That morning, they were reading with the metronome—the old familiar trick—when Penny got up for a thesaurus. Next, she was shaken awake.
“Miss,” said Jodie Etchells, “Miss,” and “Miss!”
Penny came to, she looked in her face, and the book a few meters away. Poor young Jodie Etchells. She seemed near to collapsing herself.
“Are you okay, Miss, are you okay?”
Her teeth were perfectly paved.
Penelope tried reaching over, but her arm was somehow confused.
“I’m fine, Jodie,” and she should have sent her out, for help, or a drink of water, or anything to at least distract her. Instead, though—and talk about typical Penny—she said, “Open up that book, okay, and look up, let’s see, how about cheerful? Or gloomy? Which would you prefer?”
The girl, her mouth and symmetry.
“Maybe cheerful,” she said, and read the alternatives aloud. “Happy…joyful…merry.”
“That’s good, very good.”
Her arm still wasn’t moving.
* * *
—
Then school, it came, a Friday.
I was taunted, by Hartnell and his mates:
There was piano and playing and poofter.
They were virtuosos of alliteration and didn’t know it.
Jimmy Hartnell had that fringe a little longer then—he was a few days shy of a haircut—and he’d leaned and muscled down. His mouth was small and slit-like, like a can just partly opened. It widened soon into a smile. I walked my way toward him, and found the courage to speak.
“I’ll fight you in the nets at lunch,” I said.
Best news he’d ever had.
* * *
—
Then to an afternoon:
As she often did, she read to those kids, as they waited for sight of the buses. This time it was The Odyssey. The chapter about the Cyclops.
There were boys and girls in green and white.
The usual foray of hairstyles.
As she read about Odysseus, and his trickery of the monster in his lair, the print swam over the page; her throat became the cave.
When she coughed she saw the blood.
It splashed down onto the paper.
She was strangely shocked by its redness; it was just so bright and brutal. Her next thought was back to the train, the first time she’d ever seen it; those titles typed in English.