Chapter Three ~ The Green Ribbon


My punishment was strict, exhausting, and illuminating. Even though Madame Louisa had no evidence I was the one to write the hateful message on the blackboard, she sent me to bed without supper for a week. I had to scrub all of the floors twice each day, once in the morning and once in the evening, while the other children ate their dinner by the warm fireplace. I plunged my sore hands into ice water to wash the laundry, the mixture of soapy powder and freezing water drying my hands to the bone and leaving them coarse and blistered. Mr. Grammel began to look at me as though I were demented, he feared me, he found me terribly strange. No longer did he let me come into his office for our quiet conversations I so dearly loved, now he paid more attention to Rhonda, a rapt attention that turned my chapped skin green with jealousy. She was the one invited into his office; I was left glaring at the locked door on my hands and knees, a stained sloshing tin bucket beside me and soaking washcloths wrinkling the flesh of my palms.

It would have been unbearable and the death of my spirit if it were not for Slappy. He stayed by my side through every chore, and during the night he snuck down into the kitchens to gather food for me. I knew that it was him; no one else would have cared if my stomach was full enough so that I could sleep soundly. I would wake from a slumber which only drained a greater amount of energy from my limbs, my eyelids and dreary head sagging with fatigue and languid-sickness, and there would be Slappy propped at my desk, his hands folded across his lap, and a silver tray of salad, cold roast beef, scraps of chicken, a glass of milk, and sometimes a rose or violet from the fading gardens. I covered him with kisses and tears thanking him, wishing he could speak to me! His glassy olive eyes watched with satisfaction as I heartily ate the meal he prepared, and then we would go to sleep; I sang him lullabies of blossoms growing in the attic and dripping down through the ceiling, filling the entire manor with soil and petals and flowery perfume. Now that my hunger had quieted, I didn't care of being lulled to sleep—Slappy's comfort and peace became the most important, feeding his desire was soon to be my entire world, no matter how dark that desire surfaced to be.

Rhonda no longer tortured me, now that she was occupied with Mr. Grammel's rapt attentions, she spent her time either in his office or locked in her bedroom. At lessons and at meals, I noticed her eyes appeared coral-red and puffy, and so did her cheeks, as though she slapped herself to stop from crying. Harold, Peter, and Julia seemed powerless at first without their queen, once so florid with vanity and confidence, but soon began to make fun of her as well, for becoming a baby like me. I watched Rhonda in marvel and terror, seeing how she barely ate her food, how the silver prongs of the fork carelessly stabbed through the boiled cabbage and then slumped lifeless onto the table, moist and tainted with uneaten food. During lessons her eyes would be strained to the long glassy stillness of the windows, gazing at the rain slicking the bare, dusty panes; her sad wistful head seeming to want the water to burst through and drown the entire room.

Even with jealousy eating through my veins, I worried for her; she was growing translucent and skeletal like me. I took Slappy with me some nights to tap at her door, wanting to put on a puppet show for her, but no one ever answered. I pressed my ear to the tender wood and heard muffled sobs always.

"What do you think you're up to?" Julia's high, freezing voice bit at my spine and I slowly turned to face her, hatred blazing in my eyes. "You think that now Rhonda's a crybaby like you, that maybe she'll be friends with you? How pathetic! Even at her worst she would never think highly of you!" her thin berry-pink lips tightened into that strict and pleasured little smile I despised. I felt Slappy stir in my arms, but ignored his strange, newly alive weight. "And what are you staring at, hmm? Ugly dumb turkey! Why don't you go back into the mud of the gardens, where you belong! No one wants you here!"

My heart turned to rags of pounding ice as I saw Slappy extend his shining, tiny hand and strike it roughly against Julia's peach-fresh cheeks. The sound of her face being smacked was like soggy meat being thrown onto a pristine slab of glossy tabletop, the crisp, sharp slap echoing down the hall and slickly haunting my ears. Julia stumbled to the floor and lay there, weeping and clutching pitifully at her stinging face. I stood above her holding Slappy, my own lips harshly bubbling a ruthless smile.

"Oh! You wicked little monster! You made him hit me! I saw you!" Julia remained sprawled on the floor, her glasses clouded with moisture and dripping tears soothing the burning of her cheek. "I'm telling on you! You're a witch! You really are!"

"Is that so? Carrie tells me that you're the witch, and I believe her! You asked for that slap, little girl, and you deserve it! Look at you now, helpless, feeble and timid, just as Carrie was all the times you attacked her! Sniveling little brat!" Slappy cackled viciously at Julia as he sat upright against my chest, I felt his torso spin and his arms surge with power as he struggled to be free of my grasp and hit her once more. I couldn't believe it! I only stood with my mouth slackened and breath trembling with fear; while he wriggled on in my arms and then looked back at me, a spicy green wink of his twinkling eye before he slumped over across my wrists and Madame Louisa had climbed the stairs.

"Carrie! What have you done now?" she immediately chided me, and bent to help Julia find her shaking feet. "You have struck this child?"

"No!" I cried, my entire body beginning to shiver with anger. Why did she always blame me, always in her blind temper, always wanting to make me suffer! It wasn't fair! I clutched Slappy to my chest protectively when her eyes slid icily upon him.

"Madame Louisa! Carrie made her dummy hit me! She made that wretched thing hit me, I saw it!" Julia lied between her teeth, her cheek shining in the dim hallway with the imprint of Slappy's malicious hand.

"Pixie from hell! I should throw you into the streets! Or better yet, I'll get rid of the dummy! Ever since you've had him you have turned into this wicked child-monster!" she lunged for Slappy and I screamed, gripping my arms around him as she pulled at his smooth, polished hands. "Please, no!" I begged for my friend's life, without him I would be dead again, I couldn't imagine staying in this dismal palace of loneliness without him. "Let go!" I screeched, but Madame Louisa held on strong, pinching my arms and even reaching to slap me as Slappy had hit Julia, but I would never let him slip from my arms, never.

Again I felt Slappy warm and awake in my clinging limbs, and sure enough the white little hand was stretching towards Madame Louisa's throat, splintered fingers curling round the green satin necklace she always wore, a diamond heart encrusted in the middle. He wound his fingers tightly and whispered to me to run backwards. I obeyed and the ribbon unraveled savagely, snapping in half and coming loose from her neck like a fragile strand of seaweed. I looked for the beautiful heart-shaped diamond but didn't see it scatter across the floor. Madame Louisa staggered backwards and raked her fingers at her naked throat, and then began to scream, as if she were losing her head, her mind! She flew back down the stairs and I heard the door to her room slam, where she continued to scream and moan all through the night.

"You're a freak, Carrie" Julia spit at my shoes and ran away, not daring to look back at us. I buried my face into Slappy's shoulder, and felt him press something into my hand. My fingers bloomed open and through my tears I saw the diamond was there, glittering upon my palm. "Oh!" I felt faint, how much trouble I would be in if Madame Louisa knew I had her brooch! But Slappy told me it belonged to me now, and shut my fingers around the sparkling heart.

"Why is everyone screaming?" Rhonda had cracked open her door, peering out at me and Slappy through a wire-thin opening, her eyes ballooned and cherry-rimmed. Aghast, I stared back at her dumbly. "Was that Madame Louisa?" she asked, and I nodded. "What happened to her?"

"She…Slappy, I mean…she broke her necklace, her favorite necklace," I stuttered painfully, waiting for Rhonda's eyes to slant into the mean, dusk-colored stones that coldly viewed me with immense hatred and disgust, but her door slowly creaked, now ajar, and the darkening eyes I feared never became cruel, only helpless. I saw her shiny black hair was tangled and matted to her forehead, she'd been crying into the pillow and tears had soaked through clumps of her disheveled tresses.

"What is your dummy's name?" she asked, sounding as much a frightened little girl as I did when I answered questions meekly during lessons.

"His name is Slappy," I tried to smile, but feared Slappy might hurt Rhonda too. I pinned his arms to the hinged slats of his hips and he remained limp and doll-like.

"I guess he isn't so bad," Rhonda sniffed. It felt so strange and warm to not be threatened by her. "Carrie, Madame Louisa only treats you so bad because she's jealous of you. You are beautiful, she never was. It was the same for me when I first came here," I gulped and continued to stare at her mutely; the puffiness of her eyes had begun to fade, leaving them haunted and glazed. "Mr. Grammel will treat you bad next, when you are my age," and with that she shut the door. I didn't know what she meant, I stood in the weak, watery light of the hallway and felt stupid, but glad to have Rhonda talk to me without ugliness, even if she did not become my friend, she didn't hate me. I felt the weight of the heart from Madame Louisa's shattered necklace in my hand again, and then peered down at Slappy.

"I'm tired from all this commotion! Let's go to bed!" he hissed in my ear. I did as he wanted; carrying him to my room and tucking him into bed, all the while keeping the diamond heart grasped tightly in my hand as I changed into my nightgown and brushed my hair. I slid my arms round him and felt him do the same, and the diamond charm gleamed in the shadow as I sang another lullaby, my voice strange to me, shrill and ghostlike but still able to put me right into sleep.