Annie on My Mind

Chapter two

We were as different from each other as two people can be--I think the
main thing we had in common was that neither of us quite fit in at
Foster. I don't want to say that Foster is snobby, because that's what
people always think about private schools, but I guess it's true that a
lot of kids thought they were pretty special. And there were a lot of
cliques, only Sally and I weren't in any of them. The thing I liked best
about her, until everything changed, was that she always went her own
way. In a world of people who seemed to have come out of duplicating
machines, Sally Jarrell was no one's copy, not that fall anyway. I swear
I didn't notice the sign even when I walked past it a second time--and
that time Sally was right in front of it, peering at my left ear as if
there were a bug on it, and murmuring something that sounded like
"posts." All I noticed was that Sally's thin and rather wan face looked
a little thinner and wanner than usual, probably because she hadn't had
time to wash her hair--it was
hanging around her shoulders in lank strings. "Definitely posts," she
said. That time I heard her clearly, but before I could ask her what she
was talking about, the first bell rang and the hall suddenly filled with
sharp elbows and the din of banging lockers. I went to chemistry, and
Sally flounced mysteriously off to gym. And I forgot the whole thing
till lunchtime, when I went back down to my locker for my physics book--I
was taking a heavy science load that year because of wanting to go to
MIT. The basement hall was three deep with girls, looking as if they
were lined up for something. There were a few boys, too, standing near
Sally's boyfriend, Walt, who was next to a table with a white cloth on
it. Neatly arranged on the cloth were a bottle of alcohol, a bowl of
ice, a spool of white thread, a package of needles, and two halves of a
raw potato, peeled. "Hey, Walt," I asked, mystified, "what's going on?"

Walt, who was kind of flashy--"two-faced," Chad called him, but I liked
him--grinned and pointed with a flourish to the poster. "One-fifty per
hole per ear," he read cheerfully. "One or two, Madame President? Three
or four?" The reason he called me Madame President was the same reason I
was standing there staring at the poster, wishing I were home sick in
bed with the flu. I've never quite figured out why, but at election
time, one of the kids in my class had nominated me for student-council
president, and I'd won. Student council, representing the student body,
was supposed to run the school, instead of the faculty or the
administration running it. As far as I was concerned, my main
responsibility as council president was to preside at meetings every
other week. But Mrs. Poindexter, the headmistress, had other ideas. Back
in September, she'd given me an embarrassing lecture about setting an
example and being her "good right hand" and making sure everyone
followed "both the spirit and the letter" of the school rules, some of
which were a little screwy. "Step right up," Walt was shouting. "If the
gracious president of student council--of our entire august student body,
I might add will set the trend"--he bowed to me--"business will be sure to
boom. Do step this way, Madame ..."

"Oh, shut up, Walt," I said, trying to run through the school rules in
my mind and hoping I wouldn't come up with one that Mrs. Poindexter
might think applied specifically to ear piercing. Walt shrugged, putting
his hand under my elbow and ushering me to the head of the line. "At
least, Madame President," he said, "let me invite you to observe." I
thought about saying no, but decided it would probably make sense for me
to get an idea of what was going on, so I nodded. Walt shot the cuffs of
his blue shirt--he was a very snappy dresser, and that day he was wearing
a tan three-piece suit--and bowed.

"One moment, ladies and gentlemen," he said, "while I escort the
president on a tour of the---er---establishment. I shall return." He
steered me toward the door and then turned, winking at the few boys who
were clustered around the table. "Ms. Jarrell told me she would take
care of you gentlemen after she has---er--accommodated a few of the
ladies." He poked Chuck Belasco, who was captain of the football team,
in the ribs as we went by and murmured, "She also said to tell you guys
she's looking forward to it."

That, of course, led to a lot of gruff laughter from the boys. I went
into the girls' room just in time to hear Jennifer Piccolo squeal
"Ouch!" and to see tears filling her big brown eyes. I closed the door
quicky--Chuck was trying to peer in--and worked my way through the five
or six girls standing around the table Sally had set up in front of the
row of sinks. It had the same stuff on it that the one in the hall did.

"Hi, Liza," Sally said cheerfully. "Glad you dropped in." Sally had on a
white lab coat and was holding half a potato in one hand and a bloody
needle in the other. "What happened?" I asked, nodding toward Jennifer,
who was sniffing loudly as she delicately fingered the pinkish thread
that dangled from her right ear. Sally shrugged. "Low pain threshold, I
guess. Ready for the next one, Jen?" Jennifer nodded bravely and closed
her eyes while Sally threaded the bloody needle and wiped it off with
alcohol, saying, "See, Liza, perfectly sanitary." The somewhat
apprehensive group of girls leaned sympathetically toward Jennifer as
Sally approached her right ear again. "Sally ..." I began, but Jennifer
interrupted. "Maybe," she said timidly, just as Sally positioned the
half potato behind her ear--to keep the needle from going through to her
head if it slipped, I realized, shuddering--"I'd rather just have one
hole in each ear, okay?" She opened her eyes and looked hopefully at
Sally. "You said two holes in two ears," Sally said firmly. "Four holes
in all."

"Yes, but-I just remembered my mother said something the other day about
two earrings in one ear looking dumb, and I--well, I just wonder if maybe
she's right, that's all." Sally sighed and moved around to Jennifer's
other ear. "Ice, please," she said. Four kids reached for the ice while
Jennifer closed her eyes again, looking more or less like my idea of
what Joan of Arc must have looked like on her way to the stake. I'm not
going to describe the whole process, mostly because it was a bit gory,
but even though Jennifer gave a sort of squeak when the needle went in,
and even though she reeled dizzily out of the girls' room (scattering
most of the boys, Walt said afterwards), she insisted it hadn't hurt
much. I stayed long enough to see that Sally was trying to be careful,
given the limits of her equipment. The potato really did prevent the
needle from going too far, and the ice, which was for numbing the ear,
did seem to reduce both the pain and the bleeding. Sally even sterilized
the ear as well as the needle and thread. The whole thing looked pretty
safe, and so I decided that all I had to do in my official capacity was
remind Sally to use the alcohol each time. But that afternoon there were
a great many bloody Kleenexes being held to earlobes in various classes,
and right after the last bell, when I was standing in the hall
talking to Ms. Stevenson, who taught art and was also faculty adviser to
student council, a breathless freshman came running up and said, "Oh,
good, Liza, you're still here. Mrs. Poindexter wants to see you."

"Oh?"

I said, trying to sound casual. "What about?" Ms. Stevenson raised her
eyebrows. Ms. Stevenson was very tall and pale, with blond hair that
she usually wore in a not-terribly-neat pageboy. My father always called
her the

"Renaissance woman," because besides teaching art she coached the debate
team, sang in a community chorus, and tutored kids in just about any
subject if they were sick for a long time. She also had a fierce temper,
but along with that went a reputation for being fair, so no one minded
very much, at least not among the kids. I tried to ignore Ms.
Stevenson's raised eyebrows and concentrate on the freshman. "I don't
really know what she wants," the freshman was saying, "but I think it
has something to do with Jennifer Piccolo because I saw Mr. Piccolo and
Jennifer come out of the nurse's office and then go into Mrs.
Poindexter's, and Jennifer was crying and her ears were all bloody." The
freshman giggled. When she left, Ms. Stevenson turned to me and said
dryly, "Your ears, I'm glad to see, look the same as ever." I glanced
pointedly at Ms. Stevenson's small silver post earrings. "Oh, those,"
she said. "Yes, my doctor pierced my ears when I was in college. My
doctor, Liza." I started to walk away. "Liza, it was foolish, Sally's
project. I wish I'd known about it in time to stop it." My feet were
heavy as I went down the hall to Mrs. Poindexter's office. I knew that
Ms. Stevenson, even though she never made herself obnoxious about it,
was usually right. And by the time the whole thing was over with, I
wished she'd known about the ear piercing in time to stop it, too.

3

Mrs. Poindexter didn't look up when I went into her office. She was a
stubby gray-haired woman who wore rimless glasses on a chain and always
looked as if she had a pain somewhere. Maybe she always did, because
often when she was thinking up one of her sardonically icy things to say
she'd flip her glasses down onto her bumpy bosom and pinch her nose as
if her sinuses hurt her. But I always had the feeling that what she was
trying to convey was that the student she was disciplining was what
really gave her the pain. She could have saved herself a lot of trouble
by following the school charter: "The Administration of Foster Academy
shall guide the students, but the students shall govern themselves." But
I guess she was what Mr. Jorrocks, our American history teacher, would
call a "loose constructionist," because she interpreted the charter
differently from most people. "Sit down, Eliza," Mrs. Poindexter said,
still not looking up. Her voice sounded tired and muffled--as if her
mouth were full of gravel. I sat down. It was always hard not to be
depressed in Mrs. Poindexter's office, even if you were there to be
congratulated for winning a scholarship or making straight A's. Mrs.
Poindexter's love for Foster, which was considerable, didn't
inspire her to do much redecorating. Her office was in shades of what
seemed to be its original brown, without anything for contrast, not even
plants, and she kept her thick brown drapes partway closed, so it was
unusually dark. Finally Mrs. Poindexter raised her head from the folder
she was thumbing through, flipped her glasses onto her chest, pinched
her nose, and looked at me as if she thought I had the personal moral
code of a sea slug. "Eliza Winthrop," she said, regret sifting through
the gravel in her mouth, "I do not know how to tell you how deeply
shocked I am at your failure to do your duty, not only as head of
student council and therefore my right hand, but also simply as a member
of the student body. Words fail me," she said--but, like most people who
say that, she somehow managed to continue. "The reporting rule,
Eliza--can it be that you have forgotten the reporting rule?" I felt as
if I'd swallowed a box of the little metal sinkers my father uses when
he goes fishing in the country. "No," I said, only it came out more like
a bleat than a word. "No, what?"

"No, Mrs. Poindexter."

"Kindly recite the rule to me," she said, closing her eyes and pinching
her nose. I cleared my throat, telling myself she couldn't possibly
expect me to remember it word for word as it appeared in the little blue
book called Welcome to Foster Academy. "The reporting rule," I began.
"One: If a student breaks a rule he or she is supposed to report himself
or herself by writing his or her name and what rule he or she has broken
on a piece of paper and putting it into the box next to Ms. Baxter's
desk in the offace." Ms. Baxter was a chirpy little birdlike woman with
dyed red hair who taught The Bible as Literature to juniors and told
Bible stories to the Lower School once a week. Her other job was to be
Mrs. Poindexter's administrative assistant, which meant Mrs. Poindexter
confided in her and gave her special jobs, anything from pouring tea at
Mothers Club meetings to doing confidential typing and guarding the
reporting box. Ms. Baxter and Mrs. Poindexter drank tea together every
afternoon out of fancy Dresden china cups, but they never seemed quite
like equals, the way real friends are. They were more like an eagle and
a sparrow, or a whale and its pilot fish, because Ms. Baxter was always
scurrying around running errands for Mrs. Poin-dexter or protecting her
from visitors she didn't want to see. "Go on," said Mrs. Poindexter.
"Two," I said. "If a student sees another student breaking a rule, that
student is supposed to ask the one who broke the rule to report himself.
Or herself. Three: If the student won't do that, the one who saw him or
her break the rule is supposed to report them, the one breaking the
rule, I mean." Mrs. Poindexter nodded. "Can you tell me," she said,
without opening her eyes, "since you seem to know the rule so well, and
since you are well aware that the spirit behind all Foster's rules
encompasses the idea of not doing harm to others, why you did not ask
Sally Jarrell to report herself when you saw what she was planning to
do? Or when you saw what she was actually doing?" Before I could
answer, Mrs. Poindexter whirled around in her chair and opened her eyes,
flashing them at me. "Eliza, you should be more aware than most
students, given your position, that this school is in desperate need of
money and therefore in desperate need of Mr. Piccolo's services as
publicity chairman of our campaign. And yet Jennifer Piccolo had to go
home early this afternoon because of the terrible pain in her earlobes."

"I'm really sorry, Mrs. Poindexter," I said, and then tried to explain
that I hadn't even noticed Sally's sign till she was already piercing
Jennifer's ears. She shook her head as if she couldn't quite grasp that.
"Eliza," she said tiredly, "you know that I thought it unwise last
spring when you said in your campaign speech that you were against the
reporting rule ..."

"Everyone's against it," I said, which was true--even the faculty agreed
that it didn't work. "Not quite everyone," said Mrs. Poindexter.
"Popular or not, that rule is the backbone of this school's honor
system and has been for many, many years--ever since Letitia Foster
founded the school, in fact. Not," she added, "that the reporting rule
or any other rule will make any difference at all if Foster has to
close." I studied her face, trying to figure out if she was
exaggerating. The idea of Foster's having to close had never occurred to
me, although of course I knew about the financial troubles.

But having to close? Both Chad and I had gone to Foster since
kindergarten; it was almost another parent to us. "I--I didn't realize
things were that bad," I sputtered. Mrs. Poindexter nodded. "If the
campaign is unsuccessful,"
she said, "Foster may well have to close. And if Mr. Piccolo,
without whose publicity there can be no campaign, leaves us as a result
of this--this foolish, thoughtless incident, I seriously doubt we will
find anyone to replace him. If he leaves, goodness knows: whether the
fund raiser who has agreed to act as consultant will stay on--it was hard
enough getting both of them in the first place ..." Mrs. Poindexter
closed