On Monday Arthur drove the carriage much too fast. I wanted to ask him to slow down, please, but Miss Young had put me into the carriage with my bicycle and racquet and parcels, and I couldn't climb out while we were moving. In no time at all we were there. Arthur helped me unload.
“Hurry, Ethel,” Miss Bangs called. “Classes begin in fifteen minutes.”
I hurried. I wheeled my bicycle to the shed and ran to put my book bag and parcels in my room. I had to make three trips, because one of the parcels was a rug wrapped around my tennis racquet, and another was a bedspread and pillow. I didn't unpack at all, just threw everything onto my bed and ran back downstairs.
I was late anyway. The last girl into the classroom. It was English, the class I had with the twelve-year-olds. As they looked at me I felt my face turn red. Miss Whiton looked grim. “If you continue to go home on weekends, Ethel, you must endeavor to return on time.”
“Coming in late disrupts the others.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“I hope you've finished your assigned reading.”
“Yes, ma'am.”
“Sit down.”
I sat.
Right at that moment Father and Mother would be taking their walk through the rose gardens before Father started work. Quentin and Miss Young would be watching the White House policemen on their morning drill. Archie would be riding Algonquin down the street to school. Kermit and Ted would be hunched over desks like mine, only Kermit would be happier, because he didn't mind school, much, and Ted would be more miserable, because he did. At Aunt Bamie's house Sister would still be asleep, I was sure, and when she did wake up her maid would bring breakfast to her room on a tray. Aunt Bamie was a great believer in breakfast on trays.
“Ethel, are you paying attention?”
I jumped. More giggles.
I had forgotten to do my Latin homework. I hadn't practiced my piano exercises either, because the piano at the White House hadn't been used for so long that it was completely out of tune. “That shouldn't have kept you from practicing,” the piano teacher said severely.
“Mother and Father were hosting a dinner,” I said, looking at the floor. “The piano's on the main floor. The noise was disruptive, so Mother asked me to stop.”
The teacher rapped her pencil on the music rack of the school piano. “And this dinner, it lasted the entire weekend? There wasn't a free half hour?”
I'd had to hug Quentin, and listen to Mother's stories, and cuddle both the new guinea pigs and the old ones. I'd had to play tennis with Kermit and ride Wyoming through the park. I'd had to go to church with Mother and Kermit. I'd had to do all the things I couldn't do while I was at school, but I didn't think the teacher would understand that. The only time I could have spared for piano was when Father and Mother were at dinner and Miss Young was putting the little boys to bed.
“I'm sorry,” I said.
“I expect you to do better next weekend. It's no use taking lessons if you don't practice.”
By lunchtime I was more homesick than ever. We were served great hot slices of roast beef—the food at school was always good—but I couldn't figure out how to swallow it past the lump in my throat. I sipped my milk and rearranged my peas. I wasn't hungry.
Emily looked at me shyly. “Did you have a nice weekend?” she asked.
Tears welled up in my eyes and for one horrid moment I thought I was really going to cry. Once I started, I wouldn't be able to stop. I thought how Harriet would laugh to see me blubbering. I thought how ashamed Father would be. I swallowed hard. “I don't want to talk about it,” I said.
Emily looked bewildered, as though I'd meant the words to hurt her. I hadn't, of course.
“I guess your family isn't as cozy as they say in the papers,” Harriet observed.
“You can't believe everything you read in the papers,” I said, because it was true.
I felt as if I'd been split into two people, Home Ethel, who was cheerful and happy and could do many things well, and School Ethel, who never stood a chance. Whatever I said came out wrong. Whatever I did wasn't quite right. That night I shut the door of my room hard and wrote a long letter to Sister. I told her everything. First I wrote about school and Emily and the other girls and how lonely I was and how hard it was to fit in. Then I told her about living in the White House. I told her about Bleistein, and Kermit riding Renown. I told her how all the dogs were doing. I told her about Lincoln and Tom Pen.
Sister didn't like to be serious, so I expected her to ignore the first part of the letter and only answer the part about the dogs and horses. I was wrong. I got a letter from her at lunchtime on Friday, the only bright spot in a horrible week.
She didn't have any advice for me, she said. But she wrote that she knew exactly how I felt. She said sometimes she was lonely too.
Sister had never said she was lonely before. I was certain it was true.
She'd signed the letter, Love, Sister. I tucked it into my dress pocket and took it upstairs. I brought all my other letters home on Fridays, but this one I would keep at school. I would use it to remind myself that I was not entirely alone.