The Calamity Club by Kathryn Stockett - 3

E very morning, the first thing Miss Garnett does is come into the office, where I am made to report directly after breakfast. She noses around looking, like I have harbored a criminal in here. She leans her bony self over my shoulder to see what I am doing. Have you finished copying out your Bible passage yet, Meg?

Yes , I tell her. And to irritate her, I like to wait a second to add, Ma’am.

I flatten the page out where I copied out the whole dull Proverbs 13. This one is about a wise son and a father and what you call a scorner . What in the world it has to do with me, a eleven-year-old girl with a eighth-grade reading level, I do not know. If I try to tell Miss Garnett this, she will say, Idle hands are the devil’s playthings , or else make me write the begats. I drooled so much falling asleep on those, the paper rippled.

Me and Miss Garnett, we are like oil and water.

She is the lady in charge of the place and generally dresses in a plain, bland-colored number. Her short yellow hair stays pressed to her head and her face is not ugly, just waxy and flat. She is also flat across her chest and on her behind. My mama had all kinds of rounded parts to her and was petite in stature. I would say Miss Garnett is older than my mama, but I could not say exact since I am not good at guessing the age of people over twelve. I would get fired if I worked that booth at the fair.

Some time after I was brought here, Miss Garnett got elected chairlady. That did not just happen out of the clear blue sky. Miss Garnett has got influence. Since I have that kind of time on my hands, I have put it together how she operates too. When she is speaking to one of the volunteer ladies here, she looks them right straight in the eye to draw their attention. If there is a particular point to make, she will slice the air for emphasis. She slices and slices to where she might as well be slicing her a rib roast. If there is a terrible tragedy or a illness in the volunteer lady’s family or a birthday or the day their mama died, she is sure to remember it. Miss Garnett does not forget things, and if she cannot pinch you for picking your nose at nine o’clock, she will remember to get you for it at noon.

But what Miss Garnett gets excited most to talk about is somebody she calls the feebleminded woman . She will stand in the hall and rant on and on about this crazy woman. And to ensure whoever is listening is listening good, she will stop. In the middle of a sentence. Then she will go on talking and slicing, and if she had a rope she would probably lasso their damn necks to make them listen to what this feebleminded woman has done now. And they do listen too. She has got them concerned.

I have wondered right much what this feebleminded woman looks like. By what I hear, I picture a mean ugly woman with a hunched-up back and ten imbecile children born by ten different daddies, white, black, or blue, whatever you please. I sort of see them all living in a great big shoe, though I believe that might be from a old picture book I saw. Miss Garnett says this woman is dragging our great state to a even more sunken level. Well that must be a low place since my mama always told me the state of Mississippi was full of nothing but cotton, hypocrites, and horseshit, and the best thing a Mississippian could do was get the hell out.

Ask me, Miss Garnett likes rules more than she likes people. Ava, who was here before me, said when the Big Phony took over as chairlady, she made a lot of new rules. Such as, big girls were not allowed around the babies or toddlers anymore. And now, we are not even allowed mail—she put a stop to that too. Ava said it’s because a letter might make us cry, and that is all these volunteer ladies need added to their day. And we are sure not allowed to ask where in the hell did my mama or daddy go to. It was that last rule what gave me the most trouble at the beginning.

When I first got here, I begged every lady on a daily basis, Where is she? What do you know? Why won’t you tell me? Oh I threw temper fits. Racked my own brain for where she might have gone to. I had a list going: Maybe she got in a car accident and is bleeding by the road. Maybe she got kidnapped and is being held for ransom. Maybe she decided times were too hard to look after a girl. Leave her behind for the charity ladies to deal with. That one scared me bad.

Whenever I asked, all those ladies would say to me was, You just count your blessings and be glad you’re here, young lady. And quick as they could, go rock a baby.

Those big girls can’t be helped anyway , they say. Those big girls are past helping.

They say, Poor white trash, they’ll grow up and leave their own babies behind. Do they think I cannot hear them?

Miss Garnett likes to slice her hands and say, It starts with the mother and spreads to the child, unless somebody does something to stop it.

Miss Garnett, she kept her eye on me from the very beginning. Anytime I was so much as two minutes late to Sunday chapel or that mealy mess they call breakfast, she would pinch me up under my arm where the skin is soft. So hard my eyes would smart. Or if she spotted me laughing with Ava or having any kind of a time, here came the pinchers. She did not do the rest like she did me. Most days she could hardly bring herself to touch the other big girls, like they smelled bad. Which some do. Ava said it best: The bitch has got it out for you, and that is a flat-out fact.

One afternoon, Miss Garnett came and got me from the schoolroom upstairs. I love the schoolroom, you cannot beat it for a place to learn. Most girls here throw a fit that we are made to attend school year-round, with only a few weeks in summer to give the teacher, Miss Spencer, a vacation. But not me, I would attend school every day if I could. I even liked to linger after lessons to clean the boards and straighten up the chairs. Miss Spencer would sometimes let me watch her grade the spelling papers if I did not breathe down her neck. It is the only decent room in the house for the big girls and has six long wood tables facing the chalkboard with little chairs, too small for the bigger girls but they fit me fine. I am puny for my age. Color papers line the walls with words and pictures, Apple , Bird , Cat , Dog , so to help the stupid illiterate girls learn to read. My mama taught me to read when I was four years old, and if you do not count that F I got in Bible art, I have only ever got straight A perfects. My favorite subject is READING. If I read something worth knowing, I try and learn it by heart, such as a poem Miss Spencer read us that I found just wonderful. I kept as much as I could in my head for later:

Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words …

I am not sure what goes next, but then it goes, S weetest in the gale is heard and sore must be the storm, that could abash the little bird that kept so many warm.

For some reason, that poem reminds me of my mama’s dark hair flying out the window of our old car. Her hand waving and hair flying.

That day, Miss Garnett caught me by the arm and told me to follow her down to the office. I thought, Lord, what now. I had never seen a girl go in the little office before, only that bookkeeper lady who they say flew the coop. Went to volunteer at the Flower Club or something, oh it was a big fuss with the ladies. Miss Garnett sat me down at the grown-person desk and set a bag of pennies from the donate box in front of me and told me to count .

Even if Miss Garnett treated me awful, I thought she picked me for the task because I have a good head on my shoulders and that is what gets you places in life, sister. But ended up it was because Miss Garnett takes a special interest in me. In the future I would prefer not to have a special interest taken in me.

I figured when I finished counting, I could go do chores with Ava like regular. Oh we could cut up something terrible together, even sweeping a floor or washing shitty diapers. But Miss Garnett said, Count them again to be sure , which I took a offense to. I am not like those stupid illiterate girls here who cannot carry the one or read without following a finger. When I finished and got the same damn number, she said I had to stay in there until supper, copying Old Testament verses.

Couple days later, it was the same damn thing, and a few days after that. Go on to the office, young lady, add these such-and-so little papers, write this nonsense. If she caught me sleeping on the job, she would pinch me and tell me to Sit up. Spying on me from the hall. Even back then I found that little room stuffy, and it was not near the shape it is in now. That old window wasn’t yet boarded up, the walls were fairly clean. Now and then she would get up behind me and watch over my shoulder and comb out my hair with her bony fingers, fooling with it and separating it into parts. My hair runs down my back and turns near white in summer. She would mutter things I could not make out. If I asked her to speak up, she would tell me to hush.

It shames me now how much I enjoyed the hair fooling. My mama used to do that on cold nights in front of the fire. Or lean me back at the kitchen sink to wash it, combing it after. I just fall right apart if somebody fools with my hair.

One time I asked Miss Garnett how many children did she have at home? Spend enough time with a woman, you do get curious. She told me she did have one but it died inside her . I shuddered to think. They do not tell us much about lady business here, but my mama told me some. I thought about that dead baby a lot, generally when I was watching scary shapes on the ceiling at bedtime.

Often she watched me from the hall in between talking to ladies. If I had nothing better to do, I watched her back. We regularly had us a staring contest, which she usually won. I fall right to sleep if I am not up and moving or learning something interesting.

That brown mold on the walls had only just started to grow. I should’ve known there was more coming.

On Tuesdays we have what you call Bible story hour. That is when the Fatass comes up to the schoolroom and reads us a Jesus parable. Her real name is Miss Pripp and she is very fat and bossy and makes us take tests. One time she stood a stupid illiterate girl at the front and spanked her for not writing correct answers. I didn’t want to see it, but it is hard not to look when somebody is getting spanked. And after Christmas, Miss Pripp bragged about all the presents Santy Claus brought to her home because her boys had been such good children.

About a month ago, for story hour, she told us to draw a scene of Jesus, use any story you like, and the best drawer will win a red pencil. I had my eye on that red pencil, I could mark up a page like I was a real teacher. So I did me a Last Supper like in The Children’s Bible pictures, laying out grape platters and wine caskets, and I put interesting looks on all the disciples’ faces. To make it stand out I crayoned a title on the piece, Jesus Gives Judas the Finger , which I thought was eye-catching. I had seen my mama give somebody the finger and it was effective. I did not know it was dirty.

But when Miss Pripp saw my picture, her mouth pruned tight. She said, This right here, young lady, is blasphemy against the Lord , and she wrote a big red F on it. She could not wait to show it to our teacher, Miss Spencer. They huddled over it, whispering, and then those two marched it straight down to Miss Garnett. Later on I heard Dorella won that red pencil for a very mediocre baby laying in a manger.

I thought I just had a trip to the belt closet coming to me. And that would be that. But no, Miss Garnett marched me down to the office and called a committee meeting in the Ladies’ Lounge. I snuck out and listened outside the door. I heard her tell them that I was tainting the other girls with my filthy behavior and I could hear her rattling my drawing, probably slicing the air with her hands. Nobody arguing with her. Not a one.

When Miss Garnett walked out, she looked all satisfied with her flat self. Smiling like she had won something at the fair. She said, From now on, you will be in the office all day, Meg.

What about school—

You are not allowed in the schoolroom anymore.

The night of Ava’s twelfth birthday, we pretended to be asleep until we heard old Miss Mildred turn the lock on our door. She is the old lady who sleeps downstairs at night and everything on her sags, her eyes, her bosoms almost to her belly. She does not fool with any type brassiere. Soon as we heard the lock click, me and Ava scooted our cots closer together. There are still scratch marks in the floor from all our scooting.

Ava said, Fried ham with cheese grits, johnnycakes, chocolate bars, hard candies, them little pies with the cream inside.

First thing I want is fried chicken , I said, with meat gravy and a box of Cracker Jack, and I don’t care what they say, I am not bothering with vegetables .

Bacon , Ava said and we both thought on that a minute. In the morning she was headed to the Gulf Coast to work at the cannery with the two other twelve-year-olds Miss Garnett sent down there already. Ava is eight months older than me.

When I go, I will be the fastest food canner they ever seen , I said. They will say: Who is this girl who can can food so expert? I think she deserves a raise .

Shut up, Nutmeg , Dorella hissed in her cot.

Ava said she was buying cigarettes with her pay. I told her she did not even know how to smoke. I said I would be saving up for a complete set of encyclopedia letters. Ava called me the most boring person in America. Long as I draw a paycheck is all. We both agreed it would be nice to smell the ocean air .

By the way her voice drifted, I knew Ava was getting sleepy, but I didn’t want us to sleep yet because then it would be tomorrow. So to keep her awake I came up with a idea for her to send me a letter. She could disguise it as a mama looking for a blond-headed girl of around eleven years of age with a small gap in her front teeth and one ear sticks out a little more than the other, and she could put in secret messages, too, things like what kind of food the girl should like to eat so I would know those were the foods Ava was eating down there, because if anybody could get her hands on a letter here, that would be me. I could tell her interest was waning but she yawned and said she’d try.

I will be fine when you are gone, Ava , I told her, but her breathing had already gone even.

Miss Garnett was the one came up with the work program idea in the first place. She said it was for big girls with what they call Placement Problems. Before that, we would get sent off to the Home in Water Valley or a facility in Jackson where I heard they got so many orphans stuffed in there they parade them down the street to try and get them adopted.

Girls, stand still and erect. I have an important announcement , Miss Garnett said one day when I had been here about six or so months. As chairlady of the Orphan Children Committee , and she pointed to a gold pin she wore on her dress, I am proud to announce that girls who have not been placed by their twelfth birthday and don’t seem likely to be , and here she gave me and Ava a look that could shave ice, will be sent to work for the Biloxi Canning Corporation down on the coast. They will provide your housing on premises and you will attend a school and learn a valuable skill in a good Christian environment — I said still and erect , Ava—and you will even receive a wage for your work.

Boy, you should have seen those charity ladies light up when Miss Garnett made her speech. They said, When jobs are so hard to come by these days! Some even clapped their hands like they were at a circus show because by damn they come here to Hold Babies and do not need us big girls interrupting their Baby-Rocking Time. And Miss Garnett was slicing good now, talking about the unwed mother, how it is bred into them, that feebleminded business, all we need is our girls turning into one themselves and leaving their own children to starve.

Next to me, Ava was nodding like a mule right along with the ladies. But I was not nodding like a mule.

Remember, this was back when I still had ideas. That play in my head might have started to crumble around the edges, but deep down I still thought there was a good chance my mama would come for me.

And that is exactly what I told Miss Garnett and the rest of them. I told them I was not relocating to any stinking factory. I intended to be right here when my damn mama came back for me.

I got a trip to the belt closet for that little remark. That is a room with a chair and a leather strap hung on the wall, with holes punched in it so it will fly faster. The chair is for when the lady has got to sit and take herself a rest. While she beat my backside, Miss Garnett gave me the speech of how hot hell would be and how God does not approve of filthy-mouthed little girls.

I hopped and danced at first, but then I bit my lip and made myself take it. The other girls said she would give extra licks if she missed. It stung like a swat of thorns, then like little razor teeth, then it burned like a red-hot iron pressed to the back of my knees. But I did not cry or even wet my pants because I was not going to no damn canning factory.

That night in bed, Ava got holt of me.

She said, You are pathetic.

I said, You are more pathetic than me.

She said, Your mama ain’t coming back for you, Meg, so you need to get that shit straight in your head.

How do you know, you are no fortune teller. Maybe she’s riding here this very minute. Maybe her motorcar broke down. Maybe she has just been waiting on a thing to come in. But even I could hear the old list of excuses thinning.

Grow some sense, stupid. Your mama left you exact same as mine.

It was not the same. Your mama didn’t even like you.

True , Ava said. Ava had told me how her mama kept the otherns but she just give up on me. Brung her to the Orphan and drove off in the truck. Back then I had not watched that many girls get brought here yet, but after a year and a half, I have seen it all. The fit throwers, the bawling criers, the strangely silents, the beggars, the hitters, the cussers, the pants wetters. I have seen Drop-Off Situations and Push-and-Runs, sisters that want to stay longer hugging goodbye. Mamas lingering, I hear them pacing out on the front porch. If they make it inside, they are still begging: Just one more minute with her, please. When Miss Garnett takes their most precious thing away, those mamas’ faces make you want to lay your head on your desk.

But I have never once seen a mama come back to get a girl.

It makes no difference how we got here, Meg, they still ain’t coming back to get us, Ava said. But something inside me kept believing my situation was different. Times might have got hard, but me and my mama were not starving to death nor did we have fifteen other kids to feed and need to get rid of a few. I am small, I hardly eat much. We still had us a proper house to live in. My mama did not even pack her best shoes before she left—or anything else. She said she was planning to cut my hair. You do not just say that to your only girl.

Ava crawled out of her cot and sat on my chest like it was a saddle, locking my arms down with her strong legs. She said, Now you listen to me, Meg, and repeat after me. I could tell by the way she was panting through her nose she was serious. My mama left me on purpose and mamas do not come back. Now you say it, repeat it back to me.

I got a hand loose and swatted at her but she pinned it down again. But what mama leaves a girl two days before Christmas?

It’ll help you, goddammit. Say, Mamas do not come back! Ava sounded desperate but when I would not say it she leaned down and whispered hot in my ear, We are the same, Meg, don’t you see that? We are sisters. So say it till you believe it.

It was getting so I couldn’t breathe. And not because she had her knees on my chest.

Ava is smarter than me. She said it would help me if I would just say it, dammit.

And so after a while I did. Because deep down I suspected she was right. She was older. She was stronger than me. Mama left me on purpose. Mamas do not come back.

Again , she said. I said it over and over and over. Mama left me on purpose, mamas do not come back. And ends up, my best friend Ava was right. It took a while but it was like cutting a bad thing off, a old wet soggy thing dragging wherever I went.

Pretty soon, I quit doing that pretend play so much. And then I just quit doing it at all. That is a friend. That is a sister. Because mamas do not come back.

The morning after Ava’s twelfth birthday, was she excited. Chattering with the girls at the breakfast table. The ladies had got her all washed and fit for travel. They even got her some shoes to wear on the train. They looked too big but they were only slightly worn, white with a black stripe running down the side. They looked pretty good to me.

While Ava was telling the other girls goodbye, a low rushing started up in my ears. She hugged me and she smelled clean and not like a orphan at all. She said, When you come down to the factory, I’m teaching you to smoke whether you like it or not.

I wanted to tell her what I had been planning, that we are sisters and you promise to write, don’t you. But no sound would come out of my mouth, the rushing was so loud in my ears.

How are we so quiet with all this noise inside us?

I will be right back. Mama wrote that on the wall.

Miss Garnett said, Ava, it’s time to go . She reached for Ava but was careful not to touch her. And just like that, Ava was gone.