Ruby (Landry 1)

I wondered what I should do and decided to go to the library to pick out a book and spend the day reading until my art instructor arrived. I was flipping through the pages of a book when I heard Daphne scream from the top of the stairs.

"Ruby!"

I put the book back and hurried to the doorway. "RUBY!"

"Yes?"

"Get up here this instant," she demanded.

Oh, no, I thought, she's discovered Gisselle's condition and wants to hear the whole story. What was I going to do? How would I protect Gisselle and not lie? When I reached the top of the stairway, I looked across the hallway and saw that the door to my room was wide open and Daphne was standing in my room and not in Gisselle's. I approached slowly.

"Get in here," she commanded. I stepped through the doorway. She was standing with her arms folded tightly under her bosom, her back straight, and her shoulders up. The skin around her chin was so taut, it looked like it might tear. "I know why Gisselle can't get up," she said. "You two were just talking last night?"

I didn't reply.

"Humph," she said, and then extended her right arm and pointed at my closet. "What is that in your closet on the floor? What is it?" she shrieked when I didn't respond quickly enough.

"A bottle of rum."

"A bottle of rum," she said, nodding, "that you took from our liquor cabinet."

I looked up quickly and started to shake my head.

"Don't deny it. Gisselle has confessed everything. . . how you talked her into taking the rum outside and showed her how to mix it with Coke."

My mouth gaped open.

"What else went on? What did you do with Martin Fowler?" she demanded.

"Nothing," I said. Her eyes grew smaller and she kept nodding as if she heard a string of sentences in her own mind that confirmed some horrible suspicions.

"I told Pierre last night that you had different values, that you grew up in a world so unlike ours, it would be difficult, if not next to impossible, and I told him you could corrupt Gisselle and influence her more than she would influence you. Don't try to deny anything," she snapped when my lips opened. "I was a young girl once. I know the temptations and how easy it is for someone to influence you and get you to do forbidden things."

She shook her head at me.

"And after we were so nice to you, welcoming you into our home, accepting you, with me devoting so much of my time to setting you up properly. . why is it you people have no sense of decency, no sense of responsibility? Is it in your blood?"

"That's not true. None of this is true," I wailed.

"Please," she said, closing and opening her eyes. "You're cunning. You've been brought up to be shrewd, just like gypsies. Now take this bottle of rum back down to the liquor cabinet."

"I don't even know where that is," I said.

"I'm not going to waste any more of my time on this. It's upset my breakfast and my day as it is. Do it and don't ever do this again. Your father will hear about this, I assure you," she added, and marched past me.

The tears that were burning behind my eyelids broke free and zigzagged down my cheeks to my chin. I went to the closet and picked up the basket. Then / went next door, barging into Gisselle's room. She was taking a shower and singing. I stomped into the bathroom and screamed at her through the glass door.

"What?" she back, pretending she couldn't hear me. "What?"

"How could you lie and put the blame on me?"

"Wait a minute," she cried, and rinsed her hair before shutting off the water. "Hand me my towel, please," she said. I put the basket down on the counter and got her her towel. "Now, what is it?"

"You told Daphne I was the one who took the bottle of rum," I said. "How could you?"

"Oh, I had to, Ruby. Please don't be mad. I got into trouble about a month ago when I came home very late with whiskey on my breath. I was almost grounded then. She surely would have grounded me now."

"But you blamed me! Now she thinks terrible things about me!"