Petals on the Wind

  The school days ended at three. The girls had two hours to play outside before dinner at five-thirty. All the students wore uniforms of colors determined by what grade they were in. Carrie was in the third grade; her uniform was of yellow broadcloth with a dainty white organdy pinafore to top it off. Carrie had a strong dislike for the color yellow. Yellow represented to her, as it did to Chris and me, the color of all the best things we couldn't have when we'd been locked away and made to feel unwholesome, unwanted and unloved. Yellow was also the color of the sun that was denied us. The sun was what Cory had wanted most to see, and now that all yellow things were so easily accessible, and Cory wasn't, yellow was a hateful thing.

  Sissy Towers adored yellow. She envied Carrie's long, golden locks and despised her own head of crinkly rust. Perhaps too she envied the beauty of Carrie's doll-like face, and those big, blue eyes with the long, dark, curling lashes, and her lips ripe as strawberries.

  Oh, yes, our Carrie was a doll with an exquisite face, sensational Goldilocks hair and, the pity of it all, this beauty hovered above a body much too thin, too small, and a neck too delicate to support a head that belonged on someone bigger and taller.

  Yellow dominated Sissy's side of the room; yellow spread, yellow slip-covered chairs; her dolls were blondes wearing yellow, her books wore yellow jackets, homemade. Sissy even wore yellow sweaters and skirts when she went home. The fact that Sissy looked unbecomingly sallow in yellow did not lessen her determination to annoy Carrie with the color-- come what may. And on this day, for some trifling reason that was never explained, she began to taunt Carrie in a mean, spiteful way.

  "Carrie is a dwarf . . . a dwarf. . . a dwarf," sang Sissy in a sing-song chant.

  "Carrie should be in a circus . . . a circus. . . a

  circus," Sissy chanted on and on. Then she jumped up

  on the top of her desk and in the loud, brassy manner of a barker touting a freak show at a carnival Sissy really began to shout, "Come one! Come all! Come pay your quarter to see the living sister of Tom Thumb! Come see the world's smallest woman! Come, pay your money and see the little one with the huge, huge eyes--like an owl's! Come view the huge, huge head on the little, scrawny neck! Come pay your

  quarter to see our little freak naked!"

  Dozens of little girls crowded into the room to

  stare at Carrie who crouched in a corner on the floor,

  with her head hanging low and her long hair hiding

  her shamed, terrified face.

  Sissy opened up her small purse to receive the

  quarters the affluent little girls dropped in willingly.

  "Now take off your clothes, little dwarf-freak," ordered Sissy. "Give the customers their money's

  worth!"

  Quivering and beginning to cry, Carrie

  crouched into a tighter ball and pulled up her knees

  and prayed that God would somehow open up the

  floor. But floors never graciously open up and

  swallow you when they should. It remained hard and

  unyielding beneath her as the taunting voice of Sissy

  went on and on.

  "Look at her tremble . . . look at her shake . . .

  she's gonna make . . . an earthquake!"

  All the girls giggled, except one average-sized

  girl of ten who looked on Carrie with pity and

  sympathy. "I think she's cute," said Lacy St. John.

  "Leave her alone, Sissy. It's not nice what you're

  doing."

  "Of course it's not nice!" Sissy said with a

  laugh. "But it's such fun! She's such a timid little

  mouse! You know, she never says anything. I don't

  think she can talk!" Down from the chair Sissy

  jumped to run to where Carrie was, and there she

  prodded Carrie with her foot. "Have you got a tongue,

  little freak? Come, little big-eyes, tell us how you got

  to be so funny- looking. Did the cat steal your tongue?

  Do you have a tongue? Stick it out!"

  Carrie hung her head even lower.

  "See, she doesn't have a tongue!" proclaimed

  Sissy, jumping up and down. Sissy whirled around and

  spread her arms wide. "Look at what they gave me for

  a roomy--an owl without a tongue! What can we do

  to make her talk?"

  Lacy moved protectively closer to Carrie.

  "Come on, Sissy, enough is enough, leave her alone." Pivoting, Sissy stomped down hard on Lacy's

  foot. "Shut up! This is my room! When you're in my room, you do as I say! And I'm just as big as you are,

  Lacy St. John, and my daddy's got more money too!" "I think you are a mean, nasty, ugly girl to

  torment Carrie!" said Lacy.

  Sissy raised her fist in the manner of a

  professional boxer, dancing around to take quick jabs

  at Lacy. "You wanna fight? C'mon, put up your dukes!

  Just see if you can get me before I blacken your eyes!"

  And before Lacy could raise her hands for protection,

  Sissy shot out a right that caught Lacy squarely on the

  left eye. Then Sissy's left hook smashed Lacy's fine

  straight nose! Blood spurted everywhere!

  This was when Carrie lifted her head, saw the

  only girl who'd shown her the least bit of kindness

  being beaten to a pulp, and that was cause enough for

  Carrie to use her most formidable weapon--her voice.

  She began to scream. Full blast, using every bit of

  vocal power she had, Carrie threw back her head and

  let go!

  Down in her study on the first floor, Miss Emily

  Dean Dewhurst bolted upright and smeared the ink in

  her ledger. She ran to sound an alarm in the hall to

  bring each and every female teacher on the run. It was eight o'clock in the evening. Most of the

  faculty had retired to their rooms. Clad in bathrobes, negligees, and one in a scarlet evening gown, apparently ready to slip out on the sly, the teachers raced toward the clamor. They burst into the room Carrie shared with Sissy and found a frightful scene. Twelve girls all doing battle, while others stood back and watched. One girl, like Carrie, only screamed, but the others were yelling, kicking, wrestling on the floor, pulling hair, biting and tearing off clothes--and above all the racket of the fray resounded the blaring

  trumpet of one small human in terror.

  "Where is the man--the man?" cried out Miss

  Longhurst, the one in the scarlet evening gown with

  her bosom about to fall out of the lowcut bodice. "Miss Longhurst, control yourself!" ordered

  Miss Dewhurst, who promptly assessed the situation

  and planned her strategy. "There is no man here.

  Girls!" she boomed, "stop this fracas this very second,

  or every one of you will be denied liberty this

  weekend!" Then she said in a low voice to the sexy

  Longhurst, "You report to my office when this is under

  control."

  Every girl in that room about to have her hair

  pulled or her face scratched jerked abruptly still and

  quiet. With horrified eyes they looked around and saw

  the room full of teachers--and worst of all Miss Dewhurst, who was not known for showing mercy once bedlam broke loose, as it often did. All hushed. All but Carrie who kept right on screaming, her eyes

  squeezed shut, her small, pale hands in tight fists. "Why is that child screaming?" asked Miss

  Dewhurst as a guilty-looking Miss Longhurst sneaked

  away to take off her incriminating evidence--that

  somewhere a man was hiding and waiting.

  Naturally, it was Sissy Towers who recovered

  first. "She's the one who started it all, Miss Dewhurst.

  It's all Carrie's fault. She's lik
e a baby. You've just got

  to give me a new roomy or I'll die living so close to a

  baby."

  "Repeat what you just said, Miss Towers. Tell

  me again what I must do."

  Intimidated, Sissy smiled uneasily. "I mean, I

  would like to have a new roomy; I don't feel good

  living so close to someone so unnaturally small." Coldly Miss Dewhurst eyed Sissy. "Miss

  Towers, you are unnaturally cruel. From now on you

  will room on the first floor in the room next to mine

  where I can keep an eye on you." She flashed her

  sharp gaze around the room. "As for the rest of you,

  I'm going to notify your parents that your weekend

  leaves are canceled! Now, each of you report to Miss Littleton so she may mark your records with demerits." The girls groaned and one by one they drifted out to have their names recorded with minus marks. Only then did Miss Dewhurst advance to where Carrie was on her hands and knees, her voice faded to a whimper, but her head kept moving from side to side in a hysterical way. "Miss Dollanganger,

  are you calm enough now to tell me what happened?" Carrie was beyond speech. Terror and the sight

  of blood had taken her back to the locked room, to a

  hungry day when she had been forced to drink blood

  or starve to death. Miss Dewhurst was touched and

  bewildered. Forty years she'd seen girls come and go,

  and she knew girls could be just as devastatingly ugly

  and cruel as boys. "Miss Dollanganger, unless you

  respond to me, you will not visit your family this

  weekend. I know you've had a hard time of it and I

  want to be kind to you. Can't you please explain what

  happened?"

  Fallen fiat on the floor now, Carrie looked up.

  She saw the older woman towering above her, and the

  blue skirt she wore was almost gray. Gray was the

  color the grandmother always wore. And the

  grandmother did terrible things; somehow the

  grandmother had caused Cory to die--and now she

  had come to get Carrie too!

  "I hate you! I hate you!" screamed Carrie over

  and over, until finally Miss Dewhurst was driven from

  the room and the school nurse was sent in to give

  Carrie a sedative.

  That Friday, I answered the telephone when

  Miss Dewhurst called to say twelve of her girls had

  broken her rules and disobeyed her orders, and Carrie

  was one of them. "I'm sorry, really I am. But I can't

  give your sister privileges and still punish the others.

  She was in the room and she refused to quiet when I

  ordered her to."

  I waited until evening at the dinner table to

  discuss it with Paul. "It's a terrible mistake to leave

  Carrie over the weekend, Paul. You know we

  promised her ,she could come home every weekend.

  She's too little to be the cause of anything, so it's not

  fair she should be punished too!"

  "Really, Cathy," he said, putting down his fork,

  "Miss Dewhurst called me right after she talked to

  you. She does have rules, and if Carrie misbehaved

  then she has to suffer along with the rest of the girls.

  And I respect Miss Dewhurst even if you don't." Chris, home for the weekend, spoke up and

  agreed with Paul. "Sure, Cathy, you know as well as I do that Carrie can cut up when she wants to. If she did nothing but scream she could drive you batty--and

  deaf."

  That weekend was a flop without Carrie. I

  couldn't get her off my mind I stewed, fretted, worried

  over Carrie. I seemed to hear her calling to me. I

  closed my eyes and I saw her small, white face with

  her eyes huge and haunted by fear. She was all right!

  She had to be, didn't she? What could happen to a little

  girl in an expensive school controlled by such a

  responsible, respectable woman as Miss Emily Dean

  Dewhurst?

  When Carrie was hurting and at odds with

  herself and all the world, and there was no one near

  who loved her, she retreated to yesterdays and the safe

  comfort of the tiny procelain dolls she'd carefully

  hidden away beneath all of her clothes. Now she was

  the only girl in the school with a room all to herself.

  She'd never been alone before. Not once in all her nine

  years had Carrie spent a night in a room alone. She

  was alone now and she knew it. Every girl in the

  school had turned against her, even pretty Lacy St.

  John.

  From her very secret place Carrie would take

  her dolls, Mr. and Mrs. Parkins and dear little baby Clara, and she'd talk to them as she used to do when she was locked away in the attic. "And Cathy," she told me later, "I thought maybe Momma was up in God's heaven, in the garden with Cory and Daddy, and I felt so mean at you and Chris because you let Dr. Paul put me in that place, and you know how much I liked to be with all of you. And I hated you, Cathy! I hated everybody! I hated God for making me so small

  so people laugh at my big head and little body!" In the short halls and long corridors of green

  carpeting Carrie heard the girls whispering. Furtively

  they shifted their eyes when she looked their way. "I

  told myself I didn't care," whispered Carrie hoarsely to

  me, "but I did care. I told myself I could be brave like

  you wanted and Chris wanted and Dr. Paul wanted. I

  kept on making myself feel brave but I wasn't really

  brave. I don't like dark. And I told myself God was

  gonna hear my prayers and make me grow taller,

  'cause everybody grows taller when they grow older,

  and so would I.

  "It was so dark, Cathy, and the room felt so big

  and scary. You know I don't like night and darkness

  with no lamp burning, with nobody there but me. I

  even wanted Sissy back, she seemed better than

  nobody. Something in the shadows moved and I was terrified, and though we're not supposed to I turned on a lamp. I wanted to take all my little dolls to bed with me so I'd have company. I was gonna be so careful not

  to toss and turn and break off their heads.

  "I always put Mr. and Mrs. Parkins left and

  right with baby Clara in the middle in the bottom

  drawer of my dresser. I picked up the cotton wadding

  that was in the middle first and felt something hard.

  But when I looked, Cathy, when I looked there was no

  baby, only a little stick! I unwrapped Mr. and Mrs.

  Parkins, and they were only sticks too--bigger ones!

  It hurt so bad not to find them I began to cry. All my

  little dolls gone, all turned to wood, so I knew God

  was never gonna let me grow tall when he would

  make my pretty dolls into only sticks.

  "Something funny happened to me then, like I

  turned into wood too. I felt stiff and couldn't see too

  good. I went and crouched in a corner and waited for

  something bad to happen. The grandmother said

  something terrible would happen if I broke a doll,

  didn't she?" Not another word would she say, but I

  learned from others what happened after that. In the dark, long after midnight, the twelve little

  rich girls Miss Dewhurst had denied liberty all stole

  furtively into Carrie's room. It was Lacy St. John who had the integrity to tell me, but only when Miss

  Dewhurst was out of hearing.

  Twe
lve girls, all wearing long white cotton

  nightgowns, the official sleeping garments of the

  school, filed into Carrie's room, each bearing a single

  candle held so her face was lit up under her chin. Such

  lighting made their eyes appear sunken, dark hollows

  and lent their youthful faces an eerie, ghoulish

  appearance-- enough to terrify a little girl still

  crouched in the corner, already in a trance of haunted

  fear.

  They came to form a semicircle around Carrie,

  to stare down at her as each put over her head a

  pillowcase with holes for eyes. Then came the ritual of

  weaving the candles intricately in formalized patterns

  as they chanted in the way of real witches. They

  sought to drive the smallness out of Carrie. They

  sought to set her "free" and themselves "free" from

  whatever evil they were driven to do for selfprotection from someone so "unnaturally small and

  strange."

  One voice shrilled above all the others and

  Carrie knew it was Sissy Towers. To Carrie, all those

  shrouded girls in their long nightgowns with white

  hoods over their heads and the black holes for eyes were devils straight from hell! She began to whimper, to tremble, and oh, she was so scared, as if once more the grandmother were in the room, only this time she

  had multiplied until there were twelve of her! "Don't you cry, don't you fear," soothed the

  nightmarish voice from a mouthless hood. "If you live

  through this night, through this initiation, you, Carrie

  Dollanganger, will become a member of our most

  private and very exclusive society. If you succeed

  from this night forward, you will share in our secret

  rituals, our secret parties, our secret hoards of

  goodies."

  "Ohhh," moaned Carrie, "go away, leave me

  alone, go away, leave me alone."

  "Quiet!" ordered the shrill voice of the hidden

  speaker, "you have no chance to become one of us

  unless you sacrifice your most beloved and precious

  possessions. It is either that or suffer our trial." Crouched in the corner, Carrie could only stare

  at the moving shadows behind the white witches who

  threatened her. The glows from the candles grew

  larger, larger, turning her world into one of yellow and

  scarlet fire.

  "Give to us what you dearly cherish or you must