Ellen Tebbits (10 page)

Miss Joyce clapped her hands from time to time, but no one paid any attention. Mrs. Gitler’s cheeks were red, and her hair hung in wisps around her face.

“Did you want me, Mrs. Gitler?” shouted Ellen.

“Stand still, Lord Mayor, until I fix your crown.” Mrs. Gitler took a tuck in the crown with a paper clip. “Yes, Ellen. We are short one rat. Joanne hasn’t come, so you may put on her costume. Hurry, we haven’t much time.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Ellen. She was a real rat at last! She found the costume and got into it, snapping it up the front after she had stuffed her skirt inside. She pulled the head of the suit over her hair, and then put on the rat mask, firmly tying the string at the back of her head.The eyeholes were too far apart and she couldn’t see very well. She ran her hands over the mask and stroked her whiskers. Then she put one hand on a desk and the other on the back of a seat and swung herself across. It felt wonderful to be a rat.

Now if she could only manage to be close to Austine! Ellen adjusted her rat face so her left eye could see out of the left hole in the mask. She was just starting across the room toward Austine, when something held her back. She turned and peered out of her mask.

“Otis Spofford!” she snapped, her voice muffled by her mask, which had no hole for her mouth.  "You let go of my tail."  She snatched her tail from him.

Mrs. Gitler blew a whistle.“All right, boys and girls! Line up as you appear in the play.

Children first, then the mayor and town council. Rats next. Quietly, boys and girls.” The children tiptoed along the hall to the back of the stage in the auditorium. Ellen heard the rhythm band finish “March of the Teddy Bears.” She had a shivery feeling in her stomach when she heard the narrator read, “Hamelin Town’s in Brunswick by famous Hanover City,” and heard the curtains part.

“All right, children,” whispered Mrs. Gitler, guiding them through an opening in the scenery. Ellen could hear the piano and the sound of the children’s feet on the stage as they danced. Then the Lord Mayor and town council went on. Ellen moved her mask again so she could see through the left eyehole.

Now it was time for Ellen and the rest of the rats to scamper onto the stage. Ellen had watched the dance so many times she had no trouble following. She did get out of step when another rat stepped on her tail and once, when her mask slipped, she bumped into the rat in front of her. She tried to find her mother and father in the audience, but in no time at all the dance ended. The rats knelt on one side of the stage to watch the Pied Piper bargain with the town council.

Ellen knew the Lord Mayor’s money bag really contained pieces of chalk instead of gold.

Then the Piper held his pipe to his lips and pretended to play a tune.The rats scampered across the stage and off to the other side. Ellen’s part in the play was finished.

Miss Joyce put her finger to her lips and whispered, “Rats, wait here as quietly as mice, so that you can take a bow at the end of the play.” When the Pied Piper led the children of Hamelin Town off the stage, Miss Joyce told them to wait too. There were so many people crowded into the small space that Ellen began to feel uncomfortably warm in her flannel rat suit.

When she tried to lift her mask for a breath of air, she discovered that the string was tied in a hard knot. Oh well, she thought, it will be only a little while. Just the Maypole dance, and then it will be over. She heard Austine’s voice nearby. Linda answered, and Ellen tried to hear what they were saying. She thought she caught the sound of her own name. Maybe Austine was telling Linda she wished she and Ellen had not quarreled. If only Ellen could find out.

She wiggled through the rats and into the midst of the crowd of children, where she stood near Austine and tried to catch what she was saying.

Miss Joyce said in a loud whisper, “All right, children. Skip onto the stage and pick up your streamers. Try to keep your spaces even when you dance.”

The first thing Ellen knew, she was pushed along with the children. “Hey!” she said, but her voice was muffled. “I’m not a child. I’m a rat!” She tried to squirm away, but everyone was pushing against her.

Ellen, the rat, was on the stage! She heard the audience laugh. Her mask was pushed out of place, so all she could see out of the left eyehole was the top of the Maypole. She tried to adjust it with one hand and grope her way off the stage with the other.

Someone bumped into her and the mask slipped again.

The audience shouted with laughter.

They must be laughing at me, thought Ellen. Whoever heard of a rat at a Maypole dance? She could hear the shuffle of the dancers’ feet as they skipped up to the Maypole and back again.

“Beat it,” whispered someone who was skipping past her.

Every time Ellen tried to fix her mask, someone bumped into her. And every time someone bumped into her, the audience laughed harder.

She could tell by the sound of feet that everyone was skipping to the right in time to the music. She decided the best thing for her to do was skip to the right too.

She started to skip and found herself tangled in a Maypole streamer.

The audience gasped. “You get out of here,” whispered the owner of the streamer, as he tried to untangle Ellen.“You made the pole tip.”

Oh dear, thought Ellen. What if I had tipped over the Maypole! Now everyone was skipping to the left to unwind the tangled streamers. Ellen skipped to the left. By then everyone was going to the right again.

Skip to the right, skip to the left.Would she never find her way out?

This time she skipped too far to the left.

She bumped into the velvet curtain at the side of the stage. The audience howled. Oh my, she thought, I must be near the edge.

What if I fell off? Hastily she skipped toward the back of the stage and promptly bumped into a piece of scenery. She felt it wobble and heard the audience shriek with laughter. “Bravo!” someone shouted.

Oh dear, she thought, it’s almost time to weave in and out around the Maypole. If I don’t get out of here I really will be tangled up.What will Mrs. Gitler say if I spoil it all?

Ellen gave a desperate tug at her mask. Still she could not get it off.

After someone stepped on her tail again, she grabbed it in her left hand and started skipping. Again she bumped into a streamer.

The audience gasped. Someone said, “Look out, it’s tipping!”The gasp ended in a sigh of relief, and Ellen knew the pole was upright again.

Just then someone grabbed her by the hand and hissed, “Skip!”

Ellen skipped. It was Austine who was holding her by the right hand. Austine was helping her out. Even though she could not see where she was going, Ellen was able to follow the dance, with Austine to guide her.

In and out they skipped. Ellen felt light-hearted. She and Austine were friends again!

Through the eyehole of her mask she could see the top of the Maypole where the streamers were weaving a pattern. She was not spoiling the dance after all.

Austine was out of breath. “Listen,” she panted in a whisper, “when I say stop, you’ll be by the exit. I’ll let go of your hand and you feel your way out.”

“Okay,” agreed Ellen in a muffled whisper. Austine was such a wonderful friend.

Around they skipped. Ellen was alert for her order.

“Stop!” whispered Austine, and let go of Ellen’s hand.

Instantly Ellen obeyed. She dropped her tail and groped with both hands. Sure enough, there was an opening in the scenery. She was off the stage at last! Even though the Maypole dance had not ended, the audience was laughing and clapping. My goodness, could they be clapping for me? thought Ellen.

Then she heard Miss Joyce say, “Shh.” 

She wiggled through the crowd of rats to get her to untie her mask, but the Maypole dance had ended and Miss Joyce was saying,“All right, rats.Walk out and bow to the audience.”

Once more Ellen found herself pushed onto the stage. This time it was all right, because she was with rats, not Maypole dancers. She bowed with the others, and the audience applauded wildly. Then she shuffled off the stage and returned to the dressing room with the rest of the rats. She could hardly wait to see Austine now that they were friends. If only she could get her rat mask off.

Ellen heard Mrs. Gitler’s voice and groped across the room to her.“I can’t untie my mask,” she said in a muffled voice. Mrs. Gitler began to work at the knot. Hurry, thought Ellen. I’ve just got to talk to Austine.

Then she heard Austine’s voice.“Who do you suppose that silly rat was that got mixed up in the Maypole dance?”

Ellen gasped inside her mask.Austine did not know who it was she had helped! She wasn’t trying to make up the quarrel at all.

She was just being kind to a lost rat, that was all.

“I’ll bet it was that Ellen Tebbits,” said Linda. “She thinks she’s such a good dancer, she probably wanted to be in the Maypole dance.”

Ellen started to say, “Linda Mulford, I did not!” but she stopped. She wanted to hear Austine’s answer.

“Oh, I don’t think it was Ellen,” said Austine. “If it was, I wouldn’t have helped her. Not after slapping my face like she did.

And you know what? I didn’t even untie her old sash. Otis did.That’s what makes me so mad.”

“Honest?” said Linda in a shocked voice.

“You never told me. I thought you untied it.”

“Well, I didn’t. We were all crowded together in line and I was the only one who saw Otis do it. And then I get the blame.”

Ellen’s thoughts were in such a whirl she did not hear the rest of the conversation. So that was it! No wonder Austine was so mad at her. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? Austine and Otis had been standing right behind her that day. And Otis—well, everyone knew the kind of boy Otis was. Oh my, what would she do now?

When Mrs. Gitler finally undid the knot and took off the mask, Ellen saw her mother and father in the doorway looking for her.

“Oh, there you are,” said her mother.“We couldn’t tell which rat you were. You all looked alike in your costumes.” 

“That was some rat that danced the Maypole dance.” Mr. Tebbits laughed. “I wonder who it was.”

“Oh, just somebody that got mixed up,” said Ellen, as she slipped out of her rat suit.

7

Dusty Erasers

Weeks passed and still the girls did not speak. Now, instead of trying to be near Austine, Ellen avoided her. She knew she was the one who ought to say she was sorry, not Austine. But Ellen felt that after waiting so long she couldn’t say she was sorry she had slapped Austine. She just couldn’t. Besides, Austine shouldn’t have untied her sash on the way to school in the first place. Maybe Otis hadn’t really untied the sash anyway. Maybe Austine just said he did. If only she could ask Austine about it—

but of course she couldn’t do that.There was only one other person who would know for sure—Otis.

Much as Ellen disliked having anything to do with Otis, she made up her mind to ask him the first time she saw him alone.

Finding Otis by himself was not easy. If he wasn’t staying after school for not cooperating, he was leading the other boys in breaking up the girls’ games in the schoolyard.