Suddenly, more than anything, Meryl Lee wanted to hear the sound of a bottle of Coke being opened. That wonderful fizzing sound that said something wonderful was about to begin. Something wonderful that was wonderful because you were sharing the Coke with someone you . . .
But all she heard was the sound of boots on the gravel path, the giggles of friends reunited after a summer, the light chimes of Newell Chapel, Mrs. Kellogg’s matronly fussing.
This wasn’t going to work.
They walked past the oldest part of campus—the long white steps and high wooden pillars of eighteenth-century Greater Hoxne Hall, the shorter white steps and shorter wooden pillars of Sherbourne House, the diamond-windowed Putnam Library, the six-gabled Lesser Hoxne—and joined the current of girls (lower school first, then upper school) channeling into two lines beneath the high white steeple of Newell Chapel, which needled the newly blue sky.
Every regulation St. Elene’s uniform in sight fit every girl perfectly—except Meryl Lee and, as it turned out, the girl beside her in line. Her skirt was a lot longer than it should have been. She kept hitching it up. Meryl Lee was afraid to look, but she thought the girl might be crying.
She knew how she felt.
She really knew how she felt.
Suddenly, at some cue Meryl Lee missed—maybe it was the organ starting to play, or maybe it was a glance from Mrs. Kellogg—the girls quieted, then marched side by side through the high doors of Newell Chapel. They marched beneath the ancient school banners of St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls, and Meryl Lee looked up. Those banners must be a hundred years old, she thought. They marched up the center aisle between the black-robed academy teachers, who stood at attention by the end of each of the pews. Some of them must be a hundred years old too, thought Meryl Lee.
When they had all moved into the pews—Meryl Lee stood in the pew behind Jennifer and Ashley and Charlotte since they hadn’t left room for her beside them—the organ shifted from its slow processional into something a little more rousing, paused dramatically, and then boomed into what Meryl Lee figured was the school song—which she did not know, but everyone else seemed to.
Hail to thee, St. Elene’s.
I pledge my heart to you.
Hail to thee, St. Elene’s.
I pledge my two hands too!
Meryl Lee thought the school song used the word hail a little too much.
Hail to thee, St. Elene’s.
The stars shine down on you.
Hail to thee, St. Elene’s.
To you we will be true.
Definitely too many hails. If Holling heard this song, he would be on the floor again, laughing like a dog. He would laugh and laugh and his hair would be all messed up and his eyes would be bright and . . .
The organ went back to being solemn, and then Dr. Nora MacKnockater, the headmistress of St. Elene’s lower and upper schools, and Mr. Lloyd C. Allen, the chairman of the St. Elene’s board of trustees, together slowly processed down the main aisle, then up the stairs to the plush red chairs upon the podium, where Mr. Allen sat in Regal Ease, and where Dr. Nora MacKnockater stood in Awful Dignity and gazed at the girls—sort of like a searchlight scoping out the incarcerated in a dark prison yard. When Meryl Lee saw the headmistress’s gaze looming toward her, she looked down and waited until she knew it would be past. Then she looked up again.
But her timing was off: Dr. Nora MacKnockater was gazing directly at her.
Quickly Meryl Lee clasped her hands behind her back and held her breath.
The gaze lingered, lingered, lingered—and moved on.
Meryl Lee breathed again.
When the organ finally stopped, a minute of terrible silence stuffed Newell Chapel until Dr. Nora MacKnockater spoke: “The Faculty”—she paused—“may be Seated.”
It seemed to Meryl Lee that Dr. MacKnockater spoke in Capital Letters.
The collective sound of the faculty being seated. The strain of the pews. Adjusting of long robes. A few light coughs.
“Returning Girls”—Dr. Nora MacKnockater paused—“may be Seated.”
More pews strained. A few quick laughs, quickly stilled.
Meryl Lee looked around. Almost everyone in the chapel was now seated. Except the lower school’s youngest girls. And Meryl Lee. And the girl whose regulation St. Elene’s uniform skirt was too long and who was definitely crying.
“I would speak first to the New Girls of St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy,” said Dr. Nora MacKnockater.
And she did.
She spoke about Obstacles that come to everyone in life. She spoke about the Resolution we need to face Obstacles. She spoke about how Resolution leads to Accomplishment. She spoke about the Accomplishments of the Students of St. Elene’s: Jennifer Dow currently had a still-life painting in a youth exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, where Marian Elders had three art pots she had thrown during the summer also displayed. Stephanie DeLacy had two short stories published in a New England literary journal. And Elizabeth Koertge had won a science fair competition hosted by Harvard University for her project on light fibers.
Meryl Lee thought, Light fibers? Harvard University?
Then Dr. MacKnockater spoke about the Accomplishments of the Faculty of St. Elene’s: Mrs. Connolly and her new book of poems that Houghton Mifflin would publish next fall. Mrs. Mott and the acquisition of her most recent landscape painting by the Portland Art Museum. Mrs. Bellamy’s paper in Nature on new dissection techniques for earthworms, frogs, and fetal pigs. Mr. Wheelock’s conference presentation in Prague during which he had successfully disproved a theorem that mathematicians had accepted as axiomatic since it was proposed in 1927. At St. Elene’s Preparatory Academy for Girls, said Dr. MacKnockater, we become our Best Selves, our most Accomplished Selves.
And Meryl Lee began to feel—it was hard to find the word—a little filled. Maybe that was the word. Filled.
Obstacles, and Resolution, and Accomplishment?
Was it really possible?
She could hardly remember what it felt like to live without the Blank.
Could she be filled with Accomplishment?
Dr. MacKnockater leaned toward them.
“The girl who lives purposelessly, looking only to the past, lives a wasted life. And a wasted life honors no one and gilds no one’s memory. Girls of St. Elene’s, this year, what will your Resolution be?” Another long pause. “What will your Accomplishment be?”
And Meryl Lee felt herself leaning toward Dr. MacKnockater, and she wondered, what would her Accomplishment be?
“How will you become your Best Self?” said Dr. MacKnockater.
And Meryl Lee, still leaning forward, wanted to know. She desperately wanted to know.
“At the end of the year, where will you find—” Dr. MacKnockater stopped. Everyone looked at her. She swallowed and held herself still. Then, “Where will you be found?” she said, her voice not quite so strong.
Ahead of her, Meryl Lee saw Ashley turn toward Jennifer, yawning. Maybe she had heard all this before. Maybe she had heard all this at the beginning of every school year for eight grades. But Meryl Lee had not, and still standing before the Awful Dignity of Dr. MacKnockater, still filled with the solemn moment, Meryl Lee felt that the Blank might be a little further away, and she was not far from tears.
Then across the aisle from Meryl Lee, the girl whose skirt was too long hiccupped twice and threw up.