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By the time Homer was fifteen, his reading of David Copperfield was so successful that some of the older girls in the girls' division asked Dr. Larch if Homer might be persuaded to read to them.
"Just to the older girls?" Homer asked Dr. Larch.
"Certainly not," said Dr. Larch. "You'll read to all of them."
"In the girls' division?" Homer asked.
"Well, yes," Dr. Larch said. "It would be awkward to have all the girls come to the boys' division."
"Right," said Homer Wells. "But do I read to the girls first or to the boys first?"
"The girls," Larch said. "The girls go to bed earlier than the boys."
"They do?" Homer asked.
"They do here," Dr. Larch said.
"And do I read them the same passage?" Homer asked. He was, at t
he time, in his fourth journey through David Copperfield, only his third aloud--at Chapter 16, "I Am a New Boy in More Senses Than One."
But Dr. Larch decided that girl orphans should hear about girl orphans--in the same spirit that he believed boy orphans should hear about boy orphans--and so he assigned Homer the task of reading aloud to the girls' division from Jane Eyre.
It struck Homer immediately that the girls were more attentive than the boys; they were an altogether better audience--except for the giggles upon his arrival and upon his departure. That they should be a better audience surprised Homer, for he found Jane Eyre not nearly so interesting as David Copperfield; he was convinced that Charlotte Bronte was not nearly as good a writer as Charles Dickens. Compared to little David, Homer thought, little Jane was something of a whiner--a sniveler--but the girls in the girls' division always cried for more, for just one more scene, when, every evening, Homer would stop and hurry away, out of the building and into the night, racing for the boys' division and Dickens.
The night between the boys' and girls' division frequently smelled of sawdust; only the night had kept the memory of the original St. Cloud's intact, dispensing in its secretive darkness, the odors of the old sawmills and even the rank smell of the sawyers' cigars.
"The night sometimes smells like wood and cigars," Homer Wells told Dr. Larch, who had his own memory of cigars; the doctor shuddered.
The girls' division, Homer thought, had a different smell from the boys', although the same exposed pipes, the same hospital colors, the same dormitory discipline prevailed. On the one hand, it smelled sweeter; on the other hand, it smelled sicker--Homer had difficulty deciding.
For going to bed, the boys and girls dressed alike--undervests and underpants--and whenever Homer arrived at the girls' division, the girls were already in their beds, with their legs covered, some of them sitting up, some of them lying down. The very few with visible breasts were usually sitting with their arms folded across their chests to conceal their development. All but one--the biggest one, the oldest one; she was both bigger and older than Homer Wells. She had carried Homer across the finish line of a particularly famous three-legged race--she was the one called Melony, who was meant to be Melody; the one whose breasts Homer had mistakenly touched, the one who'd pinched his pecker.
Melony sat for the reading Indian-style--on top of her bed covers, her underpants not quite big enough for her, her hands on her hips, her elbows pointed out like wings, her considerable bosom thrust forward; a bit of her big, bare belly was exposed. Every night, Mrs. Grogan, who directed the girls' division, would say, "Won't you catch cold outside your covers, Melony?"
"Nope," Melony would say, and Mrs. Grogan would sigh--it was almost a groan. That was her nickname: Mrs. Groan. Her authority rested in her ability to make the girls think that they caused her pain by doing harm to themselves or each other.
"Oh, that hurts me to see that," she would tell them when they fought, pulled hair, gouged eyeballs, bit each other in the face. "That really hurts me." Her method was effective with the girls who liked her. It was not effective with Melony. Mrs. Grogan was especially fond of Melony, but she felt she was a failure at making Melony like her.
"Oh, it hurts me, Melony, to see you catching cold--outside your covers," Mrs. Grogan would say, "only partially clothed. That really hurts me."
But Melony would stay put, her eyes never leaving Homer Wells. She was bigger than Mrs. Grogan, she was too big for the girls' division. She was too big to be adopted. She's too big to be a girl, thought Homer Wells. Bigger than Nurse Edna, bigger than Nurse Angela--almost as big as Dr. Larch--she was fat, but her fat looked solid. Although he had not competed in the three-legged race for several years, Homer Wells also knew that Melony was strong. Homer had decided not to compete as long as he would be paired with Melony--and he would be paired with her as long as he was the oldest boy and she was the oldest girl.
In reading aloud from Jane Eyre, Homer needed to keep his eyes off Melony; one look at her would remind him of having his leg tied to hers. He sensed that she resented his withdrawal from the annual competition. He was also afraid that she might sense how he liked her heaviness--how fat, to an orphan, seemed such good fortune.
The sweeter passages of Jane Eyre (too sweet, for Homer Wells) brought tears to the eyes of the girls in the girls' division, and drew the most plaintive sighs and moans from Mrs. Grogan, but these same, sweeter passages extracted from Melony the most tortured breathing--as if sweetness provoked in her an anger barely restrainable.
The end of Chapter Four provided Melony with too much anger to restrain.
" 'That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony,' " Homer Wells read to them; hearing Melony hiss at the words "peace" and "harmony," he bravely read on. " 'And in the evening Bessie told me some of her most enchanting stories, and sang me some of her sweetest songs,' " Homer continued, glad there was only one more sentence to get through; he saw Melony's broad chest heave. " 'Even for me [chirped little Jane Eyre], life had its gleams of sunshine.' "
" 'Gleams of sunshine'!" Melony shouted in violent disbelief. "Let her come here! Let her show me the gleams of sunshine!"
"Oh, how it hurts me, Melony--to hear you say that," Mrs. Grogan said.
"Sunshine?" Melony said with a howl. The younger girls crawled all the way under their bedcovers; some of them began to cry.
"The pain this causes me, I don't know if I can bear it, Melony," Mrs. Grogan said.
