The Tiny One by Eliza Minot

Author:Eliza Minot [Minot, Eliza]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-307-43465-4
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2012-10-04T04:00:00+00:00

PART III

Afternoon

ELEVEN

Lunch

AFTER RECESS we went to lunch. We always walk in a line through the halls. On the way to the cafeteria the tiled floors are speckled like that other kind of bologna that Mum never buys with the big white circles in it. When we get to the cafeteria we still wait in line. The cinder-block walls are painted yellow and when I run my finger along the track between each block it’s smooth and fits perfectly like I’ve made the line with my finger on frosting. Along the windowed wall on the side where we line up is like a counter with radiator vents on top so we lean on them. They’re never too hot. Out the window is the back of the school. It’s a gravelly parking lot that we never go to.

While we waited in line I looked out at that parking lot. There was only a red van parked back there. It looked like winter. All at once I felt it all in my stomach, round gray winter with a van parked in an empty parking lot. I told Lulu I didn’t feel good and she just looked at me. I thought of Abby sitting out there in the red van squeezing the poor chick. Then I thought of being out in the red van by myself, and I wanted to be. At the same time I was glad to be with people. I couldn’t decide. Sometimes that happens.

Most of our lunch trays are mint green colored. Other ones are light orange like the color of St. Joseph’s baby aspirin. Our lunch trays have compartments for each food like a TV dinner. There’s a rectangle for the main thing. It was Welsh rarebit. It’s cheese sauce poured over a couple of saltine crackers. There’s a round thing for soup but on days we don’t have soup it’s either got the dessert or nothing in it. There’s a little square for peas or lima beans or something like cooked carrots in cubes like dice. Sometimes we have some iceberg lettuce or slices of cucumbers. There’s a square for dessert—Jell-O, usually, or some kind of whipped stuff with whipped cream on top. There’s another little square that you can put your milk carton on. You go in one door into the kitchen and slide along the metal railing where you can see through the glass to whatever we’re having steaming in a metal square. Bernice passes you a tray with everything on it, and then you come out another door and go sit down.

Wednesday’s always Soup and Sandwich Day. The best sandwich is grilled cheese but we always have it with tomato soup and I don’t like tomato soup. Sometimes they give us Fluffernutters which is fluff and peanut butter sandwiches which is too sweet and I can’t really handle bread on sandwiches, that’s why I like grilled cheese because it’s not really bread. On Fridays we don’t have meat ever so we have fish sticks or pizza since Bernice doesn’t cook meat on Friday.

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