Swan Place

by Augusta Trobaugh

  “Yes’m.”

  Going back to my classroom was awful hard to do, because when I came in, everybody looked at me, and especially Michelle, who smiled and tossed her head, as if to say “See what I can do?” I wanted to run, but I didn’t. I walked to my desk and sat down, and I didn’t even look at her again. That was the longest day of school I ever lived through in my whole life, and I couldn’t keep my mind on much of anything except what had happened. And what did her daddy being such an important person in our little town have to do with anything? Michelle out-and-out lied, but Miss Frazier believed her anyway. Why? I just couldn’t make any sense of it.

  I was so glad when it was time to go home, and as I went up the steps to Aunt Bett’s house, my eyes started trying to sting. Aunt Bett was standing at the door, and Molly and Little Ellis were standing behind her.

  “You sure you can manage all right with Molly and Little Ellis until Roy-Ellis gets home?”

  “Yes’m,” I said. And Aunt Bett studied me hard.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked, and I managed to nod my head. I didn’t dare try to say a single word, my heart was hurting so bad. So Molly and Little Ellis came with me and we walked home.

  But the next day, I found out that Michelle wasn’t through with me yet. After recess, she told the teacher I’d stuck out my tongue at her, and Michelle’s friend confirmed the lie, so I wound up in Miss Frazier’s office again. This time, I was in tears, and there wasn’t a thing I could do about it.

  “Dove, what have you done?” Miss Frazier accused, and I didn’t say a word, because I knew she wouldn’t believe me anyway. “Well, you will have to stay after school today. If you bother Michelle again, I’ll have to take stronger measures to get you to straighten up and behave yourself.”

  So that second day back at school after spring holidays, I had to stay after school for a whole hour, and of course, I missed the bus and had to walk all the way home. When I got to Aunt Bett’s, she was standing out on the porch.

  “Where have you been?” Aunt Bett demanded, but I was already so miserable, her angry tone didn’t bother me. “I was worried when I saw that you weren’t on the bus.”

  “I had to stay after school,” I mumbled.

  “What?”

  “Just what I said. I had to stay after school.” Aunt Bett’s mouth was hanging open, and I wanted so bad to defend myself, but I had to be careful about not saying anything that would hurt her. But all of a sudden, my throat got so tight, I couldn’t speak. And a flood of water got in my eyes and all the blinking in this world wouldn’t take it away. Aunt Bett sat down on the top step and reached out for my hand.

  “Talk to me, Dove. What’s wrong?” she asked, but I still couldn’t speak. And yet I knew the time had come to talk to somebody, anybody, because it was too much for me to carry all by myself. And I had no idea of how to put a stop to Michelle’s meanness.

  So I told Aunt Bett about what Michelle was doing, but I said not a single word about what Michelle said about Aunt Bett’s trading pickles for clothes. I just said that Michelle was telling lies about me. I talked through hiccups and a runny nose and water rushing out of my eyes. Aunt Bett listened with her eyebrows drawn together. I finished up by telling her about how I had to stay after school. And for something I didn’t do. Why, I felt like throwing back my head and howling like an animal! Because what on earth was to be done about it? Michelle could go on lying and lying about me, and every single time, I would get into trouble.

  Aunt Bett pulled a handkerchief out of her apron pocket and gave it to me. And she sat right there and looked at me for a long time. When she finally spoke, it was in a very low voice—almost a whisper.

  “I guess there’s always someone like Michelle in every class in school,” she said. “But this is going beyond foolish teasing and the way almost all little girls pick on somebody or other at some time.”

  “Did you ever have someone like that in your school?” I asked.

  “Of course,” she said. “But it was just some harmless teasing me about my freckles, and it only lasted a little while.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I didn’t do anything. And I think that’s why it didn’t last long.”

  “Huh?”

  “When I told my mama about it, she said that if I didn’t pay any attention at all, the teasing would stop. I guess it’s only fun if the person getting teased acts upset about it.”

  “That makes sense, and I can ignore it. But what can I do about Michelle lying and getting me in trouble? How on earth can I stop her?”

  “You tell the principal the truth,” Aunt Bett said.

  “That won’t help. She doesn’t believe me,” I said miserably.

  “Why not?”

  “I guess it has something to do with Michelle’s father being so important, or something.”

  Aunt Bett sighed, and a bitter little look of some kind flickered through her eyes.

  “Well, then. We’ve bumped into that ‘them’ and ‘us’ thing, I guess. So what we have to do is make sure you’re someplace during lunch where you have a witness who can testify that you didn’t do or say anything to Michelle. Then the principal would have to believe you.”

  Why, that was nothing short of brilliant!

  “Wow!” I said, and Aunt Bett blushed a little.

  “Do you have a favorite teacher?” she asked me.

  “Oh yes—Miss Madison,” I answered. Aunt Bett brightened visibly.

  “Well then, why don’t you go see her tomorrow—and ask her if you can eat your lunch in her room. That way, you don’t have to go outside or be around Michelle at all. And if she tells any more lies about you, Miss Madison will be your witness.” Aunt Bett looked at me hard.

  “But this is only for a little while, Dove. You can’t let Michelle make you hide forever. And when you’re around her again, no matter what she says and no matter how much it hurts you, you just pretend you didn’t hear her. If you don’t act upset, she’ll lose interest pretty soon and start picking on somebody else.”

  “That’s a good idea, Aunt Bett,” I said. “A very good idea.” We sat in silence for a few minutes, and I could tell that Aunt Bett was proud of herself for coming up with such a good idea.

  “Sometimes I think the boys have things easier,” she added. “They have trouble, they just settle it with their fists. But girls can’t do that.” I was surprised to see that she had tears in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry this happened to you,” she added, simply. I saw that bitter little look flicker through her eyes, and I thought once again about what terribly mean things Michelle had said about her. It almost broke my heart. Took me a few minutes to realize that it was just love hurting me again! Would it never stop?

  The next morning, I got up real early and took Molly and Little Ellis to Aunt Bett’s so I could walk to school and get there ahead of classes. I was praying that Miss Madison would be there early too, so I could talk to her without anyone else being around. I got to school before anybody, and I was sitting and waiting in the back row of seats when she came into her classroom.

  “Dove!” she said, surprised. “Is anything wrong?” I got up and followed her to her desk and while she put her papers into her drawer and took off her sweater, I told her everything about what Michelle was doing. When I came to the part about Miss Frazier, I was very careful. I know better than to speak ill of a principal to a teacher—any teacher. And I told her about what Aunt Bett had suggested and why I wanted to spend my lunch times in her classroom. She listened like she was taking in my words through her very pores. And when I finally stumbled to a stop, she said, “Well, of course, you may spend your lunch time in my room. But . . .” I held my breath. Miss Madison just had to help me, and whatever I had to do, I would do it.

  “Surely, you understand that you can’t hide from Michelle forever. That way, you let her win. At some point, you have to learn to ignore children like her.” Oh, how I did like Miss Madison groupin
g Michelle in with “children”! “And if you want to be in my classroom for your whole lunch time, you will have to put your time to good use.”

  “I will!” I agreed, with relief. She opened a bottom drawer of her desk and took out a new Blue Horse notebook.

  “When you finish your lunch, you will write in this,” she said.

  “Write what?” I asked, while she put the new notebook on her desk and pushed it toward me.”

  “Anything you want to write.”

  “Anything?”

  “Yes. Will you do that?”

  “I will,” I promised, and just then, some of her early students came into the room, talking and laughing.

  “Then I’ll see you at lunch time,” she said. And I could hear the gentle dismissal in her voice.

  I was ever so happy in all of my morning classes, knowing that I had the new notebook and that I didn’t have to worry about Michelle and her lies about me. Lunch time came, and I had a nice, long drink from the water fountain before I went into Miss Madison’s room. When I went in, she was at her desk, writing. She looked up at me, nodded her head, and went back to her work. I sat down in a desk in the back row, put my books away, and left only three things on the desk: my sandwich, the new notebook—open to that first pure, blank page—and my pen. I looked up at Miss Madison. She had a sandwich too, and while I watched, she unwrapped it, took the half in both hands, and bit down on it—all the while still looking at whatever she had been writing. So I did the same thing, only the page I looked at was absolutely blank—except for all those perfect, pale blue lines, waiting to be filled up. I looked up again. Miss Madison was dabbing her mouth with a paper napkin. So again, I did the same, with the sheet of paper towel that was my napkin. When she started on the second half of her sandwich, so did I. And when the sandwiches—hers and mine—were gone, she wiped her hands, gathered the waxed paper and the napkin together, and tossed them into the trash can. But I didn’t have a trash can to throw things in, so I wadded up my waxed paper and paper towel and stuffed them into my pocket.

  And I waited and watched. Miss Madison was still looking at a page of her notebook. But then she picked up her pen and started writing. I picked up my pen, too. But that beautiful, blank page seemed to look back at me and to say What now? What a good question! I thought. And what was it Miss Madison had said to me that morning when I asked about what I should write? Anything you want. I sat and sat and thought and thought. What did I want to write about? That was a hard question! But then I got to thinking about Mama and her honky-tonk songs, and I knew right away that was something I could write about. So I started writing and all of a sudden, my pen seemed to fly across the page. Why, I was so surprised when I heard Miss Madison’s voice suddenly jumping into the middle of my story about how Mama was so very, very beautiful and how she sang those sweet-sad songs.

  “Lunch time is over, Dove,” the voice said. “Go on to class and I’ll see you tomorrow at the same time.” But coming up out of the writing was like heaving myself out of a pit of deep mud that kept trying to hold onto me. That was another surprise, and when I looked up at Miss Madison, I could feel it was the same way for her. Like her hand hated to put down the pen, and her eyes wanted to stay looking at the paper. Finally, we both got free from it, but when I left the room, I suddenly realized that while I had been writing about Mama, it was almost the same thing as having Mama right there again with me. Then I remembered what Miss Madison had said about always talking in the present tense and how a story happened over and over again, every time you read it. Yes, it was almost as good as really having my mama there with me. So I went about the rest of my school day with a gladdened heart.

  During math class, Michelle went up in front of the classroom to sharpen her pencil. When she passed my desk, she whispered, “I don’t know where you’re hiding, but I’ll find you!” I wanted to tell her that I wasn’t hiding at all. But I didn’t, because right then and there, I started practicing what I knew I had to do. I completely ignored her.

  “I’ll find you!” she hissed, but I pretended that I didn’t even hear her.

  Every day at lunch time for that whole week, I went to Miss Madison’s classroom, ate my sandwich, and wrote about my mama until Miss Madison would tell me the time was up. Sometimes, I hated to go to my other classes, because I really wanted to keep writing. But I always did as Miss Madison said.

  On Friday morning, when I got to school, the homeroom teacher told me that Miss Frazier wanted to see me. I didn’t even feel the least bit alarmed, because I knew for a fact that I hadn’t said or done anything that Michelle could twist around and use against me. So I went right down to Miss Frazier’s office. When I opened the door, Michelle and the same friend of hers that had lied about my sticking out my tongue were sitting in chairs in front of Miss Frazier’s desk. Miss Frazier’s face was like a stone, and Michelle smiled at me just the least little bit. The mean smile. Her friend was looking a little nervous.

  “You wanted to see me, Miss Frazier?” I asked, keeping my voice calm. She didn’t invite me to sit down.

  “Dove, Dove, Dove . . .” she moaned.

  “Yes’m?”

  “What do I have to do to make you see how serious this is becoming?”

  I didn’t know what to say. So I asked, “What’s this about, Miss Frazier?”

  “You know good and well what it’s about,” Miss Frazier’s voice was rising. I stayed as calm as possible.

  “No ma’am, I don’t,” I insisted.

  “You’ve said nasty things to Michelle again,” I looked at Michelle and her friend. Michelle wasn’t smiling that mean smile anymore, and her friend was blinking her eyes and biting her lip.

  Michelle spoke. “You know good and well, Dove Johnson, that you called me a . . . a witch with a capital B.”

  “When?”

  “At lunch time yesterday.” Michelle turned to her friend. “Isn’t that right? Didn’t you hear her call me that?”

  The friend hesitated and then nodded her head the least little bit. I turned to Miss Frazier and took a deep breath.

  “Miss Frazier, I have not spoken a single word to Michelle, and I have spent every single lunch time sitting in Miss Madison’s room, doing some extra work.” Miss Frazier’s eyes went wide and locked onto Michelle.

  “You can ask Miss Madison,” I concluded. Michelle’s face was as white as milk, and her friend had turned beet red and was starting to cry.

  “Dove, you may go,” Miss Frazier said, still with her eyes locked onto Michelle. And so I did, but not before I gave Michelle a mean smile of my own.

  That afternoon, when I got Molly and little Ellis from Aunt Bett, I told her all about how the plan she made up had worked. She nodded and smiled, but then she said, “Now, Dove, the weekend is here, and you’ll have Molly and Little Ellis all by yourself, you sure you can handle everything?”

  “Yes’m,” I assured her. And I had absolutely no doubt in my mind at all that I was equal to the task.

  Chapter Five

  That first Saturday, I made believe to myself that Mama was working in her little beauty parlor, so that taking care of Molly and Little Ellis and the house felt real natural for me. Felt just like something that had been that way for a long time. And it had, of course. But Aunt Bett called to check on us every hour or so, until around noon, when I told her I was getting ready to fix lunch and put the little ones down for their naps. Around two-thirty the phone rang again. It was Darlene.

  “Mama said for me to find out if you all are okay. She’s on the back porch trying to fix the belt on the washing machine.”

  “We’re fine, Darlene. And tell Aunt Bett our machine is working fine, if she wants to come over and use it.” So around three o’clock, Aunt Bett drove up and came in with a big basket of dirty clothes and a box of detergent on top.

  “Dove, I’ll have to use you all’s washer.” She went toward the back porch, but her eyes were darting this way and that, taking in the picture book
s spread out all over the couch and the Kool-Aid glasses on the coffee table, and the lunch dishes in the sink. While she was loading clothes into the washer, I stacked the books, pushed Little Ellis’s yellow truck behind the couch, took the Kool-Aid glasses into the kitchen, and started washing up the lunch dishes. Aunt Bett came into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator, and started counting Roy-Ellis’s bottles of beer.

  “We can bring the clothes down to you, soon as they’re done,” I offered, trying to keep her from getting all riled up about Roy-Ellis’s beer.

  “No, honey. Thanks. I’ll wait on them.” Then, “What are you all having for supper?” she asked, and I could tell that she was trying to make her voice sound cheerful instead of worried. I thought for a moment. “I was thinking about hot dogs and beans.”

  “Well, when you heat the hot dogs, make sure you use a back unit on the stove, so there won’t be any chance of Molly or Little Ellis pulling that hot water down on themselves.”

  “Yes’m.”

  “Now if you’ll get me your canned beans, I’ll show you how to fix them up a little bit.” I got the cans and opened them. Aunt Bett emptied them into a bowl and then she added some mustard and ketchup and brown sugar. She stirred it all together and gave me a spoon to taste it.

  “Oh, that’s better than just plain beans.”

  “Now what you do is this,” she went on. “Empty these seasoned beans into a baking dish and put some raw bacon slices on top and bake it until the bacon’s done.”

  “Yes’m.

  “You’ll learn, little by little, and one of these days you’ll be a good cook,” she pronounced.

  “Like you,” I said, and she blushed.

  By the time Aunt Bett took her basket of clean clothes home to hang on her own clothesline, she had helped me to make a cottage cheese and canned peaches salad and a chocolate sauce out of cocoa powder, sugar, and canned milk for putting on ice cream for dessert. The next week, Aunt Bett got a new belt for her washing machine, and Roy-Ellis put it on for her on Sunday afternoon, so she didn’t have to carry her laundry down to our house. But she took me to the grocery store with her every week and taught me lots of things, like how to give Molly and Little Ellis slices of apple with peanut butter on them, instead of so many cookies; how to mix dry milk half-and-half with real milk so that it tasted just fine and was cheaper; and how to find day-old bread at a better price than fresh.