Lucy looked at her friend. Vida looked pretty. She was still summer copper and in her new plaid dress was like brilliant autumn leaves. Exciting colors. I don't look good in such colors. Vida's long braid is beautiful but she'd look cuter with short hair.
Vida had fluffed out her hair so at least from the front it would look bobbed. "Certainly not!" Ma prohibited when there had been that scene about bobbing her hair. "Certainly not! Do you want to look like that—flapper, next door!" "Certainly yes, but what's the use?" she had stormed tragically, and had rushed to her room to be alone.
Lucy's voice shattered her reverie. "I'm not going to high school."
Not going to high school! What nonsense! Everyone went to high school. She's saying that to be different. To annoy me. That was the trouble with Lucy, as soon as you thought you had her she came out with the craziest remarks. I'll ignore what she said.
"I wonder how you'll like Mr. Carson. He's very distinguished-looking," Vida said instead and began to worry not how Lucy would like Mr. Carson but whether having Lucy in his class would make him unaware of Vida Bertrand's presence.
Look at Vida, all excited because she's going to have a man teacher. I'm going to ask Mother to tell her to take off that extra petticoat so her dress fits better. She doesn't know a thing about fixing herself up, but she's awfully smart. Her cheeks look good enough to eat.
Taking off her extra petticoat made Vida feel closer to Lucy. It was a secret between them. Each morning she went into the girl's toilet, removed the offending garment and for the rest of the day her coat sleeves hung, stuffed like red sausages, from the cloakroom hook. Madge and Emmie, former chums, were distant, disapproving the change in her since she took up with that awful boy-chaser Lucy Claudel, and said no wonder Vida Bertrand got more B's than A's now because of her bad influence. Someone really ought to tell Vida's mother, they said, tsk-tsking as they watched the boys ogling Lucy.
But not only Lucy distracted Vida from attention to her studies in class. Mr. Carson's smile as he called upon her skyrocketed Vida into tongueless confusion. When he was severe she sought to discover whether he was trying to conceal love for her or whether, as she feared, it was Lucy he loved. Not that she blamed him. Sometimes walking home she thought she could not resist taking Lucy in her arms and kissing her Lily of the Valley-scented cheek—and lips, the way she herself would like to be kissed by Mr. Carson.
