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at each other in confusion. Then the boys began to chant their verse again, even more loudly. A few of their members shook cowbells. In front of me, the dwarf banged the window with his fist. “Now where is that bloody Lewis when we need him? Wait! There he is! No, by God—it’s the Virgin!”
    I looked down. The headmistress stood in the midst of the crowd. In her hands she held a garden hose. She stood with her legs squarely apart and pointed the hose at the intruders, who stared for a moment in shock at the iridescent spray of water falling on their heads. A moment later, they turned and scrambled backup the wire fence. The water soaked their banner, changing the words “Bath Ladies College is ours” into a watery smear.
    Then I noticed a turquoise convertible winding its way through the weeping willows. I made a little choking sound and looked around, in case Sergeant was listening. But he’d disappeared. I heard him cursing as he ran down the long hall, on his way to chase off the last of the intruders.

5
    Mouse, you are grotesque, I told myself in the drafty bedroom. I stood staring into the mirror, hating the sly, wise face that stared solemnly back at me. The lips of its thin, lopsided mouth didn’t move. See, it agrees with you, I thought.
    I lay down on my bed. I didn’t want to unpack or do anything else that felt like admitting I
was
there. I decided not to change my clothes. The moment I took off my blouse, some girl would walk in and see my twisted shoulder, Alice Hump.
    Most of the time I hardly knew she was there. Of course, Alice aches a little when I’ve done something like climb five flights of stairs, and there are days when she wears me out entirely; she’s like a suitcase that gets heavier the longer you carry it. But she’s not really a nuisance. It’s only when I undress and notice my vertebrae sticking out like tractor treads on my left shoulder that I know for sure that Alice will always be with me.
    Finally, I sat up and stuck my best photo of Morley in my dresser mirror. I also put up one of my real mother and a few of President Kennedy. Then I opened my trunk. On top of the neatly folded tunics, Sal had left the school’s list of outfits, each checked off with her messy blue ballpoint:
    Navy winter coat
Green woollen tunics
Navy woollen knickers
Navy beret (for use with tunics)
Cotton bodices or brassieres (for older girls only)
Navy afternoon dress for teas and church
Purple Viyella long-sleeved blouses with collar (to wear with tunic)
    Beside the list lay Sal’s going-away present to me—a new copy of
The Power of Positive Thinking
. I slammed the lid of the trunk back down and went off to find the washroom.
    He was standing in front of the bathroom mirror, a cigarette dangling from his lips. Lewis. He looked slighter in the shadowy cubicle, washing his face. He had the kind of insolent mouth fathers and ticket takers hate. A full mouth that spread like a hostile ripple across his bony face.
    He wasn’t making a sound, although he was obviously enjoying his masculine ritual. He was lost in it, daydreaming, the way I’d seen Sal do as she sat for a perm, or he’d have noticed me by the door. First he pulled out a brush from a brown shaving pot and began to smear white foam over his cheeks and neck. Then he took out an old-fashioned long-handled razor and began to shave slowly. He used one hand to pull the skin up by his left eye as the other scraped the razor down his left cheek. He did the same thing with his throat, only here he used his hand to pull the skin down while the razor slowly shaved up his neck. Then he pulled his upper lip down over his front teeth so he could shave under his nostrils, careful not to cut his lip. He moved now to his right cheek, pursing his lips the way I’d seen Morley do when he didn’t know I was watching.
    Now he stopped and wiped his hand on a towel, sucking on his cigarette so deeply that it pointed to the floor. After this virtuoso act, he