school is in a complete panic. They canât send us home, they say, because too many people are sick and weâd only infect them on our journeys. Instead, theyâre quarantining us here. Everyone is awfully disturbed, but I think itâs rather romantic. Of course, I donât have it yet. Iâve always been healthy as a horse, as Mother says, so maybe I wonât get it at all?
And a few weeks later:
Well, Lucindaâs caught it. Theyâve run out of spaces in the infirmary, so theyâve gone and turned the gymnasium into another infirmary. Sheâs there now. Of course, itâs not as bad as it could beâthere are these awful photographs of soldiers who are down with it, just shoved into bed after bed anywhere they can find the spaceâchurches, gymnasiums. Abbott ran out of medical staff and teachers to help long ago, and theyâre asking the mothers to come. The funniest partâMother has agreed! I suppose she thinks itâs war service, even though the war is practically over, or so everyone keeps saying.
Anyway, theyâve closed down one of the other dormitories, so Iâve got a new roommate now that Lucinda is gone (and good riddance to bad rubbish, says I); Ruth is only a sophomore, but sheâs quite droll and we get on très well. Her sister sent a pack of peanut brittle and we stayed up late last night gorging ourselves and laughing until we felt positively ill (or possibly that was due to the peanut brittle). The good news is there are only half the classes and with the weather so drab I was able to sleep it off. Mother would be furious I ate so many sweets.
To be honest, I feel a little jealous that Mother is coming up here to take care of these other girls. Sheâs never been up to visit me, not even for Family Weekend. Part of me wishes I would getthe âflu, just a little case, and then sheâd have to take care of me, too. When I picture my own mother ministering to mean old Lucinda, sitting by her bedside and dabbing at her forehead with a cool cloth, it makes me more than a little ill with jealousy.
It was so strange to read the entries and think of my grandmother writing them. She had died when I was twelve, so to me she had only been Grandmother, old and stiff and formal to a fault. It was impossible to reconcile the woman I had known with this girl, so honest and young and silly. It could have been my diary, with all the complaints about her mother and the sugar overload.
My stomach growled again, hard and insistent, and I wiped a few more beads of sweat off my forehead. Time to go, then. Iâd check in with Sharon to see if sheâd strangled my mother yet, and then Iâd figure out what to do next. I started to put the notebooks and letters back into the trunk and then paused. In my confusion that morning, I hadnât packed a book, and these looked like a better-than-average distraction. Maybe Iâd find something my mother and I could bond over. Gathering up the packet of letters and the pile of books and notebooks, I stacked my arms full and headed down the stairs.
In my bedroom, I dropped the papers on the bed and went to wash the travel stink and attic dust off my skin. Drying my hands, my engagement ring snagged on the towel, and I tugged it free, staring at it. It had been cleaned a few months ago when I went to Tiffanyâs to buy a present for one of Phillipâs nieces (why a five-year-old girl needed a present from Tiffanyâs was beyond me, but this was how the Spencer family worked), and it sparkled in the light, the scratches on the metal, evidence of years of bumps, bangs, and scrapes, barely visible.
There was a dark blue thread from the towel stuck underneath the stone. I pulled it out, the thread breaking on either side, leaving a tiny piece of blue fuzz underneath the prong. I picked at it for a moment, atide of irritation building inside me, pushing aside the sick, sinking fear that had been