It was lovely out in the hall. There was no one in sight, and all the doors were closed. Katherine thought Horace Mann Elementary School was lovely — cool and dark and spooky. With the tallest fire escape — just right for playing School and Teacher, where you moved up a step for every grade.
Since there was no one around, and since she felt so much better, Katherine decided to explore closed doors that had long puzzled her. Doors that didn’t open on classrooms, but to strange, dark squares that might hold anything. That was how she found the secret in the broom-closet. It was a good-sized broom-closet, and there was an old mattress — it looked like the one on the cot in the nurse’s office — rolled up in the corner.
Katherine couldn’t really go home — if her mother were home, she might ask questions — so she unrolled the mattress and lay do Am. It was dark and quiet in the broom-closet — and restful. Before she knew she was sleepy, she had gone to sleep.
She awoke drowsily to the sound of the children in the halls, and she guessed it was time for recess. Doors were opening and closing. There were shouts and giggles. Katherine lay quietly and hoped the janitor was down in the basement, in his room next to the boys' toilets. She hoped he wouldn’t need a broom until after recess. Everyone would think it strange, if they found Katherine hiding in the broom-closet.
Then she heard the voices. Miss Cooper from the fifth grade and Miss Belliveau, the kindergarten teacher, another voice she wasn’t sure of — and Miss Page. It sounded like they were talking right next to her ear. Then Katherine remembered the teachers’ lounge — is was right next door.
“And I simply don’t know how to handle the child.” It was Miss Page talking. “She pretended she was sick — and maybe she was. Thelma Carey is away this morning, so I couldn’t send her to the nurse’s office. And I couldn’t challenge her in front of the whole class. So I let her go home.”
“I remember her from kindergarten,” this was Miss Belliveau. “A strange child. Quite intelligent, but odd. She wanted to play with the others, but she just didn’t seem to know how. Everything she did was wrong.”
“I've written her mother several notes” — Miss Page sounded displeased — “but she ignores them. I suppose I should go see the woman. I owe it to the child, as her teacher. But if her mother isn’t even interested enough to answer a note...”
The unidentified voice broke in.
“It’s a sad situation. The mother is an alcoholic. The father seems to be a decent chap, but he’s home only on week-ends. He travels for a tyre company. I suggested that he ask for a transfer of some sort, but he tells me he makes more money travelling. And, like most of us, he needs the money.”
“Oh, Louise,” Miss Page’s voice was sad. “How tragic! I didn’t know a bit of the family history. How did you get on to it?”
“The neighbours called Welfare. Seems the child was wandering around at all hours. Welfare got in touch with the school board, and I was assigned to check the child’s record. As far as her marks are concerned she seems quite bright. But with that background — what can you expect?”
“Honestly, it just makes me furious. They expect us to turn them into model citizens, and their families defeat our purpose before we even begin.” Katherine could see Miss Belliveau, short and plump, puffing up like a pigeon in the park.
“Can't Welfare do anything about the mother?” Miss Cooper had a deep, serious voice. The older kids said she was awful strict.
The unknown Louise answered. “They’re trying, I guess. If it doesn’t get any better, they may take the child.”
“How awful!” said Miss Page.
“Terrible!” said Miss Belliveau.
“Disgusting!” said Miss Cooper. “I don’t relish inheriting her. It’s hard enough to pound something into the heads of the adjusted ones.”
Katherine found that her legs were cramped. She decided that, if she slipped out the street door and hurried around the block, she could enter the playground as though she had returned from home. She really wanted to go back to class — and, anyway, Miss Page had already collected the milk money. So that was all she heard that day. But she had found her secret secret place.
After that, Katherine found all sorts of excuses for going out into the hall just before recess. She would slip quietly into the broom-closet and lie on her special couch. And she would listen.
The speakers in the lounge were not always the same ones, and, sometimes, they talked about the dullest things, like government and the board of education and the cost of living. Sometimes, when Miss Page and Miss Belliveau were there alone, they talked about Miss Page’s boy friend. His name was Bob, and Katherine found Bob very interesting. But the best conversations concerned the children and the things the children did — or might do.
“I had to be so careful. I didn’t want to frighten them, but the situation could be serious.” It was Miss Belliveau speaking as she came in the door.
Miss Page answered. “I felt the same way. It’s easy for the older ones to get ideas — to make up all sorts of stories. One of my little angels thought up a really fantastic tale the other day. She said a man in a car with wings offered her a ride. And that he had an eagle sitting on his wrist.”
“I can imagine which one dreamed that up. It’s sad — you can’t believe a thing Katherine says. But if she weren’t known to stretch the truth, then you might report the story, on the chance that it could be the same one. But you know the old bromide — consider the source.”
“Of course I don’t want to en-courage such fancies, so I went all around Robin Hood’s barn when I brought up the subject. First, I told them I was sure they had all been cautioned about accepting rides or presents from strangers. Then I said that, if a strange man approaches any child, that child should report him to his parents or teacher immediately.”
“Well, of course, I had to be a little plainer about it. I guess the main gist of my message was — run! I wish they’d catch the beast. That’s what he — a beast. The whole thing makes me very nervous,” Miss Belliveau said.
“It makes me more than nervous,” said Miss Page. “The man is obviously mental. Those two poor girls — one of them dead and the other still in coma. It makes my flesh crawl.”
“The paper said both children’s parents were positive their daughters would never go off with a strange man.”
“That’s what we all think,” said Miss Page. “That’ the danger. No one has the vaguest idea what he looks like, or how he gets the children to go with him. I only hope he doesn’t show up around here. I’m afraid to let Bob go home early, as it is.”
Miss Belliveau laughed. “That isn’t why you won’t let Bob go home early.” Miss Page giggled, and Katherine had to put her hand over her mouth.
But just then Miss Cooper came in, and that ended the giggly part of the conversation.
The days after that grew long and golden, and Katherine spent more time playing at recess. But, one day, some of the children began to call her Granddaddy Longlegs, and she ran into the girls’ toilet to escape their voices.
There she looked into the mirror. It was true her legs were long — and her arms, too. The rest of her was thin, and the arms and legs made her torso look unimportant. Her hair was all wrong somehow — brown and straight and square. Her eyes were not blue, like the June sky, but brown like the body of a June bug.
“You’re ugly, Granddaddy Long-legs,” she told the mirror and ran to her secret place.
“She is really quite a charming child,” Miss Page was saying. “Of course, she’s lovely to look at, but she has excellent manners as well. This morning she brought me a note from her mother, inviting me to Peggy’s birthday party on the fourteenth. You’d have thought she was a grown-up, the way she presented it.”