Spying on Miss Muller by Eve Bunting

Author:Eve Bunting
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Chapter Ten

I GOT EXCUSED from the last ten minutes of last period, chemistry with Stinky Larrimer, so that I could call home. We were doing experiments with Bunsen burners and liquids that turned into gases with disgusting smells. The boys said they loved it, even though they were choking and coughing like the rest of us. I was happy to get away.

There were only two phones in Alveara, one in Mr. Atkinson’s study, the other in Old Rose’s sitting room. Our parents could ring us and leave messages or arrange for us to ring back. When we did, Old Rose was always right there, sitting by her fire, not listening to our conversations, of course. She’d never do that.

“Talk about censorship,” Ada said.

“It’s one way to make sure we don’t complain,” I said. “But you’d think today, after the air raid, she’d have the decency to let us talk to our parents in private.” Never. The word privacy wasn’t in Old Rose’s vocabulary. Hers or the maids’.

From outside her sitting room I could faintly hear Ada’s voice talking on the phone. In a few seconds she came out and whispered, “Oh yes indeed, Mummy and Daddy. Miss Rose is being wonderfully kind to us. Everyone is. Oh yes. We were so well organized for air raid drill there was no panic at all.”

Ada pulled down on the corners of her eyes and up on the corners of her lips to make a gargoyle of her face. It was hard not to giggle. Ada looks enough like a gargoyle without exaggerating it. “I could boke,” she said, leaning over and making boking noises.

I tap-tapped on the sitting-room door and was sweetly invited to come in. As usual Old Rose was in an armchair close to her nice cozy fire, and the room had that warm, peaty smell that reminded me of home. The Belfast Newsletter was open across her knees, and her academic gown was folded over a footstool beside her. When it was off you could plainly see that Old Rose was shaped like an overstuffed sausage. Her legs were thin, though, and when she wore the gown she was well camouflaged.

She turned a fake-concerned face toward me. “Come in, precious. I hope you’re not too nervous after last night.”

“Not really, Miss Rose.” I thought about Ian McManus. His lips had been so warm, and up close there’d been a pepperminty smell, toothpaste maybe. The ads for a certain brand said, “Did you McClean your teeth today?” I tried not to think about Ian because we had a firm belief that Old Rose could read your thoughts by looking at your face, so in her presence it was best to stay blank. She was looking at me closely now.

“Help yourself to the telephone, macushla.” Her hand waved toward where it sat on its table in the bay of the mullioned window.

“Thank you, Miss Rose.”

“Just sign the book like a good girl.”

We had to sign for everything in this place. I put my name under Ada’s.

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