“Does she have to make humming noises all the time?” another asks.
“We must practice tolerance,” replies Teacher. “We all have little habits that others find annoying, don’t we now?”
“Yes, Miss Cullen,” they reply innocently.
My body pulses up and down on the edge of Rebecca’s desk. These girls fill my air space with angry vibrations. They could learn some things from Rebecca, who finds fault with no one.
Visitor’s Day Tea one time a month is always a day of high vibration here. I always attend. I happen to be partial to scones and tea. But Rebecca has never been invited before. The mistress instructs her staff to have Rebecca in a clean pinafore after class today. Mistress has heroically taken care of Rebecca’s hair herself. Today Rebecca will be seen. I’ve heard the mistress grumbling to herself, pacing in her office.
“We’ll show that board of directors. No one will be interested in this odd one, in spite of our efforts. They’ll see. Odd is odd, clean pinafore or not.”
In class, I hang again on the window sill in the warm spring sunshine. The sun warms the apple blossoms. The scent drifts over Rebecca’s seat. She cocks her head to the side and breathes in the scent. It’s much better than factory smoke. The teacher thinks so, too.
“Good morning, girls. Isn’t this the most wonderful spring morning? It makes me feel so merry. Thousands of fragrant blossoms are blowing on the breeze.”
“Twenty-six,” Rebecca interrupts.
Surprised, I whirl in a three-sixty and nearly fall off the sill.
“Rebecca?” the surprised teacher says. “What did you say?”
“Twenty-six.”
“Twenty-six? Twenty-six…something?” teacher probes.
“Twenty-six.” Rebecca speaks to the floor. The other girls snicker and snort.
“Well, uh, yes, well, class, please take out your readers and we’ll begin,” the flustered teacher says. But, she keeps her eyes on Rebecca.
I crawl up the window to survey and make a plan. I begin to plan vengeance on the rude girls. Should I buzz them, or walk on their lunches? Sit on the page they are reading, perhaps, or tickle their noses when they recite? Walk across the backs of their dirty necks? Now that’s annoying! But first, I want to know, twenty-six whats?
The teacher doesn’t know what to make of Rebecca. Rebecca has rarely, if ever, spoken in class. “Twenty-six” sounds like a purely random statement. But I know it’s not. Somehow, I think the teacher has figured out that it isn’t random, too. It means something to Rebecca. But what?
After class, Rebecca sits swaying with her hands over her ears waiting for the classroom to empty. The young teacher sits down at the vacated desk next to Rebecca. She looks down at the floor and says nothing, just as Rebecca is doing. I move up the wall for a better angle. When the room is quiet and Rebecca stops swaying, the teacher speaks to the floor.
I see what she’s doing. She’s trying to enter into Rebecca’s secret world, to be like her, to understand her. I’m abuzz with joy.
“Twenty-six,” Teacher says softly.
“Twenty-six,” replies Rebecca. She gets up and walks toward me by the open window. The breeze blows and the branch of blossoms rubs against the brick building giving off a delightful fragrance. When the breeze stops, the teacher looks up and sees Rebecca standing off to the side of the window facing her, but looking down. Directly in front of the teacher is the view Rebecca has from her desk. Teacher sees the beautiful branch like a painting, framed by the window.
“Twenty-six.” Rebecca picks up her cardigan and walks out of the classroom.
“Twenty-six…twenty-six, twenty-six…oh!” Teacher runs to the window. “One, two, three…fourteen, fifteen…twenty-five, twenty- six. Not thousands of blossoms, twenty-six blossoms! Oh, Rebecca.”
I hang around a little while and from my vantage on the wall, I study the teacher’s notes. What is it that makes Rebecca different? Makes her special? How can I teach her?
She’s never disruptive unless someone touches her. Occasionally the girls pinch or touch her to get a reaction and put the class in an uproar, but most of the time they just ignore her or laugh at her.
She does a lot of unusual things, but I think in Rebecca’s world, none of it is random. It all makes sense to her. What I have to figure out is how to enter Rebecca’s world.
She knows without counting there are twenty-six blossoms on that branch. In many ways, the girl seems brilliant. She’s exceptionally clever in mathematics. I must figure out a way to reach her to teach her.
I flit a happy zig-zag out of the room. How wonderful, someone cares about Rebecca. Someone wants to understand her and try to reach her. Other than me, I mean. I’m just a…you know, fly-on-the-wall.
Chapter 3
The Creature
I take a short nap on the wall in the warm sunshine, oversleep, and nearly miss the afternoon tea. I buzz in at the last possible moment. Thank goodness there are still some scones left on the platter, soaking in the cream’s liquid.
All the orphans gather in the parlor to have tea with the visitors. The girls are combed and cleaned, and expected to demonstrate their social skills pouring the tea, serving the clotted cream and scones and being gracious hostesses, as they’d been taught.
Some of the visitors are patrons and sponsors who give money to the orphanage for the care of the girls. They come to see their money being put to good use. Some come to adopt a girl or two. The girls all hope today will be their turn.
This is the first time Rebecca has ever been invited to tea. The head mistress sits her down at a far tea table, apart from all the other tables. She sits alone.
“Be quiet,” Mistress tells her, and hurries off.
Rebecca yanks the ribbons out of her braids. She can see them in her peripheral vision and they annoy her. I can understand that. Pollen in my peripheral vision has that same effect on me. She presses the ribbons out on the table side by side with her fingers.
“Two.”
I watch her stare at the rug and lose herself in the design of concentric circles. She sways almost imperceptibly, but to Rebecca her movements are the same as the circles. Around and around she sways fitting into the circles just fine. She begins to count the circles.
Just then a lady wearing white gloves and a large hat sits down at the table where Rebecca is sitting intently studying the carpet. The woman seems captivated by the quiet girl, sitting alone, swaying in circles. She spots me on the wall and gives me a look of disdain. I get that a lot. I fly to the other side of the table and rest on top of her hat, out of her sight.
Rebecca’s fingers are busily shelling imaginary peas in her lap. It looks like she’s playing a piano.
“I’ll bet you’re talented – as a pianist, I mean,” the lady says. “How old are you? Have you been playing piano long? What’s your name?”
Rebecca by now has the pattern of the carpet divided into equal sets with hundreds of circles identified and she doesn’t appreciate the woman’s voice distracting her. She puts her hands over her ears, concentrating harder, moving deeper into the carpet pattern, her mind moving farther away from the tea table. She begins to hum softly, isolating herself from the stranger’s voice.
The stranger puts her gloved hand across her mouth and studies Rebecca. Rebecca ignores her.
When the tea party is over the girls return to their rooms, put on their work pinafores, and go to their chores.
Two of