“Oh, yes, Mrs. Kelly.” Cissie’s doleful face brightened. Mary took a picture of her against a background of oaks and beech trees, the pretty woodland beyond the playground on the north side of the school.
After the last class of the day, Cissie had to stay for remedial help in math. She couldn’t understand the concept of percent. She sat at her desk, bowed over her workbook, alone in the room with Mrs. Rutledge.
The first problem was impenetrable. “Mr. Green’s coffee shop earns $75,000 a year in gross income. If 8 percent goes for rent, 10 percent for part-time help, and 5 percent for supplies, what is Mr. Green’s profit from his shop?”
Cissie didn’t know where to start. Should she divide eight into seventy-five thousand? Oh, it was too hard. Tears ran down her cheeks.
She looked up as Mrs. Rutledge rose from her chair. “Cissie, I have to make a phone call. Please stay until I come back. I’ve left my purse in my desk drawer.”
“Okay, Mrs. Rutledge.”
Mrs. Rutledge was gone. The room was silent. No one was passing in the hall. Mrs. Rutledge’s pocketbook was in her desk drawer.
Quietly and carefully, Cissie heaved herself up from her chair. Her camera swung forward, and thumped against her chest. Her heart thumped against the camera.
At once she found the right drawer. The shiny black patent-leather pocketbook was right there in front. Cissie took it out and opened it. An exotic fragrance billowed up around her nose. There was a dusting of pink powder on Mrs. Rutledge’s billfold.
Someone snorted with laughter. Cissie gave a small shriek. It was Charlene Cast, looking at her from the doorway.
“I’ll tell,” said Charlene.
Bus 2 was nearly empty. A few kids who had been kept after school, like Cissie, sat in front, and three noisy members of the field-hockey team plumped themselves down in the middle. But as usual no one wanted to sit with Cissie. Sunk in gloom, she made her way to the back of the bus.
How was she going to tell her father that her camera was gone? As the bus rumbled in the general direction of her part of town, Cissie bounced up and down, sniffling and trying to think.
Roberta Gast pulled up beside the Hayden Recreation Center in Lexington, where Charlene swam three times a week. Her daughter was waiting for her on the curb.
“Smile, Mummy.”
The camera clicked, recording Roberta’s blank face. “For heaven’s sake, Charlene, give me some warning next time.”
Grinning, Charlene picked up her swim bag and got into the car. “Look, Mummy,” she said, showing her the camera, “it does everything by itself.”
Roberta pulled away from the curb. “Charlene, where on earth did you get an expensive camera like that?”
“One of the kids in swim class gave it to me.” Charlene smiled smugly. “He likes me.”
“Oho!” Roberta laughed, wondering if she should start worrying about the beginnings of a childish interest in sex. “Is he cute?”
“Oh, no.” Charlene giggled. “He’s like really disgusting. You know, really fat and stuff.”
Cissie Aufsesser’s father was a judge in the Superior Court of Massachusetts. Her mother was a nurse at Emerson Hospital. Cissie was their only child.
The truth was, Judge Aufsesser was a little disappointed in his daughter, who was not only fat but slow-witted. But he was a reasonably good father, and he pitied her friendlessness. How did kids live through a painful childhood like Cissie’s? If only the poor kid would lose a little weight.
His gift of the camera had been an attempt to give her an interest, something that would take her out of herself. After supper on the day Cissie lost her camera to Charlene, he spoke to his daughter with false heartiness. “How’s the picture-taking, Cissie? Are you having fun with the camera?”
“Oh—oh, sure, Daddy.”
Judge Aufsesser guessed that something wasn’t right. “What sort of pictures have you been taking?”
“Um—oh, just stuff at school.” Puffing, Cissie leaned over and retied her shoes. Her eyes were hidden.
Something was certainly the matter. “Where is it, Cissie?” her father said quietly. “Where’s the camera?”
It was the question Cissie had dreaded. “Oh, I’m sorry, Daddy,” she said in a small voice. “I left it at school.”
“Now, Cissie, I told you never to do that. Somebody might steal it.”
Cissie’s eyes filled with tears. “I—I’m sorry.” And then she broke down and sobbed. Poor Cissie’s life was so painful, the smallest additional misery sent her over the edge.
“Oh, it’s already happened, has it?” said her father sternly. “I told you, Cissie. I told you!”