One Although I didn't realize it, my troubles began when we moved to Portman Street, and I became a student in the Pearce Academy for Girls, the finest school in the town of Mount Pleasant, according to Father. I was shy, maybe even a little timid, and I had no idea how to make friends. In my old town, there were three girls my age living in my neighborhood, and I didn't remember making friends with them. We lived on the same street, and we were friends. It was as simple as that. But no girls lived on my new street, so when I walked into class on a sunny September day, I didn't know anyone. All I saw was a sea of white blouses, blue ties, and blue skirts. Row after row of them. I was too nervous to notice the faces, just the uniforms. Miss Harrison introduced me. "Girls, it's my pleasure to introduce Annie Browne, new to our school from the Fairfield Academy in Mount Holly. Please make her feel welcome in true Pearce fashion." I didn't smile for fear no one would smile back. With my head down, I took my seat, folded my hands on my desktop, and stared at the stack of books Miss Harrison gave me. World Geography, the biggest and thickest, was on the bottom. Weighing it down were five more books-- Sixth-Grade Arithmetic, Adventures in Reading Book II, Grammar Handbook, United States History, and A Girl's Treasury of Poetry, as well as a penmanship workbook. Miss Harrison began the morning exercises with the Lord's Prayer, but before we began the Pledge of Allegiance, she said, "Let us say a prayer for our boys overseas. May God bring them home safely from this terrible war." We bowed our heads, and I prayed especially hard for Uncle Paul, Mother's brother who was in France fighting the Germans. The newspapers were full of dreadful stories of trenches and poison gas and bombs and battles. I worried every day about my uncle. I wished President Wilson had never declared war, but Father said it was our duty to save Europe from Germany. I was glad he was too old to be drafted. After we pledged allegiance to the flag, we took our seats and Miss Harrison pulled down a large map of the world and quizzed us about the war. Tapping her pointer on northeast France, she asked what was happening there. I wasn't sure, so I lowered my head and prayed she wouldn't call on me. Plenty of hands shot into the air. Miss Harrison looked around the room and said, "Rosie O'Malley. Stand up and tell us what you know." A red-haired girl in the back row got to her feet. She had so many freckles you could hardly see her skin. She grinned at the girl who sat beside her. "That's the Argonne Forest," she told Miss Harrison. "We're fighting a big battle there against the dirty rotten Huns." Miss Harrison frowned. "Correct on location, Rosie, but I've told you before not to use slang. In this class, we speak formal English. Please repeat your answer, using appropriate terminology." Rosie shrugged. "All right. We're fighting the dirty Germans in the Argonne Forest, and I hope we kill every one of them." A low giggle spread through the room, and Miss Harrison frowned again. "Just answer, Rosie, without the adjective and your opinions." Rosie's face turned as red as her hair. "We're fighting the Germans in the Argonne Forest, but we all know they're dirty Huns. That's what everybody calls them. Huns, Krauts, Fritz, swine--why can't we say what they are?" "You may use crude language when you are not in school, Rosie, but in this room you will speak formally. Please see me after school." Rolling up the map with a snap, Miss Harrison told us to open our arithmetic books. Instead of giggles, I heard soft moans. Whether it was sympathy for Rosie or dread of arithmetic, I couldn't tell. Maybe both. After a lesson on changing fractions to percentages, we diagrammed long complex sentences that used up a whole page in my notebook and took a spelling test. Not too hard; I only missed two words out of twenty--a solid B. Father would ask why I missed two, of course, but Mother would say there was nothing wrong with a B. When Miss Harrison dismissed us for recess, I was happy to stretch my legs but worried about going outside to play with girls I didn't know. I walked to the cloakroom slowly, hoping the others had already gotten their coats and rushed to the playground. Only one girl remained. She had a pale, round face, and her blond hair was pulled tightly into French braids. She was taller than I was and heavier, not actually fat, but definitely not thin. When I reached for my sweater, she smiled at me, revealing a mouthful of the most crooked teeth I'd ever seen. "My name is Elsie Schneider," she said. "And we're going to be friends, Annie Browne. I knew it when I saw you come through the door." She grabbed my hand. Her skin was cold and damp, and I wanted to snatch my hand away and wipe it on my skirt. But that would have been rude, so I let her hold it. Elsie led me down the empty hall. "There's lots you need to know about this school," she said. "Things I wish somebody had told me when I started here last year." "It seems nice," I said. "As far as schools go," I added so she wouldn't think I was a goody-goody. "Nice?" Elsie laughed. "Just wait. You'll see. The girls here are all conceited snobs. They've already chosen who they want for friends. They didn't choose me, and they won't choose you, either." She squeezed my hand so hard it hurt and added, "But that's all right because we have each other." Pushing open a door, she stopped on the top step. Below us, the girls in our class played tag, jumped rope, and gathered in laughing groups. Of all the girls, Rosie laughed the loudest and talked the most. She was like a toy wound up too tight. She swung high and ran fast, and everyone followed her, doing what she did, and calling "Rosie, wait." "Rosie, I'll share my cookies with you if you sit next to me at lunch." "No, sit next to me, and I'll give you my cupcake, devil's food with chocolate icing." "Rosie, come to the sweet shop after school, and I'll buy you a peppermint stick." Rosie never said yes or no. She laughed and kept going as if she was waiting for the best offer. Elsie made a face. "And that girl, Rosie O'Malley, is the worst one of all. You saw how rude she was to Miss Harrison. She's absolutely awful. I hate her. Don't you?" "I don't even know her." In my eyes, Rosie was exciting, a girl who did things and had lots of friends. She was much more interesting than Elsie, but I certainly wasn't ready to say that and risk losing the only friend I'd made so far. "Do you want to play hopscotch or swing or anything?" I asked Elsie. It seemed to me some of the girls had noticed us standing apart. A few whispered among themselves, looked at Elsie and me, and laughed. I didn't like being stared at. I checked to see if my sweater was buttoned crooked. Maybe a shoelace was untied. Maybe my hair had a tangle Mother hadn't seen or I had jam on my mouth. In answer to my question, Elsie shook her head. "All the swings are taken. And I hate hopscotch, don't you? It's almost as stupid as jump rope and jacks. Baby stuff, I think." "Hopscotch is okay. You know, if there's nothing else to do." Here I was again, trying not to offend her. Why couldn't I speak up and say I loved hopscotch? Like jump rope and jacks, I was good at it. My friends at my old school called me the hopscotch queen. Elsie took my hand again. "Let's walk together, Annie." Conscious of being watched, I let her hold my hand and lead me down the steps. A group of girls thronged around us. Rosie grabbed Elsie's and my linked hands and held them up to show everyone. "Look," she shouted. "Fat Elsie has a girlfriend!" I snatched my hand away, but Rosie and everyone else laughed. One of Rosie's friends gave Elsie a little shove and looked at Rosie to see if she was impressed. "Better not make Fat Elsie mad," Rosie sneered. "She'll tell Miss Harrison." Someone began a chant, and the others took it up. Tattletale ate a snail, threw it up in the garbage pail. Elsie pulled me away. "Come on, Annie. Those girls aren't worth a wooden nickel. Who cares what they say? Not me." Trying to ignore the other girls, I walked away with Elsie. Whether or not she cared, I cared. Elsie pulled me closer. "I hate Rosie so much," she hissed in my ear. "Someday I'll get even with her. Just wait. You'll see." Behind us, the other girls chanted our names and laughed. "Elsie and Annie sitting in a tree, fat and ugly as they can be." When the bell rang, I was more than ready to join the line waiting to go back to our classroom. On my first day at Pearce, I'd made one friend and twenty enemies. Elsie and I took a place at the back of the line. Ahead of us, the other girls giggled and jostled one another until Miss Harrison pulled a whistle out of her coat pocket and blew a warning blast. Immediately the line straightened and everyone stopped giggling. Two by two, we walked quietly inside and took our seats without a sound. Everyone, that is, except Elsie. She stopped at Miss Harrison's desk and whispered a few words. Miss Harrison picked up her pencil and wrote something down. "You may take your seat now, Elsie," Miss Harrison said without looking up. "Yes, ma'am." Shooting a sly look at Rosie, Elsie sashayed to her seat and grinned at me. The dirty looks directed to Elsie shifted to me. The other girls were holding me to blame for whatever Elsie told Miss Harrison. "Tattletale, ate a snail," someone whispered behind me. My face burned with shame. I'd never tattled on anyone, not once in my whole life. I'd rather have had my tongue torn out than tell. It wasn't fair to lump me with Elsie. Those girls didn't even know me. "Before we open our readers," Miss Harrison said, "I must tell you that I expect you to exhibit the same good behavior on the playground as you do in the classroom. I will not tolerate name calling or teasing." What had Elsie told Miss Harrison? Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Rosie make a face at Elsie, carefully shielding herself from Miss Harrison's watchful eye. Someone giggled. Miss Harrison looked at Rosie, who sat with her hands folded primly on her desk. The rest of the day passed slowly. When the dismissal bell finally rang, my first thought was to escape from Elsie, but she was by my side before I had buttoned my sweater. As we left the classroom, Elsie paused in the doorway to take a quick look at Rosie, who was standing at the blackboard, her back to us, writing, I will use proper language in school. Her handwriting sloped upward and her letters were poorly formed, but maybe that was because she was in a hurry to finish. "I hope Miss Harrison makes her write it five hundred times," Elsie whispered. Miss Harrison had ears as sharp as her eyes. She gave Elsie and me an angry look, clearly warning us we'd be writing on the blackboard ourselves if we didn't leave at once. Rosie turned her head and made a face at us both. Once more, I was being blamed along with Elsie for things I hadn't done. As we walked down the school steps--it was against the rules to run, according to Elsie--she said, "You know what I think?" I shook my head. "Miss Harrison should make Rosie write it five thousand times and then erase it and tell her to start all over again, using her best handwriting instead of that scribble scrabble she's doing." Elsie smiled with so much glee I turned my head away. How was I to escape from her? Excerpted from One for Sorrow: A Ghost Story by Mary Downing Hahn All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
