Al Calavicci struggles with an impossible choice – liberty or loyalty.
BOTH OR NONE – Part Two
After their evening chores the children who weren't being punished were allowed free time. Some played in the yard, the smallgymnasium in theschool wingwas unlocked and balls brought out, the bigger boys practiced their boxing, there was the old upright piano in the music room to play, and the radio was turned on in the parlor. Some children studied, some amused themselves quietly in the dormitories.
That was what Al usually did, when he wasn't being punished—so actually it wasn't what he usually did at all. And he didn't amuse himself in his own dormitory either, though that was a more academic point. Halfway through the fourth grade he had discovered that kissing girls was more fun than dipping their pigtails in the inkwells. Most of the girls liked him because he was funny and not stupid, so it wasn't hard to find one willing to hide in a cupboard and experiment a little. Now that he was eleven and a half, and had seen a bit of the world, he didn't just kiss them anymore either. He also liked to put his hands on the front of their dresses and squeeze the soft parts of their bodies, where they had all been flat like boys just a couple years ago. That was the nice thing about the drab charity hamper clothes they all wore: they were good and thin and easy to feel through. Pretty soon he'd work up the courage to ask one of the girls to unbutton the front of her dress.
Now, however, he was being punished. He'd spilled the box of pencils in geometry class on Monday, and while he was crawling around picking them up he had taken the opportunity to tie McGinnis's shoe strings together. When he had tried to get up, he'd fallen flat on his face. The whole class had laughed except McGinnis and Sister Agnes. She had been angry.
So Al sat at his desk while everybody else was off having fun, copying pages from the dictionary. His stomach snarled angrily as he worked. He frowned and focussed on the shape of his letters. If his cursive was sloppy Sister would make him copy the page over again. The task was dull enough without doing the same definitions twice.
He could smell the coldstring beans in his pocket, and his mouth started watering. He swung his right leg, scuffing the sole of his shoe on the floor. His feet itched. He set down the pen and untied them, kicking them off. Then he peeled off his socks and tried to focus back on the copy-work, but he was restless. He was hungry, too, but it didn't do to think about that.
He started a new page. His stomach roared in protest. He chewed on the handle of his pen. It didn't help. Maybe he could eat the carrots and just a little piece of the bread. It was his supper, after all.
He pushed that thought out of his mind and dipped the pen again.
"What are you doing, young man?" a stern voice asked. Sister Agnes.
Al spun around, raking the pen across the page without meaning to. "Sister!" he said, startled.
Sister Agnes entered the room imperiously. Few of the nuns cut as impressive a figure as she did in her perfect black habit. "Put your shoes back on, Albert," she said.
"Aw, Sister, don't make me do that!" Al cried without thinking. "They're too big and they itch my feet. I want my old shoes back!"
She fixed him with her firm, cold eyes. "Nonsense," she said. "Your old ones were so tight that they were bruising your toes, and they fit Tommy Welburne perfectly."
"Well, them new ones don't fit me perfectly!" Al snapped. "And they're givin' me blisters. Look!" He stuck his left foot out into the aisle.
"Do not take that tone, Albert," Sister said sharply. Al cringed a little at the sound of her voice, wishing he'd thought to hide her ruler again. "Apologize."
" 'M sorry for taking that tone, Sister,' he mumbled, glaring defiantly into his lap. "But they do too give me blisters," he muttered.
"Let me see your work," Sister said. Al turned back into the desk and picked up the papers. A long, blurry line of ink scored the top one in half. His heart sank. "What's this?" Sister asked austerely, taking it from him.
"It was your fault," Al said stiffly. He wanted to cry, even though he was a big boy, almost grown up and too old to cry. Everything always went wrong. It wasn't fair. "You made me jump, coming up behind, sneaking."
"We must not blame others for our misfortunes," Sister said. It was one of her favorite expressions. "The other pages are acceptable, but you will have to do this one over."
Al balled his hands into tight fists. It wasn't fair, it just wasn't fair. "It ain't fair," he muttered.
"Life seldom is," Sister said. "The sooner you learn that and stop being angry about it, the better." She set the pages down on the desk and knelt. "Let me see your foot," she said, her tone not changing at all.
Al obeyed. She looked at the sore place where the heel of the too-large shoe rubbed his skin. She pressed the blister. "Hey!" Al squawked.
Sister Agnes got to her feet. "Now put your shoes back on. I will be back in half an hour to see how much you have finished."
She left the room. Al waited until he was sure she was gone, then got up and walked to her desk. Pain and anger were welling up inside him. He kicked the leg of Sister's desk. It wasn't fair!
So he wasn't supposed to blame others for his problems, was he? Well, was it his fault that Momma had run off with that encyclopedia salesman? Was it his fault Poppa had had to go far away across the sea to work? Or that Poppa had died, even though he'd tried to be a good boy and taken care of Trudy and gone to the church every day to light a candle and pray and pray and pray? Was it his fault that the grown-ups had taken Trudy back to that bad hospital and put him back in here?
Tears were smarting in his eyes, and he blinked them back furiously. He went back to his desk and pulled the sagging, shapeless, and carefully darned wool socks back on, and then the big, uncomfortable shoes. He took a fresh piece of paper and started to re-copy the spoiled page. He wished angrily that something could go right the first time, just once.
