Esmée stood up while Flip lay prostrate on the ground, gasping and
trying to get her breath back. She felt that now she knew what it must
be like for a fish when the fisherman decides it isn't good enough and
finally throws it back into the sea.
"Get up," Erna said.
Flip rolled over weakly.
"Come on. Stand up. You've got to prove yourself if you want to pass
the initiation."
Flip staggered to her feet.
"All right," Erna said in a business like manner. "Now the inoculation.
All the new girls have to be inoculated, not just you, Pill. Did you
get the matches, Jack?"
Jackie nodded vigorously, so that her black curls bounced up and down.
"Yes, but I only got six, one for each of them. No extras in case of
emergencies. Mathilde was in a bad mood and told me to get out of the
kitchen or she'd tell Black and Midnight. She acted awfully suspicious.
She wanted to know what I wanted with the matches and I told her Balmy
Almy wanted them for the Bunsen Burners in the lab, but it didn't seem
to satisfy her."
Sally Buckman gave one of the hoarse snorts that made her sound as much
like a pug as she looked. "I bet she thought you were going off to
smoke. Old stinker. If we could get cigarettes we could get matches."
"What're you going to do with the matches?" One of the new girls asked
Erna.
"I told you. Innoculate you."
Jackie embroidered. "You might catch all kinds of dreadful things if
you didn't get innoculated. Erna, have you got the antiseptic?"
"Right here." Erna pulled an old tube of tooth paste out of her blazer
pocket. Jackie turned up the hem of her skirt and removed a needle
which she handed solemnly to Erna.
"Hold out your arm, Gloria," Erna said. "You'd better take off your
blazer first."
Gloria's freckled face had turned a little pale, but she rolled up her
sleeve gamely and held out her arm. Erna smeared on a little of the
toothpaste.
"Now." Erna waved the match. "I'll sterilize the needle." She struck
the match on the sole of her shoe ("I know a boy who can strike a match
on his teeth," Gloria said) and held the needle in the flame until the
point became red. Then she let it cool, brandishing it in the air until
the red point disappeared and there was only the black left from the
carbon. Gloria turned her head away.
"It's not so bad, Glo," Jackie reassured her. "Erna's going to be a
doctor so she knows what she's doing."
Erna gave a quick, professional jab, squeezed, and a round drop of
blood appeared on Gloria's arm. Gloria gave a little scream and tears
came to her eyes.
"There!" Erna cried. "Now you're all immune. And it's beautiful blood.
Look, peoples. Look, Gloria."
But Gloria hated the sight of blood. She glanced quickly at her arm and
the small red bead, then turned away. "I have a dress that color," she
said in a shaky voice.
"Next," Erna said briskly. "Come on, you, Bianca Colantuono."
One by one the new girls were innoculated until it came to Flip's turn.
Then Gloria, completely recovered, cried, "Oh, let me do Pill."
Erna hesitated a moment, then said, "Well, all right, if you want to.
But be careful," and handed her the needle and the match.
Flip bared her arm. Gloria struck the match but it flickered and went
out.
"Oh, Glory, you sap!" Sally cried.
"I told you to be careful," Erna said, rubbing toothpaste on Flip's
outstretched arm.
Jackie's face puckered into a frown. "There isn't another match. Now
what should we do?"
Esmée Bodet shrugged and ran her fingers through the reddish hair she
wore in a glamorous long bob. "Do it without sterilizing the needle,
that's all."
Jackie hesitated. "Maybe it isn't safe. Maybe we'd better do Pill
another time."
"I sterilized it good and thorough for the others," Erna said. "It
ought to be all right."
"Oh, sure it's all right," Sally cried. "Go on, Gloria."
Flip turned her head away as Gloria took her arm and jabbed at it
gingerly with the needle, exclaiming with chagrined surprise, "It
didn't go in."
"Try it again," Esmée urged.