The Blank so close.
“I thought I would read The Grapes of Wrath,” she said.
Mrs. Connolly did this thing with her nose, breathing in quickly as if in great suffering. “John Steinbeck,” she said, “is a lewd writer. No student of mine who hopes to develop taste and discernment would ever read anything written by that Communist. Find someone else, please.”
Meryl Lee’s eyebrows were still pretty chipmunk-y.
Mrs. Connolly did the thing with her nose again.
“Charlotte Dobrée will be reading the poetry of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a wise and sensitive choice. I’m sure she would be delighted to help you to find another author.” Mrs. Connolly smiled sweetly, as if the name Charlotte had brought her a deep happiness. Then it passed, and Mrs. Connolly looked hard at Meryl Lee. “Failing that, I will assign you a suitable author.”
“I’ll talk to Charlotte,” Meryl Lee said.
“Very well,” said Mrs. Connolly. She handed the paper back to Meryl Lee. “I’ll be waiting for the rewritten paragraph.”
She zipped her briefcase.
Meryl Lee’s eyebrows came back down.
“And one more thing, Miss Kowalski. A word of caution, actually, from an observation this morning at breakfast.”
Meryl Lee’s eyebrows went back up.
“It is never wise to speak overmuch with the staff. You have come to St. Elene’s to study and to learn. The girls on staff have been hired to serve the students and faculty of St. Elene’s. They are not here to be associated with. You attend to your studies. Let them attend to their work. Is something wrong with your eyes?”
“No, Mrs. Connolly.”
“Have I made myself understood?”
“Yes, Mrs. Connolly.”
“Then I’ll see you in class tomorrow. I look forward to the semester with you, Miss Kowalski. I can see from even that short paragraph that your writing style has potential—yet another reason to avoid the infection of a lesser writer such as John Steinbeck.”
“Thank you,” said Meryl Lee. “I am looking forward to a semester with you as well, Mrs. Connolly.”
And as Mrs. Connolly left, the wind brisking and swirling around her, Meryl Lee thought, I’ve just flat-out lied to a teacher.
She had.
Because she was not looking forward to a semester with Mrs. Connolly.
She decided that she’d go to Putnam Library later, and instead Meryl Lee walked out past the open field and the woods beyond and down through the birches and the firs to the open blue shore, and she went out on the warm rocks and closed her eyes and listened to the waves—that sound that never stopped—and she listened a long time.
And when at last she walked back to St. Elene’s, she found that the birches had startled into a bright yellow—or perhaps it was the slant of light that shone on them. Now they looked like torches lighting the way.
They did all that this afternoon, she thought. Just like that, everything can change.
Nine
Back at Netley, after evening meal, Meryl Lee put on her Camillo Junior High sweatshirt to do homework. She still had to figure out how to shorten the sleeves on her regulation St. Elene’s uniform, but right now, somehow, she could still hear the lovely sounds of the waves, and she did not much care what she wore.
Then Jennifer put on her lavender silk robe. “From Brussels,” she said.
The sounds of the waves vanished and Meryl Lee thought, It’s Monday night and it’s time to do homework and she’s wearing a lavender silk robe from Brussels.
She took off her sweatshirt and put on her new best blouse. The pale yellow one. And Jennifer said, “Your Woolworth’s tag is showing.”
“I’m just trying it on for size,” said Meryl Lee. “I’ll probably return it.”
“Then probably you don’t want to try it on inside out,” said Jennifer.
Meryl Lee put her Camillo Junior High sweatshirt back on. She went to Putnam Library to find an author for Mrs. Connolly’s class—which was not something you would do if you were wearing a lavender silk robe from Brussels.
But at Putnam Library, she got distracted.
First, because Mrs. Hibbard sat by the reference desk, knitting what seemed a very complicated pattern, and clicking her needles like an industrial machine.
Second, because the reading room of Putnam Library glowed with sunset light coming through stained glass windows taken from a manor house in East Anglia—windows that were ancient when Henry VIII looked at them; at least, that’s what the plaque beneath them said. The room was dark wood and huge beams and thick rugs and marble floors and a curling wrought iron staircase and long tables with green glass lamps across from each chair. On the walls, thick paneling behind the portraits of the eighteenth-century sea captains who founded St. Elene’s. Gold frames around them all. Eighteenth-century tapestries hanging above the card catalogue.
And third, she got distracted because the first book she saw in the fiction section was The Grapes of Wrath. Really. It was.
And even though she knew she should be looking for an appropriate and not lewd author for Mrs. Connolly, she did want to read The Grapes of Wrath—and so she pulled it off the shelf. She sat at one of the long tables and put her Domestic Economy book within reach to cover The Grapes of Wrath in case Mrs. Connolly was on patrol. Then she quickly thumbed through to see if she could find the lewd parts. She couldn’t, so she turned to the first page and fell into the red and gray country of Oklahoma.
Everything else vanished.
The reading room.
St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls.
Time.
The Blank.
So when Mrs. Hibbard came to tell her that Putnam Library was closing soon and she might begin to gather her books, Meryl Lee looked up, startled. The truck was just about to hit the turtle. Would Mrs. Hibbard mind if she—
“Of course not,” said Mrs. Hibbard. “Finish the chapter. Wait until you see what happens.”
That night, Meryl Lee lay in bed, thinking about what happened at the end of the turtle chapter. And she thought about Holling, and what Holling would have said about the turtle. About the stupid second driver. About what happened to the turtle.
Then the Blank came.
The stupid driver.
The stupid stupid stupid stupid driver.
She tried not to let Jennifer hear her crying.
* * *
At St. Elene’s midday announcements on Tuesday, Mrs. Mott said that each of the new girls—which, in the eighth grade, was only Meryl Lee, since the girl with the regulation St. Elene’s uniform skirt that was too long had not been seen since the evacuation—was required to participate in one of St. Elene’s team sports, teamwork being a means by which individual girls might elevate themselves into something larger and more Accomplished.
The fall semester team sport for all eighth-grade students of St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls was field hockey, commanded by Coach Rowlandson, who was a dragon.
Or could have been if she tried.
Coach Rowlandson was interested in Accomplishment too. She held her field hockey practice every Tuesday and every Thursday afternoon. Rain or sun, snow or light breezes, gray sleet or blue skies, monsoon or blizzard or tidal wave or tornado or thunder and lightning or general apocalypse consuming the planet, field hockey practice was still on, every Tuesday and every Thursday afternoon.