Free The Dance Boots by Linda L Grover Page A

when he heard the cellar doors being swung open and leaned against their hinges. Supper, he thought. He had been there before and so knew that it would come after the other children and the teachers had eaten, brought by Mr. McGoun, Mr. Robineau, or the matron on a tin plate, andthat there would be smaller portions of food, not enough to fill his stomach, as part of his punishment.
    The second time that he saw Maggie was through the wooden grate of the solitary room door, and every time he remembered it he pictured the shaded outline of a young woman against the twilight let into the cellar of the laundry building by an opened doorway. The shadow bent to pick up a tin plate and cup from the ground that she had set them on and walked cautiously down the cellar steps. At the bottom of the stairs she placed the cup into the crook of her other elbow and opened the door with her freed hand.
    He heard steps, light on the basement stairs, then the doorknob turning. The steps into the basement were hesitant, brushing the concrete with a soft, gritty-sounding scrape. It’s not Mr. Robineau, he thought. Not McGoun.
    She walked from the dark end of the basement into half-light, a motion of cotton shirtwaist that captured yellow stripes against brown from the gaslight in the middle of the basement ceiling. Through the grate he saw her, then, in partial images that appeared, disappeared, and reappeared rapidly through squares of wooden strips. Woman, he saw, carrying a tray of food. She turned toward the door. Dark hair in a knot on the back of her neck. That Indian woman, the one he’d seen walking with the matron. Strong-looking, tall as Mr. Robineau. She was looking around, trying to peer into the corners. She sighed, hummed under her breath. She ducked nervously to look under the slate tub. She cleared her throat, swallowed. “Is someone there?” she asked. Her voice was soft, a near whisper.
    â€œYes, Miss,” he answered from behind the grill.
    Punishment. The first time he ran away was the day after he arrived at Harrod from Grand Bois. He waited until bedtime, when the boys were undressing and putting on their nightshirts. The nightbefore, he had laughed at the sight of boys’ heads above those long white dresses that looked like women’s underwear.
    â€œMindemooye,” he had said to the boy in the next bed. “Old woman, gonna put on your nightgown?”
    â€œNightshirt. It’s a shirt.”
    â€œGawiin, it’s a dress! You look like a mindemooye!”
    â€œMindemooye, giin!” the other boy laughed and pushed Louis in the chest. “Old lady, yourself!”
    Louis balled up his nightshirt and tossed it at the other boy. “Here! Bring it home to your grandma!”
    The prefect had tapped them both on the head with the doubled leather strap he carried. “No horsing around. Talk English. Get undressed and get into bed.”
    The boys slept on their backs with hands at their sides above the blankets. “We look like a bunch of dead people laid out,” thought Louis. “I ain’t staying here.”
    The second night he approached the prefect while the boys were undressing. “I have to go outside,” he said.
    â€œNobody goes outside. Get ready for bed.”
    â€œHave to.” He walked toward the door.
    The prefect grabbed him by the back of the shirt. “What do you think you’re doing?”
    The boy from the bed next to Louis’s explained. “Where he comes from, they mean the toilet. He don’t really mean outside, he means the toilet.”
    â€œIs he stupid? He knows the toilet is down the hall.”
    â€œHe just means the toilet; he’s mixed up because they always say ‘outside’ when they mean they have to do their business at Grand Bois, and that’s where he comes from.”
    â€œDo you mean the toilet?” the prefect asked.
    Louis nodded.
    â€œWell, from now on, say so.”
    Louis had