November 7
Mrs. Wallace calls in the morning. She is going to Winoker again. Could I please pick up Lindsey after school and watch her until the evening?
This time I clear it my parents before I accept. I want to get across the message that I will let them know if things get out of control. They grumble but they permit it.
II
At school, I maneuver through the choked hallways after second period. I need to rush through to my locker, but I cannot rush, because of the crowd and because I am laden with textbooks. I feel someone sweep by me, and a voice calls out "Hi, Judith."
I stop dead in my tracks.
People go on around me as I undertake my epileptic search again. The crush in the hallway makes it outright impossible. There is no way I can pick out who had called me.
And why am I assuming that that person had called me? That that person referred to that Judith? It is not beyond the realm of impossibility that someone in this school is named Judith. Improbable, given the notoriety of the name and that my high school is rather small. Maybe that same Judith ordered the ring that accidentally got sent to me and celebrated her birthday the same day I did.
No, that does not make sense.
Distracted, I stumble to my locker. I spin the lock several times before I realize I'm at the wrong locker.
III
I am so relieved to get out of school that afternoon.
I meet Lindsey at the elementary school and we spend the afternoon rollerblading. (I had stopped at my house to fetch my pair of rollerblades.) I tell Lindsey to stay on the sidewalk and not venture out on the street. She does not object, even though the sidewalk is littered with twigs and leaves. We clear the block as best we can.
Not that Lindsey is terribly happy with being coddled; she simply will not put the energy into arguing over something so minor. She exhibits a grace in dealing with adults' rules that other kids just don't have. She does not whine or openly fume. She just hears the adult's request and either accepts it or ignores it.
The sidewalk we keep to is opposite the Myers' house: one of the reasons I specify the rule to not skate on the street.