Aggie Lou folded her body half out of the sunshiny window and called, “Clarisse, come up!”
“Why weren’t you in school?” cried Clarisse, perturbed that her life opponent should be bedded down and taking it easy away from the grim school life.
“Come up and find out!” replied Aggie Lou, flopping back into bed.
Clarisse came upstairs quickly, a strap of books pendulumming in one grubby fist.
Aggie Lou lay back, eyes closed, pleased with herself. “I got something you ain’t got,” she revealed.
“What?” asked Clarisse suspiciously.
“Maybe I’ll tell, maybe I won’t,” said Aggie Lou, lazily.
“I gotta go home and eat,” said Clarisse, not taken in by this strategy.
“Then you’ll never know what I got,” said Aggie Lou.
“Well, what is it?” shouted Clarisse, scowling.
“Bacteria,” announced Aggie Lou proudly.
Clarisse’s eyebrows went down. “What?”
“Bacteria. Microbes. Germs!”
“Oh, poo!” Clarisse swung her books carelessly. “Everybody’s got germs. I got germs, too. Looky.” She displayed ten fingers, equally begrubbed and the furthest state from antiseptic.
“That’s on the outside,” criticized Aggie Lou. “I got my germs on the inside, where it counts!”
Clarisse was finally impressed. “Inside?”
&nbs
p; “They’re running around all over my machine, Dad says. Dad smiles funny when he says it. So does the doctor. They say I got them all over my lungs, having a regular picnic.”
Clarisse looked at her as if she were some black-braided saint glowing in holy repose upon crisp linen. “Lordy.”
“The doctor took some of my germs and put them under one of them seeing things and they ran around playing cops and robbers under his eyes. So there!”
Clarisse had to sit down. Her face was a little pale and flushed at the same time. It was easy to see that Aggie Lou’s triumph had made inroads upon her peace of mind. This particular triumph was much bigger than Clarisse’s Monarch butterfly which she had captured with a piggy squeal in her back yard last week and taunted Aggie Lou with. It was even the next size triumph over Clarisse’s party dress, which was all ruffles and pink roses and ribbons. It was a factor over and above Clarisse’s Uncle Peter who spat brown spit from a toothless mouth and had one wooden leg. Germs. Real germs, inside!
“So,” finished Aggie Lou, controlling her triumph with admirable calm, “I won’t go to school ever again. I won’t have to learn arithmetic or anything!”
Clarisse sat there, defeated.
“And that ain’t all,” said Aggie Lou, holding back the best thing for the last.
“What else?” demanded Clarisse harshly.
Aggie Lou looked about her bedroom quietly, settling back and worming into the blankets warm and nice. Then she said, “I’m going to die.”
Clarisse leaped from her chair, hair bouncing in blonde startlement. “What?”
“Yes. I’m going to die.” Aggie Lou smiled gravely. “So there, Smarty!”
“Oh, Aggie Lou, you’re lying! You’re a dirty fibber!”
“I’m not either! You just ask Mama or Papa or Doctor Nielson! They’ll tell you! I’m going to die. And I’m going to have the nicest coffin ever. Dad said so. You should see Dad when he talks to me. Sometimes he comes in late at night and sits here, where you’re sitting, and holds my hand. I can’t see him very well, except his eyes. They’re funny. He says lots of things. He says I’ll have a coffin plated with gold, and satin inside, a regular doll house. He says I’ll have dolls to play with. He says he’s buying me some land of my own for my doll house where I can play all by myself, Smarty. It’ll be on a hill where I can own the whole world just by looking at it, Dad said it, too. And, and, and I’ll just play with my dolls and look pretty. I’m going to have a green party dress like yours, and a Monarch butterfly, and better than your Uncle Peter I’ll have SAINT Peter for myself!”