The Great Gilly Hopkins

“She does want me. She said so!”

“Then why hasn’t she come to get you?” A hard edge had come into Miss Ellis’s voice, and her eyebrows were twitching madly. “It’s been over eight years, Gilly. Even when she lived close by, she never came to see you.”

“It’s different now!”—wasn’t it?—“She’s gonna come! She really wants me!”—didn’t she?

Trotter came over to her and laid her arm heavily on Gilly’s shoulder. “If she knowed you—if she just knowed what a girl she has—she’d be here in a minute.”

Oh, Trotter, don’t be a fool. If she knew what I was like, she’d never come. It takes someone stupid like you—Gilly removed herself gently from under the weighty embrace and addressed herself to Miss Ellis, eye to eyebrow.

“Till she comes…till she comes for me, I guess I’ll just stay here.”

Trotter wiped her face with her big hand and snuffled. “Well, I’m sure we’ll be seeing you sometime, Miz Ellis.”

The social worker wasn’t going to be swept out quite so easily. She set her feet apart as though fearing Trotter might try to remove her bodily and said, “Officer Rhine told me when he called that you had well over a hundred dollars with you last night.”

“Yeah?”

It came out sassy, but Miss Ellis just squinted her eyes and went on: “It’s hard to believe that it was all your money.”

“So?”

“So I call taking other people’s money stealing, Miss Hopkins.”

“Yeah?”

Trotter patted Gilly’s arm as if to shush her. “So do we, Miz Ellis. Surely you don’t think this is the first time something like this has happened to me over the last twenty years?”

“No, I know it’s not.”

“Then how ’bout trusting me to handle it?”

Miss Ellis shook her head and smoothed her pants suit down over her rump before she put on her coat. “I’ll be in close touch,” she said.

Trotter nearly shoved her out the front door. “We’re going to do just fine. Don’t worry your pretty little head about us, hear?”

“I get paid to worry, Mrs. Trotter.”

Trotter smiled impatiently and closed the door quickly. When she turned back toward Gilly, her face was like Mount Rushmore stone.

Gilly blinked in surprise at the sudden and absolute change.

“I don’t take lightly to stealing, you know.”

Gilly nodded. No use pretending sassiness.

“I figure that money ain’t all mine, right?”

“No.”

“Well, where’d you get it?”

“I found it,” said Gilly softly.

Trotter came over and with two hands lifted Gilly’s face to look into her own. “Where did you get it, Gilly?”

“I found it behind some books next door.”

Trotter dropped her hands in disbelief. “You stole from Mr. Randolph?”