The Spoils

The girl did not know why the boys were look­ing for her when she was spoiling herself—what to her was a spoiling—why the boys inside from the garden party in the hall of her house were banging on the locked door to get to her. She knew who they were. They were her guests.

The girl had not yet spoiled herself—but when she was full of it—full to bursting—she broke out of there. She broke out of there to get to those boys.

Now none of them had to break in or out of anywhere because now they were meeting in the hall of her house.

With one stroke in the hall of her house, for those boys, slipping suddenly out, she left her spoils for them—neatly coiled. She looked to see.

It was the tops of their heads, the three tops of their heads that she saw, because those boys were looking to see too.

Then the girl was going back out to more guests—to the garden, to the garden party, and she was going on, back out to where she was the smallest daughter of the host and hostess of the garden party, the party which was for every aunt and uncle and cousin and for all friends.

This garden was full of it for her. She could name the flowers in the garden. She could name the flowers that had been in the garden. She could name the flowers that would come into the garden.

Her largest uncle was scolding in the garden—her uncle with the ring of hair around his skin-topped head—like teeth biting neat bites, she thought, all the way around his skin-top. She heard him. He said You are so spoiled with his head hanging over his daughter, so that to the girl watching, his head was where his daugh­ter’s head should have been, and the daughter and the uncle were stuck on the stony path between the hedges that led to the steps up back into the house.

When the uncle said You are so spoiled, neither of them moved, and those hedges, those big green hedges were brushing them.

Then the uncle’s daughter was going up the steps, leaving the uncle, because, the girl thought, because You are so spoiled means you must leave.

That girl will meet the boys inside there when she gets inside there, the girl watching thought.

And the girl watched the girl disappear.