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.
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.
