"Secret?"
"The thing you don't want Mrs. Ironwood to discover about you. Come on, I heard what you said."
"It's nothing," Abby said, her face turning crimson.
"If it's nothing, tell it. Tell it or I'll . . I'll make up something."
"Gisselle!"
"Well, it's a fair trade. I'll tell you what I learned, but you've got to tell me something too. I just knew you'd share secrets with her and not with your own twin sister. You probably told her things about us too."
"I did not." I looked at Abby, whose face was drooping with sadness, both for me and for herself. "All right, we'll tell," I said. Abby's eyes widened. "Gisselle can keep a secret. Can't you?"
"Of course. I know more secrets than you'll ever know, especially about the kids back in our old school, even secrets about Beau," she added happily.
I thought a moment and then blurted something I knew Gisselle would accept.
"Abby was suspended once for being caught with a boy in the basement of one of her previous schools," I said. Abby's surprise worked perfectly, because it looked like I had betrayed her. Gisselle gazed from her to me skeptically for a moment and then laughed.
"Big deal," she said. "Unless," she added, "you were naked when you were caught. Were you?"
Abby looked to me for a moment and then shook her head. "No, not completely."
"Not completely? How much then? Did you take off your blouse?" Abby nodded. "Your bra?" Abby nodded again. Gisselle looked impressed. "What else?"
"That's all," Abby said quickly.
"Well, well, little Miss Goody Goody isn't so pure after all."
"Gisselle, remember, you promised."
"Oh, who cares? That's not enough to interest anyone anyway," she said. She thought a moment and then smiled. "Now I suppose you want me to tell you why Louis is blind and what happened to his parents."
"You said you would," I replied.
She hesitated, enjoying her hold over us. "Maybe later, if I feel like it," she said and spun herself around in her chair and wheeled herself out of our room.
"Gisselle!" Abby cried.
"Oh, let her go, Abby," I said. "She'll just tease us and tease us."
But I couldn't help wondering myself what it was that had turned that handsome young man into a blind, melancholy soul, revealing his feelings and thoughts only through his fingers on the keys of a piano.
6
A Surprising Invitation
.
Despite my having enough curiosity to fill the
eyes of a dozen cats, I didn't give Gisselle the satisfaction of pleading with her to tell us what she had found out, and I certainly didn't go to Jacki. But as it turned out, I didn't have to beg anyone in Gisselle's fan club.
Right after breakfast the next morning, I was called to the telephone to speak to my art teacher, Miss Stevens.
"I was on my way out today to do some work and thought of you," she said. "I know this place just of the highway where we can get a wonderful view of the river. Would you like to come along?"
"Oh yes, I would."