“Pow,” he said.
“Well, she sure got up and hightailed it when I come in and bulldozed poor Gilly clean through the carpet.” Trotter snickered. “I reckon she thought she was fixing to be next.”
“What you do?” asked W. E.
“I fell smack down on Gilly and couldn’t get back up for the life of me.”
Mr. Randolph was giggling. “I was awakened by a terrible crash. I came as fast as I could….”
“Then all you could hear was this little squeak, “Roll off me, Trotter. Roll off me!’” Trotter repeated herself getting nearer to hysterics with each repetition. “Roll off me!’”
“Did you roll off her?”
“Mercy, boy, it weren’t that easy. I huffed and I puffed…”
“And you blew the house down!” William Ernest pounded the table, and they all laughed until the tears came, taking turns to cry out, “Roll off me!” and “Not by the hair of my chinny-chin-chin!”
“Roll off me!” was not what Gilly remembered saying, but it didn’t matter. It was so good to have them all well, laughing, and eating together. Besides, in their merriment, the little gray-haired lady had slipped from their thoughts.
But Monday came, and the long holiday weekend was over. Gilly, armed with an absence excuse that looked more like a commendation for bravery in battle, and William Ernest, cheerful but pale, went back to school. Mr. Randolph moved home again, and Trotter, taking time to rest every few minutes, began to straighten up the house. And, as Gilly learned later, by the time Miss Ellis reached her desk at twelve after nine, there was already a note upon it directing her to call a Mrs. Rutherford Hopkins in Loudoun County, Virginia.
Gilly had waited after school at William Ernest’s classroom door. She didn’t want him taking on any fights while he was still wobbly from the flu, and she knew, with her reputation, that no one would sneeze in his direction, if he were walking with her.
Agnes Stokes danced along beside them, trying to entice Gilly to join her in a trip to the deli, but Gilly was too intent on getting W.E. home.
“Or we could go to my house and call people on the phone and breathe weird.”
“Come off it, Agnes. That is so dumb.”
“No, it really scares ’em. I’ve had ’em screaming all over the place at me.”
“It is dumb, Agnes. Dumb, dumb, dumb.”
“You always say that when you don’t think it up yourself.”
“Right. I don’t think up dumb things.”
“C’mon, Gilly. Let’s do something. You ain’t done nothing with me for a long time.”
“My family’s been sick.”
Agnes sneered. “What family? Everybody knows…”
“My brother.” At this William Ernest raised his head up proudly. “My mother. And my—uncle.”
“Gilly Hopkins. That is the dumbest idea…”
Gilly spun around and jammed her nose down onto Agnes’s face, her mouth going sideways and narrow exactly like Humphrey Bogart’s on TV. “You want to discuss this further—sweetheart?”
Agnes backed up. “It’s too dumb to talk about even,” she said, still backing. “Really dumb.”
William Ernest slid close to Gilly so they couldn’t help touching as they walked. “Bet I could beat her up,” he whispered.
“Yeah,” Gilly said. “But don’t bother. Hell, it wouldn’t be fair. You against that poor little puny thing.”
Trotter was at the door, opening it before they reached the porch. Gilly went cold. You could tell something was badly wrong by the way the woman’s smile twisted and her body sagged.
Sure enough. Miss Ellis was sitting on the brown chair. This time the two women had not been fighting, just waiting for her. Gilly’s heart gave a little spurt and flopped over like a dud rocket. She sat down quickly on the couch and hugged herself to keep from shaking.