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Everyone is going to hate me here, I thought. I didn’t have to say it aloud for her to hear me.
“Hate you? Nobody here likes you anyway. Go home, and stop feeling sorry for yourself. Self-pity is unbecoming for a Heaven-stone.”
The moment Mrs. Hathaway returned to the office, Cassie evaporated.
“Follow me,” Mrs. Hathaway said. “I want you to get your books and notebooks to use in the library.”
I got up quickly and walked back to my room with her. Ellie was putting her things in her suitcases and didn’t look at me at all until I started to gather my books.
“Where are you going?” she asked.
“I don’t want you speaking to Semantha. What she does and doesn’t do is no longer your affair,” Mrs. Hathaway said. “I’m this close to changing my mind about the police,” she added, showing her right thumb and forefinger closing against each other. Then she went down the hallway to check on the other girls.
Ellie continued to put her things together in silence. Suddenly, she crossed to my closet and took the black satin dress off the hanger, picked up the red shoes and the clutch, and stuffed it all in her suitcase. She closed one suitcase and stood there a moment, looking out the window.
“You know, you really owe me a lot, Semantha. I never told the other girls how you talk to yourself. I heard you say your sister’s name, too. I know you talk to your dead sister. I ignored it because I felt sorry for you, but you’re crazy for sure, and you’ll really end up in some nuthouse.”
She rushed to finish packing her other suitcase and bag when Mrs. Hathaway returned.
“There seems to be an additional problem,” Mrs. Hathaway said. “Miss Patton, leave your things as they are and follow me to Mrs. Hingle’s office.”
“Why?”
Mrs. Hathaway didn’t reply. She turned and walked off. Ellie spun on me.
“What else did you say?”
“Nothing. I never said anything. Maybe one of your new best friends told her something,” I said. I could see the possibility lighting up her eyes.
She went to the doorway and looked down the hall to her left. Then she looked to her right. I could hear the footsteps, too.
I stepped up beside her. Down to the left, Pam Dorfman was talking to Mr. Kasofsky. Coming down the hallway from the lobby was one of the campus security men. Ellie’s eyes widened, and she rushed back to the suitcase she had closed and opened it to dig under the garments and bring out a gold necklace. She rushed into the bathroom. I heard her flush the toilet just as the security guard appeared. He went right to her suitcases and began to rifle through them.
She stepped out of the bathroom.
“What are you doing? Those are my things. You can’t do that. It’s against the law.”
“We have the right to search any room and anyone’s things,” he told her. “It’s part of the agreement your parents signed when you were admitted. If I were you, I’d move along. Mrs. Hathaway is waiting for you.”
She looked at me with such desperation my heart actually ached for her. The security guard began to pull things out of her suitcase. When he turned to her again, she hurried out of the room.
“If you know where she’s hidden stuff that she has stolen, you’d better tell me,” he said. “Otherwise, you could be considered an accessory to a crime here, Miss.”
“Tell him,” Cassie whispered. “For Daddy’s sake. Tell him!”
“She brought these things to me once,” I said, and took the dress, shoes, and clutch out of her suitcase. I opened one of my dresser drawers and handed him the chandelier earrings.
“What else?” he demanded. “There’s more,” he said. “I’m sure.”
“I don’t know anything except . . .”
“What?”
“I think she threw a necklace down the toilet.”
He went into the bathroom and then came out. “Don’t use it,” he said.
I looked out the doorway into the hallway. Mr. Kasofsky was walking by with Pam Dorfman. She glanced at me with a look of satisfaction on her face. She had saved herself. It had become rats deserting a sinking ship.
