The Yellow Dorm
T he clamour stopped. Four pairs of curious eyes and four motionless bodies surrounded her. The first thing she noticed, with relief, was that they all wore socks.
A small woman with wispy yellowy-white hair stepped around from behind them. “Now, girls, don’t stare at poor Eliza like that. Eliza, these are your dorm-mates—Carrie, Pam, Jean and Helen. I’m Miss Bixley. We’re so glad you finally got here. I’ll leave you all now to get acquainted.”
Then they crowded her even more. I’m the tallest, Eliza thought frantically. I’m not afraid.
“Nice to meet you,” said Pam, pulling her white gloves off one long finger at a time. Her hands were smooth and tanned, and each nail was filed into a perfect arc. She examined Eliza coolly. Eliza at once felt babyish in her short tartan dress.
Jean smiled timidly, revealing a mouth full of braces, but she looked as if she wanted to run away and hide.
Helen sent her beret skimming across the room. Eliza shrank as the other girl stepped closer and peered at her. She resembled an angry owl. Her round face was chalk-white, and her short hair stood straight up in rusty red tufts. The large circles of her glasses made Eliza feel as if Helen could see right inside her.
“Well, well, well … so you’re Eliza. Welcome to prison.”
Eliza didn’t know what to reply to this. She turned with gratitude to the beaming fourth girl, Carrie, who had a heavy blond braid hanging down her back. “Oh, Eliza, I’m so glad you’re here! Now we’re really complete. You’re from Edmonton, aren’t you? I’m from Seattle.”
“If there’s anything you want to know, just ask me,” said Pam. “I’m the dorm head.”
“Only because you and I are the only two old girls, and I didn’t want to do it,” retorted Helen.
Pam ignored this. “I was a day-girl last year, but my father was transferred to Geneva for a year. That’s in Switzerland, you know.”
“If you don’t want the top bunk I’ll trade with you,” offered Carrie.
Eliza knew she should respond to the volley of comments that were being hurled at her, but her tongue seemed glued to the roof of her mouth, and words wouldn’t come out of her parched throat. All she could manage was to stand there foolishly and try to smile.
Miss Bixley bustled back in. “Helen, you have time before lunch to sew on some more nametapes. Come on, I’ll help you.”
“Miss Bixley,” said Pam, “shouldn’t Eliza put on her Sunday uniform?”
“Oh, that’s not necessary, not when she’d just be changing out of it again after lunch.”
Eliza found her voice: “Please, couldn’t I?” It would be terrible to be the only one at lunch not in uniform.
“Very well, if you really want to. On Sundays you wear your white blouse, navy-blue pleated skirt and blazer. The black pumps you have on will be fine.”
Too late, Eliza realized that now she’d have to change in front of all these eyes. But each girl became occupied with something in her own corner of the room, although they still kept throwing her information.
“We aren’t allowed to wear nylons until eighth grade,” said Carrie, knotting a white ribbon carefully on the end of her braid.
“We can on Saturdays, though,” said Pam. “On Saturdays and in the evenings we can wear whatever we want—as long as it’s a skirt. And on Sunday afternoons we can wear slacks.”
Helen glowered from the midst of her nametapes. “Clothes, clothes, that’s all you ever think about, P.J.” She jabbed her needle into her blouse, then thrust her thumb into her mouth with a curse. Jean looked up from her book fearfully.
Pam turned pink. “Don’t call me P.J.—I don’t like it!”
“Now, you two, stop your bickering,” said Miss Bixley calmly. “Here, Helen, give me that—you’re getting blood all over it.”
CLANG A CLANG A CLANG A CLANG A CLANG! Eliza jumped as someone downstairs rang a handbell vigorously. Its harsh metal voice vibrated painfully in her ears.
“Sunday dinner! The best meal of the week!” Helen pushed past her and ran out of the dorm.
“Come on, Eliza!” Eliza quickly turned her blouse collar over her blazer collar, so she looked like the others, and followed Carrie down the corridor.
AT LUNCH she was relieved to find herself assigned to the same table as Carrie. Trying to make herself invisible, she watched an older girl at the head of the table carve the roast efficiently. Then the senior introduced Eliza to everyone. Eliza didn’t say a word, just gulped down her meat and vegetables hungrily when they were allowed to begin. Five long tables of boarders around her kept up such a roar of conversation that it was easy to remain silent.
After lunch they all trooped up and down the stairs many times, carrying the contents of their trunks from the veranda to the dorms. When they had finished putting everything away, Eliza and Carrie went outside to explore. It had finally stopped raining, but their feet got soaked as they trekked through the wet grass.
It was hard to believe Ashdown was in the middle of a large city. Its spacious grounds, almost entirely bordered by a stone wall blanketed in ivy, made it a hidden retreat from the busy streets outside.
“Look at all the trees!” Eliza ran across the lawn away from the Old Residence. They had made a circular tour of the low school building, the white gym with its four pillars and the sleek New Residence. The latter they had tiptoed by, their ears wide open to the buzz of the seniors drifting through its open windows.
Eliza scrambled easily up the broad red branches of an arbutus, wondering if Carrie would think she was too old to climb trees. But the other girl just watched her calmly. “Let’s go down to the field,” she said at last. They slithered along a muddy path through the woods to a level expanse of grass which was too soggy to walk on.
“This must be where they play games,” said Carrie. “It said in the brochure there’s a lot of emphasis on sports. I’m not very athletic—are you?”
Eliza shook her head as she stared at the field. She was too tall and awkward to be good at games; she always tripped over her own feet. It was hard to imagine this broad, quiet space milling with students. There already seemed to be an enormous number of boarders, but tomorrow they would encounter all the day-girls as well. She glanced at Carrie. At least one of the many faces was becoming familiar. And a good thing about her cheerful companion was that she talked so much; all Eliza had to do was reply.
“What do you think of Helen?” Carrie asked her.
“Uhhh … I don’t know yet.” Helen was one of the many people Eliza was saving up to contemplate in bed.
“I think she’s weird. I hate the way she stares. And last night she strung up my hippo from the light with her shoe-lace. Pam’s stuck-up, and Jean’s really shy. She goes into the bathroom to get undressed. I’m so glad you’re here, Eliza,” said Carrie for the second time that day. “I just know we’re going to be good friends.”
This was embarrassing. Eliza had always heard, however, that Americans were very friendly, and she glowed inside at Carrie’s words. Still, she didn’t know what to say in answer. She tapped the other girl on the shoulder. “Race you back!” she called.
BY EIGHT O’CLOCK on Sunday evening Eliza felt that she’d always been at Ashdown, and that nothing in her former world existed. She sat with Carrie and Jean on Carrie’s bed, as they stitched the school crest onto their berets and blazers. Helen and Pam were watching TV downstairs. Eliza studied the crest as she sewed—a single bluebell against a pale blue background, with the school motto curling around it.
She felt more confident with just the other two new girls in the dorm, even though she had barely spoken a word to Jean. Pam had enlisted the quiet girl all afternoon to help sort out her many clothes because Miss Bixley was letting her keep only a small number of them upstairs.
“Do you like that book?” Eliza asked, pointing to the one on Jean’s bed.
Jean’s narrow face grew animated. “Oh, yes—I love animal stories.”
“I like the bull terrier in it the best,” said Eliza.
“Have you—I mean—is that a picture of your dog on your dresser?”
“She belongs to my whole family.” Eliza told Jean how Jessie had travelled from Edmonton to Toronto in a crate. Then she was silent while she wondered if Jessie had recovered from the experience. Carrie told them about her family’s four cats.
“I’m not allowed to have an animal,” said Jean in a small voice. “My mother thinks they’re dirty.”
“Well, none of us can have pets here,” said Carrie kindly. “So we’re all the same as you.”
They heard Helen and Pam stomping down the hall, and glanced at one another reassuringly. Then it was Lights Out. “And not a sound,” said Miss Bixley. “Sleep tight, girls.”
Eliza squirmed in her bed, trying to find a place to fit between the lumps. It was a relief to lie in the dark with her own thoughts again. Exhaustion seeped from her body into the mattress.
Then something dug into her back from below, and she was lifted high into the air and slowly lowered. She yelped with alarm until she realized it was Helen underneath her, pushing up with her feet.
“Scared you, didn’t I?” chuckled Helen.
“N-not really,” said Eliza, trying to sound calm. “Just surprised me.”
“Shhh! We’ll get into trouble if we talk,” whispered Pam.
“Not with Bix on duty,” said Helen. “She doesn’t come upstairs until late. The one to watch is the Pouncer—that’s Mrs. Renfrew, and she’s a terror. She has us on Bix’s nights off. And sometimes Charlie comes around, but not too often.”
Charlie? That must be Miss Tavistock. Eliza knew her first name was Charlotte, but Charlie seemed an odd nickname for such a dignified person.
Helen finished describing the matrons. “I had Waltzing Matilda last year in the Nursery. She was always checking on us. They treat you like babies up there. But this year we should be able to get something started—especially since this dorm is so out of the way.”
“Like what?” asked Eliza, her curiosity overcoming the unsettling feeling Helen gave her.
“Wait and see, Eliza Doolittle—it’s not time yet.”
“Be quiet,” hissed Pam. “Carrie and Jean are already asleep.”
ELIZA WAS AWAKENED by something in the middle of the night. It was the sound of muffled sobs, and it came from Jean’s bed. Should she say something? She knew that if she were the one crying, she’d rather do it privately.
Finally Jean was quiet, but now Eliza felt close to tears. She groped for John, but he had fallen on the floor and she didn’t want to disturb anyone by getting down to pick him up.
Pulling open the curtain beside her bed, she gazed out at the thin new moon shining down on the tennis courts. She knew it was new, not old, because her father had once told her the old moon was in the shape of a “C,” which meant “contracting.” She wondered if her parents could see the moon in Toronto. Then she almost did cry.
The moon looked lonely. You wanted to come here, Eliza reminded herself again, and at last she drifted again into an uneasy sleep.