The Great Gilly Hopkins (5 page)

Cuckoo was right. “Wait a minute,” she muttered, turning the page.

She looked quickly at the next.

And the next—

She slammed the book shut. They were obviously trying to play a trick on her. Make her seem stupid. See, there was Mr. Randolph giggling to himself. “It's not in English!” she yelled. “You're just trying to make a fool of me.”

“No, no, Miss Gilly. Nobody's trying to make a fool of you. The real old English is at the front. Try over a way.”

“You want the Wordsworth one, Mr. Randolph?” asked Trotter. “Or do you have that by heart?”

“Both,” he said happily.

Trotter came over and leaned across Gilly, who was sitting on the piano bench. “I can find it,” said Gilly, pulling the book out of her reach. “Just tell me the name of it.”

“William Wordsworth,” said Mr. Randolph. “There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,…” He folded his small hands across his chest, his voice no longer pinched and polite, but soft and warm.

Gilly found the page and began to read:

She stopped a minute as though to listen to her own echo.

“It is not now…,” Mr. Randolph's velvet voice prompted her.

Leaning against the back of the chair, Mr. Randolph joined and with one voice they recited:

They continued to read that way. He would listen blissfully for a while and then join, turning her single voice into the sound of a choir.

She read:

And then together

“Trailing clouds of glory do we come.” The music of the words rolled up and burst across Gilly like waves upon a beach.

It was a long poem. Seven pages or so of small print. She couldn't understand really what it meant. But Mr. Randolph seemed to know each word, prompting her gently if she started to stumble on an unfamiliar one, and joining her, powerfully and musically, on his own favorite lines.

They chorused the final lines:

Mr. Randolph gave a long sigh. “Thank you, thank you,” he said softly.

“She's a handsome reader, all right.” Trotter was smiling proudly as though she might share the credit for Gilly's talent.

The smile irritated Gilly. She was a good reader because she had set her mind to be one. The minute that damn first-grade teacher had told Mrs. Dixon that she was afraid Gilly might be “slow,” Gilly had determined to make the old parrot choke on her crackers. And she had. By Christmastime she was reading circles around the whole snotty class. Not that it made any difference. The teacher, Mrs. Gorman, had then explained very carefully to Mrs. Dixon that she had twenty-five other children to look out for and that there was no way to set up a private reading time for one individual. Gilly would just have to learn some patience and cooperation. That was all.

“Well, what do you think of Mr. Wordsworth, Miss Gilly?” asked Mr. Randolph, interrupting her angry thoughts.

“Stupid,” she said to the memory of Mrs. Gorman rather than to him.

A look of pain crossed his face. “I suppose,” he said in his pinched, polite voice, “in just one reading, one might….”

“Like here”—Gilly now felt forced to justify an opinion which she didn't in the least hold—“like here at the end, ‘the meanest flower that blows.' What in the hell—what's that supposed to mean? Whoever heard of a ‘mean flower?'”

Mr. Randolph relaxed. “The word
mean
has more than one definition, Miss Gilly. Here the poet is talking about humility, lowliness, not”—he laughed softly—“not bad nature.”

Gilly flushed. “I never saw a flower blow, either.”

“Dandelions.” They all turned to look at William Ernest, not only startled by the seldom-heard sound of his voice, but by the fact that all three had forgotten that he was even in the room. There he sat, cross-legged on the floor at the end of the couch, a near-sighted guru, blinking behind his glasses.

“You hear that?” Trotter's voice boomed with triumph. “Dandelions? Ain't that the smartest thing you ever heard? Ain't it?”

W.E. ducked his head behind the cover of the couch arm.

“That is probably exactly the flower that Mr. Wordsworth meant,” Mr. Randolph said. “Surely it is the lowliest flower of all.”

“Meanest flower, there is,” agreed Trotter happily. “And they sure do blow, just like William Ernest says. They blow all over the place.” She turned toward Gilly as though for agreement, but at the sight of Gilly's face, the woman's smile stuck.

“Can I go now?” Gilly's voice was sharp like the jagged edge of a tin-can top.

Trotter nodded. “Sure,” she said quietly.

“I do appreciate more than you know—” but Gilly didn't wait to hear Mr. Randolph's appreciation. She ran up the stairs into her room. Behind the closed door, she pulled the two bills from her pocket, and lying on the bed, smoothed out the wrinkles. She would hide them beneath her underwear until she could figure out a better place, and tomorrow she would call the bus station and ask the price of a one-way ticket to San Francisco.

“I'm coming, Courtney,” she whispered. “Trailing clouds of glory as I come.”

It was only a matter of getting back into Mr. Randolph's house and getting the rest of the money. There was sure to be more.

A
gnes Stokes was waiting outside when she started for school the next morning. Gilly's first impulse was to turn around and go back into the house until Agnes had left, but it was too late. Agnes was already waving and yelling to her. What a creep! Gilly walked past her quickly without speaking. She could hear Agnes's little scurrying steps behind her; then there was a dirty hand on her arm.

Disgusted, Gilly shook it off.

Agnes's hand was gone, but she hooked her chin over Gilly's upper arm, her face twisted up to look Gilly in the face. Her breath smelled. “What are we going to do today?” she asked.

We? Are you kidding?

“Want to fight the boys again? I'll help.”

Gilly spun around and brought her nose down close to Agnes's stubby one. Ugh. “When are you gonna get it through that ant brain of yours that
I don't want help
?”

Agnes withdrew her nose and shook her greasy hair, but to Gilly's annoyance she clung like a louse nit, scurrying beside Gilly, two or three little steps to every one of Gilly's.

Though it was hard to ignore her the rest of the way to the school, Gilly managed by putting on her celebrity-in-a-parade face, staring glassy-eyed far into the crowd, blanking out everything within close range.

“I just live up the next block from you, you know.”

Thrillsville.

“I'll stop by for you every day, OK?”

The little jerk couldn't even figure out that she was being ignored.

Just as they reached the schoolyard, Agnes waved a large unwrapped piece of gum before Gilly's nose. “Want some bubble gum?”

Oh, what the heck. The queen had used Rumpelstiltskin, hadn't she? Agnes might come in handy some day. The trick was in knowing how to dispose of people when you were through with them, and Gilly had had plenty of practice performing that trick.

She took the gum without speaking. Agnes flushed with pleasure. “See that kid over by the fence? The one with the big nose? Her mother run away with a sailor last May.”

“So?”

Agnes put her hand up and whispered behind it. “My grandma says the whole family's nothing but trash.”

“Yeah?” Gilly smacked her gum noisily. “What's your grandma say about your family?”

Agnes went as stiff as a dried sponge. “Who's been telling lies about my family?”

“Lucky guess.”

“They're coming back. Both of them.”

“Sure.”

“Well, they are. Probably before Christmas.”

“OK, OK, I believe you.”

Agnes's eyes darted back and forth in their sockets, studying Gilly's expressionless face. “Are you making fun of me?” she asked finally.

“I wouldn't do that.”

Agnes's uncertainty wavered. “I know a lot more stuff,” she said. “You know—junk about people around here.”

“I bet you do, sweetheart.” Gilly carefully blew a mediumsized bubble, which popped dangerously close to Agnes's stringy red hair.

Agnes let out a sharp little laugh. “Watch it!” she said nervously. The first bell rang. “See you at recess?”

Gilly shrugged and headed for Harris 6. “Maybe,” she said.

Although a part of Gilly's head wanted to get on with her schemes of how to get Mr. Randolph's money, once she crossed the threshold of Harris 6, she forced herself to concentrate on her lessons. She had made up her mind that first day to pay attention in Miss Harris's class. She wasn't going to let a bunch of low-class idiots think they were smarter than she was. It was infuriating to find herself behind in almost every subject, but she knew that the fault lay in Hollywood Gardens Elementary and not in herself. She would work madly until she had not only caught up with but passed them all, and then she'd skid to a total halt. That kind of technique drove teachers wild. They took it personally when someone who could obviously run circles around the rest of the class completely refused to play the game. Yep. And in Miss Harris's case that was just how Gilly wanted it taken.

At lunchtime Agnes's class had gotten to the cafeteria first, so when Gilly left the line, Agnes was already seated and waved her over to her table. Gilly would have preferred to eat alone. Agnes wasn't the most appetizing luncheon companion, but since Gilly had decided Agnes might sometime come in handy, she might as well get used to her. She went over and sat down opposite Agnes, who smiled like a cartoon cat across the trays. “I get free lunch, too,” she said.

Gilly glared at her. Nobody was supposed to know who got free lunch and who didn't. So much for privacy. The first thing she was going to teach Agnes Stokes was when to keep her big mouth shut.

“You know, don't you, Agnes, it makes me sick just looking at you?”

Agnes gave her kicked-dog expression. “Wha'cha mean?”

“Nothing personal. You just make me sick—that's all.”

Agnes jerked the cafeteria bench closer to the table and started to roll up her dragging shirtsleeves.

“It's nothing personal,” Gilly continued. “In fact, you probably can't help it. I don't blame you. I'm just not going to put up with it.”

“Put up with what?”

Gilly leaned way across the table and right into Agnes's pink face. “Your big mouth!”

Agnes tilted backward to get her face out of Gilly's leering one. People were staring at them. They both straightened up, but Gilly kept the leer in place.

“I ain't got no big mouth,” Agnes said quietly.

“Then keep it shut. We wouldn't want what's left of your brains to trickle out.”

Agnes's mouth flew open and immediately slammed shut. She shrugged, gave an angry little sniff, and then began to eat her lunch.

Gilly paused to give a generous smile to the other people at the table while spreading her napkin delicately on her lap and picking up the milk carton with her pinky curled the way Mrs. Nevins used to do when she picked up her coffee cup.

After lunch she allowed Agnes to follow her around the playground like a stray puppy. Once Agnes ventured a tentative “Hey, Gil,” but Gilly spun around with such a frightening look that any further words withered.

And when Gilly left school, Agnes fell in behind her without a word. They marched up the hill, Agnes tripping along double time to keep up with Gilly's exaggerated strides. When they got to Trotter's, Gilly went in. As she was closing the dirty white picket gate behind her, Agnes touched her arm and handed her a note. It said: “When can I talk?”

Gilly smiled benignly. “We'll see,” she said. “We'll just see how it goes.”

Agnes opened her mouth like a starved baby bird, but she didn't give a chirp. Good bird. Gilly patted the skinny, freckled arm and swept up the walk into the house, leaving the open-mouthed fledgling outside the gate.

“Zat you, William Ernest, honey?”