In your first day at school you will be shown your room; in your
room you will find a sad-eyed fat girl. You will be told that
this will be your room mate for the year. You will find that you
have drawn a blank, that she comes from Topeka, Kan., that her
paw made his money in oil, and that she is religious. You will be
nice to her for the first week, because you aren’t taking any
chances at the start; you will tolerate her for the rest of the
year, because she will do your lessons for you every night.
Across the hall from you there will be two older girls who are
back for their second year. One of them will remind you of the
angel painted on the ceiling of the Victory Theatre back home,
until she starts telling about her summer at Narragansett; from
the other you will learn how to inhale.