Raji, Book Two

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

“Can you keep still, Keesler?” Pepper said to Liz as she pinned up the hem of the uniform skirt.

Pepper was secretary to Dr. Pompeii. She was twenty-two, Liz was sixteen, and I, fourteen.

“I’m afraid of heights,” Liz said. She winked at me.

I sat on my bed, watching Liz where she stood on a wooden chair, while Pepper Darling adjusted the length of her skirt. “Miss Pepper,” I said, “I must need talk with Dr. Pompeii.”

“Why?” Pepper took another straight pin from between her red-painted lips.

My thoughts were always in Hindi, but I spoke in English, most of the time. “I want give my place for Fuse.”

Liz and Pepper stared at me.

It was the morning after the introduction on the stage and the flag transfers to the new Guardians. I had spent a sleepless night in the girls’ dormitory room, where Liz and I shared the four-person quarters.

“You can’t.” Pepper slipped a pin into the bottom edge of the ankle-length khaki skirt.

“You’re kidding,” Liz said, “aren’t you, Raji?”

“No, I am not belonging here.”

“You’re right about that,” Pepper said. “Turn around, Keesler.”

Liz looked over her shoulder and down at Pepper. “She has as much right as anyone else.” Liz was tall and slim, with curly auburn hair falling halfway down her back.

“Maybe,” Pepper said, “but being a chess whiz won’t get her through the first six-weeks exams.”

“Says who?”

Pepper glared up at her. “Have you seen Devaki’s school transcript?”

“No.”

“Neither have I. You know why?”

Liz shook her head.

“Because she doesn’t have one. I don’t think the girl has ever been to school. Get down so we can see how your jacket fits.”

“She went to school in India.” Liz stepped down from the chair and slipped into the jacket Pepper held for her. “Probably they don’t even have transcripts there.”

Pepper glanced at me, raising an eyebrow.

“She is true, Liz. I have not never been in school.”

“In that case,” Liz said, “how did you get invited to the competition?”

“This is the strange thing I am not understanding anyway. Until that moment when Dr. Pompeii say my name and give number for the competition, I am not even knowing this happen to me.”

“How about it, Pepper?” Liz said. “I thought it was good grades in school that got us invited to compete for the academy.”

“Yeah, that or…” Pepper lifted the padded shoulders of the jacket and looked at Liz’s hands. “You want the cuffs below your wrists, like that?”

Liz shook out her sleeves and looked down, then reached to pull up her left cuff a half-inch. “Right there.”

Pepper rolled the cuff under to pin it. “Or exceptional intellectual ability,” she finished her thought.

Liz’s jacket was a royal blue blazer with a coat-of-arms embroidered on the left breast pocket. The crest consisted of crossed tennis racquets behind a knight chess piece. White blouses and yellow ties, along with high-top black shoes and our khaki skirts would complete our uniforms. The colors and style were identical to the boys’ uniforms, consisting of jackets and trousers.

“What is meaning of this thing you said, Miss Pepper?” I asked.

“Smarts, I guess,” Pepper said.

Liz grinned at me.

“Put your skirt on, Devaki,” Pepper said, “so I can pin it up.”

“But why to bother? I will not need uniform.”

“I’m just following orders. ‘Pin up their uniforms for the seamstress,’ Dr. Pompeii told me, so I’m pinning up the uniforms. If yours is to hang unused in the closet for another year, so what? Besides, you can’t give your place to anyone.”

“It is my place. Why cannot I give it?”

“If you drop out, Dr. Pompeii will replace you with one of the four alternates.”

“Is Fuse one of these alternates?”

“That’s classified information.”

“What is this you are saying?”

“It’s a secret,” Liz said. She removed her jacket, being careful of the straight pins.

“But you know about this secret, Miss Pepper?”

Pepper nodded.

“Why not you tell me?”

“Well, then it wouldn’t be a secret, would it? Hurry up with your skirt, I’ve got about fifty reports to typewrite.”

I removed my red and green sari, laid it on the bed, straightened my slip, then stepped into the long skirt. I held it at the waistband to keep it from falling from my hips.

“You skinny little thing,” Pepper said, folding a large tuck at my waist.

* * * * *

I sat at my desk in the girls’ dormitory room, staring out the window into the early morning fog. I had a deep feeling of uneasiness, as if I should be somewhere else.

That morning when Fuse and I climbed to the top of the silo and watched the sunrise over Caroline Bell Crest...

A breath of wind swirled the fog into wispy shapes outside my window, but then it settled down like a thick, wet blanket.

Only a memory now…so far away, but still the sweetest one...

“Hey, dreamer-girl,” Liz said from her bed, where she sat, pulling on her stockings. “You’ve got that look again.”

I glanced at my roommate. “I know.”

“You better hurry up if we’re going to get some pancakes before the boys gobble them all up.”

“I not very hungry.”

“But I am, and you know how I would hate dining alone with ninety-eight juvenile boys.”

One hundred teens made up the student body at the academy—fifty juniors and fifty seniors.

“Juvenile?”

“Dopey, sappy, idiotic, inane…”

“You think Fuse juvenile?”

Liz sighed and stood to slip her dress over her head. She soothed out the pale blue linen, then straightened the bodice “No, Raji. I think Fuse is a prince.” She turned her back to me, holding the ends of the fabric belt out behind her. Our school uniforms had not yet come back from the seamstress.

I took the belt and pulled it tight, tying it in a large bow.

“He’s sweet, adorable, intelligent,” Liz said, “and…let me see…what else did you tell me?”

“Bright, handsome…”

“Yes, all that.” Liz took another dress from her closet and tossed it to me. “Let me ask you this; if he’s so brilliant, why was he not in the top fifty after the competition?”

“Rodger Kavanagh beat Fuse in tennis.” I held up the tailor-made dress by the shoulders, thinking how beautiful it was. “And chess also.”

“Kavanagh didn’t take Fuse’s place. Kavanagh beat the pooh-pooh out of everyone–except you–in chess.”

“You let me wear your nice dress this day?” I stood to hold it to my body while kicking out my right foot to admire the colorful material.

“Sure, if you’ll wear it to the mess hall and watch me eat a stack of pancakes.”

I smiled and lifted the hem of my pink nightgown to pull it over my head. I then tossed the nightgown on my bed and stepped into the dress. “I sorry, Liz, but I miss him so much.” I pulled my waist-length hair from the collar and reached behind my neck to button the dress.

“I miss my puppy dog, too, but there comes a time when you have to let go.” Liz took her hairbrush from the dresser.

“Why?”

She began to brush my hair. “Because I would rather learn the finer points of anatomy than lie by the fire all day with a smelly dog l*****g my face.” She glanced at my hair.“Your hair is really long. Have you ever cut it?”

“Sometimes I wonder.”

“About a haircut or a smelly dog?”

I laughed.

“That’s better.” She dropped the brush on her unmade bed. “Now, let’s go hit the mess hall and see how many stupid wisecracks we can stand before we scream b****y murder.”

* * * * *

I watched Liz step over a bench in the mess hall in a very unladylike manner as I glanced around for an empty place at the long table.

“Appleby,” she said as she set her tray on the table, “do you have to play chess while we’re eating?”

Clayton Appleby, a junior, looked at Liz as she sat next to him. “Hey, Keesler.” He licked maple syrup from his fingers and picked up his black knight. “Do you have to eat while we’re playing chess?”

I took the seat across the table from Liz, keeping my knees together as I scooted onto the bench. I smiled a greeting to Clayton, then looked at the chessboard. I shook my head ever so slightly as I reached for my knife and fork.

Clayton put his knight back where it was. Andrew Hobbs looked from Clayton to me, then back again. “Come on, Devaki. I would have checkmated him in three moves.”

Liz stifled a giggle and reached for the butter dish. “Hobbs,” she said as she spread butter on her pancakes, “you couldn’t checkmate a moo cow.” She handed the butter to me.

Andrew looked at Liz, then at the pawn Clayton had shoved forward. “I’m sorry, Keesler,” Andrew said as he took the pawn with his bishop. “I guess you heard the senior boys calling you a cow.”

Someone down the table mooed, and Liz leaned forward to glare at him. “Well, at least they don’t call me a Chess Nut.” She took a bite of dripping pancake.

“Hey, waiter,” Clayton said, “more syrup here.” He held up the empty carafe.

“Yes, sir,” said the senior student on serving duty. He wore a long white apron over his school uniform. “Anything you say, sir.”

He came along the aisle behind the benches and pushed his way between me and Andrew. As I leaned away from him, the senior poured warm maple syrup from his large pitcher into the smaller one in Clayton’s hand.

I had just taken my first bite when another senior at the table behind me clinked his fork on an empty glass. “Hey, waiter,” the student said. “I need more milk.”

The senior at my side looked at the other student, while still pouring syrup and leaving a trail across the white tablecloth and onto my plate. I saw the syrup overflowing my plate and reached to pull it away. Meanwhile, the senior pretended not to notice anything wrong.

“I’ll be right there, sir.”

He continued to spill the warm, sticky liquid across my plate, then into my lap. I cried out and pushed away the syrup pitcher.

“Hey,” the senior said as he dumped the rest of the syrup on my chest. “You hit my arm.” He raised his voice. “Now look what you’ve done.”

“I did not!” I shouted, jumping up. I grabbed a linen napkin and tried to wipe the syrup away, but I felt it soaking through to my skin. “Why you do this thing to me?”

“Blockhead,” Liz said to the senior. “You did that on purpose.”

Haskell Layzard, a junior, laughed. “What’s the matter, Devaki? Have a little accident?”

The senior with the empty milk glass laughed, then several others followed suit—laughing and pointing at me as I dabbed at the sticky liquid.

The senior on serving duty grinned like a fat Cheshire cat as he watched the syrup run down my dress, all the way to the floor.

“Look at Devaki, the Shavetail Dizzy,” another senior said, “she’s about to cry.”

“Wah, wah, wah. I want my mamma,” another cadet said, then laughed.

At that moment, I heard the shrill sound of a police whistle and thought someone was coming to reprimand the senior for making such a mess. Everyone looked toward the side door of the mess hall, where a large woman stood with her arms folded and feet spread apart. She wore the school uniform of blue and tan. The shiny whistle dropped from her lips, then dangled on a chain around her neck.

“Five minutes!” she shouted.

The senior with the now-empty syrup pitcher hurried toward the kitchen, while all the other seniors grabbed their trays and left the tables. They lined up to dump their scraps into a large garbage can. After cleaning off their plates, they placed the trays and dishes on the counter of a long window opening into the kitchen area. Workers removed the dirty trays as fast as they piled up, while more student-workers began clearing away the remaining food from the serving line.

“Why the hurry?” Clayton asked as he watched the seniors file out the side door.

“Probably heading for class,” Andrew said.

“Liz,” I said. “This nice dress you loan me, now ruined.”

“Don’t worry, it’ll wash out,” Liz said. “I think we better go.”

The two of us took our trays and left the table to stand in line with the other juniors, where we slowly worked our way up to the window to leave the food trays on the counter. It seemed as soon as all the seniors left the mess hall, the clearing of the counter came to a standstill, forcing all the juniors to wait for a place to pile their trays.

“Why those students in kitchen?” I continued to wipe my dress with the napkin, with little effect.

“Maybe they earn extra money that way,” Liz said.

“They look not so happy.”

“Come on, we have to go find our first class.”

Liz and I joined the queue of students going out the side door where the large woman stood. She kept her eyes on a wallclock to her left. When we reached the door, the woman handed me a slip of pink paper.

“Thank you.” I looked at the piece of paper.

“Name?” The woman poised a yellow pencil over her clipboard.

“Rajiani Devaki.”

“What’s this?” Liz asked when the woman handed her a pink slip.

“You’re late.”

The woman was of normal height, but her legs were too long, giving her an odd appearance with her short torso and thick neck. If her jacket had been black, she would resemble a long-legged penguin.

“What’s your name?”

“A demerit?!” Liz exclaimed. “Why?”

“I said, you’re late. Now give me your name and move along before you get another one for insubordination.”

“Elizabeth Keesler,” Liz mumbled.

“Why we get demerits?” I asked Liz as we left the mess hall.

“Ten seconds after eight.” Liz glared at her pink slip. “That old battleaxe gave us demerits for being ten seconds late leaving the mess hall. How ridiculous.”

“We must find our first class,” I said.

“Yeah, English, but we need our tablets and pencils.”

Liz led the way back to the Admin Building, where our dorm room was located.

“And I need change dress.”

When we stepped into our room, I saw three slips of pink paper on my bed.