Face on the Wall (26 page)

Annie lost all dignity. She fell on Flimnap's neck and sobbed out her wretched story.

He held her gently and said, “Bastards,” and led the way inside.

Annie had decided firmly that she was not in love with Flimnap. You couldn't be in love with somebody who had a big hole in the middle, a lost piece of himself. Still, it was amazing how much she had missed him.

With her back to Flimnap, she put a kettle on the stove and said, “I'm sorry, Flimnap, but I can't afford you anymore. I guess you'll have to find work somewhere else.” This was such a terrible thing to say that she leaned on the counter and started crying again.

“Look,” said Flimnap quickly, “I don't want to work for anybody else. I want to work for you. Why don't I hang around for a while? You don't have to pay me.” Then, as if this selfless remark made him uncomfortable, he looked up at her wall and changed the subject. “The face, it's back.”

“What?” Annie looked at the wall and saw another demon staring down at her from the place where so many others had been painted out. It was the worst one yet. Worse than the giant she had invented for
Jack and the Beanstalk,
with its sharp teeth and bulging eyes, its hulking shoulders and clutching hands. “Punishment,” wept Annie. “It's punishment, the whole thing is punishment.”

“Punishment! Punishment for what?”

“For windows thirteen feet high, that's what for. For a wall thirty-five feet long.” Once again the floodgates opened. Flimnap took Annie gently in his arms and held her carefully, patting her on the back like an uncle or a brother or a father, not like someone she might possibly be in love with, no, nothing like that.

Mary Kelly had long since regretted becoming Historian in Residence at Weston Country Day. Not only did it take far too much time to teach the great age of Greece, but the great judge, on whom she had a foolish crush, did not occupy a desk in Mrs. Rutledge's homeroom. Mary's only connection with Judge Aufsesser was her concern for his fat little daughter, Cissie.

What Mary did not know was that Judge Aufsesser himself did feel strongly connected to his daughter's classroom. He had not forgotten Cissie's sordid little story. It was a classic case of blackmail. But of course she would have to pay for her mistake. “I'm sorry, Cissie, but you've got to apologize to Mrs. Rutledge,” her father told her gravely. “Then that girl won't have any hold over you.”

Cissie wept, but she agreed. Her father made an appointment, and together they entered the fifth-grade classroom after school, the massive figure of the distinguished judge with his timid little daughter.

“Oh, how do you do, Judge Aufsesser! What an honor! Cissie dear! Won't you both sit down?” Mrs. Rutledge fluttered around her desk, arranging chairs.

“Cissie has something to tell you, Mrs. Rutledge,” said Judge Aufsesser, in the voice of God.

Cissie's voice by contrast was a tiny squeak. “That time you asked me to guard your pocketbook, Mrs. Rutledge? I took it out of your desk drawer. I wanted to steal money from your billfold.”

“Why, Cissie!” Mrs. Rutledge looked shocked. Then she brightened. “But how brave of you to confess!” She turned to the judge. “I'm sure Cissie will never do such a thing again. Oh, parents are so important in a case like this.”

Judge Aufsesser was still solemn. “Go on, Cissie.”

Cissie blinked, and whispered, “She saw me. She said she'd tell if I didn't give her my camera.”

Mrs. Rutledge was bewildered. “Who saw you? I don't understand.”

“Charlene. Charlene Gast.”

There was a horrified pause. Mrs. Rutledge gaped at Cissie. “Oh, Cissie, surely you're mistaken.”

Cissie shook her head violently, tears streaming down her cheeks.

Her father's eyebrows descended, condemning Mrs. Rutledge. “I know my own daughter. She is telling you the truth.”

“But it can't be,” spluttered Mrs. Rutledge. “It just can't be true.”

“And she's got Beverly Eckstein's bike,” squeaked Cissie, taking courage from the powerful presence of her father.

Mrs. Rutledge was deeply distressed. “No, no, that's not true at all. Charlene explained it to me. Their bicycles just happen to be the same make, that's all.”

“But Beverly's is missing,” said Cissie quickly. Her tears had dried. She felt something new rising up in her, the strength to fight back.

There was a pause. Mrs. Rutledge stood up. “I—I'll look into it, of course. I'll speak to Charlene. Thank you, Cissie. Thank you, Judge Aufsesser. I so much appreciate your coming here today. But I can't believe—” She stopped, and waggled her hands beside her head, as if to say,
It's too much, I can't handle it.

Judge Aufsesser scowled. “Good day, Mrs. Rutledge. Come on, Cissie.”

Outside the school he strode angrily toward his car. “It's not good enough. She's waffling.” Cissie had to run to keep up.

Mrs. Rutledge liked to communicate with her students by sending them little notes. “Excellent spelling paper, Becca!” “What a pretty sweater, Amelia!” Notes to Charlene went flying from her desk. “Charlene, your French paper was
très bon!”
“Charlene, you are excused from Special Projects to take charge of school visitors.” “Charlene, would you read aloud the next chapter of
The Flying Family?”

Mrs. Rutledge often called on Charlene Gast, because the child was so reliable and mature. And she was a superb reader, the best in the class, because she read with such expression. She would pick up a book and at once the story came alive. “‘Come ON, Bitsy,' declared Joan, helping her little sister climb to the HIGHEST branch of the tree. ‘We'll fly TOGETHER. All right now, JUMP!'”

Mrs. Rutledge didn't know what to do about Judge Aufsesser's complaint. She would have let it slide, if Mary Kelly hadn't complained too. “You should speak to Charlene, Dorothy,” said Mary. “She's a bully.”

Privately Dorothy Rutledge was disappointed in her new colleague. Oh, Mary Kelly could teach, all right, you'd have to give her that. Once she got going on the temples and the gods and Athens, and so on, she had the kids in the palm of her hand. But she seemed to have a grudge against Charlene Gast.

“A bully! Charlene? But that's absurd.”

“No, really. Watch her. She's a tyrant. She's got the rest of them cowed. She dominates. She's got an in-group and an out-group.”

“Nonsense! She's a natural leader, that's all.”

“Speak to her parents. Really and truly, she needs to be restrained. She's too powerful.”

“Powerful! A ten-year-old girl?” Mrs. Kelly was jealous, decided Mrs. Rutledge, jealous of her own friendship with the star of the class.

But after two warnings she had to do something. She called Charlene's mother and asked her to come in after school.

Roberta Gast complained that as a working woman she found it difficult to make daytime appointments during the week. But at Mrs. Rutledge's insistence she made an exception. She came to Weston Country Day and sat in the chair so recently occupied by Judge Aufsesser, expecting to hear of some new honor for her daughter.

Mrs. Rutledge began with her own sorrow at the death of Charlene's little brother. “Oh, Mrs. Gast, the whole class offers you their sympathy.”

“Thank you,” said Roberta coldly.

Flustered, Mrs. Rutledge changed the subject to Charlene's strong powers of leadership. “The truth is, Mrs. Gast, sometimes she's apt to go a teeny bit too far. My colleague Mrs. Kelly complains of a slight tendency on Charlene's part to dominate the other girls.”

“Dominate!”

“I feel sure that Charlene will one day go into politics, or become the president of a university.”

“Mrs. Kelly complained about Charlene?” said Roberta Gast. “Mary Kelly? I see.”

There was a note of disapproval in Roberta's voice. Mrs. Rutledge capitulated at once. “Perhaps I shouldn't have listened to her.” Then Mrs. Rutledge squared her shoulders. There was still the matter of Judge Aufsesser's accusation. “I also want to speak to you about her camera. Cissie Aufsesser makes a rather audacious claim. She says Charlene blackmailed her, and took her camera. I know it sounds ridiculous, but children do say such extraordinary things.”

“Cissie Aufsesser? The little fat girl?” Roberta Gast's voice was sharp.

Mrs. Rutledge tittered. “That's right. She's the one.”

“I see.” Roberta rose from her chair. “I'll look into it,” she said, and strode out of the room with a pain in her heart. There was nothing she could do about Charlene. Her daughter was completely out of her control.

Chapter 40

When my back began to smart,

'Twas like a pen knife in my heart.

Mother Goose rhyme

H
omer combed his mop of bushy hair, trying to remember a word. It was right on the tip of his tongue.
Disbungled, bughundled.
Concentrating, he stared into the mirror and stuck out his tongue, but no word appeared on the end. His tongue was large and thick and quivering. How could so gross an object articulate human speech?

Gloomily he washed his face and mopped his beard with a towel. It was dismaying how often he found himself losing words lately, perfectly ordinary words in constant use. It was like being in the Garden of Eden, partaking of the childhood of humankind. The thing in its essence stood before you, the whole meaning of the word you were looking for, but without a name, like an animal in the Garden of Eden.
Large and striped with sharp teeth and claws? “Tiger,” Adam would say, naming it for the first time. “You're a tiger.”

“Homer,” called Mary from the kitchen, “come and get it.”

Still complaining, he sat down at the breakfast table and stared at his plate. “Dismungled,” he said. “Grundundled. I'm trying to find a word.”

Mary was fresh from the shower. Her shirt was freshly ironed. Her cheeks glowed, she smelled of soap. She poured him a cup of coffee. “Well, what does the word mean?”

Homer stared fixedly at her, thinking hard. The word poised for a minute in the air—he almost had it!—and then it fled. “Goddamnit, it means the way you feel when you can't find it, goddamnit.”

“Bad-tempered?” suggested Mary. “Irascible? Cantankerous?”

“Not as strong as that. It's more a feeling inside. You know, when you can't find your car keys, or some student asks a question and you don't know the answer. Dis—dis—?”

“Discontented? Disembodied? Dismembered? Come on, Homer. I'll drop you at the prison and do my shopping, and then I'll pick you up. And remember, you've got to be right there in the parking lot at ten-twenty so we can get to Cambridge in time for class.” She slapped the dishes into the sink and together they hurried down the porch stairs.

Then Homer couldn't find the car keys. But his face was wreathed in smiles. “Disgruntled,” he said happily. “Of course, that's it. Disgruntled.”