”

  “Oz is probably Mars,” I said. “She was going to be Mars.”

  Agnes came across to give me one of her pleased punches, but I got out the door before she could accomplish it.

  On my way back to Little Dorrit, I thought of the empty seat at breakfast at the head of Miss Blue’s table. According to the rumors, she had been told by APE last night after supper. The only time she had been seen since was after rising bell this morning when she went to locate Herbert, to ask him to bring up her trunk from the cellar.

  Along Bleak House girls were adding their names to lists like “Shopping & a Soda,” Movie & a Soda,” “Nature Walk,” “Horseback Riding,” “Lunch & Shopping,” et cetera. Each group was chaperoned by an E.L.A. member. By noon, there would be very few girls left in the school. I decided that I would ask Miss Blue if I could sit with her at lunch, that perhaps it would be a way of helping her face Dombey and Son; I would tell her we could walk down together when the lunch bell rang.

  “Flanders Brown!”

  APE’s voice sent a current of shock through my system. I turned around and saw her standing down at the other end of Bleak House.

  “I’ve been looking for you,” she said.

  She came stomping toward me, all in motion, the gold locket bouncing against her bosom, her spectacles bouncing across the bridge of her nose, her hair bouncing, her lower lip, all of her jumping around.

  “What is it, ma’am?” I said.

  She clamped her thick fingers across my thin wrist and backed me into a corner. “I want to speak privately, but I don’t have time now to take you to my office, so we’ll keep our voices lowered.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Where is Sumner Thomas?”

  “He’s at Wales Military Academy, Mrs. Ettinger.”

  “He has not been at Wales since yesterday noon. There is a search on for him, and your name has been brought into the matter, as someone he saw.”

  “I don’t know anything about it, ma’am.”

  “If this is a prevarication and you do have information concerning his whereabouts, you will not go unpenalized, mark my word.”

  “Mrs. Ettinger, I don’t know anything about it!”

  “I said we were going to keep our voices lowered!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She loosened her grip on my skin; there were marks left.

  “You have no Monday privileges until after Christmas, is that correct?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She seemed satisfied of something (of what? That I would not be free to escape the E.L.A. chaperone in town and rendezvous somewhere with Sumner Thomas?); she lumbered away, mumbling to herself.

  When I arrived on David Copperfield, Miss Horton, Miss Sparrow, and Miss Balfour were all with Miss Blue. They were taking her to town for lunch. I caught only a fleeting glance of Miss Blue’s face, shattered and pale, with eyes red from crying.

  “Where will she go?” I asked Miss Sparrow, who had answered Miss Blue’s door when I knocked. I whispered it, but Miss Sparrow answered me in a regular tone.

  “New York, she says.”

  “New York City?”

  “So she says.”

  “Does she have friends there?” I was trying to pull Miss Sparrow into the hall by speaking so low she would have to move forward to hear, but Miss Sparrow finally stopped in the doorway.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Have you made your bed yet, Flanders, or picked up your room?”

  I hadn’t. She knew I hadn’t.

  I said, “Just before Christmas…. I should think the faculty would protest to—”

  Miss Sparrow cut me off. “Attend to your duties, Flanders.”

  Suddenly I felt very angry, and a little bold. “Does Reverend Cunkle know about this? Someone,” I said pointedly, staring purposely at her new gold key, “ought to tell him.”

  The door shut in my face.

  I felt like crying, like wailing, Ma Booo. Ma Boo. It hadn’t even sunk in yet, and it wouldn’t for a while, that Sumner Thomas had run away. I was too busy entertaining split-second images: the bathroom nail with O Bleeding Face hung on it; those blue eyes helplessly searching the faces in the dining room so many times on her way out, looking for some response; the thought of a young girl called Nesty with the boys after her, turning so soon into someone maybe crazy, maybe sick, maybe sane as I was, or APE; the soft little singsong tone that came from her so suddenly during the Thanksgiving dinner, “I talked to Jesus and He knew I knew He was there.” I saw her reaching up to draw the heads of Marie Curie and Sir Ernest Rutherford, and I remembered the famous flickering smile when she said, “Cavendish called them noble gases because they wouldn’t mix with any others. I call them the snobs.”

  I couldn’t seem to get the smell of gardenia out of my nostrils all day, nor the sound of Miss Sparrow’s voice telling me, “She’s just a little over forty.”

  Dear Ernestine,

  You cannot leave Charles School without taking some part of it, in appreciation for all that you’ve done for the girls. This is also a Christmas gift to you from all of us. Take it with you tomorrow morning and always enjoy it. (Please be discreet and don’t comment on it, since we are not remembering other faculty members this year.)
/>
  Sincerely,

  Annie P. Ettinger

  We worried: Would she think it peculiar that such a personal note was typed, and not handwritten? (The written signature looked authentic.)

  Would she be able to carry the painting and her hand luggage?

  Agnes was in tears most of the afternoon, even though a bouquet of sweet peas had been delivered, with a card signed Stephen Woolwine. The only time I saw her face brighten was late that night shortly after we had lifted the painting from its hook and carried it carefully down to Little Dorrit.

  “Dand!” She pointed to the small print under the words DEATH-CELL PRAYER OF MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS before she placed her head on the executioner’s block. At the decree of her own cousin, also a woman.

  Keep us, oh God, from all smallness. Let us be large in thought, in word, and in deed. Let us have done with complaint, and leave off all self-seeking. May we put away all pretense, and meet each other with pity and without prejudice. May we never be hasty in judgment of others. Make us always generous. Let us take time to be calm and gentle. Teach us to put into action our better impulse and to walk unafraid. Grant that we may realize that the little things of life are those which create our differences, and that in the big things of life, we are as one under God. And, O Lord, let us never forget to be kind. Amen.

  From her room on A Christmas Carol, Sue Crockett saw Miss Blue leave the following morning at twenty minutes to seven. Ahead of her, Herbert was carrying her hand luggage into the waiting taxi. Miss Blue managed to carry her gift all by herself, though it was almost as large as she was. Then it was tied to the roof of the taxi, and by six forty-five, Miss Blue and her gift were speeding off to catch a train north.

  We soon learned that on her way out she had left a note in APE’s box thanking her for her generosity. APE found it there sometime after breakfast. Not long after she found it, right in the middle of the school day, the bells seemed to go berserk, ringing off schedule, relentlessly ringing CLANG—DONG DONG, CLANG-DONG DONG, CLANGDONG, CLANGDONGCLANG, like someone who had gone soft in the head was suddenly pulling the rope herself.