Matt didn’t say.
“He could have killed you, you know.”
Matt let his left eye close.
“Did you get a shot at him?”
“I broke half his ribs,” said Matt.
The cop looked at Matt’s left hand. At the split knuckle there. “That why he broke your arm?”
Matt let his right eye close.
“I’m just trying to help you, kid. All I got to go on right now is a guy with some broken ribs.”
Matt snored.
The cop wasn’t the only one who wanted to help. Miss Phyllis, a social worker, wanted to help too.
“Matthew, we need to contact your family. Can you tell us where they are?”
Nothing from Matt.
“Can you tell us their names? Do they live in Maine? In New England?”
He had no idea.
Matt didn’t even try to keep his eyes open for those questions.
Two days of all that, until his doctor—who was a good guy and only asked where it ached and who always told him when he was about to do something that he knew would hurt—told him he could go home on Sunday.
Miss Phyllis was in the room when the doctor told him that.
“We still haven’t found a placement for him,” she said.
Mrs. MacKnockater was in the room too.
“He’ll come to live with me,” she said.
“We are legally required to send him to an approved placement,” Miss Phyllis said.
Mrs. MacKnockater allowed her considerable bulk to arise.
Miss Phyllis said that exceptions could be made on the occasion of an emergency.
* * *
When the doctor and Miss Phyllis left, Mrs. MacKnockater sat down to read. “We’ll finish these last few pages, then pack everything up so you can come home in the morning,” she said.
Matt looked at her a long time.
“Okay, Long John,” he said.
Mrs. MacKnockater looked at Matt a long time.
“That reference,” she said, “is both to the wrong novel and of the wrong gender.”
Matt looked at her again, his left eye only a little closed. “So maybe something from The Jungle Book, then. Like Bagheera.”
“That would be unnecessary,” said Mrs. MacKnockater.
“Bagheera. Bagheera works.”
“Bagheera is a black panther, which I am not. And the gender referent is still incorrect,” Mrs. MacKnockater said.
But she smiled and began to read.
Eight
The next Monday, after a weekend of enforced bonding activities that would have left Holling rolling in laughter on the ground and that exhausted Meryl Lee in her fight against the Blank—really, a fashion show by the senior students? really?—classes at St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls began.
Meryl Lee—who had lived eight minutes from Camillo Junior High if she walked and four and a half minutes if she ran and so had been used to getting up eleven minutes before she had to be at school—found out that a lot happened at St. Elene’s between waking up and sitting in a classroom.
None of it made her happy.
First, breakfast at Greater Hoxne Dining Hall. Meryl Lee had skipped breakfast every school day since fourth grade. Now, an assigned table and an assigned seat with assigned Jennifer and four other assigned girls and one assigned teacher. A huge glass of fresh grapefruit juice beside her plate—also assigned, she guessed. A platter of scrambled eggs with cheese and bacon—Meryl Lee hated cheese in her eggs—and her table served by Bettye in her assigned black dress and starched white apron. Toasted English muffins. Small dishes of marmalade to be scooped with a pewter spoon that was way too small.
And all this was for Meryl Lee to eat before eight o’clock—except for the marmalade, which she was supposed to share with her assigned teacher: Mrs. Saunders.
Mrs. Saunders. Whom Meryl Lee feared.
When Mrs. Saunders’s head moved, it pivoted slowly above her shoulders, like an owl’s. And her eyes, dark and darting, saw everything. Mrs. Saunders saw Meryl Lee sit down and she said, “The rules of polite society dictate that the spine of a young lady should not touch the back of her chair.” Mrs. Saunders saw Barbara Rockcastle reach for her fork and she said, “A young lady starts with the fork farthest to her left.” Mrs. Saunders saw Marian Elders—the girl who got evacuated upon and didn’t look as if she had quite recovered—Mrs. Saunders saw Marian Elders about to eat and she said, “The neck of a young lady is not to bend when she takes up her scrambled eggs with cheese.”
It made breakfast sort of nerve-racking. Suppose I burp? thought Meryl Lee. What would the rules of polite society say about that?
If Holling were there, she thought, he would say, “Suppose you fart?”
At that, she almost snorted fresh grapefruit juice out her nose—which she was sure the rules of polite society would have something to say about.
Mrs. Saunders also believed breakfast was the perfect place to teach the intricacies of the English language. So she kept a dictionary beside her on the table. A dictionary that weighed about what she weighed—which is saying something. If one of the girls used a word incorrectly, Mrs. Saunders would say, “Please rise and consult Funk and Wagnalls.”
By the end of their first breakfast together, Meryl Lee had risen and consulted Funk and Wagnalls for neither, which was no longer acceptable as an intensive terminal (who knew?), and for dollop, which was colloquial and so, Mrs. Saunders said, vulgar.
Meryl Lee decided not to say very much at breakfast.
Meryl Lee was pretty sure Marian Elders would decide on the same strategy. When Mrs. Saunders told her that a young lady should abstain from a too-great indulgence in bacon and she should rise and consult Funk and Wagnalls about the meaning of abstain, Meryl Lee thought Marian was going to faint face first into her scrambled eggs with cheese.
But slowly, properly, the girls finished their breakfast, and slowly, properly, Bettye came to carry their crystal glasses and heavy silverware and china plates away, even Meryl Lee’s plate—which was still filled with a dollop of scrambled eggs with cheese.
“I hate scrambled eggs with cheese,” said Meryl Lee.
“Me too,” whispered Bettye.
Meryl Lee nodded. “Do you live near St. Elene’s?”
“Down by the shore,” said Bettye. “I think I saw you there.”
“I went a few days ago.”
“I go almost every day,” said Bettye.
“Finish clearing, please,” called Mrs. Saunders, and Bettye wheeled the plates away.
* * *
After breakfast, the girls of St. Elene’s went to Morning Chapel, where Dr. MacKnockater was waiting to read an Uplifting Passage from the classics to both the lower and upper schools. In Latin.
Or maybe it was Greek.
Meryl Lee couldn’t be sure, but it didn’t matter because she did not understand a single word of Latin—or Greek. Looking around, she wondered if she was the only one in Newell Chapel who didn’t understand a single word of Latin—or Greek.
Then Mrs. Hannah Adams Mott glided to the podium and told the girls to rise for the singing of the school song. They did, to the booms of the organ. And after all the hails were done, Mrs. Hannah Adams Mott told the girls to sally forth and enter the world of the Liberal Arts. “Grow in wisdom and knowledge. Resolve and Accomplish. Find your Best Selves so you may take your proper place in the world!” she proclaimed.