Miss Spitfire (8 page)

“Are you going to tell me you expect her to up and turn civilized at twelve? Eighteen? Twenty?” I look wildly from one end of the table to the other. Neither of them answers. “If you don't stop her now, it's a prizefighter you'll be hiring to cope with her later.”

Making use of my distraction, Helen flings herself to the floor, flailing her arms and legs like an upturned beetle. Captain Keller stares at her for a long moment before his chin quivers and he strides out of the room.

Mrs. Keller stands poised between her husband and me. Pain twists her lips. Her gaze follows the captain out the door behind her, then moves to Helen. Tears gloss her eyes as she turns them up at me.

My voice is little more than a whisper. “I won't hurt her, Mrs. Keller.”

Her mouth sags. She draws a breath and nods. “Boys,” she says to James and Simpson, and goes out. The brothers follow her. Last of all Miss Eveline rises to leave. At the sideboard she pauses, then pulls a key from the drawer.

“You stay sharp, now, dear,” she says solemnly, placing the key in my hand. The concern in her voice closes my throat. “Our Helen is smarter than all those other Kellers put together.”

I nod, then lock the door behind her.

Helen kicks and screams for a full half hour after her parents desert the table. It's almost more than I can bear. Her otherworldly sounds are strangely, horribly familiar. How many nights did those same sounds lull me to sleep at Tewksbury? Only, in the almshouse it was the feebleminded patients that made them. Long into the night they'd yowl and cry without meaning to, their minds too weak to control even the thin muscles of their throats.

Half an hour I struggle to ignore Helen and eat my breakfast. The food almost chokes me. I'm stinging with hunger, but my sore mouth aches, and Helen's racket sets every nerve in my body to jangling. I'd dearly love to pin her down and stuff her face with a napkin, but I refuse to fuel her tantrum with any sort of attention.

As if the screaming isn't enough, the little witch tries at odd moments to yank my chair out from under me. If I don't hold myself rooted to the spot, I'm likely to pounce on Helen and tear the screaming mouth from her face.

Finally, finally, her war whoops cease, and she crawls up the side of my chair to see what I'm doing. She gropes her way along my arm to my fork, then stops. I brace myself as Helen reaches for my cheek, but she only wants to feel my jaw as I chew.

She reaches for my plate. I brush her hand aside. She stamps a foot and reaches again. I shove her back with a dismissing wave. She moves to the other side of me and reaches once more. I block her with an elbow in her chest. Her little lips purse like a dried-up rosebud, and her face goes red.

Her hand darts to my arm and pinches a tiny bit of flesh between her fingertips, clamping tighter than a sparrow's beak. It's as if she's arrowing all her pent-up frustration into my skin. Before I can gasp from the pain, my hand shoots out and strikes her full on the cheek.

Startled, Helen blinks and releases me, only to dive in a second later with both hands.

I slap her harder.

She twists my skin between her fingers, grinding the flesh until I can feel the bones beneath the pads of her fingers. I cry out, smacking her again. The sound
rings through the room. I sit frozen, waiting for the Kellers to appear.

Nothing happens.

Helen retreats and returns to her circuit round the table. At her mother's place she gropes about the plate. Finding no familiar hands, she searches the empty chair for Mrs. Keller. A bewildered look falls across her—I think it's the first expression besides greed or anger I've seen on her face all week. Baffled, she moves to James's place, then Miss Eveline's, Captain Keller's, and Simpson's, growing more frantic as she goes.

Reaching me again, she jerks away with a snort. For a moment she stands still, working her mouth like a ruminating cow. Then she slinks to her plate and crawls up onto her chair.

“Well, look at you,” I muse as she begins eating her own food with her fingers. “If you weren't so charming, you could pass for a lady.” Without silverware, eating with her fingers is the best Helen can do. “But you can do better, I think,” I tell her. Leaning over, I press my spoon—no knives or forks for this wild one-into her hand.

The spoon clatters to the floor. Defiant, Helen lowers her chin to her plate and shovels the food toward her mouth.

Her insolence propels me like a whip from my chair. Grabbing her hand, I point with it to the floor, indicating the spoon. “Pick that up,” I bark. She writhes
beneath my grip, stretching for her plate. With a sweep of my arm I shove the food out of her reach. She tries to shimmy over the table toward it, but I catch her pinafore ties and haul her back. “Nothing for you until you pick up that spoon,” I repeat, pointing her hand toward it with each word.

The whole of her body seems to dig into the chair.

Moving to her back, I try to pull Helen's seat away from the table, but she clings to the tabletop, linens and all. The entire table setting inches toward me as I edge Helen and the chair backward. Tipping the seat toward the floor, I try to dump her in a heap, but she wraps her legs round the rungs and dangles between table and floor.

Panting, I abandon the chair and go straight for her body. With my foot braced against the seat of the chair, I wrap my arms round her waist and pry her from the table. The china quivers as she loses her grip on the tablecloth.

Dislodged from her stronghold, Helen thrashes like a broken-winged bird, so I'm forced to drag her across the room toward the spoon. When I nudge her boot against it, she refuses to bend and pick it up. It doesn't matter—I fold her up and shove her to the floor as though she's nothing more than a stubborn jack-in-the-box. I put the spoon in her hand, but she refuses to hold it. She flails and squirms, thrusting her hands into my face and digging her nails into my scalp.

Huffing with exertion, I wrestle the spoon into
Helen's hand, clamp my own fist over hers, and yank her to her feet. Back to the table we limp. At every step she locks her knees like a stubborn billy goat, and I kick at the backs of her legs with my own knees to prod her ahead. All the while I keep my hand locked over hers, for she writhes as though I'm making her carry a fistful of fire across the room.

At the table I jam Helen down into her seat and shove her chair forward until it pinches her against the table. Still holding the spoon in her hand, I scoop eggs from her plate and try to guide the spoonful to her mouth. Her arm turns stiff as a railroad tie, and she presses her lips together tighter than a stack of folded newspapers.

“Think you can outlast me?” I move behind her and wrap my arm round her chest, locking her left arm to her side. Cheek to cheek, I brace my head against hers to keep her from jerking her neck aside.

“Got you in my arms at last,” I mutter in her dead ear as I inch our clasped right hands toward her mouth. Before I'm done, I have to press the spoon against her lips until they turn white to make her open up. At last my size and strength prevail, and I compel her to take up the food with the spoon. After a few bites she yields and I release her.

Perched on the tabletop, I watch her eat like a human being.
Wait until the Kellers see this,
I gloat to myself. One victory, at last.

Or so I think.

When Helen's cleaned her plate, she flings the napkin to the floor and runs to the door. Finding it locked, she kicks and screams all over again.

“Lord above,” I groan, pressing my fingertips to my temples. Minutes pass. An aching pulse behind my eyes throbs to the beat of her fearful racket. Driven by the pain, I stride to the door, grab Helen by the shoulders, and shake her until her teeth rattle. “Enough!” I shout at her. “If you won't leave this table like a civilized person, you can spend the night here.”

I wrench her back to the table and push her to the floor. Slapping her hand over the crumpled napkin I thunder, “Pick it up.” She sits still, pouting. I wiggle her hand over the napkin again. Nothing.

“Fine! “I yank the napkin out from under her hand and whip it into her lap. With a grunt and a groan I scoop Helen up, napkin and all, and deposit her into the chair.

The sudden relocation stuns her; she quiets. Kneeling beside her, I fold my own napkin and lay it on the table next to hers. Taking control of her hands, I let her feel the rumpled napkin and my head shaking no. Then I move to the folded specimen as I nod yes.

I pull up a chair beside her and demonstrate the proper way to end a meal: fold the napkin and place it on the table. If she can sort and fold laundry, there's no excuse for her not to crease a bit of cloth into a square before leaving the table.

My show of etiquette does not impress her. When I lay Helen's napkin over her lap, she dumps it on the floor with a flick of her wrist. I lean over and retrieve it, snapping it back into her lap. “You can have that one for nothing. Try it again and you'll be sorry.” Without a hint of hesitation she pitches the napkin from her lap. I spring from my seat and topple Helen from her roost with a deft twist of her chair. She sprawls on the floor, too surprised to yowl. I can't help but laugh—despite her own savagery, sparring with someone as fierce as she shocks her.

I don't laugh for long. She digs at my legs with her sharp little claws, making me think I've blundered into a colony of fire ants. I kick at her until she crawls under the table. She doesn't budge until I get down on my hands and knees and come after her. Even then she
scrabbles just out of my reach, until I drag her back out by her hem.

At last she climbs onto her chair, leaving the napkin behind. Exasperated, I send her sprawling again, and the battle begins anew. Every time she sits down without the napkin, I throw her out of her seat. Every time I throw her out of her seat, she attacks me and retreats under the table. By the time Helen finally surrenders, trailing the napkin behind her like a white flag, holes pock my stockings, and her dress hangs ragged as a Tewksbury beggar's.

We have another tussle over folding her napkin.

I know she knows what to do with it. But she only sits, still and solid as a mule. Her face goes rigid. I'm wary. This is the sort of pose Helen took before she broke my tooth. Standing behind her, I try to move her hands through the motions of folding. Playing patty-cake with a tin soldier would be easier. She holds her arms stiff as planks, letting her hands come ever so close, but never near enough to shape the folds. As I fight with her, the muscles in my arms shudder, betraying my fury.

An idea leaps to my mind like a spitting ember. I grab my own folded napkin and clap it over Helen's mouth and nose. My promise to Mrs. Keller flashes through my mind, but I lay it aside. Unless I actually smother Helen, I won't be hurting her.

As Helen kicks at the air, I pull her head back and anchor it against my torso. Grasping a flailing hand, I
touch it to the napkin in her lap. She tries to twist her body away from me but can't escape my grip on her chin.

I count to forty, then give her a breath. Each time I clamp my hand back over her face, I indicate the unfolded napkin with her hand. She doesn't give an inch. After five rounds of counting and gasping, the napkin still lies unfolded. Once Helen senses the pattern, she doesn't struggle at all. I decide to raise the stakes. The sixth time I count to forty-five. The seventh, fifty. Her resistance leaves me stymied; when the count stretches past forty, she fidgets a little but doesn't relent.

I linger at fifty for a few rounds, uneasy with going higher. “I'll hold my breath too,” I decide, “and we'll see who the real daredevil is.”

When we reach the upper forties, my lungs feel too large for my chest. At fifty-five my hands tremble, and I wonder if the air straining inside me will crack my ribs apart. At sixty my chest seems light enough to float away, my bulging eyes hot as boiled eggs. By sixty-five I'm pounding Helen's hand against her napkin, begging her to pick it up. At sixty-eight she surrenders, folding the napkin quicker than a skivvy on washing day.

I sink to my knees, sucking air into my dried-out throat, too shaken to appreciate my success. Before she can throw another fit, I take Helen by the hand and lead her to the door. She resists until she feels me
turning the key. We go to the back door, and I let her out into the warm sunshine. She darts away over the lawn.

At the sound of the door Mrs. Keller approaches from one of the outbuildings. “Miss Annie, is everything all right?”

“It is.”

“I was waiting in the little house so … so I wouldn't hear.” She looks aside, a halo of pink creeping from her hairline. “Did Helen eat from her own plate?”

“She did. With a spoon. And she folded her napkin.”

A broad smile lights up her face, the first smile I've seen untinged by shame or melancholy. “Oh, Miss Annie,” she breathes, taking my hands in hers, “Miss Annie.” She presses the back of one of her hands to her mouth to hold in her tears as she looks at me. Her eyes glow blue as the sea.

Pride swells like another heartbeat within me, so large it threatens to leak from my eyes. I could stand like this forever, in the light of those shining blue eyes.

“How did you ever manage it?” she wonders, shaking her head.

I think of Helen's small feet kicking at nothing as I held the napkin over her face, and my pride shrivels into a black lump. My hand finds its way to my forehead. Dizzy, I shake my head. “I can't. I …”

“You poor thing,” Mrs. Keller laughs, hugging me
to her side, “you're exhausted.” She leads me like a child into the house and up the stairs. At my door she says, “You rest now. I'll look after Helen so she doesn't bother you.” Closing the door, she pauses, turning those glowing eyes upon me once more.