Gloria detached herself from the lines of girls and went up to the
platform. "Yes, Fräulein Hauser?"
Fräulein Hauser kept her hand outstretched. "Spit," she said.
Gloria spat, and there in Fräulein Hauser's upturned palm lay a gold
plate attached to which were Gloria's four front teeth. Gloria turned
around and smiled a brilliant, toothless smile at the assembly.
Fräulein Hauser said icily, "Get back into line. You may report to me
immediately after chapel."
"Yef, Fäulein Haufer. May I haf my teef, pleef, Fäulein Haufer?" Gloria
lisped. Fräulein Hauser handed her the teeth and Gloria resumed her
place in line.
Throughout the entire school shoulders were shaking in ill-suppressed
laughter. Erna let out one snort and turned almost purple in her
effort to keep the rest of her rapture inside. Tears of mirth were
streaming down Jackie's face, and even Flip felt an ache of laughter
in her chest. Fräulein Hauser looked at the Assembly coldly. She
clapped her hands and the sound cut sharply across their laughter.
"Silence!" she hissed, and her face was pale with anger. "Silence!"
She stared wrathfully at the girls until their amusement was somewhat
controlled. Then she went on with the roll. "Cornelli Bruch, Margaret
Campbell, Elizabeth Campbell, Maria Colantuono, Bianca Colantuono, Goia
Colantuono, Jeanne-Marie Crougier...."
3
After Call Over they marched down to the chapel where the English
chaplain from Territet gave them a sermon, and after chapel Gloria was
haled off by Fräulein Hauser and they did not see her until they met
in the dining room for Sunday dinner. Gloria stood, looking bloody but
unbowed, behind her chair as they waited for Mlle. Dragonet to say
grace.
Grace ended, Mlle. Dragonet pulled out her chair, and then all the
other chairs in the big dining room scraped across the floor with a
sound of ocean waves. Tables were changed weekly but the girls were
seated according to classes and the whole of dormitory 33 this week was
together, with Solvei Krogstad and Sally Buckman. Miss Armstrong, the
science teacher, was at their table for that week, but she had gone
down to Montreux to have lunch with a friend who was passing through.
"Thank goodness Balmy Almy's not here!" Erna cried joyfully. "What did
old Hauser do to you, Gloria?"
And Jackie was squeaking simultaneously, "How did you do it, Gloria?
How did you do it? Tell us quick!"
Gloria clicked her tongue around inside her mouth and suddenly she was
grinning with the four front teeth outside her lips. It was a macabre
and horrible grimace. Another click and they were back in place.
"You stinker, why didn't you tell us before?" Sally asked, pushing her
fingers against the flat little nose that made her look so much like a
pug dog.
"I was saving it," Gloria said. "It's my Deed so I can help with the
initiation. Will it do?"
"Okay with me." Sally nodded violently.
"What happened to your teeth anyhow?" Erna asked.
"I lost 'em in the blitz. We got bombed out the night before Mummy was
going to take me to the country." Gloria rubbed the tip of her tongue
over her teeth. "I don't know how I ever used to put up with my own
teeth. These are ever so much more useful."
"Daddy sent me back to America before the blitz," Sally said enviously.
"I was in Detroit the whole time."
"Alphabet soup!" Gloria cried as plates were put in front of them. "The
last letter left in the soup is the initial of the man you're going to
marry. Mine is always X. Imagine marrying a man whose name begins with
an X! At the last school I was at there was a girl who lost an eye in
the blitz, and she had a glass eye she used to take out whenever she
got in a row; she'd hold it in her hand and the mistress could never go
on rowing her properly. But I think she used to carry it too far. One
day at dinner the mistress at the table was rowing her about something
and she took her eye out and put it in her glass of water. Now I call
that too much. She was heaps of fun, though. She got kicked out the
same time I did."
"You got expelled!" Jackie exclaimed. "Ooh, what did you do, Glo?"
"Well, Pam--this girl--and I sneaked out of school one Saturday
afternoon and went into town to meet Pam's brothers and of course one
of the mistresses saw us and we got bounced. We didn't care, though. It
was a beastly school, not half as nice as this one."
"But weren't your parents upset?" Jackie asked.
"Who, Mummy and Daddy? They didn't care. There was only a couple of
weeks till the summer hols and they'd have had me on their hands soon
enough anyhow and this gave them a good excuse to send me off to stay
with some people in Wales for the whole summer. I say, let's play Truth
and Consequences, seeing Balmy Almy isn't here."
Erna, Jackie, and Sally agreed vociferously. Flip looked across at
Solvei and watched her quietly eating her potatoes. She liked the
Norwegian girl who was the Class President and who seemed able to
assume responsibility without putting on any airs. Now Solvei said,
"Let's wait till after lunch. Black and Midnight's been cocking an ear
over here and looking disapproving, and you know how she hates games at
the table."
Gloria stuck out her lower lip. "That old minge. Always poking her nose
in other people's businesses. Why can't she leave us alone?"
"She has a special 'down' on our class," Sally said. "And she says the
middle school's more trouble than the lower and upper schools together.
What a dreep. Oh, my golly, will you look! Suet pudding again. You can
feel every bite of that stuff hit the soles of your feet five seconds
after you've swallowed it. I'd like a good American banana split."
"Here it is dessert," Gloria wagged a finger at Flip, "And Pill hasn't
said a single word since we sat down. What's the matter, Pill? Cat got
your tongue?"
"No," Flip answered, blushing.
"I don't think I've ever heard Pill say anything." Sally grinned at
Flip, but somehow there seemed to be nothing pleasant about the grin.
"Can you talk, Pill?"
"Yes," Flip said.
"Well, say something, then."
"There isn't--I don't--I haven't anything to say," Flip stumbled.
"Don't we inspire conversation?" Sally asked. "A lot you must think of
us. Does she ever talk in the room?"
Erna was gobbling her suet pudding. "She sometimes answers if you ask
her a question, if you insist. Yes, or no. That's all."
"What do you do when you go out on a date, Pill?" Sally asked. "Or
don't you ever go on dates? Hi! kids, what kind of a line do you think
Pill uses on a boy?"
Flip said nothing.
"Well, what kind of a line _do_ you use, Pill?" Sally persisted. "Maybe
you could teach us something. Well, for john's sake say something,
can't you!"
"Oh, do leave her alone," Solvei said impatiently. "If she hasn't
anything to say she hasn't anything to say."
"But how can someone _not_ have something to say!" Gloria exclaimed
incredulously. "There's _always_ something to say. Any time I can't
talk I'll be dead."
"Well, maybe Pill's dead," Sally suggested. "How about it, Pill. Are
you dead?"
"No," Flip said.
Solvei interfered again in her behalf, but Flip felt that it was only
from a sense of duty, that privately Solvei considered her just as much
of a 'pill' as the rest of the girls did. "Madame Perceval says your
father's an artist, Philippa."