mimi and olivia sat back to back under one of the biggest trees on the campus. each held an open spanish grammar on her drawn-up knees. each had her nose between the pages.
“i think i know the first five vocabularies now. ask me, olivia.”
“spanish or english?”
“you say english and i’ll say spanish and spell it.”
“o. k. here goes—the table?”
“la mesa. l-a—m-e-s-a.”
“every day?”
“todos los dias—t-o-d-o-s l-o-s d-i (accent)-a-s.”
olivia kept on down the list and could not catch mimi on a single one. then they changed and it was mimi’s turn to quiz. olivia knew them all, too.
“guess we’re pretty good, huh?”
“gee, we ought to be; it’s all review but, oh, those verb forms! i hate to have to cram but i have to think about dr. barnes mailing my grades all the way to germany and how terrible daddy and mother would feel if mine weren’t good.”
“you needn’t worry. you may not be an a or an a plus but you’re an a minus or b plus easy.”
“wish i could believe you.”
“but you can. with my excellent ‘i. q.’, intelligent quotient if you don’t follow me, i can classify people by their mentalities; predict such trivial matters as grades.”
“a-hem! all right, miss brainless wonder tell me when i’ll get an answer from a very important long letter i mailed my daddy one week ago, to be exact.”
the thought of that letter made prickles of excitement up and down mimi’s spine. she’d love to talk to olivia about it. she hoped she hadn’t broken her promise to chloe not to tell a soul, when she had written it to daddy. no matter what you cross-your-heart-and-vow-not-to-tell you can always tell your parents. mimi was sure of that when she had written chloe’s tragedy to daddy. she had felt better ever since. not that daddy could do anything about it—he was too far away—but again he might when he came home. at least there was some one to whom she could unburden when she couldn’t keep from talking about the mystery another minute.
“bad habit i have acquired—talking to myself. mimi! look at me. i’ve explained twice already about the answer to your letter and you haven’t heard a word of it. atten-shun, please! now, for the third and last time, you will—”
before olivia finished waving her arms around and succeeding in clouding her eyes as if she were going into a seance, betsy came running toward them from the gym. she ran easily and lightly, arching her knees high. her middy collar was streaming behind her. her socks had flopped down over the tops of her gym shoes.
“guess what?” she panted.
“must be something grand the way your eyes are shining.”
betsy’s one blue eye and one brown eye with their frames of thick curly lashes always fascinated mimi but when betsy was thrilled as she was now, her eyes were the cutest things mimi ever saw. “hurry and tell before i die.”
“yes, before she with the carrot top is devoured by her ravishing curiosity.”
“jack, my big brother who graduated from vanderbilt last june, is coming to take me to nashville to the big thanksgiving football game!”
mimi and olivia jumped to their feet. away went the text books and away almost went olivia’s shell rimmed glasses. by throwing her head back, she managed to balance them on the tip of her nose. while she and mimi joined hands ring-around-the-rosie-fashion about betsy, all three shrieked.
“and that’s not all!” betsy gasped when the three had let off the first burst of steam. “i can invite a guest and i’m asking you, mimi—can you possibly go?”
“can i? can a duck swim?”
“i mean, will mrs. cole let you without a written permission?”
“she’ll have to. oh betsy, i’ll be a wreck if she won’t. let’s ask her now.”
leaving olivia to gather up the notebooks and spanish grammars, betsy and mimi clasped hands and ran toward prep hall—up the steps two at a time—knock, knock on mrs. cole’s door.
“if she’s not here!” wailed mimi.
mimi despaired that the door would ever open and doubled up her fist to pound her impatience out on the door before they gave up and left. she drew back her fist. as it went forward it met thin air. the door opened back before the advancing fist and mimi almost pummeled mrs. cole in the stomach! she tripped trying to balance herself.
“come in young ladies,” mrs. cole invited. they had interrupted her tea. “have seats.”
“thank you, mrs. cole.” betsy found her voice first. “we’re too thrilled to sit down. we came to ask permission to go to nashville, thanksgiving, to the football game.”
“nashville?” mrs. cole humped her eyebrows as if she had never heard of the place before when every thanksgiving for more years than she’d care to admit she had been besieged for permissions to go there to the game.
“yes, ma’am. my brother jack will drive by on wednesday afternoon and pick us up. we can get to nashville early wednesday night and come back thursday night after the game.”
“with proper permission from your parents, betsy, you, of course, may go but, mimi, it is different with you. this school, in the absence of your parents, is fully responsible for you. i cannot think of giving you permission without consulting dr. barnes.”
mimi was wilting under mrs. cole’s droning.
“you would have to take a chaperon, of course.”
“but my brother is going.”
“he is not mimi’s brother.” mrs. cole bit off the words. “you may see if you can find a teacher to accompany you in case dr. barnes gives consent. now run along.”
run along they did. as fast as they could go they went to miss taylor’s studio. they stopped outside and listened. miss taylor was giving a lesson. there was nothing to do but wait. they sat down in the corridor and leaned against the wall.
“concentrate, betsy, concentrate. say over and over to yourself, miss taylor go to nashville, miss taylor go to nashville.”
“o. k.”
for five minutes neither spoke. by then mimi was so sure miss taylor would go to nashville that she began to think of other things.
“what are you going to wear?”
“that tweed suit. your plaid wool and camel’s hair coat would be grand.”
“are you sure? i want to look nice. i’ll wash my pigskin gloves and get a new beret. oh, but my nose! does it look very bad to you, betsy? tell me the truth.”
“in another week we’ll never know anything was ever the matter with it. the swelling is gone and the bruises are fading fast. you don’t have a hump.”
“that was the good part about the fracture being a little to the side of the bridge and the wound on the inside. oh, betsy if she won’t let me go—i’ll—cable—daddy!”
“with what?” a voice asked. sue had stepped out of the studio and had been listening, “what’s up?”
disregarding sue and knocking her violin case awry they grabbed miss taylor one on either side.
“thanksgiving? i’m sorry but i am going to memphis for that whole weekend.”
blam! that quickly a bubble bursts. one pin prick and a balloon is flat. two dejected figures slink down the corridor to tumble inn.
“why not ask your beloved dit? seniors can chaperone.” it was sue’s voice and she had been lagging near. she couldn’t help but be interested in other people’s business.
“i couldn’t bear to have her refuse me.”
“i’ll go ask her by myself,” betsy volunteered. “i’ll take jack’s picture and tell her she can ride in the front seat with him and—”
while betsy was gone mimi rummaged in the closet for the plaid wool. right now before another thing happened she’d take it to the office to be sent to the cleaners.
mimi had never learned that “haste makes waste.” she grabbed up the hanger and as she swung out of tumble inn, a sickening sound stopped her.
b-z-z-z—
she knew before she looked. she had torn the plaid dress! one of the pockets had caught on the door knob and besides the ripping, there was a tear.
“i would,” mimi moaned.
“remove the scowl,” betsy called from the landing of the stairs. “dit can go. we’ll have to pay her hotel bill. do you think you can manage?”
“sure. i haven’t spent anything this month so far. i must have known something like this would happen. but, betsy—look what this clumsy ox has done to the plaid wool dress!”
betsy examined it carefully.
“not so bad,” she consoled—“gimme.”
“where to?”
“college hall. janice does sewing, mending and darning. you can get any thing done in college hall; typing, hair set and, best right now, sewing. you needn’t go. i’ll drop it there on my way to the library. see you at supper. cheerio.”
“cheerio,” mimi echoed. she was not too cheerful at that. there was still dr. barnes’ permission or refusal with which to reckon. unconsciously she started to concentrate, “dr. barnes let me go, dr. barnes let me go”—i won’t think that another silly time. it didn’t work on miss taylor but i do wish to my soul, i had mammy cissy’s rabbit foot.
