the others were laughing, Mrs. Muther looked thoughtfully across to the table where the two girls were sitting. “We’d better give Lottie Horn the bed next to Lisa Palfy,” she said. “They’ll have to get used to each other.”
It was night. All the children were asleep. Except two.
These two had turned their backs to each other and pretended to be fast asleep. But they were lying with eyes wide open, staring into the moonlit room.
Lisa looked crossly at the queer-shaped silver patch the moon had made on her bed. Suddenly she heard someone crying quietly, the sobs muffled in a pillow.
Lottie pressed her hands to her mouth. What was it her mother had said when she left . . . I’m so glad you’re going to spend a few weeks with all those happy children. You are too serious for your age, Lottie. Much too serious. I know it’s not your fault, but mine. It’s because of my work. I’m away from home too much. And when I do get home, I’m tired. And then you haven’t been playing like other children, but washing dishes, cooking, and setting the table. See that you come back home with a lot of smile-wrinkles, my little housekeeper! . . . And now she was lying here in a strange room, next to a bad-tempered girl who hated her because they happened to look alike. She sighed softly. And she was supposed to get smile-wrinkles! Lottie continued to sob softly to herself.
Suddenly her hair was awkwardly stroked by a strange little hand.
Lottie stiffened with fright. Lisa’s hand went on shyly stroking her hair.
The moon looked in through the big dormitory window and saw two little girls lying in their beds, side by side, not daring to look at each other. And the one who had just been crying was slowly putting out her hand and feeling for the other’s hand as it stroked her hair.
The difference between an armistice and peace • Two Lotties • Trudie gets slapped • Appeldauer the photographer • My Mommy, our Mommy • Even Miss Ursula suspects
Lisa and Lottie did not dare look at each other next morning when they woke up, or when they ran in their long white nightgowns to the washroom, or when they dressed at neighboring lockers, or when, on neighboring chairs, they drank their breakfast milk; not even when they ran side by side along the lake shore and, later, played singing and dancing games with the counselors and made daisy chains. Only once did their eyes meet in a fleeting glance, and then, frightened, they looked quickly away again.
Now Miss Ursula was sitting in a meadow, reading a wonderful novel which had something about love on every page. Now and then she lowered the book, and her mind went far away as she thought of Mr. Rudolf Rademacher, the engineer who roomed at her aunt’s house.
Meanwhile, Lisa was playing ball with her friends. But her thoughts were not on the game. Often she looked around as though searching for someone who was not there.
Trudie asked, “When are you going to bite the new girl’s nose off?”
“Don’t be such an idiot!” snapped Lisa.
Christine looked at her in surprise. “Well! I thought you were mad at her!”
“I can’t bite off everybody’s nose when I’m mad at them,” retorted Lisa coldly. And she added, “Besides, I’m not mad at her.”
“But you were yesterday,” insisted Steffie.
“And how!” said Monica. “At supper you gave her such a kick under the table that she nearly yelled.”
“You see?” said Trudie with evident satisfaction.
Lisa bristled. “If you don’t shut up at once,” she cried fiercely, “you’ll get a kick on the shins!” And with that she turned and ran off.
“She doesn’t know what she wants,” remarked Christine, shrugging her shoulders.
Lottie was sitting alone in the meadow. On top of her head was a little daisy-chain crown, and she was busily making another. Suddenly a shadow fell in front of her. She looked up.
Lisa was there, hopping from one foot to the other, uncertain and embarrassed.
Lottie risked a little smile. Hardly big enough to see, except with a magnifying glass.
Lisa smiled back, relieved.
Lottie held up the daisy chain she had just completed, and asked shyly, “Would you like it?”
Lisa dropped down beside her immediately. “Yes, but only if you put it on for me.”
Lottie placed the flowers on Lisa’s curls. Then she nodded. “Lovely,” she said.
Now the doubles were sitting side by side on the grass, all alone, finding nothing to say, but smiling warily at each other.
Then Lisa took a deep breath and asked, “Are you still angry with me?”
Lottie shook her head.
Lisa looked at the ground. “It was so sudden,” she said. “The bus! And then you! It was such a shock!”
Lottie nodded. “Such a shock,” she repeated.
Lisa leaned forward. “But it’s really fun when you get used to it, isn’t it?”
Surprised, Lottie looked into her bright, merry eyes. “Fun?” Then she asked softly, “Have you any brothers and sisters?”
“No.”
“Neither have I,” said Lottie.
“I have an idea,” said Lisa. “Come on.”
The two girls slipped away to the washroom and stood in front of a large mirror. Lottie tugged with a brush and comb at Lisa’s curls.
Lisa cried, “Oh!” and “Ouch!”
“Will you keep quiet?” scolded Lottie, with pretended severity. “Do you always yell like that when your Mommy combs your hair?”
“I haven’t got a Mommy,” muttered Lisa. “That’s why—Ouch!—that’s why I’m such a tomboy, Daddy says.”
“Doesn’t he ever take a slipper to you?” inquired Lottie earnestly, as she began braiding Lisa’s hair.
“Never! He’s much too fond of me.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” observed Lottie, very wisely.
“And besides, he’s got too many other things to do,” Lisa added.
“It only takes one hand,” Lottie retorted. Both girls laughed.
