mimi blotted the page and closed her diary quickly at the first knock on the door of tumble inn. she felt her eyes with the back of her hand to be sure there was no trace of tears. never any time or privacy to do anything, be homesick, or tell all your troubles to your diary.
the last few days since mimi had been excused from gym because of her swollen nose, she had found time to get a few things done. she was up with all her notebooks; had clinched every word of her spanish vocabulary, and today had written the following in her diary. (mimi always considered her diary a person; a person to whom she told her secret joys and sorrows.)
oh, diary, there’s no one to tell but you how it hurts not to be forward on the basket ball team. if i wasn’t such a good player it wouldn’t be so bad but i am good. i can dodge and pivot and shoot. yes, i know what i’ve resolved to do. i am going to spend every spare minute of my free time in the gym at goal practice as soon as they’ll let me. there’s always room for a crack shot on any team. i’ll be one.
do you know what i’ve discovered? i must be kin to pollyanna. i have found several consoling things about having a “busted snoot.” first place, i couldn’t wear an “s” if i had made the basket ball team; no prep can. those class numerals wouldn’t mean so much—i’d always be explaining them after i got home.
betsy must like me, diary dear. that first night when i could not go to supper, she brought me her dessert (oh me! i shall probably die wondering if there is one “s” or two “sses” in dessert). chloe has been sweet, too, but she acts so strange. every time we are alone she acts like she wants to tell me something and can’t. there is something queer about her—oh here comes somebody—no, it wasn’t; they passed by.
i don’t know why i don’t want any one to know i keep you, diary, unless it’s because some one might try to find you and then i should die! it’s no fun to have you if i can’t tell you my very insidest thoughts. sue is the only one who knows and she won’t tell. here’s the most private thing i have to say today:
i am getting popular!
i know it. the delphians and the ruskins are both trying to get me to promise to join their society. i don’t know what to do. i’m so thrilled to be asked but the ruskins want sue and the delphians want chloe and betsy is already a ruskin. i hate to see our suite family split up. maybe i won’t join either. they seem silly, in a way; the ruskins bragging on themselves and slurring the delphians and the delphians slurring the ruskins and bragging on themselves. but the pins are perfectly precious! solid gold with tiny pearls.
there really is some one coming—
“anybody home?” madge called at the door of two hundred and nine.
“just me,” mimi answered hastily hiding her diary in the top drawer of her wardrobe trunk. “i’m in the sitting room—come on through.”
mimi could tell madge was upset. she was paler than usual and her hazel eyes were unnaturally bright. but she didn’t seem happy. mimi felt she was not up to hearing any bad news.
“are you keeping training?” mimi asked.
“no, i’m not that good. oh, mimi, since—the other night, i’ve decided i’m not good for anything.”
“don’t be foolish, madge. here try some peanut butter on a graham cracker and forget it. another advantage of a swollen nose, i can eat and eat and eat!”
“i don’t want to forget it until i tell you something—then, if you please, let’s both forget it. you see, mimi, i came to thank you for keeping me out of a scrape. i didn’t stop to think—i never do—and i can not take a dare; i simply can’t.”
“i can’t either,” mimi admitted. “i don’t know why i ever butted in, an excitement-eater like me, but i did.”
“and i’m so glad, so glad.” madge pulled herself together for the final confession. “mimi,” she said levelly, “i am in school this year on borrowed money. i wouldn’t have come at all if i were not going to graduate. suppose i had rung the alarm and they had caught me and sent me home? i would hate myself the rest of my life.”
“i’m glad i butted in then. but let’s forget. you—you make me feel like a heroine—and i’m not!”
“yes, you are—you’re the grandest all around sport in school—you and betsy.”
while she was in a confidential mood she continued:
“every one in prep hall is sorry you won’t be on our team. betsy is sorriest of all. she keeps going around saying it was all her fault but she is going to make up to you for it. she is—please, cross your heart not to tell a soul. she wants to surprise—”
but before mimi had time to promise, sue dashed in to get her music, leave mimi a candy bar and a letter from jean. before she left for her practice room, chloe was home. she seemed quieter and more occupied with her own thoughts than usual.
so beautiful, mimi was thinking as she watched chloe stare out the window, so perfectly beautiful like a magnolia or a lily or a tube rose; something that darkens and withers if you touch it. chloe’s mother must have been beautiful, too—and what about her father? all the girls knew about chloe’s family was that her allowance came from her aunt marcia. bad as they wanted to know, they did not ask. maybe her parents were divorced. her mother must have been so beautiful that men might have kept on falling in love with her.
“guess i’d better go,” madge said putting the top back on the peanut butter jar. she had been eating and hoping chloe would leave as sue had but chloe seemed settled for the afternoon. “please, don’t mention anything i’ve told you.”
“certainly not.”
giving mimi an impetuous hug she hurried out.
“isn’t she queer?” mimi said to chloe.
“kind of. almost as queer as i am,” chloe answered quietly.
“you, queer?”
“don’t pretend, mimi. you know i am. someday i’ll tell you about it and maybe you’ll understand. oh gee, i am supposed to be at meeting in chapel this minute. all the preps—
“no one told me about a meeting.”
chloe colored.
“maybe it’s art students only. i’d keep quiet if i were you. be a lady of leisure while you have a chance. if you were supposed to go and they call your name, i’ll say you are excused.”
by the time chloe finished talking she had closed the door and mimi heard her join olivia and gretchen.
“aren’t you lending your charming presence to the gathering?” she heard olivia ask some girl who was evidently in a great hurry.
“certainly, i am. who do you think called this meeting?” the breathless voice was betsy’s.
so? mimi figured. that “something nice” is going to happen today. what can it be?
class officers had already been elected. since the prep department would end this year the seventy-five girls in it had chosen to organize as one class. the very first week of school they had done that and old girls had carried president, vice-president, secretary and treasurer with practically no competition. maybe they were going to give her a fruit shower or a fudge feast.
whatever she guessed she was wrong. none of the guesses were thrilling enough. it was something she had been off and on unofficially but now she could be officially and wear a white uniform on special occasions.
although the meeting time seemed long to mimi, her elephant’s-child curiosity prickling her ’til she couldn’t sit still, it was short. it took betsy five minutes to have president gretchen call the meeting to order, to present her motion, have it adopted by acclamation, and give a yell of victory.
standing by the open window, mimi heard the echoes of the fifteen rahs coming up from the chapel ell. the ending blurred. what was it they were saying?
soon she knew for the same yell was repeated outside her door.
she did not hear betsy signal “one-two-three” but the rahs were so low and snappy and lusty mimi knew betsy was leading.
now she knew the ending. it was; “mimi, mimi, m-m-mimi!”
mimi’s merry blue eyes danced.
“shall we huff and puff and blow tumble inn down or will you open the door?” gretchen called.
before mimi could answer the girls threw the door open themselves and stormed in; all the preps. they piled on the beds, propped against the window sills and the radiator. olivia pompously mounted the stool to the vanity and rapped the wall for order.
“madam chairman,” (this to gretchen) “ladies and mimi, with regret i announce sheridan prep has, for the season, lost a great forward. but even this dark cloud has a silver lining. by this loss she has gained a great cheer leader. ladies, i give you mimi hammond, a red headed pepper pot who, henceforth, will direct your vociferations! youzza!”
here olivia paused for a deep breath and looked at betsy. this was a signal to begin the song. to the clapping of hands and the stamping of feet the preps sang to mimi:
“the peppiest girl i ever knew
she never comes a pokin’,
if i were to tell you all the pep she had
you’d think i was a jokin’.
it’s not the pep of the pepper pod
nor the pep of the pop corn popper,
it’s not the pep of the mustard jar
nor the pep of the vinegar stopper.
it’s the good old fashioned p-e-p
the pep you cannot down,
sheridan pep mimi pep the peppiest pep around. heh!”
“mimi, we realize you can’t do your stuff in true terpsichorean style with that cotton in one side of your nose, but do by some speech or symbol signify your acceptance.”
mimi hopped up on the stool beside olivia. she was grinning from ear to ear, wide mouth, bandage and a carrot top.
“at a precious place like sheridan, i’d rather be cheer leader than president! thank you too much for this honor. olivia is right. ‘the spirit am willing but de flesh am weak’ as my mammy cissy says but i can count a feeble ‘one-two-three’ for y’all to give fifteen for sheridan——”
that fifteen was never finished. mrs. cole pushed her way in.
“girls!” her voice drenched them with ice water. “there are music lessons, and office work and college classes going on around the building in spite of the fact that the preparatory department seems to be making a roman holiday.”
that was enough. she turned sourly and walked out, the tails on her serge skirt flopping behind her at every prim step. the girls scattered after her.
“did anybody say ‘kill-joy’?” betsy laughed.
“not i!” mimi declared. “take more than a little thing like that to take me down when i’m so thrilled. oh betsy,” mimi moved toward her, “you did it, you did it every bit. you’re a good sport!”
“what about yourself?” betsy answered smiling.
for an instant sue thought they were going to embrace. she was such a sentimental little piece she hated “scenes” unless she was in them.
“i am going to write dot this minute,” sue said, “and it will be all over b. g. hi two days from now.”
mimi wished the news would spread on to state university where walter, sophomore camp life guard of the previous summer, could hear it. however, she didn’t say so. she never mentioned walter except to her diary unless she was showing the pictures in her camp count book.
“at present, i have only one worry worth mentioning,” mimi sighed contentedly. “these bloomin’ society bids. betsy, forget you’re a ruskin and tell me what to do? i am thrilled to death they want me, but to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth, i don’t care a hang about joining either one of them.”
“be a ruskin,” sue interrupted.
“why a ruskin? why is it the one to join?”
“i don’t know, except—i’ve joined it.” there it was out and she wasn’t supposed to tell until friday.
“you have!”
“please be a delphian, mimi.” chloe spoke quietly, but she was pleading. “i’ve pledged delphian.”
“‘divided we fall,’” mimi quoted. “what does that make me? nothing, absolutely nothing. i won’t join either!”
“good for you,” cried betsy to their amazement. “you’ll be the first prep who ever had courage enough to refuse. i am proud to know you. whatta’ girl!” then realizing she belonged herself she added, “not a word of what i said goes outside this suite.”
“not one word,” agreed three voices.
it was their first four-sided secret. for the first time they were close together.
mimi felt quite important and lady-of-the-worldish as she sat down and wrote two notes of refusal.
sue found her pen. chloe took the stopper out of the ink bottle. betsy offered two sheets and two envelopes of her special stationery with the sheridan crest.
“i’d better write it with a pencil first and then copy it,” mimi suggested. “now just what does one say?”
they went into a huddle. after much erasing and scratching out and rewording, mimi made two copies of the following note. it sounded sophisticated and mysterious. she really did not know what mysterious was until later, when she found out about chloe. but not stating any reason for declining the bids seemed very mysterious. changing only the headings, mimi copied.
“dear ——:
“you were so kind to ask me to join your splendid club. for various reasons, it is impossible to accept. believe me, that i am grateful and flattered that you ask me. accept my regrets.
“sincerely,
“mimi hammond.”
