SISTER Theo always gets cranky on Monday, laundry day. Every other Monday we have to take our bottom sheets, pillowcases, towels, facecloths, bloomers and undershirts and put them into baskets to be taken to the laundry in the basement.
We have to work on laundry day too. The older girls handle the washers and dryers and mangle which presses the sheets. Two of us stand at the end and fold sheets as they come off the mangle. Sometimes I press clothes or fold clothes as they come out of the dryers. Later we darn socks.
One thing I like is that two of us get to carry the basket of clean socks to the boys’ side. It’s the only time we’re allowed to go there. It looks just like the girls’ side. We like to see which boys are around, and whether they smile at us.
In the afternoon we go to class but before we do Sister lines us up and tells us that she has been slaving like a black in the laundry room for us for thirteen years. She calls us ungrateful wretches and sly-puss, boy crazy, amathons. I don’t know what amathon means, maybe like female warriors along the Amazon River.
Sister Theo must get tired. She is the supervisor for ninety-nine intermediate girls, the biggest group in school. That means she has to get us up and ready for Mass, line us up for breakfast, give us all jobs to do after breakfast, make sure we get to class on time, make us change into smocks after school, hand out apples. She has to make sure we do our homework, take our baths, brush our teeth and change our sheets. She’s also in charge of the dancers, the costumes, the out-of-town trips. I heard Father Sloane say once that Sister is like a sergeant major, always yelling orders. She told Father he was a scream. Those Irish talk to each other like that. They insult each other, then laugh and laugh.
I told Dorothy I hated Sister Theo because she gave me the strap for forgetting my towel downstairs. My mum and dad never hit us. Then Dorothy told me all those things Sister has to do. She said the Sisters have to get up at five o’clock in the morning to say prayers. I wasn’t mad anymore.
I still don’t like Sister Theo, though. Once she came into my tub room when I was going to have my bath. She told me to get my clothes off and get in the water. I wouldn’t. I will not let anyone see me without my clothes on. When she yelled at me to take my bloomers off and get in the tub I looked at the DANGER sign up where the electricity switches are. She saw it too. I was thinking if she made me do it I would wait till she left, climb up on the pipe, touch the switch and get electrocuted. We stared at each other. Then she opened the door and went out.
I took my bloomers off and climbed in the tub. My hands were shaking for a long time. We’re not supposed to look at the Sisters like that.