Dancing With Chairs in the Music House by Caro Soles

Author:Caro Soles
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inanna Publications
Published: 2020-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

15. THE SOIRÉE-IN-THE-AFTERNOON

“WILL DADDY BE HOME IN TIME for the soirée?” I ask at dinner that night. I’m still calling it that even though it’s in the afternoon. It sounds very bon ton.

Mother shakes her head. “Maybe next weekend,” she says. “Definitely in time for the Recital.” She smiles across the table at Jonathan. He frowns.

I bow my head. My pleasure in the musical event is clouded by prickly memories of the Five and Ten, the sweaty anxiety, the incredible burst of pure excitement. And the sight of my rose leaving Cedric’s hand, snuggling down in Maisie’s bird-nest hair. The only good thing was that Miss Beaumont made her take it off in class. “Not appropriate,” she said crisply. I smile, remembering.

“What are you grinning about?” Jonathan asks, irritably.

“Nothing.”

“You’re being awfully quiet, dear.” Mother gives me one of her searching looks.

For a few seconds, I’m afraid she can see what I did at lunch hour, will see a wretched thief sitting here at the table, someone who stole the prism even before meeting Cedric, someone who does not deserve to be a Dudley-Morris. I freeze. But when she asks if I’d like the last pancake, I breathe easy again and say yes.

“Don’t give her that—she’ll get fat,” Jonathan says. “She already has a pot.”

“I do not!”

“We should call her Pot. Maybe Potty for short.” He grins.

“That’s enough,” Mother says, handing me my plate.

I feel him watching as I pour molasses over my hotcake and stop before I really want to. I try to think of a name to call him back, but my mind stumbles. “Blooberpuss,” I mutter. I pull in my stomach.

Saturday afternoon, Janet is full of her school-closing activities. We are up on Mount Olympus, hidden by the great maple tree. I glance at the coach house, wishing I could tell Janet about my adventure up there, an adventure that has robbed Mount Olympus of its thrill. I wish I could tell her how Brian was my knight in shining armour that day, but it’s a secret. Being secret gives it a special power. This part of Brian is all mine. And it’s a happy secret, too, not like the Vipers. That’s something I don’t want to tell anyone about. Something shameful. Dark. Like a stain.

Normally we play games, sending messages by Hermes—usually Janet, who leaps from one roof to the next to deliver the missive to Zeus. I play Zeus and hurl a lot of thunderbolts to show my displeasure at whatever she says. But today she’s too full of her own reality.

As she talks, describing the real play her class is staging, I think of the pathetic pageant the sight-saving class is practising … or trying to. Between Eddie convulsing and Wanda muttering and spitting, not to mention yesterday when poor Rosemary fell off the platform, her steel leg clattering and knocking over the stool where Wise Owl is supposed to sit, we aren’t getting very far. I’m Owl. Luckily I wasn’t perched on the stool at the time.

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