And both were young

by Madeleine L'Engle

"Washed behind your ears?"

"Yes." Flip was outraged that Miss Tulip should ask her such a baby's question. But Miss Tulip with another brisk nod bounced out as cheerfully as she had entered. Flip stepped out of the tub and started to dry herself.

6

They were supposed to start hockey but it rained and Flip's class had relay races in the big gym at the other end of the playing fields from the school. The gym had once been the hotel garage but now it was full of bars and rings and leather horses and an indoor basket ball court where the class above Flip's was playing. Erna and a Norwegian girl, Solvei Krogstad, were captains. Erna chose Jackie, then dutifully chose Gloria and Flip. It was to be a simple relay race. The girls were to run with a small stick to the foot of the gym and back, putting the stick into the hand of the next girl. Flip was fifth in line, following Gloria.

Gloria ran like a streak of lightning. Sally Buckman, the girl behind Flip, was jumping up and down, shrieking, "Keep it up, Glory! Oh, Glory, swell!" She looked like a very excited pug dog.

Gloria snapped the stick smartly into Flip's fingers but Flip fumbled and dropped it. Sally groaned. Flip picked up the stick and started to run. She ran as fast as she could. But her knee seemed stiffer than it ever had before and her legs were so long that she had no control of them and her feet kept getting in their own way. She heard the girls screaming, "Run, Philippa, run, can't you!" Now she had reached the end of the gym and she turned around and started the long way back to Sally Buckman. The girls were jumping up and down in agony and their shouts were angry and despairing. "Oh, Philippa! Oh, Philippa, run!"

Panting, her throat dry and aching, she thrust the stick into Sally's hand, and limped to the back of the line.

After gym she locked herself in the bathroom and read again the letter from her father which had come in the morning's mail. It was a gay, funny letter, full of little sketches. She answered it during study hall, hoping that the teacher in charge would not notice. She drew him a funny picture of Miss Tulip, and little sketches of her roommates and some of the other girls. She told him that the food wasn't very good. Too many boiled potatoes. And the bread was doughy and you could almost use it for modelling clay. But maybe it would help her get fat. She did not tell him that she was homesick and miserable. She could not make him unhappy by letting him know what a terrible coward she was. She looked around at the other girls in the study hall, Sally chewing her pencil, Esmée twisting a strand of hair around and around her finger, Gloria muttering Latin verbs under her breath.

Gloria had whispered to her that the teacher taking Study Hall was the Art teacher. Her name was Madame Perceval, and she was Mlle. Dragonet's niece. The girls called her Percy, and although she had a reputation for being strict, she was very popular. Flip stared at her surreptitiously, hoping that she wouldn't be as dull and unsympathetic as the art teacher in her school in New York. She had finished her lessons early and now that she had written her letter to her father she did not know what to do. She thought that Madame Perceval looked younger and somehow more alive than the other teachers. "I wonder where her husband is?" Gloria had whispered. "Jackie says nobody knows, not even Esmée. She says everybody thinks there's some sort of mystery about Percy. I say, isn't it glamorous! I can't wait for the first Art lesson."

Madame Perceval had thick brown hair, the color of well-polished mahogany. It was curly and quite short and brushed back carelessly from her face. Her skin was burnished, as though she spent a great deal of time out of doors, and her eyes were grey with golden specks. Flip noticed that Study Hall tonight was much quieter than it had been the other nights with other teachers in charge.