Now, there are several differences between frogs and toads,” Christy said the next afternoon in the schoolhouse.
Prince Egbert sat on her battered desk in a small wooden box Clara had borrowed from her father. It was nice, Christy realized, to have any kind of educational aid—even if it was just a disgruntled frog.
When Christy had first come to the mission school, she’d been shocked at the lack of supplies. There’d been no paper, no books, no pencils, no chalk. In the winter, there wasn’t even enough heat.
It still amazed her that she had sixty-seven students of all ages and abilities. Some could read and do math. Some couldn’t even hold a pencil. And no matter what their grade level, they were all crowded into one tiny schoolhouse—a school that doubled as the church on Sundays.
On a hot, sunny day like today, it was especially hard to control so many children. It didn’t help one bit that Ruby May, Bessie, and Clara had been disrupting class all morning with giggles and whispers.
Creed Allen, a mischievous nine-year-old, waved his hand frantically. “Teacher!” he called. “I got me a question about that there frog!”
“Yes, Creed?”
“How come Clara Spencer gets to bring her pet to school, but I can’t bring Scalawag?”
Christy sighed tolerantly. Scalawag was Creed’s pet raccoon. She’d made his acquaintance on the first day of school, when Creed had hidden the animal in his desk.
“This frog—” Christy began.
“Prince Egbert,” Clara interjected.
“Excuse me. Prince Egbert,” Christy continued, “is here as part of our science class, Creed. We’re learning about amphibians, and—”
“But Scalawag’s got manners to spare compared to that slimy ol’ frog,” Creed persisted.
“I’m sure he does, Creed. But he’s such an entertaining fellow that we’d never get any learning done with Scalawag around, don’t you think?”
“I s’pose,” Creed said crankily. “But he’s a heap more good for learnin’ than some warty fibian.”
“Amphibian,” Christy corrected. “And that brings me to an interesting point. Who can tell me the difference between a frog’s skin and a toad’s?”
“Tell you this,” came a loud voice from the back of the room. “Ruby Mae’s got more warts than either of ’em!”
“That will be enough, Lundy,” Christy said firmly. At seventeen, Lundy Taylor was the oldest boy in school. He was also the source of most trouble. He was a vicious bully, and although he’d been better behaved lately, Christy never let her guard down around Lundy.
“Shut up, Lundy Taylor!” Ruby Mae shot back. She jutted her chin. “I’m better ’n you every which way there is. ’Specially ’cause now I’m a-goin’ to be stinkin’ r—”
“Hush, Ruby Mae!” Clara elbowed her hard.
“Stinkin’ is right,” Lundy crowed. “You stink like them hogs under the schoolhouse. Only they smell better!”
Christy clapped her hands. “That will be quite enough,” she said. She was beginning to wonder if she should have let the children have a longer lunch break. The way things were turning out, it was going to be a long afternoon.
“Lizette?” Christy said. “Can you answer my question about the difference between frogs and toads?”
Lizette Holcombe shrugged. “Nope,” she grumbled.
Christy was surprised at her tone of voice. Lizette was one of her best students. “Is something wrong, Lizette?”
Lizette glared at Ruby Mae and her friends. “Nothin’s wrong.”
“Are you sure?” Christy asked gently.
“Why don’t you just ask the princesses to answer? They think they’re so smart. But you could take all the brains they’ve got, put them in a goose quill and blow ’em in a bedbug’s eye!”
Christy knelt by Lizette’s side. She was a tall, pretty girl, with long brown hair. But her face was splotched and red, as if she’d been crying.
“What’s wrong, Lizette? What do you mean, ‘princesses’?”
Christy feared she knew all too well what the answer was going to be.
“Ruby Mae and Clara and Bessie,” Lizette said. “They started them up a club for princesses and such.”
“Ruby Mae?” Christy asked sternly. “What’s this about a club?”
Ruby Mae grinned. “We started us a club during the break. We’re callin’ it ‘The Princess Club.’ Nobody but me and Bessie and Clara can get in. It’s glue-sive.”
“I believe you mean exclusive,” Christy said. “Did it ever occur to you girls that you might be hurting other people’s feelings?”
“It’s for their own good, Miz Christy,” Clara explained in a reasonable voice. “We have our secret, after all.” She gave Christy a knowing smile.
“You can have your dumb old secret,” Lizette muttered. “You three have been carrying on all day like you’ve gone plumb crazy.”
“Ain’t crazy,” Clara said. “We do have a secret. A gigantic secret.”
“Big deal.”
“A real big deal,” Bessie said.
“Just ignore her,” Clara advised. “She’s just jealous.”
“’Course, she’d be lots more jealous if’n she knew we found us some gold!” Ruby Mae cried.
Suddenly the room went still. Ruby Mae slapped her hand to her mouth. Bessie’s jaw dropped open. Clara groaned.
“It’s just as I said, Ruby Mae. You’ve got the biggest mouth this side of Coldsprings Mountain,” Bessie hissed.
Ruby Mae’s cheeks flared. The rest of the class stared at her in stunned disbelief.
“Well, it don’t rightly matter if’n I told, anyhow,” she said. “As long as I don’t say where we found it or where it’s hid, what harm is there in tellin’?”
“What do you mean, you found gold?” Lizette demanded. “There ain’t no gold in these mountains.”
Lundy jumped to his feet. “You oughta whop her good for tellin’ lies, Teacher!”
“If’n you found real live gold,” Creed cried, “show it to us, Ruby Mae! That’s a heap more educational than that ol’ frog!”
Instantly, the class erupted into shouts and jeers. Christy clapped her hands to get their attention, but it was no use.
In desperation, she climbed onto her chair. She tried yelling. She tried waving. When nothing else worked, she decided to try a trick David, who taught math and Bible study, had shown her. She put two fingers in her mouth and let out an ear-splitting whistle.
At last, the room quieted. “Wow, Teacher,” Creed said in an awed voice, “you whistle better than a feller!”
“Sit down, everybody,” Christy instructed as she climbed off her chair. “Now, I want one thing made clear. This is a place where we are all equal, and we are all here to learn.”
“But Teacher,” asked Mountie O’Teale, a shy ten-year-old, “is it really true they’re rich?”
Christy put her hands on her hips. Now that Ruby Mae had let the cat out of the bag, she couldn’t lie.
“It’s true that Ruby Mae and her friends found some interesting stones that are prob- ably gold.” Her words caused a fresh gasp from the class. “But that is their business, and I do not want it to be part of the discussion in this classroom. As a matter of fact, I do not want to hear anyone uttering the words ‘gold’ or ‘rich’ or ‘club’ in this class.”
“I thought only cows had udders, Teacher,” Creed said.
“I meant ‘don’t talk about these things,’ Creed,” Christy said. “And while we’re at it, the only princesses I want to hear about are in fairy tales. Understood?”
She looked directly at Ruby Mae and her two friends. They nodded obediently.
“Now I believe, when we were interrupted, we were about to discuss the difference between frogs and toads,” Christy said. She held up Prince Egbert. “To begin with, a frog has smooth skin and long limbs. Can anyone tell me any other differences? Creed? How about you?”
Creed didn’t answer. He was staring at Ruby Mae and her friends, eyes wide.
Christy scanned the room. Not a single student was looking at her. All eyes were glued to the three smug “princesses,” as if they really were royalty.
In a way, Christy realized suddenly, here in Cutter Gap, that’s just what they were. From now on, nothing in her classroom would be the same.