Vinegar Girl (Hogarth Shakespeare)(5)

In her coed dorm back in college she had once been drawn into a game of chess in the common room. Kate was not very good at chess, but she was an audacious player, reckless and unorthodox, and she managed to keep her opponent on the defensive for some time. A small crowd of her dorm mates gathered around the board to watch, but Kate paid them no attention until she overheard what the boy behind her whispered to someone standing next to him. “She has. No. Plan,” he whispered. Which was true, in fact. And she lost the game shortly thereafter.

She thought of that remark often now, walking to school every morning. Helping children out of their boots, scraping Play-Doh from under their nails, plastering Band-Aids onto their knees. Helping them back into their boots.

She has. No. Plan.

—

Lunch was noodles with tomato sauce. As usual, Kate headed one table and Mrs. Chauncey the other, on the other side of the lunchroom, with the class divided between them. Before the children took their seats they had to hold up their hands, fronts first and then backs, for Kate or Mrs. Chauncey to inspect. Then they all sat down and Mrs. Chauncey dinged her milk glass with her fork and called out, “Blessing time!” The children ducked their heads. “Dear Lord,” Mrs. Chauncey said in a ringing voice, “thank you for the gift of this food and for these fresh sweet faces. Amen.”

The children at Kate’s table bobbed up instantly. “Kate had her eyes open,” Chloe told the others.

Kate said, “So? What of it, Miss Holy One?”

This made the Samson twins giggle. “Miss Holy One,” David repeated to himself, as if memorizing the words for future use.

“If you open your eyes during blessing,” Chloe said, “God will think you’re not grateful.”

“Well, I’m not grateful,” Kate said. “I don’t like pasta.”

There was a shocked silence.

“How could you not like pasta?” Jason asked finally.

“It smells like wet dog,” Kate told him. “Haven’t you noticed?”

“Eew!” everyone said.

They lowered their faces to their plates and took a sniff.

“Right?” Kate asked.

They looked at one another.

“It does,” Jason said.

“Like they put my dog Fritz in a big old crab pot and cooked him,” Antwan said.

“Eew!”

“But the carrots seem okay,” Kate said. She was beginning to be sorry she’d started this. “Go ahead and eat, everybody.”

A couple of children picked up their forks. Most didn’t.

Kate dipped a hand in her jeans pocket and brought forth a strip of beef jerky. She always carried beef jerky in case lunch didn’t work out; she was a picky eater. She tore off a piece with her teeth and started chewing it. Luckily, none of the children liked beef jerky except for Emma W., who was plowing ahead with her pasta, so Kate didn’t have to share.

“Happy Monday, boys and girls!” Mrs. Darling said, pegging up to their table on her aluminum cane. She made a point of stepping into the lunchroom at some point during each group’s mealtime, and she always managed to work the day of the week into her greeting.

“Happy Monday, Mrs. Darling,” the children murmured, while Kate surreptitiously shifted her mouthful of beef jerky into the pocket of her left cheek.

“Why are so few people eating?” Mrs. Darling asked. (Nothing escaped her.) “The noodles smell like wet dog,” Chloe said.

“Like what? My goodness!” Mrs. Darling pressed one wrinkled, speckled hand to her pouchy bosom. “It sounds to me as if you’re forgetting the Something Nice rule,” she said. “Children? Who can tell me what the Something Nice rule is?”

Nobody spoke.

“Jason?”

“?‘If you can’t say something nice,’?” Jason mumbled, “?‘don’t say nothing at all.’?”

“?‘Don’t say anything at all.’ That’s right. Can somebody say something nice about our lunch today?”

Silence.

“Miss Kate? Can you say something nice?”

“Well, it’s certainly…shiny,” Kate said.

Mrs. Darling gave her a long, level look, but all she said was “All right, children. Have a good lunch.” And she clomped off toward Mrs. Chauncey’s table.

“It’s as shiny as a shiny wet dog,” Kate whispered to the children.

They went into shrieks of laughter. Mrs. Darling paused and then pivoted on her cane.

“Oh, by the way, Miss Kate,” she said, “could you stop in at my office during Quiet Rest Time today?”

“Sure,” Kate said.

She swallowed her mouthful of beef jerky.

The children turned to her with their eyes very large. Even four-year-olds knew that being called to the office was not a good thing.

“We like you,” Jason told her after a moment.

“Thanks, Jason.”

“When me and my brother grow up,” David Samson said, “we’re going to marry you.”

“Well, thank you.”

Then she clapped her hands and said, “Know what? Dessert today is cookie dough ice cream.”

The children made little “Mm” sounds, but their expressions remained worried.

—