Page 24

I’m already there, thought Mairin, looking around the room.

“What were you two talking about?” Helen whispered, loading up a cart to take outside.

Mairin shrugged. “She’s got nothing good to say about anybody. I don’t know why we bother with her.”

“True. But she’s good at stealing from the kitchen, and sometimes she shares.”

“Watch out,” Angela whispered, coming up behind them. “Sister Theresa’s in a rotten mood. Don’t let her catch you talking. We’ve got bookmobile tomorrow, and I don’t want her taking away our privileges.”

“Thank God,” said Mairin. “Being without a book is like starving.”

“Don’t get too excited,” Helen warned. “The books are ‘approved literature only’ and they’re dropped off at the front office.

Then Rotrude goes through the material to make sure it’s ‘appropriate.’ Sometimes we don’t even get to read any of them. Sometimes

we have to read stuff like The Cardinal Virtues or Augustine’s Confessions. ” She shuddered with distaste.

Denise came out to the lines with another load. “You lot,” she said, glaring at everyone. “Could you be any slower?”

Mairin wondered what had made Denise so bitter, so quick to say something cruel to another girl or to point the finger of

blame at somebody. Denise was a master of deception, always plotting and scheming, and making sure someone other than her

got in trouble. She was sneaky, like a shadow in the night, always one step ahead of the nuns.

“Stop talking,” squawked Sister Theresa.

“I wasn’t talking,” Denise said, all innocence. “Ruth here keeps bugging me.” She could twist the truth to suit her needs,

leaving others in a state of confusion and doubt. “I was just trying to do my work.”

“We’ll see about that, missy.” She grabbed a handful of Mairin’s hair and twisted.

Mairin’s temper exploded. “Leave me the hell alone, you old bitch.” She pulled out the crooked scissors and was about to strike

when Kay bustled over and leaped at Sister Theresa.

“Was not Mair’n!” yelled Kay. “D’nise did the talking. D’nise did the talking.”

“We’ll see about that.” The nun’s hand shot out and took hold of Kay’s hair, which was caught back in a ponytail. The nun pulled so hard it drove

Kay to the ground.

“Ow, ow, ow,” Kay yelled, clawing at the woman’s arm as she sank to her knees. “Hurts! That hurts!”

Denise melted away, always quick to avoid punishment.

“And what may I ask is this?” With one hand still clutching Kay’s long, dark hair, Sister Theresa snatched up something from the lawn.

To Mairin’s horror, it was the crooked scissors she’d stolen from the clinic. In the scuffle, the instrument must have fallen

to the ground. The nun was regarding them with fury in her eyes. “Where did you get this?” she demanded of Kay.

“Dunno dunno dunno,” Kay said desperately, her eyes darting in confusion. “Ow. Ow. You’re hurtin’ me!”

Sister Theresa marched toward the door, towing the girl along by the hair. Mairin charged after them. “Sister, it was me,”

she said. “I swear, Kay didn’t have anything to do with this.”

Kay was yelling so loudly that the nun didn’t seem to hear. She pulled the girl into the laundry building and slammed the

door behind her. Mairin tried to follow, but one of the lay supervisors stood in the way.

“Back to work,” she ordered.

Mairin planted herself in front of the supervisor, an iron-haired woman with ruddy cheeks and a permanent scowl. “How can

you stand there and let her do that?” she asked the woman.

“None of your lip,” the supervisor said, “or I’ll make a report.”

Odessa stepped forward with a huge basket of folded linens. “Ready for inspection,” she said, distracting the woman.

Mairin mouthed Thank you to Odessa and scurried away.

That night before supper, Kay was brought back from her punishment. As the girls assembled outside the refectory, Sister Rotrude

thrust poor Kay forward. “This is what happens to someone who steals scissors.”

In shock, Mairin gaped at Kay, who stood there, hanging her head in misery. Her long, glossy hair had been hacked off. Not

cut with any skill, but just chopped haphazardly and probably dumped in the garbage. The back of her neck was starkly white

where the shearing had exposed her skin. She looked fragile and diminished somehow, her dignity ripped away along with her

hair.

“I’m going to say something,” Mairin whispered to Angela as they marched in a line into the refectory. “I took the scissors.

I’m the one they should have punished.”

“Don’t be an idiot,” Angela said. “The damage is already done.”

Mairin went over to Kay and took her hand. “Come and sit with me,” she said.

“Okey dokey.”

They set their trays at the end of one of the long tables. Supper was some kind of tasteless stew with bread. Apple cider

to drink. It was delicious, but that wasn’t the reason the nuns served it. The cider was free, pressed from the apples gathered

from the trees on the property.

“I’m really sorry about what happened,” Mairin said to Kay. “It’s all my fault. I tried to speak up, but she dragged you away

so fast. I’m sorry,” she said again.

Kay nodded and ate her meal with mechanical motions. Denise sauntered by carrying her tray, her sharp-eyed gaze focused on

Kay. Mairin could see that she was about to say something mean. She shot to her feet and planted herself between Denise and

Kay.

A few of the other girls nearby stopped eating and leaned forward. No one was supposed to confront Denise.

“Just move along,” Mairin said through her teeth, trying not to be intimidated by the older girl’s size and presence. “She’s

had more than enough today.”

Denise narrowed her eyes. “She’s just a moron. Doesn’t even know what’s going on. She’s stupid enough to be friends with you.”

“Listen, it’s horrible here for all of us,” Mairin said. “What’s the point of making it even more horrible?”

“You don’t know shit,” Denise said.

Mairin’s hands hardened into fists. “Are we going to have a problem, Denise?”

“No talking,” roared one of the nuns from the raised dais.

Denise curled her lip into a sneer and walked slowly to another table.

Thanks to Kay’s “infraction,” the girls were sent straight to their beds that night. Mairin pulled the coarse blanket around

her shoulders and shuddered, hearing Sister Theresa’s footsteps bonging on the metal stairs.

Kay was once again kneeling by the wall, offering her tiny mouse friend a stolen morsel from supper. Over time, she had managed to train the creature to crawl into the palm of her hand. She seemed oblivious to the approaching nun, who was armed with a bucket and a broom.

“Heads up,” Mairin hissed.

Kay hid the mouse in the pocket of her smock.

“What do you think you’re doing, girl?” Sister Theresa strode over to Kay. “I’ve been watching you, and I know what you’re

up to. Take that filthy creature out of your pocket right this instant.”

Kay froze, and the color drained from her face. “I... I... I...”

Theresa plunged her hand into Kay’s pocket. In a swift movement, she seized the mouse and dropped it into the bucket.

“No! No!” Kay’s voice cracked with desperation.

“Sister, please,” Mairin said, jumping up. Janice did the same, jamming her glasses on her face.

Theresa ignored them both. With swift strides, she went to the bathroom. A moment later, they heard a flushing sound. It was

nearly drowned out by Kay’s anguished sobs as she collapsed to the floor, her body racked with grief.

Janice rushed to Sister Theresa as the nun exited the bathroom. “How could you?” Janice demanded. “You’re supposed to be a

woman of God, but all you are is cruel.”

Without a word, Sister Theresa grabbed Janice by the arm. Her other hand lashed out, cracking across Janice’s face and sending

her glasses flying. Then the nun switched off the lights and left the dormitory, causing the gate to clang behind her.

The uneasy quiet was broken only by Kay’s muffled weeping.

Mairin seethed. She would never be able to assuage Kay’s sorrow, but she thought of something they could do. She passed the

word through the unstoppable whispering network that circulated through the halls of the Good Shepherd. The nuns thought they

could control every aspect of the girls’ lives, but they couldn’t control their thoughts. Not everyone’s thoughts, anyway.

Some girls were inexplicably convinced that the nuns were right—that this was a place where their sins would be washed away

so long as they practiced blind obedience.

Mairin would never believe that, not about herself, or about any girl here, even the mean ones, or the ones who came from terrible circumstances.

An hour after lights-out and lockdown, Kay had cried herself to sleep. Mairin went quietly to the bathroom. Helen followed

her readily enough. A few others trailed along, tentative and curious—Angela and Odessa. Even Denise and her gang, and Janice,

her cheek now bruised from the slap, joined them.

They huddled in the shower room, and Mairin took out a pair of scissors. “I swiped this from the sewing room,” she said. “I

say we all cut off our hair to protest what they did to Kay.”

“No way,” Denise said. “You’re crazy.”

Mairin glared at her. “You ought to go first,” she said. “It’s your fault they did that to Kay.” She noticed a subtle flicker

in Denise’s hard gaze. “Or are you chicken?”

“Hell, no. It’s... just a stupid idea,” Denise said.

“How many times have the nuns pulled our hair?” Odessa asked. “Think about that.”

A few heads nodded. Hair-pulling was a favorite technique of the nuns.

“If we cut off our hair, they won’t have anything to yank on,” Helen pointed out.

“Exactly,” said Mairin. “Besides, it’ll mean less time in the cold showers, right?”

That got a couple of nods. There was no hot water for the residents here, and washing in the cold water was excruciating.

With that, she grabbed a handful of her own hair and twisted it. Then she took a deep breath and cut it off, letting the long

red locks drop softly to the concrete floor of the shower room.