“Good morning, St. T.’s!” she said, much, much too loudly. “A little warm in here today, huh? Must be all of that big-little energy!”
We were roasting in our polyester uniforms, yanking desperately at our collars, and twisting to find more air.
“Sisterhood,” Donna went on. “What does it mean?”
“It usually means having a sister,” I said to Ally in a low voice.
“Would you shut up?” she whispered. “They’ll kick us out, and then I won’t get a little.”
“I can’t help it,” I said. “I’m allergic to people who talk like spokesmodels.”
This wasn’t really fair. There was nothing particularly wrong with Donna, except for the fact that she was successful because she had that odd squeaky-cleanness that lots of teen pop stars exude, the kind that seems to have been manufactured in a laboratory. Her hair was genuinely golden, and her eyes were large, like a cartoon deer’s. She could sometimes be heard saying things like, “My sister told me I laugh in my sleep!” (The best I’ve ever gotten from my sister was, “I thought there was something wrong with the dog, but it was just you snoring.”)
“Sisterhood means loving each other no matter what we look like or how we dress outside of school,” Donna explained. “Sisterhood means putting each other first. Sisterhood means believing in each other and going the extra mile.”
“Or it means having a sister,” I added quickly.
Ally giggled before she could stop herself and shoved her fist into her mouth, but she was a hair too late. Sister Dominic lifted herself up on her toes and scanned the seniors. She found us quickly. She held two fingers up in the air and then poked a finger first at me, then at Ally. I knew this gesture well. It translated into two demerits, each of you. Ally let out a low groan.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
One of the doors in the back opened. We all heard it, and everyone turned in unison.
“There they are,” Ally said, suddenly awed.
In a minute of shuffling and whispering, the freshmen were lined up like an advancing army, all with bright, crazy looks in their eyes. We quickly assumed our positions in the chairs. A jumpy, almost volatile vibe came into the room, and the temperature shot up about ten degrees.
“And now,” Donna said, “the big-little ceremony begins!”
The first flank of freshmen broke free and literally ran at us, targeting very specific people. They charged at Donna, who actually opened her arms to welcome them, like some kind of mother goddess.
“I can’t watch,” I said. But I did anyway.
A group with the easy stride of athletes made their way to Brooke Makepeace, the understated captain of the basket-ball team. There was a lot of giggling and near-skipping to Hillary Vorpel, school musical diva and former child star (of local theaters and supposedly “a very big show in New York” that was never named). Within a minute, she was blinding four freshmen with her laser whites. We were sitting next to Kristin Durkin, who had no real portfolio except for being nice and kind of pretty, a good safety choice. Within a minute, she had two applicants.
“Where is she?” Allison asked, glaring at Kristin’s short line. “Why hasn’t she come up to me?”
“Give it a minute,” I said. “There’s still some in the back.”
The next wave was a slower, more considered group. They made their way to the next tier—not the superstars, but the perfectly acceptable people. The everyone elses. This was a slow, trickle-down kind of thing.
“No one’s coming over here,” Allison said. Her voice sounded odd. She was suddenly gruff, almost angry-sounding. I turned to find that she had gone a little bit gray. She was sweating, but then everyone else was too. But she was also gripping the edge of her folding desk with an intensity that couldn’t be good.
“Hey, Al,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” she said tersely.
The mysterious little didn’t come. Ten agonizing minutes went by. Allison watched the room and watched the clock. I watched Allison. She was naturally pretty pale, but now she was turning a color kind of like freezer-burned bread: not quite gray, not quite blue, not quite bread. Not a good shade to be. It started at her chin and zipped right up her head, right to her hairline—and that’s kind of a long way. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“You’re not okay,” I said. “You need to get some air. Just tell them you don’t feel good.”
“I’ll be fine,” she said, clenching her teeth. “I’m just hot. I have to get a little.”
I became aware of a buzzing, which I at first thought was the undertow of all the conversations going on. I looked around, but all that was in front of me was a mob of schmooze. I don’t know why I looked up. I just did. That’s when I saw them … the flies. Hundreds of them were streaming in through the open windows. Most had gone right for the ceiling and were dripping down like icicles. I had never seen so many flies. There were entire constellations of them.
My hand automatically went out to tap Allison and point this out, but then I realized that this might not be good, not the way she was feeling. I looked around to see if anyone else saw this or if the heat had just driven me insane.
There was a loud scraping noise of a chair being pushed back. It echoed through the gym and caused many people to turn, including me. The sound came from directly next to me. It was Allison, leaping up from her seat. She was obviously trying to cut through the room and get to the door, but she ran straight into a freshman who was slowly and deliberately coming in the direction of Ally or me or Kristin.
Then Ally threw up.
Well, it was more than that, unfortunately. It was truly projectile, and it was accompanied by horrible coughing noises that almost sounded like barking. She got the poor freshman completely and totally, mostly in the hair.
For a second, there was no sound. Then there was a loud intake of breath and a sound of awe. A few higher-pitched squeaks. People backed up and moved away. The freshman let out a wail the likes of which I have never heard before. It was a real end-of-the-world scream. This stirred the room, and sound increased—cries of sympathetic horror from all corners, as if Allison had just thrown up on everyone in the gym, everyone in the world. A few people rushed toward the freshman to help. No one was quite able to bring themselves to touch her—most pulled out tissues or anything they had on them and passed them to the girl.
No one reached out to help Ally except for me and one of the sisters who was standing nearby. Allison pulled away from us and ran for it. The crowd parted for her, and she was gone.
three
“It’s not that bad,” I lied.
I could see the soles of Allison’s saddle shoes poking out from under the pink stall door, toes to the ground. Classic puking position. But she wasn’t sick anymore—she was dead silent. I poked at the sole of one of her shoes with my foot. Nothing.
“People will forget,” I added. “They’re all too busy.”
Nothing.
“And not everyone saw it.” I was talking stupidly now, relentlessly, just to fill the air. Everyone saw it. Everyone would remember it for all time. It would be written into the fossil record.
I heard voices outside as people left the assembly and started to repopulate the halls. I heard cries of excitement. Just outside the bathroom door, freshmen were showing each other rings. Outside, there was joy. It was at that moment I realized I also hadn’t gotten a little. The shock and awe of what happened to Ally had stunned me briefly. But now, now I saw it—and it hit me harder than I imagined it would.
Help Ally, my good inner Jane told me. You didn’t really care that much about getting a little.
“You want me to run down to the caf and get you a ginger ale?” I asked.
Finally, a reply.
“I want you,” she said, “to kill me.”
The bathroom door opened, and a very tall girl slipped inside. She was long. Easily six feet, one of which was all neck. The blue stripe on her blazer pocket to
ld me she was a sophomore. The blazer looked very squeaky-new, and I’d never seen her before. She was the kind of person you would remember if you saw.
“Hey,” the girl said. She didn’t look like she’d come in for any real purpose—just one of those time-killer visits. She stood in front of the mirror and minutely adjusted the bands that held her two rust-red ponytails in place. Then she turned and looked at Ally’s shoe bottoms.
“That was an interesting assembly,” she said to the mirror. “I didn’t think anything cool would happen here, but that was pretty good.”
Together, we looked down at Allison’s shoes. They did not reply, but the left heel did sink toward the ground a bit.
“I’m new,” the girl said. “That’s why I was there. I’m Lanalee. Lanalee Tremone.”
The warning bell rang. The shoes didn’t budge. I got down on my knees and peered under the door. Ally was resting with her head on the seat and a blank look on her face.
“Shouldn’t she go home?” Lanalee asked.
“They don’t really let us go home here,” I said, poking my hand under the door and stroking Ally’s ankle in a pathetic attempt to comfort her. “You pretty much have to be dead. And even then I think they’d just keep your body in the front office until the end of the day.”
The shoes shifted a little and drew themselves out of reach.
“Do you think you can make it to English, Al?” I asked. “We have to go or we’ll be late.”
One hoarse word of reply:
“Go.”
“I don’t want to go without you. Sister Charles will freak.”
“Go.”
“Can you come out?”
“Go.”
I got to my feet. The girl leaned down and addressed the opening under the door gently.
“Did you get a little?” she asked.
I heard a slight shifting from inside the stall, but no answer was forthcoming. I shook my head.
“Well, you can have me,” she said brightly. “I didn’t get a big. There!”
This was an amazingly generous offer, considering. I’m not proud to say that it only highlighted the fact that I was still little-less.
“I’ll stay with her,” the girl offered. “I wasn’t planning on going to next period anyway.”
I didn’t really want to leave, but there wasn’t much I could do. Sister Charles had never actually killed anyone, but she did leave you with the feeling that she was capable of some deeply frightening behavior.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll go and tell her you’ll be late. Okay, Al?”
Nothing.
“Go on,” the girl said. “Really. Let me bond with my big.”
And so I left the bathroom, just as the second bell rang. I got a demerit from Sister Rose Marie for running in the hallway between classes for my trouble.
four
Sister Charles was old enough to have figured prominently in some of the later Bible stories. She was constantly angry, and it took her forever to get down the hall. The reason for these last two was that she had no big toes.
How she lost her big toes was kind of a mystery, but when you have no big toes, it ruins your sense of balance and causes you to walk in circles. It doesn’t help when you are already old and generally a little nuts and you have to walk with a three-pronged cane. The added insult of walking in circles all the time makes you hate the teenage girls you teach—because you already think they are lazy and dumb and sex-obsessed and illiterate—so you are furious from the moment you wake up in the morning that big toes are wasted on them. I guess, to be fair, I’d be a little edgy too if it took me five hours to cross the soccer field because I just kept looping and looping and looping. But still, I wouldn’t take it out on innocent youth.
This is who we spent the first period of every day with. Her class, English, was also the only class that Ally and I had together this year. I took mostly AP and special classes, but this English class was the only one that fit my schedule.
I opened the door as carefully as I could, but I don’t know why I bothered. It wasn’t like Sister Charles wasn’t going to notice that I was late. She wheeled on me.
“Did you not hear the bell?” she asked. “At this school, when girls hear the bell, they proceed to class.”
“Yes, Sister,” I said, heading right for my desk. “I was with Allison. She’s sick.”
“You are a doctor?” she asked curiously.
A ripple of movement, submerged laughter, went around the room. It made my skin go cold, even in the painful heat. Sister noticed this and looked around.
“She’s very sick,” I said, keeping my eyes only on Sister.
“She is. We all saw her. She was throwing up in the assembly.” This was from Donna, who was also in the class. Somehow, being student counsel president gave her the ability to verify things. She did it all the time. Homework assignments, weather conditions, days of the week, pages we left off on. Donna was happy to tell us all.
Sister was about to reply when the door creaked open once more and Allison pressed her way through about six inches of opening. She was totally and truly white—almost blue.
“I understand you have been ill,” Sister said. “Is that so?”
Allison froze, still in the crack of the doorway. All eyes turned to her. She put her hand on the door, high enough that it was clear to see that she was not wearing her ring. At the very least, she was going to show the room that she had managed to get herself a little.
Nothing actually happened. No one actually said anything. The earth does not have to split open and a thousand-foot gulch does not have to appear for you to know that someone has been cast out. Especially if that someone has never really been in. I’m sure if some behavioral scientists filmed the room and watched the footage they’d be able to point out some things. The way some people looked mildly repulsed, as if they could still smell vomit. The way Donna had a completely inappropriate smile. The way some people didn’t even bother to turn at all, and just looked at the diagram of an introductory paragraph on the board and pressed their lips together, trying not to laugh. The way Allison walked to her desk as if she didn’t belong on the planet, as if she wanted to apologize for her existence. The spell on the room was total. Even Sister Charles seemed fascinated by it. She went right back to the lesson with no further comment, which was very telling. The pressure in the room actually hurt.
Which is why I did what I did next.
We had many stupid rules at St. Teresa’s, but one that I really couldn’t stand was that—no matter how hot it was—the most we could ever do to cool ourselves was take off our blazers. We couldn’t roll up our long sleeves, push down our woolen kneesocks, open our shirts another button or untuck them. So I did all of these things, slowly, deliberately, and as broadly as I could get away with. I unbuttoned my cuffs, rolled the sleeves to the elbow, reached down and pushed down the socks, loosened my collar.
And it worked. Slowly, attention went away from Ally and over to me. Even as I was doing it, I was dreading Sister Charles’s long, loaded silence. A stifled giggle came from behind me. But I kept on doing it, drawing out each gesture as long as I could.
Finally, when I had reached the point where I’d actually have to strip if I wanted to go any further, Sister Charles decided to speak.
“Are you warm, Miss Jarvis?” she said politely.
“Kind of, Sister,” I said loudly.
A laugh now from the front.
“I think we are all warm. Yet we remain clothed. But perhaps an exception should be made for you?”
“I was just doing what seemed sensible, Sister.”
I had engaged her now. Sister smiled slightly. It looked unnatural on her, like mascara on a baby.
“Well, Miss Jarvis, you may have a point.” She crossed around the desk in a loopy path. “Do you have your PE outfit in your bag?”
I stiffened. Our PE kit consisted of a very tight and unflattering T-shirt, with the world’s shortest, most terri
fying shorts. Lap dancers wouldn’t wear our shorts. Our school made us dress extremely conservatively, but for gym, tiny tees and butt-kerchiefs were considered healthy. It was a trauma, but it was a trauma we went through together, and it never left the gym.
“I would like you to go to the ladies’ room and put it on,” she said. “You will wear it for the rest of the day. I will call the office and let them know this is acceptable. Please do keep your school shoes on, though.”
I rose with all the dignity I could muster, smiled at the people who snickered, and made my way to the bathroom.
five
I spent the rest of the day walking around school in tiny shorts, kneesocks, and saddle shoes. Ally was nowhere to be found. It would have been completely understandable if she was avoiding me. It was hard to believe that I could have compounded the problem—but no one will ever say that Jane Jarvis isn’t an innovator.
Calculus II was my last class of the day. I had it with only one other person, Cassie Malloy. It was kind of a special thing; they offered it just to us. We didn’t even use a classroom. We sat in Brother Frank’s office, which was no more than an elaborate broom closet on the third floor, just big enough for a desk and two chairs. Still, the intimacy gave it a real scholastic feel.
Cassie took in my outfit in a brief glance and decided not to comment.
“Oh my God,” she said. “Who did you get? Oh my God. You probably got, like, five offers. I only got one, and I don’t even think she knew who I was. Are you going to spend a lot of time with yours? Because I have, like, no time right now.”
She reached into her bag, pulled out a slim silver thermos, and took a long gulp of coffee. The caffeine was no good for her—it made her hands shake mildly. But she needed it. Cassie didn’t sleep. She was a hard worker. I had long speculated that she would be dead by thirty in an attempt to do medical and law school at the same time.
“How late were you up doing this?” she asked, flipping through her notebook, through page after page of neatly written equations. Cassie did them in order, step by step, six to a page. I pulled out my own work—a collection of scribblings written on some paper from our printer’s recycling box.
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