Here Today

  Then she and Holly peered around Mr. Pierce, and Ellie’s stomach dropped. Sitting in a line in the first row of desks, like sparrows on a telephone wire, were Maggie Paxton, Nancy Becker, and Donna Smith. And a new girl, whose name didn’t even matter because Ellie could tell that she was just another Maggie. Or Nancy or Donna. Four of them, perched in their seats with perfectly combed hair; bright, tidy dresses; clean blue binders and spotless pencil cases on their desks; ankles crossed neatly under their chairs. Pert, confident faces were turned toward Mr. Pierce, with eyes that narrowed slightly (but not enough so that Mr. Pierce would notice) when they caught sight of Ellie and Holly.

  Ellie turned to Holly in disbelief. Maggie, Nancy, and Donna. The most popular girls in their grade, and the most scornful of Ellie and Holly. They had been the most popular for several years running, and although there were two classes in each grade, these girls always seemed to wind up together in the same room, with Ellie. When Ellie had complained about this to Doris over the summer, Doris had said, “Look at the odds. They’ll probably be split up in sixth grade, like you and Holly were last year.” This made sense, and Ellie had been relieved.

  And now here they were again, a cruel trio—joined by a look-alike fourth.

  Still grinning, Mr. Pierce closed the door behind Ellie and Holly. Ellie searched the room for available desks, avoiding the four faces in the front row.

  “Ladies,” said Mr. Pierce, indicating a desk in the back row and another behind the new girl. He held his hand out as if he were a waiter showing Ellie and Holly to a table in a fancy restaurant, like when Lucy and Ricky went out to dinner once on I Love Lucy.

  Ellie sidled between Nancy and Donna, eyes lowered, and made her way to the back of the classroom. She slid into her seat and, even though Jimmie Dodd was standing up there in front of the blackboard, she allowed herself to escape into her private place, to block out the sparrows in the front row, the concealed smirks. She fastened her eyes on the back of Holly’s head and didn’t say another word until recess.

  Lunch came just before recess, and Ellie and Holly spent it as they always did, at the back of the cafeteria, eating apart from the other students, silently and quickly, before escaping to the library. In the library they usually read until it was time for their classmates, now scattered about the big kids’ playground, to line up. Then they would hurry outside, join the end of the line, and return to their room.

  On this first day of school, the girls huddled in a corner of the library as soon as they had bolted down bologna sandwiches and cartons of milk, but they didn’t bother to choose books.

  “He looks exactly like Jimmie Dodd!” cried Ellie softly.

  “I know!” said Holly. “He could be his twin.”

  “Maybe he is his twin.”

  “Well …”

  “So, what about the new girl?”

  The new girl, whose name they now knew was Tammy White, had taken them by surprise. Had taken Donna and Maggie and Nancy by surprise, too.

  “Did you see?” said Holly. “Nancy asked Tammy if she would sit with her at lunchtime and Tammy said maybe.”

  Hardly anyone turned down an invitation from Nancy or Maggie or Donna, certainly not a new student.

  “Really?” said Ellie.

  “Yes. And did you see the way she was looking around the room?”

  Ellie had seen that. Tammy had surveyed every kid in the class with her confident, appraising gaze, even the popular girls, who were used to being the appraisers, not the appraised.

  “She’s pretty, don’t you think?” asked Ellie.

  “Beautiful. Maggie and the others think so, too. They’re scared.”

  “Maybe they’ve met their match,” said Ellie, remembering something she had heard on television.

  Holly giggled. “Oh, well,” she said.

  “And maybe Tammy will be different. Maybe she’ll start a new group of popular girls.”

  “She did sit with Nancy and Maggie and Donna at lunch, though.”

  “I know. But she chose them. I saw,” said Ellie. “She invited them to sit with her.”

  Holly flipped the pages in a dusty atlas. “I heard Donna say she thinks Mr. Pierce is cute.”

  “He is cute!”

  “I know, but I think she has a crush on him. I mean, a real crush, not like the kind we have on Jimmie Dodd.”

  “She can’t have a real crush on Mr. Pierce. He’s too old.”

  Holly shrugged.

  Ellie peered up at the clock above the librarian’s desk. “We have to go,” she said.

  Holly sighed and heaved herself to her feet. “All right.” She paused. “You saw what happened on the way to the cafeteria, didn’t you?”

  Ellie sighed, too. “Yes.” She had watched Maggie position herself in front of Holly, lock eyes with her, and jump from side to side, blocking her way as Holly tried to step around her. A wordless challenge.

  “It’s going to start again,” said Holly.

  “I know.”

  Ellie hoped Holly would say, “Oh, well,” but Holly merely dusted off her dress as she stood up and said, “Come on. We don’t want to be late.”

  Ellie kept her house key in her right sock. She figured that way it would be nearly impossible to lose. She didn’t like to carry a purse, and had stopped wearing the key on a chain around her neck after the day in third grade when Maggie had reached over during a times tables lesson, yanked the key from the chain, and later flushed it down the toilet in the girls’ room. Deep inside Ellie’s right sock the key nestled under the arch of her foot, or sometimes under her toes. It was a little uncomfortable during gym class, but no one knew it was there, and it couldn’t fall out. And Ellie needed it in order to let herself and Albert and Marie into their house after school. Unless Doris left home and forgot to lock the door, which happened pretty often.

  At the end of their first day of school the Dingman children exploded out of the bus doors, followed by the rest of the Witch Tree Lane kids. The afternoon ride was somewhat less torturous than the morning one, since with each stop more and more kids disembarked until, for five blissful minutes, the Witch Tree Lane kids had the entire bus to themselves. During this time Holly would cross her legs prissily at the ankles and say to anyone who came near her, “No, no, please—do not dirty me with your cootie germs.” And Albert and David would turn around in their seats and call out names to the empty bus behind them: “Stupid-head! Goat-breath! Turd!” But they were careful to leave out names such as Dirty Jew and Frenchie, which they never found funny.

  By the time the bus came to a stop at Witch Tree Lane, the children were giddy, especially Allan, who had had no idea that a bus ride could mean standing on the seats and yelling out bad words in a gleefully rude manner.

  “We’ll see you in a minute!” Ellie called to the others as she and Albert and Marie hurtled across their yard. When she reached their front stoop she sat down hard on her bottom, tugged off her shoe, then her sock, and reached inside for the key.

  “Hey!” said Albert from behind her. “The door isn’t locked.”

  “Doris forgot again,” said Marie.

  “Oh, well,” said Ellie.

  “Where did she say she was going to be this afternoon?” asked Albert.

  “I don’t remember. Dance class?”

  “Hey, wait,” said Marie. “Her car’s here.”

  Sure enough. There it was, right in the Dingmans’ driveway.

  “Doris! Doris!” called Marie as she ran inside.

  “I’m upstairs!” Doris’s voice floated through the stuffy, summer-hot rooms, and Ellie took note of the dirty breakfast dishes still sitting on the table, of Kiss’s empty water bowl, of overflowing wastebaskets.

  Marie charged upstairs with Albert at her heels. Ellie started to follow them, then stopped to fill the water bowl.

  “Hi, Kiss,” she said, stooping to pat her, and Kiss flopped over on her back, an invitation for a belly rub. “So what’s Doris been doing all day???
? Ellie asked her. “Come on. I’d better go upstairs and find out.”

  Albert and Marie were in their parents’ room, lying side by side on the bed, eyes fixed on Doris. Ellie and Kiss joined them, Kiss stretching out full length along Albert’s back, looking blissful.

  “Doris!” Ellie exclaimed. She tried to take in the room, which was awash in discarded items of clothing. Slips, dresses, skirts, pants, stockings, garter belts, blouses, and even a bathing suit were tossed everywhere and trailed into the bathroom. “What are—”

  “I,” said Doris, before Ellie could finish her question, then she repeated “I” as if she were someone of grand importance, “have been invited to model in Harwell’s very first Fall Fashion Show!”

  “Invited?” repeated Albert. “I thought the fashion show was your—”

  Ellie elbowed him in the side, and he rolled away from her, causing Kiss to slide onto Marie.

  “You’re really going to be a model?” asked Marie, her voice rising to a squeak. “Like the ones in magazines?”

  “Yes. Exactly like those,” said Doris.

  “Can I be in the show, too?”

  “No, Marie, this is just for women’s clothing.”

  Albert glanced around at the garments littering the room. “Are you modeling your own clothes?” he asked.

  “Oh, no, of course not. This is just for practice. I’ll be modeling the latest fall fashions. You should see some of the things.” Doris’s face grew dreamy.

  “Like what?” Marie asked, sitting up.

  “Like, oh God, like some of those really incredible things you’d see on The Jetsons.”

  “The Jetsons!?” Ellie cried. “What? What are you talking about?” She was beginning to have a very bad feeling about the Fall Fashion Show.

  “I mean, these clothes are true high fashion,” said Doris. “Not just some collection of blouses or sweater sets. Harwell’s plans to showcase the latest fashions from Paris and New York and … and … Albany.”

  The fashion capital, thought Ellie.

  “You have never seen clothes like the ones Harwell’s wants to start selling. And I’m the cause of it all. If I hadn’t had the idea for a fashion show, Mr. Harwell—he said this himself—would never have had the courage to try to import these lines of designer clothes.”

  “All the way from Albany,” murmured Ellie.

  “And so I have got to start practicing. Luckily I can do that with my own clothes.”

  “Practicing what?” asked Albert.

  “Oh, quick changes, the proper way to show off a bathing suit, that sort of thing.”

  “What do bathing suits have to do with fall clothes?” Albert wanted to know.

  “Cruise wear, darling. Use your head.” Doris tapped her temple.

  Ellie rested her chin in her hands and watched as Doris stripped off the blue dress she’d worn to Bosetti’s, then handed a stopwatch to Albert. “Time me,” she said. “I want to see how long it takes to get into a complete outfit. Don’t start until I say go.”

  “Okay,” said Albert, who loved to time things. He set the watch, then waited for Doris’s command.

  Doris gathered up a blouse, a yellow skirt and sweater set, stockings, flat shoes, and some jewelry. “I better be prepared to accessorize,” she said. Then, turning to Albert, she added, “Go!”

  While Albert stared at the watch, Ellie and Marie stared at Doris, who was a flurry of activity. When the entire outfit was on, she stood in front of the children, breathing heavily, and cried, “Okay, stop!”

  “Three minutes and thirty-seven seconds,” said Albert.

  “Not bad,” said Doris.

  “How long do professional models take?” asked Ellie.

  Doris shot her a glance, not sure if Ellie was serious.

  “I’ll bet they take the exact same amount of time,” said Marie loyally.

  “You’re all out of breath, though,” said Albert. “You’d better practice some more. You don’t want to be puffing and panting when you’re walking around Harwell’s in the fancy clothes.”

  “Well,” said Ellie, “when the show is on, someone will probably be helping you. Right, Doris? They’ll have a dresser or whatever it’s called handing you the clothes and stuff. That will speed things up.”

  Doris flashed Ellie a grateful look. “Yes, I believe they will.”

  “Doris,” said Marie, “will you get to wear a crown like you did at Bosetti’s?”

  “No, hon.” Doris leaned over the dresser and examined her eye makeup. “Crowns are for beauty queens, not models.”

  “I want you to be a beauty queen again.”

  “Well, I’d like to be one again, too. Although I don’t know if tactfully I was one at Bosetti’s.”

  Technically, Ellie thought automatically.

  “But you won a contest. And Mr. Bosetti called you the Bosetti Beauty and gave you a crown,” said Marie.

  “I know. I’m just not sure if … well, it isn’t like I rode in a parade or …” Doris trailed off. She pulled away from the mirror, straightened up, turned around, and faced her children. “You know,” she said, “what this town needs is a good parade.”

  “We have one,” said Albert. “The Memorial Day parade. It’s good.”

  “Yes, but I was thinking of something a little more fun.”

  “Like what?” asked Ellie. Already she had a bad feeling. Another bad feeling. The look in Doris’s eyes made Ellie’s thoughts turn to chameleons and ways to distance herself from her mother.

  “Like with tap dancing and other forms of entertainment.”

  “You don’t tap dance,” Ellie said suspiciously.

  “Who said she’s going to be in the parade?” asked Albert.

  “No one did. But Eleanor is very smart,” said Doris. “She’s got a good brain. All three of you do. You’re living up to your names, and I’m proud of you.”

  “So you are going to be in the parade?” asked Marie.

  “There’s no parade yet!” said Albert.

  “No, but there’s going to be,” said Doris. “A Harvest Parade. To celebrate Spectacle’s harvest tradition.”

  “Our harvest tradition?” repeated Ellie.

  “Bringing in the sheaves and all. It’ll be great. Good for town morale. They should hold it near Thanksgiving. The stores can make floats to advertise their Christmas merchandise, and we can have pumpkins and apples—”

  “Tap-dancing pumpkins and apples,” whispered Albert to Ellie.

  “You mean people dressed like pumpkins and apples marching in the parade?” asked Marie.

  “Or floats with real pumpkins and apples on them. Whatever. And the highlight of the parade will be the last float. That will be the one for the Harvest Queen.”

  “And the Harvest Queen gets to wear the crown!” cried Marie.

  “Exactly.”

  And, thought Ellie, somehow Doris will get to be the Harvest Queen.

  Doris stood in the bedroom looking thoughtful, a tube of mascara in one hand, a container of blue eye shadow in the other.

  “Doris?” said Marie. “Can I tell you about school now? You said to wait until you were done practicing for the fashion show.”

  “Sure,” said Doris. “Tell me all about it. I know second grade is going to be a real good year for you. I bet you’ll be in the highest reading group again.”

  “Did you know they switched me out of Mrs. Geary’s class? I thought I was going to be in her class and they moved me and three other kids into Miss Riddel’s class. Did you know that was going to happen?”

  “I might have gotten a letter about it,” said Doris, peering into the mirror again.

  “Well, they split up me and Domi. She’s still in Mrs. Geary’s class.”

  The phone rang then and Doris grabbed for it. “Hello?” She turned her back on the Dingman children. “Oh, hi!” she exclaimed. She glanced over her shoulder at Ellie and Albert and Marie, turned away, then turned back to them again. “Hold on a minute,” she sa
id into the receiver. “Kids,” she whispered, “run along outside now, okay? I’ve got to take this call. Go and play outside for a while.”

  Ellie rolled over and slid off of her parents’ high bed. “Come on,” she said to Kiss, who jumped down after her.

  “I don’t want to go,” said Marie.

  “Well, we have to,” Ellie replied. “Anyway, I told the other kids we’d see them in a few minutes, remember?” She ushered Kiss and her brother and sister into the hallway, and closed the door to the bedroom quietly behind her.

  Ellie thought Mr. Pierce was amazingly cute (but she didn’t have a crush on him, since he must have been at least twenty-five), and after observing him for a day or two, she decided he was an okay teacher. For one thing, he allowed her to remain in the back of the classroom. In fact, he didn’t even assign seats. On the second day of school he told his students that they could sit wherever they wanted; that if they liked the seats they were in, they could stay in them. So Ellie had remained in the back, the four chirpy popular girls had remained in the front, and Holly, desperate to escape the scrutiny of the popular girls, had managed to switch with Anita Bryman and was now sitting in the back next to Ellie.

  Mr. Pierce, Ellie realized on the third day of school, paid a lot of attention to the appearance of his classroom, but not much attention to the students themselves. As long as the room was tidy and the desks were neatly arranged and everybody was reasonably well behaved, Mr. Pierce was happy. And Ellie was relieved. She was out of reach of Maggie and the sparrows, who wouldn’t want to disappoint Mr. Pierce by so much as turning around in their seats. Anything they might do to Ellie and Holly would have to be done very subtly or outside of the classroom, unlike the year before when Maggie and Nancy and Donna were emboldened by the fact that they didn’t like their teacher and didn’t care if she caught them misbehaving. So far they hadn’t tried much. Every day, Ellie wore her plainest, dullest clothing, and she and Holly steered clear of the girls on the way into school and ran into their classroom at the last possible moment. They ate their lunches in the back of the cafeteria, then escaped to the library and, later on, the playground, joining the very end of the line of their classmates, knowing the sparrows would be at the head of the line. In class, Ellie looked only at Mr. Pierce, the blackboard, or her own work.