Falls.
It was hard to believe that the precocious Enid Butler was only just out of college, and that she’d only minored in education, Bobby thought now, looking enviously at Enid’s cool profile.
Miss Craybill had taken her place at the senior staff table, next to the Greek Mistress, with sharp-featured Bunny Otis on her other side. Miss Rasphigi, Madame Melville, and Mona made up the rest of the table. The noise of chatter died down, and Miss Craybill bowed her head.
“Let us pray,” she said.
After the ragged chorus of thanks for their liver and onions had died away, Miss Craybill picked up a sheet of paper and stood up to make the announcements. “The Young Integrationists are holding their annual elections tonight at seven-thirty in the Kent Common Room, followed by a discussion, ‘Hierarchical versus Cooperative Organizational Strategies.’ I encourage all interested students to attend. The Metamora Literary Society is also having its first meeting. Anyone interested in helping to produce The Tower Chimes is required to attend, but Miss Bjorklund requests that you please save your summer poetry for another meeting. This is to be an organizational meeting only. The Problem Solvers…”
Miss Craybill was having a good day, Bobby was relieved to observe. It had become clear to the young physical education instructor as well as the rest of the faculty that Miss Craybill was not quite herself. Even in a community that tolerated a wide range of behavior, some of the habits the Headmistress had lately developed might be termed eccentric.
For example, the distraction Bobby had noticed at that first sherry hour had become more pronounced. The other day at lunch Miss Craybill had simply stopped mid-announcement, her attention drawn to a bird outside the window. Exclaiming excitedly, “A short-billed marsh wren!” she had abruptly exited Dorset in pursuit, leaving the students buzzing as Miss Otis finished the announcements. Alice Bjorklund told Bobby that the late Miss Froelich had been an avid bird-watcher—it was surmised she had fallen from the tower while observing the white-breasted nuthatch. “I think Agnes has taken up the hobby as a way of feeling closer to her departed friend,” the gentle English Mistress confided, tears filling her eyes. “She’s even taken over Nerissa’s Life List!”
And then there was the Headmistress’s sudden mania for cleaning out the school’s dusty storeroom and attics. “Fall cleaning won’t hurt anything,” said Mona philosophically as she patiently helped Miss Craybill sort through trunks of mildewed academic gowns or boxes of discarded etiquette textbooks. Bryce Bowles, the generally cheery Biology Master, had sternly refused, however, when Miss Craybill suggested she give a good going-over to his and Ole’s woodsy retreat. “There’s such a thing as privacy!” he exclaimed indignantly.
But on the whole, the staff tried to accommodate their beloved Headmistress, still shaken by the unexpected death of her dear friend, Miss Froelich. It was no wonder she was a little “fragile,” said the older teachers diplomatically; “odd,” the younger teachers told each other more bluntly.
“…and lastly, Patty Tompkins is missing her collection of the works of Ayn Rand. No questions asked if it is returned before Study Hall tonight.”
Miss Craybill sat down, and conversation broke out immediately. “Have you seen the first issue of The Metamora Musings, Miss Blanchard?” asked Peggy Cotler eagerly as the waitresses set down steaming plates of liver and onions in front of each student. “It has the interview I did with you.”
“It’s out already?” Bobby said. “And you printed my announcement?”
“I sure did,” Peggy assured her.
Bobby half rose and then sank back down. “Well, I guess I’ll have to wait until after lunch,” she complained jokingly. “Seeing as I have to set an example for you girls that doesn’t include leaping up in search of reading material.”
“Here’s my copy, Miss Blanchard!” A half dozen copies were held out to her in an instant. Bobby took a copy from third former Patty Suarez, who sat on her right.
“Remember, kids, we’re supposed to be conversing on topical events, cover for me,” she instructed as she leafed hastily through the paper. The giggling girls conversed in artificial tones about a recent plane crash and the uproar in Alabama as Bobby turned past stories about club meetings, Prefecture elections (Metamora’s name for student government), and an editorial on changing school rules to permit unsupervised strolls in the woods between Metamora and Mesquakie Point (“Why Is Mother Nature Forbidden Territory?”). Her attention was caught briefly by the interview Peggy had written, headlined NEW GAMES MISTRESS WOWS CAMPUS, and she wondered to herself if her hair really was “a cap of iridescent red-gold” and if she really “radiated warmth, wisdom, and wit.”
Ah—there was the announcement she was looking for, boxed and placed prominently next to the picture of her sitting in the bleachers. “Metamora Field Hockey Team to be Re-formed,” it read. “Tryouts Thursday Afternoon, 4 P.M., Louth Athletic Field.”
Chapter Six
Tryouts at the Athletic Field
The notion of a field hockey team at Metamora had started the week after the term began, when Miss Craybill joined her to clean out the equipment room. Rolling aside the heavy archery targets from the back wall, for Miss Craybill was nothing if not thorough, they had uncovered a bundle of ancient shin guards and field hockey sticks, the old-fashioned kind with the long toe.
“Yes, of course,” said Miss Craybill when Bobby exclaimed over the discovery. “The Metamora Savages. Miss Dennis, our Games Mistress back in 1929, was swept up by the field hockey craze. I believe she had studied under a well-known player, Constance Apley, I think the name was.” The Headmistress poked carefully at the rotted stuffing of the shin guards while Bobby stared at her, agog.
“You don’t mean a disciple of Constance Applebee? What a wonderful connection to field hockey history!” the Games Mistress exclaimed. “Do you think we could revive the team? It would be a great thing for the phys ed program! The cost would be minimal, since we already have the most expensive items of equipment, although we’ll certainly have to replace those shin guards. I believe I have the expertise to make a success of it—and I think some experience with competitive sports would be healthy for the girls here!”
Miss Craybill looked up from the pile of shin guards. “The girls already participate in the state association of track and field sports,” she objected. “And there’s archery and tennis as well.”
Bobby decided not to remind the Headmistress of Metamora’s abysmal record at track and field events. “But don’t you see, none of those are truly team sports,” she argued instead. “There’s nothing like field hockey for teaching girls the valuable skill of getting along with the group!”
“Well, if you’re willing to…” Miss Craybill trailed off as she began to carefully unfurl a stash of table tennis nets, as if hoping to find diamonds wrapped in them. Bobby decided she would take that as consent.
Later that afternoon, after she’d used the third form’s body mechanics class to restore the equipment room to order, she went to see Mona in the little office the housekeeper occupied next to the kitchen in Dorset. Mona, Bobby had quickly discovered, was the one to see when you wanted to get things done at Metamora; especially now, when the faculty followed an unspoken rule: Don’t bother Miss Craybill unless strictly necessary.
Mona immediately recalled hearing that Metamora had once had a field hockey team back in the thirties.
“You were a big wheel in field hockey, weren’t you? What fun for the girls, if you reinstated the team.” Mona’s face was alight with enthusiasm as she sat at her old-fashioned roll top desk. “All you’ll need is Miss Craybill’s signature on an equipment disbursement form—or Miss Otis will do. Here.” She’d turned from the housekeeping bills she was paying to pluck a blank form from a pigeonhole. “And then there’s the paperwork to join the Midwest Regional Secondary School Girls’ Field Hockey League—I can help you with that.”
Mona’s evident