Chapter 18 Emily #2
Emily was taken aback by the woman’s bluntness, and it took her a moment to recover. No one in her world spoke to each other like some of these women did.
“Do you suppose you could be a little kinder?” Emily suggested, working to keep the condescension from her tone. “I’ve done nothing to offend you. Has Annie?”
The woman scoffed. Her face was red with the heat. “Listen to how you talk, too. Better than the rest of us, eh?” she chided, a little smirk playing around her thin lips. “Daddy send you here ’cause you swallowed something else along with your dictionary?”
A couple of girls on either side of her guffawed, and Emily’s face burned. Though she didn’t fully understand the comment, she knew she’d been insulted.
“Oh lay off her, Thelma,” Gertrude piped up from the row behind Emily. “Just because your own daddy—”
“SHUT UP!” the belligerent woman shouted, and now she and Gertrude were both on their feet as several other women jeered and hissed.
Never in her life had Emily drawn ire for doing absolutely nothing, but these women seemed to delight in tearing one another down.
Girls began to scramble away from the angry pair, who were in each other’s faces now.
Vera and Emily stood and backed away between the desks.
Thelma’s eyes were bulging, but Gertrude wore an expression of taunting nonchalance.
“Get out of my face, bitch,” she told Thelma, giving her a shove. Thelma responded with a punch to Gertrude’s shoulder, and in a blink, the two were wrestling each other on the floor.
“Stop! Stop it!” Emily shouted, but she was the only one who thought they should. Most of the other girls were cheering and hooting and had picked a champion they were now egging on.
Emily liked Gertrude, and didn’t want her injured for her sake over a foolish comment.
It wasn’t worth it. She lunged forward and seized Gertrude’s shoulders, attempting to pull her off Thelma.
She vaguely registered more shouting from near the door, and suddenly her own arms were pinned behind her.
She whipped her head around and was faced with Matron White.
Two other matrons were wrenching Gertrude and Thelma apart. The other inmates had gone quiet now.
“Get off her this instant, Rains!” Matron Smith bellowed at Gertrude, who finally complied.
“She just wants an excuse to touch girls!” Thelma shot at her, wiping a dribble of blood from her lip. Her wild curls were a mess, and there were angry tears in her eyes.
Gertrude laughed, which only infuriated Thelma even more. She tried to take another swing, but the matron intercepted.
“To your cells, all three of you! No dinner!” White screamed right next to Emily’s ear.
She blinked as her eardrum protested. Her heart was racing.
She’d never been in a fight before and hadn’t meant to be in one now.
Ladies didn’t get into fights. But still, there was something about the adrenaline she felt now that was undeniably appealing.
She looked at Thelma and Gertrude and wondered if their inexplicable antagonism and quick fuses weren’t born of a need to simply feel something in this desolate place.
“Go!” Matron White shouted. “And consider yourselves lucky you’re not headed to the hole. The rest of you: to dinner. No dawdling!”
Thelma left first, followed by a swaggering Gertrude who appeared utterly unfazed by the encounter, smoothing her dishevelled hair down as she made her away across the main hall to the stairs.
Emily trailed behind her. Thelma stomped up the stairs, casting nasty looks over her shoulder at Gertrude and Emily, who ignored her.
“Thanks, Gertrude,” Emily said quietly as they reached the second floor. It was even hotter up here. “But you didn’t have to do that. She’s not worth losing dinner over.”
“Ah, I can’t stand her,” Gertrude said with a huff. “She needs to be put in her place every so often. Looks like a poodle with that stupid hair, and needs training like one, too. Yapping all over the place. Wish we could just put a muzzle on her. See you later, Em.”
Gertrude continued up to the third-floor cells, and Emily made her way to her own, suppressing a smile despite the fact that she was already sorely regretting having to miss dinner. Her stomach ached, even for the horrid stew or whatever scraps that would be on offer that day.
She’d be ready to faint by suppertime, especially after all the exertion of cleaning duty in between.
She’d always been a sharp person, blessed with a good memory and a quick mind; it didn’t take her long to get a joke or do sums in her head.
But she’d noticed over the last two weeks that her brain was not as sharp as it used to be—and she was certain malnutrition was a factor.
How could a person think straight on a diet of runny eggs, fatty meat, and bland starches?
A thought suddenly came to her: Would she be able to remember the details of her experience six months from now, when it came time to write the article?
She hadn’t planned to take notes for fear of them being found, but the matrons hadn’t done any kind of cell search since she’d arrived.
She didn’t want to forget certain details, and had trusted her mind to recall them, but she wondered now if it would be riskier to not write them down.
She lay down on the concrete floor of her cell, seeking cool. The midday light was weak in her window now. It faced west, so she got the most light toward the end of the day, which was not particularly helpful when trying to fall asleep, especially at this time of year.
If she were to take notes, she might be able to hide them beneath the mattress.
Though that seemed like the first place the matrons would look if her cell ever was searched.
Emily chewed on her lip and looked up at the ceiling.
There was paper in the warden’s office for writing letters home, along with a jar of crayons—no pens or pencils, which must be considered too sharp.
But you could only get the paper when the warden was in her office.
Would she even notice if Emily took paper but didn’t come back to submit a letter every time?
She wasn’t sure. Warden Barrow rarely left her office; in fact, Matron White, the head matron, seemed to run the place more than the warden, in practice.
Emily’s stomach grumbled at the smells of dinner that wafted up to her floor.
She forced her mind to wander, trying to ignore it, eyes sliding a little out of focus.
They landed on the chamber pot on the floor, the tap above it.
Then on the roll of crunchy toilet paper.
She rose from the floor and walked over, sounds from the dining hall drifting gently up the stairs.
She crouched down, picked up the roll of paper and unfurled it into her hand.
She massaged it between her thumb and index finger.
It was off-white, and really not much thinner than wrapping or butcher’s paper.
She could write on it, certainly. And no one would be checking how much toilet paper she was using.
Inmates had access to new rolls from a basket in the washroom, and could bring a new roll back with them in the morning after the Chamber Pot Parade, as Emily had come to call it.
But even if she were to take notes on the toilet paper, the question still remained: where to hide it?
There were no floorboards in her cell, nothing on the walls to conceal something behind.
She tore a length of paper and experimented with it, folding it as small as she could and then coiling it tightly, though gently, as though she were rolling a cigarette.
She tried again, with a longer length, wrapping it around the outside of the first. It hardly grew in girth.
That was good. But still, where to hide it?
She shook her head, already feeling the effects of her inadvertent fast, and tried to think.
Her eyes fell to the water tap in front of her.
It was an inch and a half wide at the mouth, and curved a little where it protruded from the wall—about six inches.
With a surge of excitement, Emily inserted the little roll into the pipe.
It was dry in there; she hadn’t used the faucet in a couple of days, and it was deeper than it appeared on the outside.
She smiled, wiping her sweaty brow. This could work.