Trotter gave her a puzzled look. “Yeah, he’s doing just fine.”
“Before you know it,” Gilly heard herself saying loudly, “he’ll be blowing his own nose and combing his own hair.”
“He already does,” said Trotter quietly. “Leastways most of the time.” She sat down with a loud sigh at the table. “Pass me a piece of toast, will you, Gilly?”
Gilly picked up the plate, raised it to the height of her hair, and passed it acros
s to Trotter at that level.
“Thank you, honey.”
At eight thirty Trotter got William Ernest off to school. Gilly had long since finished her breakfast, but she sat at the kitchen table, her head propped on her fists. From the doorway she could hear Old Mother Goose honking over her gosling. “OK, Big Orange, you show ’em down there today, hear?” Trotter said finally; and then the heavy door shut and she was heading back for the kitchen. As she got to the door, Gilly sat up straight and shook her head for all she was worth.
“You got a tic or something, honey?”
“No.”
“I would’ve thought you was too young for the palsy,” the huge woman murmured, sliding into her seat with the cup of coffee she’d promised herself earlier. “I see you got sneakers. That’s good. You’re supposed to have them for gym. Can you think of anything else you’ll need for school?”
Gilly shook her head, but halfheartedly. She was beginning to feel like an oversharpened pencil.
“I think I’ll go upstairs till it’s time,” she said.
“Oh, while you’re up there, honey—”
“Yeah?” Gilly sprang to attention.
“Make the beds, will you? It does look messy to leave ’em unmade all day, and I’m not much on running up and down the stairs.”
Gilly banged the door to her room for all she was worth. She spit every obscenity she’d ever heard through her teeth, but it wasn’t enough. That ignorant hippopotamus! That walrus-faced imbecile! That—that—oh, the devil—Trotter wouldn’t even let a drop fall from her precious William Ernest baby’s nose, but she would let Gilly go to school—a new school where she didn’t know anybody—looking like a scarecrow. Miss Ellis would surely hear about this. Gilly slammed her fist into her pillow. There had to be a law against foster mothers who showed such gross favoritism.
Well, she would show that lard can a thing or two. She yanked open the left top drawer, pulling out a broken comb, which she viciously jerked through the wilderness on her head, only to be defeated by a patch of bubble gum. She ran into the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine chest until she found a pair of nail scissors with which to chop out the offending hair. When despite her assault by comb and scissors a few strands refused to lie down meekly, she soaked them mercilessly into submission. She’d show the world. She’d show them who Galadriel Hopkins was—she was not to be trifled with.
I see they call you Gilly,” said Mr. Evans, the principal.
“I can’t even pronounce the poor child’s real name,” said Trotter, chuckling in what she must believe was a friendly manner.
It didn’t help Gilly’s mood. She was still seething over the hair combing.
“Well, Gilly’s a fine name,” said Mr. Evans, which confirmed to Gilly that at school, too, she was fated to be surrounded by fools.
The principal was studying records that must have been sent over from Gilly’s former school, Hollywood Gardens Elementary. He coughed several times. “Well,” he said, “I think this young lady needs to be in a class that will challenge her.”
“She’s plenty smart, if that’s what you mean.”
Trotter, you dummy. How do you know how smart I am? You never laid eyes on me until yesterday.
“I’m going to put you into Miss Harris’s class. We have some departmentalization in the sixth grade, but…”
“You got what in the sixth grade?”
Oh, Trotter, shut your fool mouth.
But the principal didn’t seem to notice what a dope Trotter was. He explained patiently how some of the sixth-grade classes moved around for math and reading and science, but Miss Harris kept the same group all day.
What a blinking bore.
They went up three flights of ancient stairway to Miss Harris’s room slowly, so that Trotter would not collapse. The corridors stank of oiled floors and cafeteria soup. Gilly had thought she hated all schools so much that they no longer could pain or disappoint her, but she felt heavier with each step—like a condemned prisoner walking an endless last mile.