‘ “That doesn’t matter,” Janie said. „You had no call to send him away.”
‘And I said, „Yeah. You better bring him back, but quick.”
‘Then she started to jump salty. „Among the many things I have taught you is, I am sure, not to dictate to your elders. Now then, you run along and get dressed for breakfast, and we’ll say no more about this.”
‘I told her, nice as I could, „Miss Kew, you’re going to wish you brought him back right now. But you’re going to bring him back soon. Or else.”
‘So then she got up out of her bed and ran us out of the room.’
I was quiet a while, and Stern asked, ‘What happened?’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘she brought him back.’ I laughed suddenly. ‘I guess it’s funny now, when you come to think of it. Nearly three months of us getting bossed around, and her ruling the roost, and then all of a sudden we lay down the law. We’d tried our best to be good according to her ideas, but, by God, that time she went too far. She got the treatment from the second she slammed her door on us. She had a big china pot under her bed, and it rose up in the air and smashed through her dresser mirror. Then one of the drawers in the dresser slid open and a glove come out of it and smacked her face.
‘She went to jump back on the bed and a whole section of plaster fell off the ceiling on to the bed. The water turned on in her little bathroom and the plug went in, and just about the time it began to overflow, all her clothes fell off their hooks. She went to run out of the room, but the door was stuck, and when she yanked on the handle it opened real quick and she spread out on the floor. The door slammed shut again and more plaster come down on her. Then we went back in and stood looking at her. She was crying. I hadn’t known till then that she could.
‘ “You going to get Baby back here?” I asked her.
‘She just lay there and cried. After a while she looked up at us. It was real pathetic. We helped her up and got her to a chair. She just looked at us for a while, and at the mirror, and at the busted ceiling, and then she whispered, „What happened? What happened?”