Rette felt as though her face had turned brick red. This was real humiliation—to be tutored by a classmate, and a boy at that!
“Couldn’t one of the other teachers—” she started, but Mr. Scott was already shaking his head. “Spring is always a crowded time. I’ll do the best I can for you, Loretta. If you really apply yourself, I think a couple of extra hours a week should see you through.”
As Rette walked up the stairs to the auditorium, where she had a period of study hall, she could just imagine the sort of tutor she’d draw—somebody like Corky, bespectacled and smug about his superior knowledge, who would even rather enjoy lording it over a girl whom he considered uppity anyway.
She tried to take her mind off her ill fortune by reading both her essays over again. Definitely, now, she decided that the first one was far superior to her last-minute effort of the night before. She folded them both lengthwise and tucked them into the back of her history book. When she next walked past the principal’s office, she’d drop the chosen theme into the entry box. Not, in her present state of discouragement, that she thought it had much of a chance.
Lunch hour followed study hall, and Rette went directly to the cafeteria, where the girls were now strangely silent on the subject of the contest. No one seemed willing to admit that she was or was not entering a manuscript. Apparently they felt that either stand would be incriminating. Rette played along with the crowd and kept silent about her plans too.
The boys were less shy. Noisy banter came from the tables in the corner where Jeff Chandler and his crowd always sat. Apparently Jeff was the favorite, among the entries, because big Bill Jenkins, who always tried to get somebody to bet with him on every game and every controversy involving Avondale High, was laying two to one that Jeff would win and finding no takers.
Only Elise, among the girls, finally decided to be expansive. “I tried and tried,” she admitted, “but I couldn’t seem to get a thing on paper that made good sense. I guess I’m just not a writer. Anyway, the prize really ought to go to a boy.”
“That’s right,” agreed Dora Phillips, who always supported Elise in everything, “a girl would feel sort of silly winning a prize like that, don’t you think?”
“Why?” Rette wanted to ask, from her seat several places down the long table, but she knew it would only make her sound belligerent. She bit her lower lip and kept her peace.
“Oh, I don’t know,” Elise was saying calmly. “I’d be thrilled.”
Silently Rette cheered. Every once in a while Elise came up with something, in a quiet, offhand way, with which Rette agreed heartily. Then she forgot her jealousy and almost liked the girl. Almost.
After lunch Cathy and Rette walked over to the gym together, and Rette told Cathy about the algebra test and the prospect of a tutor. Cathy, as usual, was comforting.
“It does seem stupid, when you’re so bright in everything else,” she said. “But just because you are bright it ought to be a quick job to catch up.”
Rette groaned. “You don’t know me and math.”
Cathy retorted with a laugh. “Stop being so determined that you can’t do algebra,” she said.
It was after her last class that Rette found herself in the corridor off which the principal’s office opened. Well, it’s now or never, she decided, and had her hand on the doorknob when a boy came up behind her, his rubber-soled shoes making no noise on the asphalt tile floor.
“About to cast the die?” Jeff Chandler asked.
Rette nodded. “You too?”
“Nope.” Jeff shook his head. “My two cents’ worth went in early this morning, before I lost my nerve. I’m just tracking you down, at the moment. Or haven’t you heard?”
“Heard what?” Rette looked puzzled. She turned, her back to the door now, but one hand still clutching the knob. Her heart was beating faster than usual because any girl in Avondale High would be flattered to have Jeff Chandler searching her out. Just to have him standing in the corridor talking to her was exciting—she had to admit it. No matter why he had been looking for her, the fact that she could be seen with him gave her a certain feeling of prestige.
But his next words dashed any absurd hope she might have been harboring. “I’m supposed to tutor you in algebra,” he said.
Rette was so shocked that she was temporarily speechless. Not Jeff Chandler! Oh, please, Mr. Scott—anybody but Jeff Chandler! Rette offered up a silent and ineffectual prayer.
If he weren’t one of the most popular boys in the senior class, it would be different. Now Rette would gladly have settled for Corky or anybody else. But to have Jeff Chandler in the position of her mentor, to have to admit to him her abysmal ignorance of even the simplest algebraic problems, to be forced to accept doltishly his instruction—this, Rette felt sure, was the very depth of degradation. She wished she could quietly slip through the floor and disappear forever. The tell-tale red began to climb up her throat, in which a nervous pulse was beating. Her knuckles, behind her back, were white on the doorknob. Somehow, with pride that was almost a reflex, she kept her chin up.
“You’ll be sorry,” she said. “I’m awfully dumb.”
The rest of the conversation Loretta could never quite remember. She realized that Jeff had suggested Tuesday and Thursday evenings and had arranged to come to her house at seven thirty each night. But the actual words that had passed between them were lost, because all she could think of at the time was her anxiety to get away.
Finally he walked off down the hall, with a casual, “I’ll be seein’ you,” and Rette turned blindly into the office and tugged at one of the essays in the back of her history book, pushing it viciously into the slotted box.
It wasn’t until Sunday night, when she opened her American History to do her homework, that she realized the mistake she had made. The essay she had submitted to the contest was not the one she had decided upon. It was the second, last-minute attempt on which her chance for the prize would stand.
CHAPTER TEN
“No, I’m not going to the Senior Ball,” Rette told her mother flatly a week later. “School dances are simply too dumb.”
Mrs. Larkin looked confused and rather grieved. “But, Rette—” she began, then spread her hands in a small gesture of futility. “I mean, after all—your last year—”
Rette shrugged and ran upstairs whistling. Her only recourse was to pretend to ignore her mother’s obvious concern. She couldn’t admit that she wasn’t going because nobody had asked her. She could only cloak her real feelings with assumed indifference, but she did wish people would let her alone!
It was like a conspiracy. Even Gramp was unconsciously involved in it. He came to his bedroom door waggling an admonitory finger.
“‘Whistling girls and crowing hens,’” he quoted. There was no need to go on.
Rette went over and hugged him. “Now don’t you start scolding me,” she told him, “or I won’t let you beat me at pinochle any more.”
Gramp held her off and looked at her. “Me, scold you?” he asked innocently. “I’ve never scolded you in your life.”
It was true. His occasional teasing was entirely without malice, and the fact that it occasionally struck home was sheer accident. Rette smiled and patted his cheek.
“You’re an old smoothie,” she said.
“What’s a ‘smoothie’?” Gramp asked.
“Apparently,” Rette retorted cynically, “what I’m not.”
Then, when he looked utterly confounded, she laughed at him and suggested generously, “Want to play a game with me right now?”
It relaxed Rette to be with Gramp. He demanded nothing of her but the pleasure of her company, and she felt warmed and softened by his love. But before the rest of the family she had to adopt an attitude of defiant unconcern. They kept bringing up subjects like the Senior Ball and Jeff Chandler, subjects that were loaded with dynamite, from Rette’s point of view.
That evening Loretta was blocking a newly washed sweater on two turkish towels
laid on her bed when her mother touched a match to the fuse. She wandered in with apparent casualness and said, “You know, Rette, that nice boy who has been tutoring you—I was thinking maybe he’d like to come a little early and have supper with us some night.”
“And then again, maybe he wouldn’t!” Rette straightened and whirled on her mother like an animal at bay. “Don’t you dare ask him, ever! You promise.”
“Why, Rette!”
“Look. Mother, Jeff’s a big shot in the class. Besides, he’s practically going steady with Elise.” Rette wasn’t sure whether this wasn’t exaggeration, but at least it should end further discussion.
It did. Her mother said, “Oh!” in a vague sort of way and let the subject drop.
Her family’s reaction to the announcement that she would have to be tutored in math had been far milder than Rette had anticipated. Her mother and dad had looked surprised and rather dismayed, but they hadn’t upbraided her. Their attitude had been, “Let’s get this thing straightened out as quickly as possible,” and with forthright practicality they had discussed tutoring fees and the question of whether the two hours a week Mr. Scott had suggested should be increased to three.
Rette was grateful to them for their lenience. Her other grades had always been high, and they seemed to sense that the fact that algebra had proved a stumbling block put Loretta to shame. When Jeff appeared, they treated him with casual courtesy and made it as easy for Rette as possible. Rette repaid them by getting down to the most serious work of her entire school career.
Somewhere she found the courage to confess the unvarnished truth to Jeff. She went back with him practically to the beginning of the algebra book and started over, refusing to leave a theorem or an illustration until she thoroughly understood the problem involved.
She was a slow pupil. Added to the discomfiture of Jeff’s mere presence was a natural ineptitude for figures that was hard to conquer. But Rette tried.
And Jeff, she had to admit after only the second lesson, was a good and a remarkably patient tutor. He didn’t patronize her, as she had feared. He didn’t even seem to think of her as a person. She was simply his job, and he came in on time each tutoring night and promptly got down to work.
When Cathy and Judy and the rest of the girls found that she had Jeff as a tutor, Rette was afraid they might ridicule her or tease her, and she prepared herself for such a contingency with an iron front. But, instead, they seemed to feel she was lucky. She even went up a notch or two in Judy’s estimation.
“Gosh,” she exclaimed enviously, “what a swell break!”
Tony happened to be out on the first two nights Jeff came to the house, but on the Tuesday following the two boys met.
Jeff had out his hand to Rette’s brother with unconcealed admiration. “I’m proud to know you,” he said, and he meant it. Sincerity shone in his eyes.
Tony always belittled his war record, but he was willing enough to talk about the boys he had fought with in the 82nd, and Jeff had a cousin who had been a paratrooper, whom Tony had known well. For the first time Jeff loitered after the hour’s lesson was over, chatting with Tony and Mrs. Larkin until after nine o’clock.
Rette, though she was left on the side lines, was proud of her family. Tony was quite a guy to have for a brother, and her mother, as usual, was attractive and gay. Jeff liked her mother, she could tell. All the boys liked Mrs. Larkin, all Tony’s friends. She made them feel important and interesting. Rette could never quite discover how she managed it, but she did.
After Jeff had left, Rette told Tony, “That’s the fellow who will probably get the flying prize.”
Tony raised interested eyebrows. “So! He seems like a dam good kid.”
From Tony this was high praise, and Rette unconsciously basked in reflected glory. “He knows more about airplanes!” she said. “He can spot the different makes the way some kids can tell all the cars.”
Tony laughed. “That’s not unusual, Rette, for a boy.”
But Rette was still impressed.
The date for the announcement of the essay contest winner was set for April 1. with adult disregard for the fact that it was also April Fools’ Day. Mr. Irish was scheduled to make the presentation of the award in assembly, and Rette couldn’t seem to keep her stomach from churning as she walked to school.
It wasn’t that she thought she had a chance of winning herself. She was sure that the submission of the second essay had fixed that for keeps. But she knew, from his tension during the hour they had spent together the night before, how much the prize would mean to Jeff Chandler.
Jeff had even admitted it, when she questioned him. “Sure, I’d give my eyeteeth to learn to fly,” he said. “But then, so would a lot of other guys. And gals,” he added belatedly.
“You know, Rette,” he said a little later, “the people who win prizes are never the people you’d expect. Wait till Commencement. I bet you’ll see. The kids who get ahead are the last ones you’d pick, and a good many of the high-school hot-shots just never amount to a hill of beans.”
He’s trying to talk himself out of being too hopeful, Rette thought. She smiled gently and didn’t argue the point, but in the morning she was almost as excited for Jeff as she would have been had she nurtured any expectations herself.
Among the pupils gathering in Rette’s home room when she arrived, the usual wags were clowning and the practical jokers were out in full force. There were seniors who, belying their years and sophistication, still considered it funny to put tacks on the teacher’s desk chair. There was the inevitable wit who stuffed crumpled newspaper into a girl’s desk and took great delight in hiding her books.
On Margaret’s desk was a note, not too subtle, asking her to call Mrs. Taxies at lunch time, and giving the telephone number of the station cabstand. Rette herself found a note that read, “Please see Mr. Martin in his office immediately.” She wadded it into a ball with a knowing smile and fired it into the wastebasket at the front of the room.
Jeff Chandler came in rather late, looking very debonair. He went right over to Elise’s desk, where he stayed talking until the bell for assembly rang.
As he went out of the room in front of her, Rette couldn’t help following him secretly with her eyes. She admired his apparent unconcern, when he had every cause to appear anxious. What she wouldn’t give to have that kind of poise, to be able to look self-possessed in such a time of crisis! Her heart was fluttering like a captive pigeon right now.
Many eyes, inevitably, were on the seniors, as the lowerclassmen speculated and wished that they too had turned sixteen. The appearance of Mr. Irish again created a ripple of excitement among the girls. He seemed not unaware of it, Rette thought. Perhaps no man was above the flattery of feminine applause.
At the beginning of assembly there were the usual lengthy preliminaries. The orchestra played with rather disorganized exuberance, and Mr. Martin made announcements that seemed exceptionally dull.
Finally, however, he came to the point.
“I know that you are awaiting with interest the announcement that Mr. Irish is here to make. Let me first say that the committee of judges considered all of forty-nine essays.” He turned to the young man behind him. So there are forty-nine potential flyers in our midst. Then he continued, redundantly: “Many of the compositions were of high quality. Three were indeed outstanding. The judges did not have an easy time.”
Rette’s fingers were cold, but the palms of her hands were perspiring. She could just see the back of Jeff Chandler’s head three rows in front of where she sat. It was unwavering, and she wondered how he felt beneath such superficial calmness. She swallowed hard.
Stephen Irish was on his feet now, nodding his head briefly in response to Mr. Martin’s introduction. He held an envelope in his hand, and as he walked forward he tapped it against his left wrist as though he found himself unexpectedly nervous.
“In behalf of Wings Airport,” he said with formality, “it gives me great pleasure to aw
ard this prize to a student of Avondale High. At your Commencement in June I hope to be able to make a second award to this same student—” he paused and grinned, “a special Wings Airport diploma for a solo flight.”
He glanced momentarily at the envelope in his hand, then back at the assembly. “The prize of a one-hundred-dollar block of flying lessons goes to Loretta Larkin,” he said.
Rette sat as though her stomach were caught in a vise. She heard the short gasp of surprise that swept the auditorium, then the conventional applause—not so loud as it would have been for a school hero like Jeff Chandler, but loud enough.
There must be a mistake, she thought, if she thought at all. The echo of her own name rang in her ears like an April-fool joke. She had given up all hopes of the prize so completely that she couldn’t believe it was true.
But Margaret was nudging her in the side and Judy was thumping her on the back. “Go on up and get it,” Judy whispered. “Go on!”
Rette couldn’t have moved at that moment had she been threatened by fire or flood, and fortunately Mr. Irish gave her a chance to collect her scattered wits.
“Before Miss Larkin comes forward,” he said, “I’d like you all to know that the judges chose her particular essay for one special reason. It is one of the most completely natural pieces of teen-age writing that any of us has ever read. And I think that I’m safe in saying that you’ll have a chance to see what I’m talking about in a coming issue of the Arrow.”
He turned slightly toward the principal, who nodded, then back to the students. “And now, Miss Larkin—” The envelope looked very white in his hand.
Somehow Rette reached the center aisle, pushed and prodded helpfully by her intervening classmates, over whose knees she had to stumble before she could stand alone. Doggedly she advanced toward the outstretched envelope, which was beginning to swim before her eyes. Rette wasn’t unaccustomed to the limelight, but always before she had been one of a team when she had starred. Now she was utterly, alarmingly, entirely, by herself.
Betty Cavanna Page 8