The Great Gilly Hopkins

“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.

WILLIAM ERNEST AND OTHER MEAN FLOWERS

Agnes 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 unwrappe