Devilish. Maureen Johnson
proceed to class.’
‘Yes, Sister,’ I said, heading right for my desk. ‘I was with Allison. She’s sick.’
‘You are a doctor?’ she asked curiously.
A ripple of movement, submerged laughter, went around the room. It made my skin go cold, even in the painful heat. Sister noticed this and looked around.
‘She’s very sick,’ I said, keeping my eyes only on Sister.
‘She is. We all saw her. She was throwing up in the assembly.’ This was from Donna, who was also in the class. Somehow, being student counsel president gave her the ability to verify things. She did it all the time. Homework assignments, weather conditions, days of the week, pages we left off on. Donna was happy to tell us all.
Sister was about to reply when the door creaked open once more and Allison pressed her way through about six inches of opening. She was totally and truly white — almost blue.
‘I understand you have been ill,’ Sister said. ‘Is that so?’
Allison froze, still in the crack of the doorway. All eyes turned to her. She put her hand on the door, high enough that it was clear to see that she was not wearing her ring. At the very least, she was going to show the room that she had managed to get herself a little.
Nothing actually happened. No one actually said anything. The earth does not have to split open and a thousand-foot gulch does not have to appear for you to know that someone has been cast out. Especially if that someone has never really been in. I’m sure if some behavioral scientists filmed the room and watched the footage they’d be able to point out some things. The way some people looked mildly repulsed, as if they could still smell vomit. The way Donna had a completely inappropriate smile. The way some people didn’t even bother to turn at all, and just looked at the diagram of an introductory paragraph on the board and pressed their lips together, trying not to laugh. The way Allison walked to her desk as if she didn’t belong on the planet, as if she wanted to apologize for her existence. The spell on the room was total. Even Sister Charles seemed fascinated by it. She went right back to the lesson with no further comment, which was very telling. The pressure in the room actually hurt.
Which is why I did what I did next.
We had many stupid rules at St. Teresa’s, but one that I really couldn’t stand was that — no matter how hot it was — the most we could ever do to cool ourselves was take off our blazers. We couldn’t roll up our long sleeves, push down our woolen kneesocks, open our shirts another button or untuck them. So I did all of these things, slowly, deliberately, and as broadly as I could get away with. I unbuttoned my cuffs, rolled the sleeves to the elbow, reached down and pushed down the socks, loosened my collar.
And it worked. Slowly, attention went away from Ally and over to me. Even as I was doing it, I was dreading Sister Charles’s long, loaded silence. A stifled giggle came from behind me. But I kept on doing it, drawing out each gesture as long as I could.
Finally, when I had reached the point where I’d actually have to strip if I wanted to go any further, Sister Charles decided to speak.
‘Are you warm, Miss Jarvis?’ she said politely.
‘Kind of, Sister,’ I said loudly.
A laugh now from the front.
‘I think we are all warm. Yet we remain clothed. But perhaps an exception should be made for you?’
‘I was just doing what seemed sensible, Sister.’
I had engaged her now. Sister smiled slightly. It looked unnatural on her, like mascara on a baby.
‘Well, Miss Jarvis, you may have a point.’ She crossed around the desk in a loopy path. ‘Do you have your PE outfit in your bag?’
I stiffened. Our PE kit consisted of a very tight and unflattering T-shirt, with the world’s shortest, most terrifying shorts. Lap dancers wouldn’t wear our shorts. Our school made us dress extremely conservatively, but for gym, tiny tees and butt-kerchiefs were considered healthy. It was a trauma, but it was a trauma we went through together, and it never left the gym.
‘I would like you to go to the ladies’ room and put it on,’ she said. ‘You will wear it for the rest of the day. I will call the office and let them know this is acceptable. Please do keep your school shoes on, though.’
I rose with all the dignity I could muster, smiled at the people who snickered, and made my way to the bathroom.
I spent the rest of the day walking around school in tiny shorts, kneesocks, and saddle shoes. Ally was nowhere to be found. It would have been completely understandable if she was avoiding me. It was hard to believe that I could have compounded the problem — but no one will ever say that Jane Jarvis isn’t an innovator.
Calculus II was my last class of the day. I had it with only one other person, Cassie Malloy. It was kind of a special thing; they offered it just to us. We didn’t even use a classroom. We sat in Brother Frank’s office, which was no more than an elaborate broom closet on the third floor, just big enough for a desk and two chairs. Still, the intimacy gave it a real scholastic feel.
Cassie took in my outfit in a brief glance and decided not to comment.
‘Oh my God,’ she said. ‘Who did you get? Oh my God. You probably got, like, five offers. I only got one, and I don’t even think she knew who I was. Are you going to spend a lot of time with yours? Because I have, like, no time right now.’
She reached into her bag, pulled out a slim thermos, and took a long gulp of coffee. The caffeine was no good for her — it made her hands shake mildly. But she needed it. Cassie didn’t sleep. She was a hard worker. I had long speculated that she would be dead by thirty in an attempt to do medical and law school at the same time.
‘How late were you up doing this?’ she asked, flipping through her notebook, through page after page of neatly written equations. Cassie did them in order, step by step, six to a page. I pulled out my own work — a collection of scribblings written on some paper from our printer’s recycling box.
‘Oh… a while,’ I lied, looking at the work I had done while watching TV.
At least Cassie wasn’t asking me about Allison. I wasn’t sure she was asking me anything. She produced a pen from her wildly sproingy hair and hurriedly scribbled something in her Filofax while she was talking. Whether I was there or not was probably irrelevant.
‘They do this at the worst time. I mean, I’m doing SATs again on Saturday. Fourth time. God! Are you doing them again? I seriously have no time to spend with this girl. I’m just going to get her a teddy bear or something and that’s it. Do you like yours?’
And then, Cassie screamed, a particularly high-pitched, nerve-jangling scream. Which made me scream. Screams are catchy. I followed Cassie’s gaze to a tiny black-veiled head in the doorway.
‘I see PANTIES!’ it shrieked. ‘I see blue panties!’
Cassie clapped her legs tightly together. The head snapped out of sight.
‘God,’ she wheezed. ‘Why does she do that?’
Sister Rose Marie would pop her head into classrooms at random, examine the horizon, and look for people sitting in a manner that exposed underwear. This shock attack was supposed to make us more ladylike. It just made us paranoid. For one moment that day, I was glad to be wearing my shorts.
Brother Frank, our teacher, came in. I liked Brother Frank the most out of all my teachers. He was brilliant, for a start, and Irish (though his accent flitted in and out like bad radio reception), and he had a shock of gray hair that stuck up straight from his head, the way really good mathematicians should.
Something was wrong today, though — his huge salt-and-pepper eyebrows were knitting themselves together and unwinding again. He dropped himself down in his