Miss Spitfire

by Sarah Miller

  Miss Spitfire

  Atheneum Books for Young Readers

  An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division

  1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

  www.SimonandSchuster.com

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2007 by Sarah Miller

  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

  Book design by Krista Vossen

  The text for this book is set in Bodoni Twelve.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Miller, Sarah Elizabeth, 1979-

  Miss Spitfire / Sarah Miller.—1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Summary: At age twenty, partially-blind, lonely but spirited Annie Sullivan travels from Massachusetts to Alabama to try and teach six-year-old Helen Keller, deaf and blind since age two, self-discipline and communication skills. Includes historical notes and timeline.

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-2542-2

  ISBN-10: 1-4169-2542-2

  eISBN-13: 978-1-4424-0724-4

  1. Sullivan, Annie, 1866-1936—Juvenile fiction. 2. Keller, Helen, 1880-1968—Juvenile fiction. [1. Keller, Helen, 1880-1968—Fiction. 2. Sullivan, Annie, 1866-1936—Fiction. 3. Blind—Fiction. 4. Deaf—Fiction. 5. People with disabilities—Fiction. 6. Teachers—Fiction. 7. Alabama—History—1819-1950—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.M63443Mis 2007

  [Fic]—dc22

  2006014738

  * * *

  For my grandpa, Harold Gass, who honors his teachers and knows about devotion

  * * *

  * * *

  I feel sure that, if you write this book, I shall know you deeply for the first time…. I have always realized that there are chapters in the book of your personality which remain sealed to me.

  —HELEN KELLER TO ANNE SULLIVAN, 1916

  * * *

  * * *

  Deep in the grave our dust will stir at what is written in our biographies.

  —ANNE SULLIVAN, AUGUST 23, 1934

  * * *

  Chapter 1

  The man who sold us that ticket ought to be hanged, and I’d be willing to act as hangman.

  —ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887

  “Ticket, please.”

  I wipe at my eyes and thrust the wretched thing at him. I’ve already had to change trains six times since Boston. On top of that, I have to take this train north to Knoxville to catch yet another train south to Alabama.

  The conductor examines the ticket and punches it. Instead of returning it, he lingers over my shoulder. With a sniff I try to smother my tears before my handkerchief soaks up all my dignity.

  “You all right, miss?” he asks.

  I glance up at him and nod. He doesn’t budge. He only stares. I can see him thinking it. Everyone who meets me thinks it, whether they say it or not.

  She’d be pretty if it weren’t for those eyes.

  Sometimes I wonder if it was worth all those operations. What good is being able to see if everyone who looks at me has to force the disgust from their lips at the sight of my poor eyes? And what a sorry sight they are—red and swollen, as if I were a demon straight from the underworld. There wasn’t much good in being half blind and cross-eyed, either; but at least I couldn’t see people staring at me.

  “Is something wrong?” I snap at him. I can’t help myself—my eyes smart with coal dust, I’m sweating in my woolen dress, and my patience is worn raw as my feet after tramping through Washington, DC, in too-tight new shoes.

  He blinks in surprise. “No, ma’am. It’s just you’ve been crying since we pulled outta Chattanooga. I thought maybe one of your folks was dead.”

  I don’t know how to answer him. Most all of them are dead, and the living ones might as well be, for all they care about me. Even the dead ones aren’t worth a tear.

  Except for Jimmie.

  “No, I’m going to Alabama. To teach.”

  He brightens. “Well, isn’t that nice! I’ve got a cousin lives down that way. You’ll like it there.” He reaches into his pocket. “Peppermint?”

  “I’ve never been outside of Massachusetts,” I whimper, cringing all the while at the attention I’ve drawn.

  “Oh, I shouldn’t worry about that. Southerners are good people, real kind. Famous for our hospitality.” He winks and holds the handful of candy still and steady, like I’m a sparrow he’s trying to tame. I pick a small one and drop it into my pocket.

  “Thank you.”

  “Go on, have another.”

  His voice makes the words soft and lazy—I like the way he says “anutha.” Against my better judgment I concede a smile and take a larger piece.

  “There, now. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  I shake my head.

  “I see plenty of people come down here from up north. Stiff and prim as whitewashed fence pickets, every one of ’em. We smooth ’em out, though. Sunshine and country cooking turns ’em all bright and rosy in no time. Why, my mother used to put brown sugar in near about everything she made.” He pats his sides. The cloth round his waistcoat buttons puckers. “Didn’t do me any good around the middle, but we all grew up sweet and gentle as milch cows.”

  As he speaks, I mop my sooty eyes, only half listening. He takes it for more tears, I suppose.

  “You’ll make a fine teacher,” he insists in that frantic way men get when a woman cries.

  “I don’t want to teach,” I hiccup. That stops him cold for a second, then he’s off again, prattling on about his sister-in-law who’s a teacher, how it’ll grow on me, and how I should give it a chance. Then he winks and says the most ridiculous thing of all: “Some of the boys might be sweet on you.”

  I have half a mind to tell him I have no training and I’d rather be selling books door-to-door, or even washing dishes at Mrs. D’s Kitchen in Boston, thank you very much. I won’t have a classroom, either, only one pupil—a six-year-old girl both deaf and blind. What would he say to that, I wonder? But he’s trying to be kind to me, and I know that’s no easy task. I swallow my temper and unwrap one of the peppermints. Its cool sting helps ease the thickness in my throat.

  “Thank you,” I tell him. What I mean is Go away.

  “That’s better, isn’t it?” he says, as if he’s talking to a child. “Would you like a sandwich?”

  I look him square in the eye, making the words firm and distinct: “No. Thank you.”

  He hovers a moment longer, then finally seems to sense I’d like it very much if he left me alone. “All right, then. You enjoy the ride, now.”

  Enjoy the ride. I wish he hadn’t said that. So far I’ve managed not to remember the last time I rode a train.

  Suddenly I’m nine years old again.

  • • •

  My mother is dead and my drunken lout of a father is too busy giving the Irish a bad name to be bothered with his own children. Aunt Ellen snatches up cuddly, healthy baby Mary, but my brother and I are a problem. Jimmie’s sickly and crippled; I’m mostly blind and surly as a wildcat. Finally we’re dropped into the reluctant hands of Uncle John and his wife, Anastasia. After a few months of my rages and Jimmie’s frailty, their Christian charity runs out.

  One day a carriage appears in the yard.

  Uncle John lifts Jimmie onto the seat, his voice dripping
with false cheer. He tells us we’re going to have a ride on a train, and won’t that be grand?

  He doesn’t tell us where the train is going. Or why no one else is coming.

  I turn suspicious when Aunt Stasia tries to kiss me. She’s never shown us any affection before, and I won’t have it now. I twist my head away, and she dries her tears on her apron as if I’ve finally given her reason to hate me. “You might at least be a good girl on the last day,” she sniffs as Uncle John hoists me into the seat next to Jimmie. My skin prickles for an instant at that, “the last day,” but Uncle John makes such a fuss about shining locomotives and soft velvet seats that I forget to be afraid.

  As the carriage rattles away down the road, one of the cousins calls out, “Enjoy the ride!”

  Chapter 2

  But I was too anxious to take very much interest in what I saw.

  —ANNE SULLIVAN TO SOPHIA HOPKINS, MARCH 1887

  The memories make me so restless I’m almost glad to switch trains in Knoxville. I may know where this train is taking me, but I don’t feel any more prepared for this journey than I was for the one that took me from Uncle John’s to Tewksbury.

  How do I dare hope to teach this child-Helen-when I’ve never taught a child who can see and hear? I’ve only just graduated from Perkins Institution for the Blind myself. Worse, it’s not simply that Helen can’t hear words or see signs—she lost her sight and hearing as a baby, before she learned language. The very notion that words exist, that objects have names, has never occurred to her. It’s up to me to show her that communication between people exists at all. My mind wobbles at the thought of it. At least I know the task isn’t impossible; Perkins’s famous Dr. Howe taught my own cottage mate Laura Bridgman to communicate half a century ago, and she’s both deaf and blind.

  Even so, I’m afraid. After years of being blind myself, I can understand a mind without pictures, but I can hardly comprehend a mind without words. Words, songs, stories—they were the things I craved most before my sight was restored, for words explained the things my eyes couldn’t show me. When I was blind, words were as vital as breath.

  Closing my eyes, I try to form a wordless thought with the few tools Helen can use: shape, size, texture, scent, and taste. Without much trouble I conjure up a mind-feeling for an apple: round, firm, and smooth, with a soapy-sweet scent that fills my mouth.

  But I have to fight to keep the words from my thoughts. My mind aches to say “apple.” As that wordless apple-feeling hovers in my head, it’s like holding my breath to keep my brain from reminding me, No words, no words, only sensations. No matter how I try, I can’t silence that voice in my head. Even when I block “apple” from my mind, streams of thoughts whir in the background, as if my brain can’t bear not whispering to itself. When I finally give up, a cold worry has twisted its way into my stomach.

  How am I to teach Helen what language is, when words themselves have no scent, taste, or texture?

  Seeking comfort, I run my fingers over the ring Mr. Anagnos, the director of Perkins, gave me before I left. Its stone is a deep, smoky red, like subdued flames—a fine choice for the unruly girl they used to call Miss Spitfire. The stone shines back at me like a beacon.

  No matter how many doubts I confess, Mr. Anagnos has shown me nothing but enthusiasm for this position. Perhaps he’s simply happy to be washing his hands of me at last. My housemother—Mrs. Hopkins—and my teachers have all been kind and encouraging, though I wouldn’t be surprised to find them laughing in their sleeves at the idea of Annie Sullivan undertaking any child’s education. Only Laura Bridgman herself has high hopes for me. The thought of it all makes my fingers twitch and my heart race as the train lumbers toward Tuscumbia.

  I throw an anxious stare out the window. The grass grows greener and the leaves larger as we trudge south. I manage a wavery smile, remembering the snow I left behind in Boston. Redbuds and forsythias bloom along our path, but they’re no more than a blur to me. My mind is tangled with uncertainties.

  Despite all my grumbling, I’m anxious to meet my little pupil, if only to quell my fears. Until I see her for myself, there’s nothing for me to do but wonder and worry. What if Helen’s like Laura Bridgman, whose eerie manner leaves everyone in our cottage unnerved and exhausted? Laura reminds me more of a clockwork toy than a person—either flitting about in an agitated way, as if her key has been turned too far, or sitting still and solemn as a pocket watch with its mainspring unwound. If Helen is at all like Dr. Howe’s pupil, my nerves will desert me entirely before the week is out.

  More than that, I’m afraid Helen’s family expects too much from me. If they’ve read the newspaper articles about Laura, they’re prepared for a miracle. They don’t know Laura’s “miraculous” education was hardly perfect. It’s true she learned to communicate, but her sentences are strange, as though her thoughts have been translated from an unknown language or strung together by a machine. Even if I manage to duplicate Dr. Howe’s success, there’s no guarantee the Kellers will be satisfied.

  Which reminds me of the most worrisome problem of all: No one, not even Dr. Howe himself, has repeated his achievement in the fifty years since he and Laura made history. I’ve read all of his reports on Laura, and I know his methods like the Our Father, but except for Laura, Dr. Howe’s methods failed with every deaf-blind student he met. If the Kellers are hoping for another Laura Bridgman, I don’t know how I—an untrained Irish orphan—can please them. I can’t tell them there may never be another Laura Bridgman; I can’t afford to lose this job.

  I have nowhere else to go.

  There’s not a relative alive who’d have me, and I wouldn’t know where to find them now anyhow. I’d die of shame if I had to go back to Perkins a failure. Just to get on this train I had to borrow the fare from Mr. Anagnos. Besides, the way some of the institution’s benefactors see it, I overstepped my welcome among the blind students and teachers the moment my sight was restored. Even then there was nowhere to send me but back into the hands of the state, and incorrigible as I was, not one of them had the heart to do that.

  Like a forlorn child, I wish for the doll that’s packed away in my trunk. The blind girls at Perkins pooled their pocket money to buy it for Helen, and Laura Bridgman herself sewed the clothes for it with her cool, thin hands. I’m eager to give it to Helen, yet at the same time part of me wants it for myself. I’ve never had a doll of my own, and my lonely heart tells me this trip might be easier if I had something to hold on to. At least at Tewksbury I had Jimmie, for a little while.

  Tewksbury.

  For most people it’s only a name. They know, in a formal way, it’s the Massachusetts state almshouse. They think it’s a shame people end up there. They read about it in the newspaper, sigh and shake their head, then turn the page.

  It’s not like that for me. Tewksbury was nearly five years of my life. I almost thank God I was too blind to see most of it.

  • • •

  When Jimmie and I arrive, they try to separate us. “Boy to the men’s ward, girl to the women’s,” they bark.

  Jimmie whimpers. I fight. Like a beast, I kick and scratch and tear at them. I scream like the banshees in the stories my father told when he was only drunk enough to be cheerful.

  They relent and send us both to the women’s ward, though Jimmie has to suffer wearing a girl’s apron. We spend the first night in the dead house, unaware of the corpses piled about us.

  Little changes about our lives when we’re sent to Tewksbury. We’re used to being poor and unwanted. We’ve always known drab and shabby rooms. All we have to adjust to is the constant hum of the insane, the laughter of whores, and the clatter of the metal cart that hauls the bodies to the dead house.

  Our days form a pattern. We play in the dead house, cutting out paper dolls and taunting the rats with our scraps of paper. We learn to avoid the touch of the deranged and diseased. We play with the foundlings before they wither and die.

  It’s not such a bad life.

&
nbsp; We have each other.

  Until May.

  The lump on Jimmie’s hip grows until he can’t stand up without screaming from the pain. A doctor is summoned. He bends over Jimmie’s bed, then puts his hand on my shoulder and says, “Little girl, your brother will be going on a long journey soon.” When I sense his meaning, more from his voice than his words, terror sweeps over me and cruel fingers grip my heart. The pain makes me beat out at the doctor in a rage. Scowling at me like I’m a grotty dishrag he can’t be bothered with, the doctor seizes my arms and threatens to send me from the ward. I cease my clawing and surrender instantly. I’ll let no one but God separate us.

  And He does.

  I’m sound asleep when they roll Jimmie’s bed into the dead house. When I wake and sense the emptiness in the dark where his bed should be, I’m filled with wild fear—I know Jimmie is dead, as surely as I know where they’ve taken him. But my anger is gone, and with it my strength. Only crippling dread remains. I can’t get out of bed, my body shakes so violently.

  Somehow I calm myself and make my way to the door of the dead house. The sound of its latch starts the trembling all over again. I feel my way to Jimmie’s bed and pull myself up on the iron rail. I touch his cold little body under the sheet, and something in me breaks.

  My screams wake the whole ward.

  • • •

  The very thought of it makes me tremble. I clutch at my bag and struggle to do as Tim, the driver who took me from the almshouse to Perkins, told me: “Don’t ever come back to this place. D’ya hear? Forget this, and you’ll be all right.”

  I wish it were that simple. It’s been seven years since Tewksbury, and still the memories creep up on me, seizing me with melancholy, restlessness, and despair if I’m not careful. I know Tim was right. I shall try to keep all this to myself and never tell the Kellers what I’ve come from. I shall be lonely, but I shall not be sorry I have come. The loneliness in my heart is an old acquaintance.