Free Nothing That Meets the Eye by Patricia Highsmith

watched the girls respond to her command. She had called them back, after once dismissing them, as a master might jerk her dog back on a leash. On musclebound legs she mounted the platform in the front of the gym. The platform was just like those on swimming pools, only without the diving board.
    Standing at attention, her shapeless white sneakers side by side, her knees like two cauliflowers below the voluminous serge bloomers, Miss Juste waited till every movement in the lines should cease. As usual, it was Edith Polizetti who could not find her place. Edith Polizetti who, under the terrible eye of Miss Juste, tried to squeeze her way anywhere into a line and was mercilessly shoved out by the other little girls. At last, desperate, she ran to the rear and took shelter at the end of a row.
    Miss Juste blew once more for attention and let the whistle fall, with military unconcern, the length of its black ribbon.
    â€œNext Friday,” Miss Juste’s voice rasped against the bare walls of the gymnasium, “that’s day after tomorrow . . . you are all to take home your rompers to be washed. . . . Washed! Do you understand? . . . You’ll have the whole weekend to do it in, and no excuses will be accepted!”
    Her blue, fishlike eyes swept the lines as she paused for the words to sink in. She paused so long the line nearest the door showed signs of wavering. It was lunchtime. They were hungry. Miss Juste gave an ear-splitting blast on her whistle and glared at the offenders. The line froze into position.
    â€œAnd also,” she continued, “your sneakers cleaned! . . . Not with chalk so you leave dust all over the place. . . . But cleaned . . . with cleaning fluid! . . . If you can’t afford to buy cleaning fluid use soap and water! . . . We’re to have visitors Monday!”
    Miss Juste took time for the announcement to register. One little girl on the front row was scratching her knee.
    â€œSophie Stephanopolos!”
    Sophie Stephanopolos, the tenth girl in the third line, stiffened and held her breath.
    â€œI want to see that elastic fixed by Friday! . . . I’ve warned you about it . . . you’ve neglected it . . . and it’s disgraceful!”
    Sophie Stephanopolos’s fingers worked at her side, drawing up the romper leg that hung below her knee.
    â€œGrace O’Rourk . . . I want to see a belt to those rompers on Friday. . . . If you’ve lost it, get a new one. . . . I don’t care how!” A moment of tense silence passed. “And I want that dance perfect on Friday! . . . After six weeks of work, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t be perfect. . . . If you don’t know one of the steps, practice it with a friend before Friday!”
    The lunch bells were ringing all over the school now. The little girls shuffled miserably in their places.
    â€œAnd furthermore,” Miss Juste said, “if any girl has not her rompers washed and her sneakers cleaned on Monday, she needn’t come at all! . . . Just don’t bother coming!” she snarled, as though this were the most awful banishment in the world.
    Then she gave the signal to Miss Pendergast at the piano, who launched into a stirring march with emphatic cadence. Miss Juste marked time energetically to start them off. The two lines nearest the wall closed and filed off and were followed by the next. Around the gymnasium they marched, lengthening their steps near the locker door, past the section of wall worn smooth and black with the rubbing of hands, breaking into blissful disorder as they left the gym and Miss Juste’s eye. The march out was used only on solemn occasions, like when they had visitors, or like now, when they were to remember Miss Juste’s adjurations.
    Miss Pendergast’s march beat on, over and over until the last couple had gone out and Miss Juste’s whistle told her to halt. The hollow, jangling chords stopped in the middle of a phrase. Miss