by Lois Duncan
“Janie!” Lynn exclaimed with an impatience not natural to her. “Janie, Janie, Janie! You two are inseparable. What do you see in her, anyway? I mean, she may be a nice enough girl, but you and she can’t have much in common. You’re a straight A student and I hear she flunked both her language courses last year.”
“She won’t this year,” Dodie said. “I’m going to tutor her.”
Lynn shook her head in bewilderment. Dodie never ceased to surprise her. Everything she did seemed out of character. It was difficult to imagine sharp-tongued Dodie sitting down patiently to tutor somebody in Latin. Sometimes Lynn felt that she did not understand her younger sister at all.
The walk to school was a long and lonely one. The year before, she had always walked with Ernie and Nancy, but now Ernie was away and, somehow, she had missed Nancy. Evidently her friend had left too late or too early for her to intercept her on the way. She caught sight of some of the other girls from the Hill, walking ahead of her, but she was in no hurry to call out to them.
They will have received their deb invitations, Lynn thought bitterly, and that’s all they will want to talk about.
She sighed and walked on alone, arriving at school just as the first bell rang.
It was not until lunch time that she had a chance to draw Nancy aside and confront her with the bad news.
“I’m not going to be one of the debutantes this year.”
“You’re not!” Nancy stared at her in amazement. “Lynn Chambers, what on earth are you talking about? Why, you were telling me on the phone just yesterday afternoon that you received your invitation.”
“I know I did,” Lynn said. “But that was before I told my parents. Daddy doesn’t want me to make a debut.”
“He doesn’t!” Nancy’s disbelief was slowly changing to horror. “You mean, you can’t be part of it all? How perfectly horrid! Why would he say a thing like that? How can he be so mean?”
“He’s not mean,” Lynn said shortly, surprising herself at her immediate loyal defense of her father. “He doesn’t approve of debutantes, so he doesn’t want me to be one. That’s all there is to it.”
Nancy gave her friend’s hand a sympathetic squeeze. “Well, try not to worry about it Lynn. Maybe he’ll change his mind when he sees that everybody else from the Hill is going to be in on it and when he sees how much fun we’re having and everything.”
“Maybe,” Lynn said, knowing that he would not. Once her father’s mind was made up, nothing short of an earthquake was going to change it.
By the time she had filled her tray at the cafeteria and seated herself at a table, Lynn found that everyone knew. She did not have to tell anyone of her father’s decision, for Nancy had spread the word for her, and she was greeted by a wave of sympathy.
“It’s tough luck,” Holly Taylor declared. “But maybe your dad will come around.”
Joan Wilson said, “I don’t understand how he could feel that way. Why, my father was delighted! He said he thought it sounded like a wonderful idea and a real social lift for the town.”
Lynn murmured something unintelligible and tried to bury her face behind a sandwich. She sat quietly, letting herself fade more and more into the background as the other girls’ conversation picked up on all sides and rattled gaily on, from one end of the subject to the other and back again.
“A party each weekend! That’s the way the schedule is going to run, and then every day of the holidays. My aunt is going to give my party—a luncheon—and it should be marvelous! Aunt Jenny always has such wonderful new ideas for things.”
“Mother’s going to plan a dinner dance for us. She says she’ll even hire an orchestra!”
“The Christmas parties are going to be the most exciting. All the fellows will be home from college, so we’ll have more boys than we know what to do with.”
“Daddy says my big Christmas present this year will be a new dress for every Christmas party!”
They were all talking at once—Joan, Holly, Nancy—the whole table full of girls. And down at the end, Lynn saw to her surprise, was Brenda Peterson, her mousy little face flushed with excitement.
She’s part of it, Lynn thought, with an anger out of all proportion to the situation. She couldn’t get to be one of the gang any other way, so now her mother is buying her way in by organizing this debutante program.
She had never before felt anything personal against Brenda Peterson. Now, watching her shy smile and the way she leaned forward eagerly to join the conversation, she felt a sudden, strong dislike.
Glancing past Brenda to the next table, Lynn saw another group of girls quietly eating. They were not the Hill girls, but there were one or two of them whom she knew fairly well from sitting near them in classes. Rachel Goldman, a dark, attractive girl, had written the winning entry in last year’s essay contest. Clara Marivella was president of the square dance club, an organization none of the Hill crowd ever entered. Anne Masters, the girl Nancy had referred to as a “sweet little thing,” was telling them something. It must have been something funny, for Rachel and Clara both burst out laughing.
Watching them, Lynn wondered what they were laughing at. She had never really noticed them very much before, but now, suddenly, she saw them as an attractive group of girls who seemed to be living satisfactory lives all their own, with their own friendships, their own jokes, their own laughter.
Anne glanced up, caught Lynn’s eyes upon her and smiled. Her smile was natural and friendly and spontaneous, and automatically Lynn smiled back.
She thought, I wonder what Anne Masters is like. It must be hard having a brother like Dirk. I wonder what she could have to say that would be so funny that everyone would start to laugh.
Beside her, Joan was talking. Lynn turned, trying to catch the trend of the conversation.
“. . . and so Father said, ‘Two hundred dollars apiece is an awful lot to contribute toward one dance.’ And Mother said, ‘It isn’t really, dear, if you knew how much it usually costs for a girl to make a debut. Why, in the big cities, each girl has her own coming-out party, and each one costs thousands of dollars. This way, there will just be one big ball, with everyone contributing toward it and everybody “coming out” at once.’ And when Father heard that he said,
‘O.K., O.K., I’m not arguing. I think it’s a fine idea.’Mother can handle him all right.”
Lynn sat quietly, feeling oddly apart, as the wave of laughter swept the table. Then somebody down at the other end began telling about her father’s reaction to the debutante invitation. Everyone leaned forward to hear.
Lynn laid her half-eaten sandwich on her plate and got quietly to her feet. Nobody seemed to notice when she did so. Nobody said, “Hi, Lynn, don’t go away! Come on and sit down here. It’s no fun talking about things unless you’re here to hash them over, too.” Everyone was intent on the girl at the end of the table.
As she finished her story, laughter broke out again, and this time it was Brenda Peterson who said something, hesitantly, in that bland little voice of hers. Lynn could not hear what it was, but again there was laughter.
With a shrug of irritation, Lynn walked away from the table and out of the cafeteria.
She wandered aimlessly across the schoolyard. Here and there were knots and groups of students, laughing and talking, but none of them were people she knew very well. In a little group over by the fence, she saw Dodie and her friend Janie and several other girls from their particular junior class branch of the Hill crowd.
Dodie looked up as she passed and started to say something and then, catching the look on her sister’s face, evidently thought better of it
Entering the building, Lynn went to her locker and located her Spanish book. There was an empty classroom several doors down. She went in and sat down at one of the desks and began her next day’s translation. She had already completed two pages when the bell rang to announce that lunch hour was over.
And that was the way it went, that day and the next and the next.
It’s as though I were a stranger, Lynn told herself bitterly. I don’t seem to belong any more.
It was not that her old friends were intentionally ignoring her. On the contrary, they were especially pleasant whenever she was with them.
“What a darling dress, Lynn! Where in the world did you get it?”
“That math test was a humdinger, wasn’t it! How do you think you did on it?”
“What do you hear from Paul, Lynn? Is he coming home for Thanksgiving or will you have to wait until Christmas?”
It was nice talk, friendly talk, the way it had always been, but there was something missing. The element of spontaneity. They could no longer jabber away in complete ease when Lynn was with them, because the main topic of conversation these days was the first debutante party, to be held the following weekend, at Joan’s house. And Lynn would not be there.
“I wish you were coming,” Joan said sincerely, giving her friend an apologetic smile. “I feel like a dog, having a party without you, Lynn. Why, it’s the first time I can ever remember our doing anything when you weren’t right there, the center of everything. It’s going to seem awfully flat without you.”
“No, it won’t,” Lynn said lightly. “Not a dinner dance! Why, it will be perfectly marvelous, Joan; it can’t help but be.”
“I wish you were coming,” Joan said again. But she seemed happy enough to turn the conversation to another subject.
As the day of the party grew nearer, Lynn found herself withdrawing more and more from the crowd on one pretext or another and spending her time alone. She deliberately arrived at school after the first bell in the morning, so there was no time to join in the pre-school conversation on the left side of the school steps. She ate lunch quickly at the noon hour and managed to slip away before she could get swept into the lunch table conversation. Once out of the cafeteria, she usually located an empty classroom or went to the library and spent the remainder of the hour studying. During gym class, she dressed quickly and played hard, keeping free from the little groups of girls that gathered to gossip before the mirrors in the dressing room or in clusters under the trees that lined the playing field.
She could give no good reasons for her actions. It was not that she was angry with the girls themselves. She knew they wanted her with them. It was more a feeling of defense. If she could not be in on everything, then she would rather not be in on anything at all. It was better, much better, to be walking by yourself of your own free will than to be in the midst of a crowd that was concentrated on things in which you could have no part.
Strangely, it was Dodie who sensed this. She did not say much, but once in a while she came out with a remark that surprised Lynn by its perception.
“You can’t just cut away completely, you know,” she said once, in her sharp way. “Everybody has to belong to something.”
And another time—“Are you and Nancy on the outs? I never see you together any more.”
“No,” Lynn answered shortly, “we’re not ‘on the outs,’ as you so crudely put it. We’re just doing different things.”
“Oh?” Dodie gave her a keen glance. “Well, I know what Nancy is doing, being neck deep in all this debutante business; but what are you doing? You’re not even in the Art Club this year, are you?”
“No,” Lynn admitted.
The Art Club was the favorite school club of those from the Hill. Almost everyone belonged, whether he could draw or not, simply because it was the thing to do. The club made posters for school functions, had lecturers in to discuss different forms of art and made trips to museums and art galleries in surrounding towns. Lynn had belonged to it for two years, because, aside from the fun of being with everyone else, she enjoyed art. She liked the trips to art galleries for their own sake, and she herself had a nice knack with a pencil or charcoal. The Art Club had always been a favorite project with her, and the year before she had been its vice-president. This year, she had gone to one meeting. Elections were held. Holly Taylor was elected president; Holly’s steady Don Pearce, vice-president; and Brenda Peterson, secretary.
“I don’t understand,” Lynn had whispered to Nancy with a bitterness she had never felt before. “The person who was vice-president last year is always elected president. It’s kind of an unwritten rule.”
“I know,” Nancy answered uncomfortably. “It’s just—well, Lynn, maybe they think you’re not as interested in the old crowd as you used to be. You really do seem kind of aloof with everybody these days.”
“Well, maybe I do,” Lynn said, “but what difference should that make? This is an art club, not a social club. I’m as interested in the art side of the club as I ever was.”
She had walked out of the room after the meeting was over with her head high and her eyes defiant. But she had not gone back.
“I’m just not very interested in the club any more,” she said to Dodie. “Especially when Brenda Peterson is an officer.” Dodie had given her a long, knowing look, but she had not bothered to answer.
It was during one of her lonely lunch periods that Lynn had her first conversation with Anne Masters. She had left the cafeteria early and was entering the school building when Anne spoke to her.
Lynn whirled in surprise.
“What?”
“I said hi,” Anne said a little shyly. “I—I wondered how you thought you did on the Spanish quiz.”
“Oh, fairly well, I think,” Lynn answered. “I’ve been doing a lot of studying lately.”
She turned and looked at Anne. Although she had known the girl casually ever since they had started high school, it was the first time she had really looked at her, and she was a little surprised at what she saw. Anne Masters was not a pretty girl in the accepted sense of the word. She was small and thin, with eyes a little too large in her narrow face and not enough color in her cheeks. But there were other things about her that were quite lovely. There was a clean, honest openness about her face, and a sweet curve to her mouth, and a very feminine daintiness about her movements. She looked back at Lynn and smiled, and there was a quiet friendliness about her that could not be denied.
After a second’s hesitation, Lynn came over and sat down beside her on one of the benches in front of the school building.
“How do you think you did?” she asked.
“Oh, passably, but that’s all.” Anne wrinkled her nose in an amusing little gesture of distaste. “Spanish isn’t my strong subject, I’m afraid. It’s funny, because with Clara Marivella living down the street from me, I should speak like a native. Her father’s always standing in the doorway and calling things to her.”
“Is Clara’s father Spanish?” Lynn was surprised. “I mean, I knew she had a Spanish name, but I thought it was from way back. I didn’t know her father actually spoke the language.”
“He and Mrs. Marivella, too,” Anne replied. “Clara says they never speak anything but Spanish at home. Sometimes she’ll be chatting away with us girls and she’ll throw in a Spanish phrase without even knowing it. She’s so used to speaking it at home that she forgets where Spanish starts and English begins.”
“How fascinating!” Lynn found, to her surprise, that she was really enjoying the conversation. “Why, think how simple Spanish class must be to her! She probably sits there and—”
“Well, hi.” The voice came from close behind her. “Hi, there! Don’t tell me the Princess of the Hill deigns to sit here talking to my little sister!”
Dirk Masters stepped around the side of the bench and stood grinning down at them.
Anne glanced up with a flash of anger.
“Dirk, behave yourself! If you can’t say something polite to my friends, I’d rather you didn’t speak to them at all.”
Lynn’s eyes widened in surprise. It was amazing to hear this sweet-faced little girl speaking up without an instant’s hesitation to the tough, insolent Dirk Masters. She waited breathlessly for his answering burst of anger, but, to her further surprise, none came. Instead,
he grinned at his sister with a kind of pride.
“Simmer down, Sis. Regular spitfire, isn’t she?” He turned to Lynn. “I hear you’re not making your entrance into society. My sister here isn’t going to be a debutante either, you know, but not because she doesn’t want to. She wasn’t invited. Of course, you don’t know what it’s like not to be invited to something. When you turn something down, it’s because you don’t want it, not because it doesn’t want you.”
His voice was hard, with a deep bitterness.
Anne said, “Dirk, this is ridiculous. There is no reason for you to make a scene like this about nothing.”
“You think you’re so great,” Dirk continued harshly. “You and your superior Hill crowd. My sister would make a classier debutante than any of you.”
Lynn drew back, feeling her own anger rising to the surface. “You don’t have to make your rude, nasty remarks to me, Dirk Masters! If you want to talk about the debutante parties, go talk to Brenda Peterson. Her mother is running them, not mine. I don’t have a single thing to do with it.”
“And if she did,” Anne put in quickly, “it wouldn’t be any of your business, Dirk. Why do you always have to be so rude to people?”
Dirk retorted, “I’m not being rude. I’m just being friendly. I’ve never had a chance to talk to the Princess of the Hill before. It’s a shock to see her mixing it up at our level.” He turned back to Lynn, a mocking light in his eyes. “Well, Princess, since you won’t be going to the debutante party this Saturday, how about you and I painting the town together? Or do you think your Hill crowd would ever speak to you again?”
He was laughing at her, baiting her, putting her in a position where she would have to be rude to him in reply.
How bitter he is, Lynn thought.
She raised her eyes and looked Dirk full in the face. It was a handsome face, in a lean, arrogant sort of way. Like Anne, he was thin, and his features were very much like hers, but there was something else too, a kind of hardness that was completely lacking in Anne. His eyes were dark and mocking, and his hair fell forward over his forehead in a careless, rakish way, as though he did not care enough to push it back.
