Читать книгу Rebecca & Heart - Deanna K. Klingel - Страница 8

Walking across the ceiling of the head mistress’s office, I overhear this conversation:

“Whatever will we do with her?” The head mistress is spouting off to the board of directors. “She’ll give Somewhere Else a bad name. No one will ever adopt her.”

I stop walking and listen when I realize she’s complaining about my friend Rebecca again.

“Well, we must present her in a better light,” suggests Parson, who is on the board of directors. “Let her be seen more. She’s a pretty enough child, sort of. Why not clean her up a bit? Present her at the monthly tea with the others.”

“Humph,” the mistress grunts. “And let the world think we don’t train our girls to have manners; that we don’t train them to be poised? We do, you know. It’s just that Rebecca doesn’t…you know, Rebecca is different. She has an oddity about her.”

“Yes, yes,” says the parson impatiently. “You’ve told us all about that on many occasions. What I’m suggesting is simply that you present her good points rather than her oddities. She might appeal to someone, after all. If the girl never has an opportunity, you know, she will be with you forever.”

The mistress makes a face. She wrinkles her nose and swats as I zoom in closer. I can see she doesn’t like the idea of Rebecca being under her charge forever.

“Oh, all right, I’ll try,” she agrees. “But I can’t imagine who in their right mind would want that child in their home!”

“Now, now,” Parson says. “We must remember she’s one of God’s children, too, odd or not.”

“Humph,” the mistress says.

When the board of directors leave their meeting, they walk around the back of the orphanage to the garage and livery in the alley. They pass Rebecca sitting in her normal place on the back step swaying slightly back and forth with her head down intent on shelling and counting peas under the shade of the big London Platenus tree. She never looks up when the men pass. But, Rebecca sees them, counts them, and organizes them by size, and color of their waist coats. They don’t know that. But I do. I see her count and organize everything she sees. What a wonderful gift she has. With my eyes and her mind, we could make quite a team!

But, my own mind is buzzing. What does this latest board meeting mean for Rebecca?

Rebecca doesn’t want to be touched or have her hair combed. And, oh, you should hear the commotion! Dressing her or combing her hair is so much work the mistress and the staff usually avoid Rebecca altogether. Her tangled hair goes uncombed and her dirty pinafore is the same every day. But, it sounds like that’s about to change.

“Rebecca, come here,” the mistress calls.

Rebecca freezes. Her fingers squeeze the peas. Every muscle tenses. She stares at the screen door where I’m hanging, but I don’t think she’s looking at me. She isn’t looking at anything.

The mistress shoves the screen door open, grabs Rebecca by the arm, and drags her into the kitchen. The peas scatter and roll down the steps.

“Now there, see what you’ve done, girl? So wasteful, tsk tsk. Watch yourself and come along with me now. We’ve got to show that parson what a trial you’re getting to be to me. We’re going to show you in a better light, according to his reverendship. Now, sit you down,” she orders.

Her shrill voice vibrates the air around me, and my body trembles in the vibration. Rebecca’s hands are over her ears. I try to pull my wings over mine. Rebecca rocks to and fro. My body trembles in the turbulent air waves.

The head mistress fights Rebecca to get the braids in place. Mistress brushes, Rebecca throws the hairbrush. Mistress parts the hair; Rebecca tangles it with her fingers. Mistress fusses, Rebecca howls. It’s an upsetting struggle for both of them. I feel like a referee at a rugby match flitting back and forth between them. Finally, in exhaustion and frustration, the mistress surrenders, leaving Rebecca alone. But, Rebecca does look a tad more presentable, I have to agree with the parson. She yanks her braids then pounds the floor.

The next morning when Rebecca shows up for class, her hair is combed and braided. I think the head mistress remembers what the parson warned: she’ll be with you forever. I see the head mistress rubbing her hands together with something close to glee at the way Rebecca has turned out this morning. She even wears a clean and starched pinafore.

“So, I hope this is our lucky day,” the mistress says as all the girls leave for school. Rebecca is the last to walk out the door. The mistress gives her a little push.

“Hurry up, you’ll be late again,” she shouts angrily.

I could have told her, if I could just speak, that Rebecca is never late for class. It’s the other girls, the ones who gather by the door to gossip and laugh at the more unfortunate girls, who are always the last ones in to class. The shy obedient girls go directly to their seats, and Rebecca follows after them. She’s always in her seat when the noisy girls walk past her deliberately making noise, pulling her hair, or needlessly touching her, just to upset her.

“What you countin’ today, Ugly Bug?” one of them whispers in her ear and tugs her braid.

Ugly Bug? Who are they calling an ugly bug? I take issue with that comment! I buzz a zig-zag flight pattern around that sassy little head. Ugly Bug, indeed!

Rebecca growls and grabs her braids. She holds them tight and shakes her head rapidly. The next girl down the aisle deliberately pushes Rebecca’s red cardigan off her chair and onto the floor. Rebecca groans.

“Take your seats please, young ladies,” Teacher says.

“Make ‘er stop that noise, will ya’ ma’am?” one girl asks. The others snicker and look at Rebecca. They make faces at her, which she doesn’t see, as she looks only at the floor.

“Does she have to make humming noises all the time?” another asks.

“We must practice tolerance,” replies Teacher. “We all have little habits that others find annoying, don’t we now?”

“Yes, Miss Cullen,” they reply innocently.

My body pulses up and down on the edge of Rebecca’s desk. These girls fill my air space with angry vibrations. They could learn some things from Rebecca, who finds fault with no one.

Visitor’s Day Tea one time a month is always a day of high vibration here. I always attend. I happen to be partial to scones and tea. But Rebecca has never been invited before. The mistress instructs her staff to have Rebecca in a clean pinafore after class today. Mistress has heroically taken care of Rebecca’s hair herself. Today Rebecca will be seen. I’ve heard the mistress grumbling to herself, pacing in her office.

“We’ll show that board of directors. No one will be interested in this odd one, in spite of our efforts. They’ll see. Odd is odd, clean pinafore or not.”

In class, I hang again on the window sill in the warm spring sunshine. The sun warms the apple blossoms. The scent drifts over Rebecca’s seat. She cocks her head to the side and breathes in the scent. It’s much better than factory smoke. The teacher thinks so, too.

“Good morning, girls. Isn’t this the most wonderful spring morning? It makes me feel so merry. Thousands of fragrant blossoms are blowing on the breeze.”

“Twenty-six,” Rebecca interrupts.

Surprised, I whirl in a three-sixty and nearly fall off the sill.

“Rebecca?” the surprised teacher says. “What did you say?”

“Twenty-six.”

“Twenty-six? Twenty-six…something?” teacher probes.

“Twenty-six.” Rebecca speaks to the floor. The other girls snicker and snort.

“Well, uh, yes, well, class, please take out your readers and we’ll begin,” the flustered teacher says. But, she keeps her eyes on Rebecca.

I crawl up the window to survey and make a plan. I begin to plan vengeance on the rude girls. Should I buzz them, or walk on their lunches? Sit on the page they are reading, perhaps, or tickle their noses when they recite? Walk across the backs of their dirty necks? Now that’s annoying! But first, I want to know, twenty-six whats?

The teacher doesn’t know what to make of Rebecca. Rebecca has rarely, if ever, spoken in class. “Twenty-six” sounds like a purely random statement. But I know it’s not. Somehow, I think the teacher has figured out that it isn’t random, too. It means something to Rebecca. But what?

After class, Rebecca sits swaying with her hands over her ears waiting for the classroom to empty. The young teacher sits down at the vacated desk next to Rebecca. She looks down at the floor and says nothing, just as Rebecca is doing. I move up the wall for a better angle. When the room is quiet and Rebecca stops swaying, the teacher speaks to the floor.

I see what she’s doing. She’s trying to enter into Rebecca’s secret world, to be like her, to understand her. I’m abuzz with joy.

“Twenty-six,” Teacher says softly.

“Twenty-six,” replies Rebecca. She gets up and walks toward me by the open window. The breeze blows and the branch of blossoms rubs against the brick building giving off a delightful fragrance. When the breeze stops, the teacher looks up and sees Rebecca standing off to the side of the window facing her, but looking down. Directly in front of the teacher is the view Rebecca has from her desk. Teacher sees the beautiful branch like a painting, framed by the window.

“Twenty-six.” Rebecca picks up her cardigan and walks out of the classroom.

“Twenty-six…twenty-six, twenty-six…oh!” Teacher runs to the window. “One, two, three…fourteen, fifteen…twenty-five, twenty- six. Not thousands of blossoms, twenty-six blossoms! Oh, Rebecca.”

I hang around a little while and from my vantage on the wall, I study the teacher’s notes. What is it that makes Rebecca different? Makes her special? How can I teach her?

She’s never disruptive unless someone touches her. Occasionally the girls pinch or touch her to get a reaction and put the class in an uproar, but most of the time they just ignore her or laugh at her.

She does a lot of unusual things, but I think in Rebecca’s world, none of it is random. It all makes sense to her. What I have to figure out is how to enter Rebecca’s world.

She knows without counting there are twenty-six blossoms on that branch. In many ways, the girl seems brilliant. She’s exceptionally clever in mathematics. I must figure out a way to reach her to teach her.

I flit a happy zig-zag out of the room. How wonderful, someone cares about Rebecca. Someone wants to understand her and try to reach her. Other than me, I mean. I’m just a…you know, fly-on-the-wall.