"A farmer's daughter shouldn't be afraid of sitting on the grass," he added.
I did.
"So," he said. "Speaking of the truth-- now that we're alone, why don't you tell me what's really going on with you girls?"
"He asked you that?" Rose cried when I had returned and gotten them all together.
"Yes .."
"He really is quite an actor, our Howard Rockwell," Cinnamon said, her face full of fury. "I thought he bought my story hook. line, and sinker. He put on this big performance about how shocked and surprised he was that Honey would cheat on Chandler. He even said he thought you were the purest of heart. I feel like punching him in his perfect, handsome face."
"That's what he told me. too." I said. "When he asked me. I looked sharply at him and told him I didn't know what he meant."
"What did he do?" Ice asked.
"Laughed and said he would never believe I snuck out at night to meet some boy secretly and risk not only my position in the school but my relationship with Chandler. 'You're a one-boy girl. Honey,' he told me.
"Of course, he's right, and I couldn't deny it. He saw it clearly in my face.
" 'So what's going on?' he repeated and I got up quickly and ran from him, ran all the way back here.
"That should throw off all suspicion," Cinnamon muttered. "Smart."
"She didn't know what else to do," Rose said, coming to my defense. "I would have done the same thing, Honey."
"I would have kicked him," Ice claimed, but then looked at me and shrugged. "I don't know what I would have done. The thing is, what do we do now?" she asked, turning to Cinnamon.
"We could tell him you're pregnant." she replied.
"What? Why don't we tell him you're pregnant?" Ice countered.
"I'm only kidding. No matter who we claimed was pregnant, it would hold him off only a few months before he realized it wasn't so."
"Let's not tell him anything." Rose concluded. "-Why should we have to, just because he's
suspicious?"
"That will work all right if we don't go back up there," I said. "I thought we decided we wouldn't." Ice insisted.
"We didn't say that exactly." Rose reminded her. "Well, are we?"
No one answered for a moment.
"I can't believe she threatened to shave her head," I said.
"Again. You heard her. She's done that before." Rose said. "Gerta has no one to defend her. It's so sad."
"Her mother should be defending her." Cinnamon snapped.
"But she isn't, is she?" Rose countered.
"Mothers don't always stand up for their daughters." "I have trouble falling asleep now that I know
she's up there, locked in like that," I said.
"She's probably singing 'Short'nin Bread,' "
Rose mused with a smile.