Sarah didn’t have water in her head like Lizzie or wiggly legs like Frances, but she did things that no one else did, like pull her skirt up over her head whenever the ladies clapped too loudly to call everyone to dinner or toilet. Neddie was a Mongoloid, but unlike Rose, Neddie spoke in a really loud voice that attracted Bessie’s and Ellen’s attention. Though, anybody could be hurt by Bessie and Ellen, even if you didn’t talk too loudly. Rose knew this because Bessie and Ellen hurt her, too.
They only did it when Maxine and Alice weren’t watching, like during shoe shine time or when Maxxie helped Alice run the mangles. Bessie and Ellen would drag Rose into some corner and quietly knee her, over and over and over… sometimes until Rose thought she would be killed. But it always stopped. Eventually. And then Rose would wait until they were gone, crawl out of the corner, and wipe all the tears and snot off her face so Maxine and Alice wouldn’t know.
Maxine could never know. Rose definitely knew this. To tell Maxine would be bad. It’s what Bessie and Ellen wanted her to do.
The only girls Bessie and Ellen never physically attacked were Alice and Mary. Alice said it was because they were Negroes. Rose knew Alice was right. Rose could tell that the brown color of Alice’s and Mary’s skin made Bessie and Ellen afraid of them. Rose’s skin was the color of most everybody else’s at the school, including Bessie’s and Ellen’s, so they weren’t scared of it. She often wished these girls would just disappear. But there were so many things to wish for at the Fernald School, like wishing Lizzie’s head didn’t hurt her so much, or that the ladies served Bit-O-Honeys for breakfast, or that she could wear a red dress sometimes… one with a long, flowy sash, and a—
“Rose!”
Rose pulled her hands from the drain and jumped back from the overflowing sink, her boots sopping wet.
“Clean it up,” Bessie barked from her broken toilet seat. Bessie was always the one to talk. Never Ellen. Which made Rose more afraid of Ellen.
Rose scuttled over to Maxine while Alice went for the mop.
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” Rose whispered into her sister’s ear, squishing her wet body in between the wall and the toilet.
“Oh, Rosy,” Maxine sighed.
“It’s just water, Maxine,” Alice said.
“Shut your trap and mop it up,” Bessie growled.
Rose kept her eyes closed, but she could hear from Bessie’s voice that she was still on her toilet and not heading toward them, meaning she probably wasn’t in the mood to be punching today.
The key clicked in the lock, and all the girls stood up from the toilets. Rose opened her eyes and let go of her breath. It was time for bed. She hated bed.
Following behind Alice and in front of Maxine on the way to the clothing room, Rose remembered the girl with the hurt face.
“Is that girl going to the cages tonight, Alice?” Rose asked.
But before Alice could answer, they entered the clothing room and there she was. The girl. Standing in nightclothes, her long, black hair still dripping from the rain, and a bandage stuck across her cheek.
Bessie walked right up to the girl and bumped her hard with her shoulder. Rose ducked behind Maxxie. She couldn’t watch.
“Those are my nightclothes, wop,” Bessie said in her low, mean voice.
“Back off or I’ll paste you.”
It was the girl with the cut on her face. Talking to Bessie. Without even a tiny shake or quiver in her voice.
Rose clenched her left hand into a fist against her chest and tapped on her forehead with her right hand. Four times. Then four times. Then four times.
Bessie wouldn’t do it now. She’d do it in secret. Where no one could see.
Tonight. Tomorrow. Soon.
That girl was going to get it.
London had seen enough. She wasn’t staying. Not even the night. She couldn’t have cared less about the big girl with the thick bangs who’d sized her up. Or her white-haired friend with the lightest blue eyes London had ever seen—so light that the dark centers of them stood out and made the girl look like a corpse. Two pieces of shit like that, London could handle. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been jumped before—dozens of times—on the street, inside orphanages, and in just about every house she’d been fostered in. Being beat on wasn’t that bad… compared to what else could happen. But if those girls came with a crowd, she might have trouble. She had to think about the baby.
The baby.
That’s what the nurse in the office kept calling it. London hadn’t stopped thinking about her situation since the morning she’d vomited into the gutter, but she’d never thought about it this way—as an actual child that might be born.
“The baby will come in June. Do you understand?” the nurse had asked.
Since London wasn’t sure yet of anything in this new place, she had nodded instead of telling the woman to go suck off a dog—the old lady would have enjoyed that one. But thinking about the Missus also meant thinking about the sound of the old lady’s head hitting the window frame, and the last moment before London was dragged away. London was going to make those scrubs pay for what they did… once she got out of here.
The nurse had proceeded to poke about on her, studying and taking notes. She’d peered into London’s mouth and ears, and asked her strange questions, like could London give three differences between a king and a president. London had looked around her for the first time and realized she was in a kind of hospital, and not a hospital for her busted cheek.
“I don’t know any kings or presidents.”
“Is that your answer?” the nurse had asked.
London had attempted to gauge whether or not answering correctly would change her circumstances. She decided it wouldn’t. Or at least not by much. Maybe if she cooperated with the nurse’s idea of who London was, she wouldn’t be placed under as much supervision.
“Yes,” she’d told the nurse.
“Please tell me what is similar between a snake, a cow, and a sparrow.”
“They’re animals.”
The nurse scribbled away for quite some time. London had meant to get that one correct and was pretty sure she had. What could this woman be writing?
The nurse finally raised her head. “I’m going to read a few sentences that have something foolish in them, some bit of nonsense. I want you to listen carefully and tell me what is foolish about each one. Are you ready?”
London nodded. According to her hastily formed plan of answering every other question correctly, she was supposed to get this next one wrong. But she sat up straighter in her chair and waited for the question like she wanted to answer it correctly. Did she want to answer it correctly?
“The first sentence is: An engineer said that the more cars he had on his train, the faster he could go. What is foolish about this?”
“Is the train moving downhill?”
“Is this your answer?”
“It was a question,” London said, feeling very much like she wanted to sock this woman.
London usually liked quizzes and tests in school. She did well on them. School had always been a place where London felt right, although she kept this to herself. She didn’t want any of the teachers expecting anything. Learning occupied London’s mind in the same way fighting did: it took up all the space inside her, making her feel strong and in control; learning just entailed less blood and busted teeth than fighting.