The Great Gilly Hopkins (3 page)

At eight thirty Trotter got William Ernest off to school. Gilly had long since finished her breakfast, but she sat at the kitchen table, her head propped on her fists. From the doorway she could hear Old Mother Goose honking over her gosling. “OK, Big Orange, you show 'em down there today, hear?” Trotter said finally; and then the heavy door shut and she was heading back for the kitchen. As she got to the door, Gilly sat up straight and shook her head for all she was worth.

“You got a tic or something, honey?”

“No.”

“I would've thought you was too young for the palsy,” the huge woman murmured, sliding into her seat with the cup of coffee she'd promised herself earlier. “I see you got sneakers. That's good. You're supposed to have them for gym. Can you think of anything else you'll need for school?”

Gilly shook her head, but halfheartedly. She was beginning to feel like an oversharpened pencil.

“I think I'll go upstairs till it's time,” she said.

“Oh, while you're up there, honey—”

“Yeah?” Gilly sprang to attention.

“Make the beds, will you? It does look messy to leave 'em unmade all day, and I'm not much on running up and down the stairs.”

Gilly banged the door to her room for all she was worth. She spit every obscenity she'd ever heard through her teeth, but it wasn't enough. That ignorant hippopotamus! That walrus-faced imbecile! That—that—oh, the devil—Trotter wouldn't even let a drop fall from her precious William Ernest baby's nose, but she would let Gilly go to school—a new school where she didn't know anybody—looking like a scarecrow. Miss Ellis would surely hear about this. Gilly slammed her fist into her pillow. There had to be a law against foster mothers who showed such gross favoritism.

Well, she would show that lard can a thing or two. She yanked open the left top drawer, pulling out a broken comb, which she viciously jerked through the wilderness on her head, only to be defeated by a patch of bubble gum. She ran into the bathroom and rummaged through the medicine chest until she found a pair of nail scissors with which to chop out the offending hair. When despite her assault by comb and scissors a few strands refused to lie down meekly, she soaked them mercilessly into submission. She'd show the world. She'd show them who Galadriel Hopkins was—she was not to be trifled with.

I see they call you Gilly,” said Mr. Evans, the principal.

“I can't even pronounce the poor child's real name,” said Trotter, chuckling in what she must believe was a friendly manner.

It didn't help Gilly's mood. She was still seething over the hair combing.

“Well, Gilly's a fine name,” said Mr. Evans, which confirmed to Gilly that at school, too, she was fated to be surrounded by fools.

The principal was studying records that must have been sent over from Gilly's former school, Hollywood Gardens Elementary. He coughed several times. “Well,” he said, “I think this young lady needs to be in a class that will challenge her.”

“She's plenty smart, if that's what you mean.”

Trotter, you dummy. How do you know how smart I am? You never laid eyes on me until yesterday.

“I'm going to put you into Miss Harris's class. We have some departmentalization in the sixth grade, but…”

“You got
what
in the sixth grade?”

Oh, Trotter, shut your fool mouth.

But the principal didn't seem to notice what a dope Trotter was. He explained patiently how some of the sixth-grade classes moved around for math and reading and science, but Miss Harris kept the same group all day.

What a blinking bore.

They went up three flights of ancient stairway to Miss Harris's room slowly, so that Trotter would not collapse. The corridors stank of oiled floors and cafeteria soup. Gilly had thought she hated all schools so much that they no longer could pain or disappoint her, but she felt heavier with each step—like a condemned prisoner walking an endless last mile.

They paused before the door marked “Harris-6.” Mr. Evans knocked, and a tall tea-colored woman, crowned with a bush of black hair, opened the door. She smiled down on the three of them, because she was even taller than the principal.

Gilly shrank back, bumping into Trotter's huge breast, which made her jump forward again quickly. God, on top of everything else, the teacher was black.

No one seemed to take notice of her reaction, unless you counted a flash of brightness in Miss Harris's dark eyes.

Trotter patted Gilly's arm, murmured something that ended in “honey,” and then she and the principal floated backward, closing Gilly into Harris-6. The teacher led her to an empty desk in the middle of the classroom, asked for Gilly's jacket, which she handed over to another girl to hang on the coatrack at the back of the room. She directed Gilly to sit down, and then went up and settled herself at the large teacher's desk to glance through the handful of papers Mr. Evans had given her.

In a moment she looked up, a warm smile lighting her face. “Galadriel Hopkins. What a beautiful name! From Tolkien, of course.”

“No,” muttered Gilly. “Hollywood Gardens.”

Miss Harris laughed a sort of golden laugh. “No, I mean your name—Galadriel. It's the name of a great queen in a book by a man named Tolkien. But, of course, you know that.”

Hell. No one had ever told her that her name came from a book. Should she pretend she knew all about it or play dumb?

“I'd like to call you Galadriel, if you don't mind. It's such a lovely name.”

“No!” Everyone was looking at Gilly peculiarly. She must have yelled louder than she intended to. “I would prefer,” she said tightly, “to be called Gilly.”

“Yes”—Miss Harris's voice was more steel than gold now—“Yes. Gilly, it is then. Well”—she turned her smile on the rest of the class—“Where were we?”

The clamor of their answers clashed in Gilly's brain. She started to put her head down on the desk, but someone was shoving a book into her face.

It wasn't fair—nothing was fair. She had once seen a picture in an old book of a red fox on a high rock surrounded by snarling dogs. It was like that. She was smarter than all of them, but they were too many. They had her surrounded, and in their stupid ways, they were determined to wear her down.

Miss Harris was leaning over her. Gilly pulled away as far as she could.

“Did you do division with fractions at Hollywood Gardens?”

Gilly shook her head. Inside she seethed. It was bad enough having to come to this broken-down old school but to be behind—to seem dumber than the rest of the kids—to have to appear a fool in front of…. Almost half the class was black. And she would look dumb to
them
. A bunch of—

“Why don't you bring your chair up to my desk, and we'll work on it?”

Gilly snatched up her chair and beat Miss Harris to the front of the room. She'd show them!

At recesstime Monica Bradley, one of the other white girls in the class, was supposed to look after her on the playground. But Monica was more interested in leaning against the building and talking with her friends, which she did, keeping her back toward Gilly as she giggled and gossiped with two other sixth-grade girls, one of whom was black with millions of tiny braids all over her head. Like some African bushwoman. Not that Gilly cared. Why should she? They could giggle their stupid lives away, and she'd never let it bother her. She turned her back on them. That would show them.

Just then a ball jerked loose from the basketball game nearby and rushed toward her. She grabbed it. Balls were friends. She hugged it and ran over to the basket and threw it up, but she had been in too much of a hurry. It kissed the rim but refused to go in for her. Angrily she jumped and caught it before it bounced. She was dimly aware of a protest from the players, but they were boys and mostly shorter than she, so not worthy of notice. She shot again, this time with care. It arched and sank cleanly. She pushed someone out of the way and grabbed it just below the net.

“Hey! Who you think you are?”

One of the boys, a black as tall as she, tried to pull the ball from her hands. She spun around, knocking him to the concrete, and shot again, banking the ball off the backboard neatly into the net. She grabbed it once more.

Now all the boys were after her. She began to run across the playground laughing and clutching the ball to her chest. She could hear the boys screaming behind her, but she was too fast for them. She ran in and out of hopscotch games and right through a jump rope, all the way back to the basketball post where she shot again, missing wildly in her glee.

The boys did not watch for the rebound. They leaped upon her. She was on her back, scratching and kicking for all she was worth. They were yelping like hurt puppies.

“Hey! Hey! What's going on here?”

Miss Harris towered above them. The fighting evaporated under her glare. She marched all seven of them to the principal's office. Gilly noted with satisfaction a long red line down the tall boy's cheek. She'd actually drawn blood in the fracas. The boys looked a lot worse than she felt. Six to one—pretty good odds even for the great Gilly Hopkins.

Mr. Evans lectured the boys about fighting on the playground and then sent them back to their homerooms. He kept Gilly longer.

“Gilly.” He said her name as though it were a whole sentence by itself. Then he just sat back in his chair, his fingertips pressed together, and looked at her.

She smoothed her hair and waited, staring him in the eye. People hated that—you staring them down as though they were the ones who had been bad. They didn't know how to deal with it. Sure enough. The principal looked away first.

“Would you like to sit down?”

She jerked her head No.

He coughed. “I would rather for us to be friends.”

Gilly smirked.

“We're not going to have fighting on the playground.” He looked directly at her. “Or anywhere else around here. I think you need to understand that, Gilly.”

She tilted her head sassily and kept her eyes right on his.

“You're at a new school now. You have a chance to—uh—make a new start. If you want to.”

So Hollywood Gardens had warned him, eh? Well, so what? The people here would have learned soon enough. Gilly would have made sure of that.

She smiled what she knew to be her most menacing smile.

“If there's anyway I can help you—if you just feel like talking to somebody….”

Not one of those understanding adults. Deliver me! She smiled so hard it stretched the muscles around her eyes. “I'm OK,” she said. “I don't need any help.”

“If you don't want help, there's no way I can make you accept it. But, Gilly”—he leaned forward in his chair and spoke very slowly and softly—“you're not going to be permitted to hurt other people.”

She snuffled loudly. Cute. Very cute.

He leaned back; she thought she heard him sigh. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”

Gilly wiped her nose on the back of her hand. She saw the principal half reach for his box of tissues and then pull his hand back.

“You may go back to your class now.” She turned to go. “I hope you'll give yourself—and us—a chance, Gilly.”

She ignored the remark. Nice, she thought, climbing the dark stairs. Only a half day and already the principal was yo-yoing. Give her a week, boy. A week and she'd have the whole cussed place in an uproar. But this afternoon, she'd cool it a little. Let them worry. Then tomorrow or maybe even the next day,
Wham
. She felt her old powers returning. She was no longer tired.

S
he met Agnes Stokes the next day at recess. Agnes was a shriveled-up-looking little sixth grader from another class. She had long red hair that fell rather greasily to her waist, and when she sidled up to Gilly on the playground, the first thing Gilly noticed was how dirty her fingernails were.

“I know who you are,” the girl said. For a moment Gilly was reminded of the story of Rumpelstiltskin. Like that little creature, this girl had power over her. She knew who Gilly was, but Gilly didn't know who she was.

“Yeah?” said Gilly to let the evil little dwarf know that she wasn't interested.

“That was great about you beating up six boys yesterday.”

“Yeah?” Gilly couldn't help but be a little interested.

“It's all over the school.”

“So?”

“So.” The girl leaned against the building beside her, as though assuming Gilly would be pleased with her company.

“So?”

The girl twitched her freckled nose. “I thought me and you should get together.”

“How come?” Rumpelstiltskins were always after something.

“No reason.” The smaller girl had on a jacket the sleeves of which were so long that they came down to her knuckles. She began to roll up first her left sleeve and then her right. She did it slowly and silently, as though it were part of some ceremony. It gave Gilly the creeps.

“What's your name?” Gilly blurted out the question, half expecting the girl to refuse to answer.

“Agnes Stokes”—she lowered her voice conspiratorily—“You can call me Ag.”

Big deal. She was glad when the bell rang, and she could leave Agnes Stokes behind. But when she left school that afternoon, Agnes slipped out from the corner of the building and fell in step with her.

“Wanta come over?” she asked. “My grandma won't care.”

“Can't.” Gilly had no intention of going into Agnes Stokes's house until she found out what Agnes Stokes was up to. People like Agnes Stokes didn't try to make friends without a reason.

She walked faster, but Agnes kept up with funny, little skip steps. When they got all the way up the hill to Trotter's house, Agnes actually started up the walk after Gilly.