“I know who you are,” Billie said, friendly eyes on the sullen face of Edina Tooker. “I’m glad you introduced yourself. I was going to look you up, anyway.”
The sullen expression on Edina Tooker’s face did not lift. She regarded Billie suspiciously.
“What for?” she demanded. “So you could see what a freak I am and laugh at me behind my back?”
This accusation was almost too much for even Billie’s good nature. A sharp retort rose to her lips—but got no further. She realized in time how much this strange girl must have suffered to make her so bitter and resentful. She was showing tooth and claw because that was her only method of defense. Like some wild creature of the woods, she was backed up against a wall, unable to distinguish friend from foe, fighting valiantly and indiscriminately, fearing nothing but surrender.
Billie, holding a firm check upon her temper, replied gently:
“My main—in fact, my only idea in deciding to look you up was to see if I could help you.”
“Why should you think I needed help?” retorted Edina Tooker harshly. “I suppose you’d been hearin’ things about me—what a freak I am and all.”
“No one ever said you were a freak,” Billie pursued patiently. “But you were a new girl from a distant city and I thought you might be glad to have someone sort of—well, show you the ropes.”
The corners of Edina’s straight young mouth turned downward in a sneer.
“Sounds good, the way you tell it. But you can’t fool me. You’re all alike up to that school, with your highfallutin’ manners and uppity ways. You’d come to see me, yes, so that you could laugh at me and talk about me afterward. ‘Native,’ ‘barbarian,’ that’s a couple o’ the names I’ve heard your swell friends call me. Mebbe you could add some to the string.”