by Kit Pearson
All of the Yellow Dorm liked food, but Helen ate more than any of them. She won the toast-eating contests at her table every morning. “I don’t mean to be personal,” Pam told her, “but you should go on a diet.”
“And you should mind your own business,” retorted Helen.
The two of them were always scrapping. “When I found out I had to board, I was hoping Helen would be in the other grade seven dorm,” Pam confided to Eliza and Carrie. “Last year she came to a barbeque I had for the whole class, and she started everyone making water bombs in the swimming pool out of paper cups. My mother says she’s a disruptive influence.” Pam tried to tell them more about all the trouble Helen had caused in grade six, but Eliza and Carrie didn’t like her righteous tone and changed the subject.
Helen never missed an opportunity of needling Pam, but she was fairly pleasant to the rest of them. As well as calling Pam and Eliza “P.J.” and “Eliza Doolittle,” she had nicknames for the others. Jean was “Scotty,” and Carrie was “Turps,” after a ball-bouncing rhyme the juniors were always chanting:
Queen, Queen Caroline
Washed her hair in turpentine
Turpentine made it shine
Queen, Queen Caroline.
Already Helen had had to “go and speak to Miss Tavistock,” a threat the matrons were always holding over them. On Tuesday evening Jean had locked herself in the bathroom when the wobbly old doorknobs had fallen off. The rest of them heard her timid knocks and cries, growing louder as she became more frightened. They crowded around the door.
“I’ll go and get a matron,” said Pam quickly.
“No—wait!” Helen looked overjoyed that something was happening. “They’ll just make a fuss. Keep calm, Scotty,” she called. “We’re going to rescue you! Come on, everyone—push!”
She thrust her weight against the door and pounded it rhythmically. The flimsy panel showed a crack of light at each shove.
The others watched her doubtfully. “Wouldn’t it be better to try to get the doorknobs back on?” suggested Eliza.
“Stop it, Helen—you’re going to break it!” cried Pam.
“That’s … the … idea!” puffed Helen, red in the face. The door crashed inwards with a screech of ripping wood. Helen fell in with it. Jean screamed, then laughed nervously as she realized she was free.
In an instant both Miss Bixley and Miss Monaghan were there, gazing in disbelief at the shards of wood hanging from the side of the door.
When Helen returned from seeing Miss Tavistock, she wouldn’t tell them what the headmistress had said. But her ecstatic mood had disappeared. “Everyone blames me for everything around here,” she growled. “I was only trying to help.” Underneath the grumbling, however, she seemed secretly triumphant.
Eliza wasn’t sure where she stood with Helen. When the other girl used her nickname she felt they were on friendly terms; at other times the two of them were uneasy with each other.
Her feelings were especially mixed on Thursday. In the morning Eliza and Helen were alone in the dorm; they were the last to change their sheets. Eliza found it tricky to do this on an upper bunk, especially when the bed was so close to the wall. Helen hadn’t even started. Her clean sheets were folded on her chair and she sprawled across her stripped mattress, reading a Batman comic. Every so often she peered at Eliza moving around her. She looked superior, as if she, Helen, did not have to bother with such a dreary task.
It made Eliza nervous, being alone with her. Neither of them spoke. The silence made Eliza even more jittery, and she flapped her top sheet to make a noise. It knocked John off her bed—and out of the open window.
She ran to it, leaned out and spied him on the ground below. He had landed on his back and, with his paws spread out, looked as if he were appealing for help.
“What are you doing, Eliza Doolittle?” yawned Helen, throwing her comic onto the floor.
“My bear’s fallen out!” Eliza started to leave the room.
Helen stopped her. “Why don’t you just go down the fire escape?” The wooden structure went all the way up their side of the residence, past the window by Carrie’s bed. Eliza examined it and saw that it would be a lot faster than going around the building. She opened the window wider, stepped onto the stairs, dashed down and snatched up John, then scurried up again.
But after breakfast Miss Tavistock said to her quietly, “Would you please see me in my study, Elizabeth?”
It was strictly forbidden to go on the fire escape, the headmistress told her firmly, after she had closed the door. Mrs. Renfrew had spotted Eliza from her room in the New Residence and reported her.
“I’m s-sorry, Miss Tavistock,” said Eliza, standing in front of the desk and trying not to cry. How terrible to do something wrong her very first week! “I didn’t know it wasn’t allowed—I just went to get my bear.” Admitting that she had a bear sounded so babyish that her cheeks flamed.
Miss Tavistock’s voice softened. “If you didn’t know, Elizabeth, then I forgive you. I know you’re not the type of girl to intentionally break a rule, and it’s hard to remember everything at first.” The headmistress raised her eyebrows. “But goodness me, your dormitory is troublesome this week! I hope this isn’t an indication of how you’re all going to behave for the rest of the year!”
“I’m sorry, Eliza Doolittle,” said Helen nonchalantly when Eliza confronted her later. “I thought you knew it wasn’t allowed, and I didn’t think you’d get caught.”
Eliza wondered if she should believe her. Getting into trouble seemed unimportant to Helen, and she did appear genuinely amazed that Eliza was upset about it. It would be safest, however, not to trust the other girl.
But that night she changed her mind again. Eliza had quickly discovered she was the only one in the Yellow Dorm who still wore an undershirt. No one except Pam seemed to need a bra, but each person wore one as if it were a badge of membership in grade seven. Eliza had no wish to acquire something so grown-up, but she also hoped the others wouldn’t comment on her difference. So far, they hadn’t.
On that Thursday evening, however, Pam examined Eliza thoughtfully as they were undressing. “Don’t you think you should ask Miss Bixley to get you a bra, Eliza? You can get padded ones,” she added sweetly.
Eliza’s face burned. She turned her back on Pam to hide both her flat chest and her sudden tears.
But now she was facing Helen, who had been standing behind her. The red-haired girl looked straight at Eliza; even behind her glasses, her sympathy was apparent. Then her eyes shifted to Pam and glinted with fury.
“You leave Eliza alone, P.J.!” she hissed. “It’s none of your business if she wears a bra or not. I hate mine. My mother only got it because it was an option on the clothing list this year. In fact, I think I’ll get rid of it.” She picked up the white cotton garment and twirled it around her head dramatically. Then she flung it into the wastepaper basket.
Pam looked offended. “I was only trying to give Eliza some advice, Helen. Don’t get so excited.”
Eliza finished buttoning up her pyjama top. She blinked back her tears and smiled at Helen. “Thanks,” she mouthed. Helen actually winked at her.
The next morning Miss Bixley found the bra and made Helen take it back, but Eliza couldn’t forget her surprising defence.
“TIME TO GO DOWN to the dining room and write your letters home, girls.” Mrs. Renfrew’s no-nonsense Scottish voice pierced the Sunday silence. She crept about so quietly, she always surprised them.
“I’ve done mine,” said Eliza, slipping her second letter into an envelope and addressing it.
“So’ve I,” said Helen, emerging from underneath with a small grubby envelope.
The Pouncer looked suspicious, but took the letters to mail. “Very well, you two may begin your free time, but I want you to stay inside. It’s too wet to go out. The rest of you hurry up, please.”
“Mrs. Renfrew, I can’t find my green sweater,” complained Carrie, all her dresser draw
ers gaping.
“I found it under your bed this morning, Carrie,” said the Pouncer. “It’s in the Pound. You’ll have to pay me a dime to get it out.” She sniffed disapprovingly. “We’re going to make a lot of money out of this dormitory, I can see that already.”
Eliza shoved her writing paper quickly into a drawer. The only tidy person in the dorm was Pam. She was so extreme she made up for the rest of them, draping her pristine uniform carefully over a chair each night in readiness for the next morning.
When Carrie, Jean and Pam had left, Eliza got out a book and prepared to sink into it. One problem with boarding school so far was that there wasn’t enough time to read. Settling back against her pillow, she was immediately transported into Roman Britain.
But Helen’s voice underneath her broke the spell. “Listen, Eliza. It’s time to make plans.”
“Plans?” asked Eliza, reluctantly putting down The Eagle of the Ninth.
Helen moved across to Pam’s bed. She fixed her glasses on Eliza as if they were a pair of binoculars. “Yes. It’s a plan for all of us, but I wanted to tell you first. You seem to be gutsier than the others. I liked the way you rescued your silly bear, even if you didn’t know you were breaking a rule. Will you support me if I suggest something to everyone?”
Eliza felt flattered and frightened at the same time. She didn’t want Helen to look down on her, but she didn’t want to clash with Miss Tavistock again either.
“It depends what it is,” she said as agreeably as she could. But Helen looked ruffled.
“Oh, don’t bother if you’re worried about it. I guess you are just as chicken as the rest of them.”
Eliza was ashamed. After all, in her books the boarders were always planning some prank or another. Wasn’t that one reason she’d wanted to come here—for excitement? She had never thought of herself as a coward, and she wondered why she felt afraid.
“I’ll support you,” she said quickly. “Tell me what it is.”
4
A Long Feast
“Eliza and I have an idea,” Helen announced that night. By now they chattered fearlessly for an extended period after Lights Out—except when the Pouncer was on duty.
Eliza clutched John under the covers. She was just as curious as the others, for Helen had told her only part of the plan.
“What we propose,” said Helen, getting out of bed, opening the curtains and squatting on the floor so she could see them all, “is a game. A Daring Game. This place is boring. We need to do something to liven it up.”
“I don’t think it’s boring,” protested Carrie. Eliza agreed silently; everything was too new to be boring. But she liked games. She and Maggie and some other friends in Edmonton used to play at being knights, or Robin Hood, or horses, until the others told her they were too old.
This game sounded different—not pretending, but real, which made it riskier. It had the same allure of important secrecy, however, that had been present in her other games. Helen’s bravado when she described it had a lot to do with this. Eliza had never known anyone her own age who seemed so sure of herself.
Remembering her role, she made her voice sound enthusiastic: “It might be fun.” She watched Carrie listen to Helen with more interest.
Pam lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. “Well, go on, Helen. But I won’t play if it’s dangerous or anything.”
Jean, silent as usual, just watched Helen with wide eyes.
Helen grinned at Eliza, who felt relieved she’d said the right thing.
“Okay,” continued Helen, “a Daring Game. What we’ll do is take turns doing dares. I can think of lots, but you can make up some too, if you want. It has to be something that takes a lot of nerve.”
“But what’s the point?” said Pam.
“The point is to do it, of course. It’ll be fun to see how much we can get away with in this dump.”
That was a mistake. Pam rolled over. “Well, count me out. I don’t want to get into trouble, and I’m the dorm head, so I don’t think any of you should do it.”
So far, thought Eliza, the job of being dorm head consisted of informing everyone of the position; its only duty seemed to be the collection of the laundry slips each week.
“You haven’t even heard what the first dare is,” said Helen. “You’ll like it, I bet. It’s for all of us.” Pam refused to answer, but the others begged her to continue.
“A dorm feast. I dare us all to bring food up here this Saturday and have a huge feast after Lights Out.”
Eliza stretched out her legs with relief. She’d imagined all sorts of dreadful things Helen might have proposed. Dorm feasts, however, seemed a requirement of boarding school. She was surprised at the tameness of the first dare, but she decided that Helen probably wanted to test them with an easy one.
“Come on, Pam, how about it?” said Helen, in an unusually wheedling tone.
“Everyone has feasts. The Red Dorm had one last week. We had three when I was in the Nursery, and we never got caught.”
“I have some chocolate bars in my tuck box,” said Carrie.
“Maybe my aunt would make us a cake,” said Eliza.
“I think I could bring something from home,” said Jean softly. They waited for Pam to reply.
“Oh, all right,” she said finally. “If everyone else does it I suppose it’s okay. As long as you’re sure we won’t get caught. I’m going out with Deb this Saturday—I’ll get some buns or something.”
“Let’s make a list!” Carrie jumped out of bed to find a paper and pencil.
BY NINE-THIRTY on Saturday night, the food that had been concealed beneath coats, hurried up the stairs and stashed under beds, in drawers and in the closet far exceeded the items on the list.
“Goodnight, girls,” said Miss Bixley, turning out the light. They waited fifteen minutes, then arranged all the food in the middle of the floor on Pam’s large bath towel. Drawing back the curtains, they sat cross-legged in a circle around the feast, gazing at its beauty with relish.
A glistening pile of red licorice sticks
A box of Stoned Wheat Thins
A jar of peanut butter
Three American chocolate bars
A giant bottle of Coke
Half a dozen Bismarck doughnuts, oozing with jam
One slightly squashed chocolate cake
Six pieces of fried chicken
“Who bought all the licorice?” asked Carrie.
“I did,” said Helen. “When Bix took us for our walk yesterday I persuaded her to let us stop at Crabby Crump’s.”
They all preferred the twisting red licorice sticks from Crump’s Groceries across the street to any other kind. Mrs. Crump disliked the noisy Ashdown girls who crowded her tiny store, but they gave her so much business she had to put up with them.
“I thought you said you had to spend all your pocket money on buying a new math scribbler,” said Pam nastily. They all knew Helen had dropped her old scribbler in a mud puddle on purpose because she hadn’t done her homework.
Helen shrugged. “Oh, I had some left over.” The two dollars they collected in small brown envelopes from the office every Friday never went very far. Much of the food for the feast was donated from the downstairs tuck boxes that were kept full with “care packages” from parents. Helen, however, was never sent anything from home.
Pam looked as if she didn’t believe Helen, but she became distracted by the chocolate bars Carrie was cutting into five pieces each with her nail file. “Yum,” munched Pam, biting into part of an Almond Joy. “I’ve always wanted to know what these taste like.”
Carrie dipped her piece into some peanut butter. “Try it this way—it’s tremendous.”
“They should feed us like this all the time instead of starving us,” said Helen, holding a piece of chicken in one hand and a doughnut in the other, taking alternate bites of each. She hummed the song they had learned on the picnic last week, and they started singing it softly, the words muffled by food and l
aughter.
There is a boarding school
Far, far away
Where they get onion soup Three times a day.
Oh, how those boarders yell
When they hear the dinner bell!
Oh, how those onions smell
Three times a day!
Jean chewed licorice cheerfully; bits of it stuck to the wires in her mouth and she picked them off. “I hate braces,” she whispered to Eliza beside her. Jean had stopped crying at night, but she still looked like a scared rabbit most of the time. Tonight, however, she was a little more relaxed.
Pam was spreading the crackers evenly with peanut butter, using the round end of her toothbrush. She paused. “Do you hear something?” They listened hard, but there wasn’t a sound; the whole house of boarders was asleep.
“It’s just your imagination, P.J.,” said Helen. “Bix won’t come up for ages.”
The lights from the parking lot created eerie squares of light across the wall and ceiling. Eliza shuffled closer into the circle. For the first time she felt as if they were a real group instead of five separate personalities. Almost like a family of five sisters, even though sisters wouldn’t be so different from one another. It was more like a pyjama party that never ended, with no parents to tell you to go to sleep. For a second this thought made Eliza lonely. Then it made her feel curiously free.
At home there were two people who knew her intimately and always had her welfare in mind—her parents. Here there was much more outward authority, but there were too many students for anyone in charge to be able to know the inner state of any one girl. Her outside—what she wore, where she was at different times of the day, what activities she did at those times—was much more strictly controlled here than it was at home. But it was exhilarating to realize that no one was responsible for her inside but herself.
Eliza raised her toothbrush glass full of Coke. “Here’s to the Yellow Dorm,” she whispered. The others joined her in a silent toast.
