"Is she?" Flip asked.
"Is she what?"
"A dragon."
"Old Dragonet? Oh, she's all right. Kind of standoffish. Doesn't fraternize much, if you know what I mean. But she's all right. Well, I've got to leave you now, but I'll see you later. You just knock."
And Flip was left standing in the empty corridor in front of the Dragon's door. She gave a final despairing glance at Erna's blue skirt disappearing around the curve of the stairs. Then she lifted her hand to knock because if her father was in there she didn't know how else to get to him. Besides, she didn't know what else to do. Erna had deserted her, and she would never have the courage to go back to the big crowded lounge or to try to find her room again, all alone. She tapped very gently, so gently that there was no response. She hugged herself in lonely misery.—Oh, please, she thought,—please, God, make me not be such a coward. It's awful to be such a coward. Mother always laughed at me and scolded me because I was such a coward. Please give me some gumption, quick, God, please.
Then she raised her hand and knocked. Mlle. Dragonet's voice called, "Come in."
4
The rest of the day had the strange turbulent, uncontrolled quality of a dream. She said good-bye to her father and Eunice in Mlle. Dragonet's office, and then she was swept along in a stream of girls through registration, signing for courses, dinner, prayers, a meeting of the new girls in the common room ... she thought that now she knew what the most unimportant little fish in a school of fishes must feel like caught in the current of a wild river. She sat that night, on her bed, her long legs looking longer than ever in peppermint candy striped pajamas, and watched her roommates. On the bureau beside the bed she had the package her father had left her as a going away present: sketching pads of various sizes, and a box of Eberhard Faber drawing pencils. There was also a bottle of Chanel No. 5 from Eunice which she had pushed aside.
"You'll have to take those downstairs tomorrow morning," Erna told her. "We aren't allowed things like that in our rooms. You can put it in your locker in the Common Room or on your shelf in the Class Room. They'll be marked with your number."
Flip felt that if she heard anything else about her number she would scream. She was accustomed to being a person, not a number; and she didn't feel like number 97 at all. But she just said, "Oh."