“You’re a slacker,” Jacqueline retorted promptly. “Everybody hates a slacker. I was going to give you a birthday present, and something perfectly scrumptious at Christmas, but I never will now—never—never!”
To emphasize the threat, she banged down the heavy milk pitcher on the tray, without noticing that the tray overhung the edge of the table perilously. There was a tilt—a sickening slide and crash—then plates, glasses, broken food, spilled milk lay all in a mess at Jacqueline’s feet, and among the débris, shattered to bits, were the two green-dragon cups and saucers of thin china.
Jacqueline felt the anger ooze out of her. She stared at the wreckage, conscience-smitten. Neil sat up and looked at her.
“You’ve done it now!” he said.
“I don’t care!” Jacqueline flung at him the first words that came. She had to say something, or she would have burst out crying.
“Caroline!” spoke Aunt Martha’s voice. She stood there in the room, with her tanned face really white round the lips. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone and broken Grandma’s cups!”
“Nothing but two old cups!” Jacqueline almost sobbed.
Aunt Martha did not seem to hear her. She went down on her knees and groped among the fragments for bits of the shattered green-dragon china. Her hands fairly shook as she gathered them up.
“They are all that was left of her wedding china,” she said, more to herself than to the startled children. “We ought not to have used them common—but she didn’t relish her tea in a thick cup—and she wouldn’t drink from china while I drank out of kitchen ware. No, I can’t mend ’em, ever. They’re smashed to smithereens.”
“I don’t care—I don’t care!” Jacqueline screamed across the awful lump in her throat that was choking her. “I hate this house—and I hate you all—and I’m never coming back again!”