Best Friends (Nancy Pearl's Book Crush Rediscoveries) Read online

  Suzie roared, “Why Millicent Hansen! They do not! They put ads in the paper with pictures of the dogs, and people come and adopt them just like children.”

  The class all began to shout at once.

  Miss Morrison said, “Children, children, calm down! Does anyone know where this dog lives?”

  Ray made a hideous face at Millicent. “His name is Bravo and he lives on our block. His family have moved away, and he belongs to the whole neighborhood.”

  Bravo listened to this with great interest, yawned widely, and sat down and offered his paw to Miss Morrison. Miss Morrison shook his paw and told him he would probably enjoy chasing robins more than he would doing long division. She added, “Rich, you may be excused to take Bravo home.”

  Rich took hold of his collar, but Bravo obviously preferred school, for he braced his feet and slid, moaning and yelping, all the way to the door, much to the delight of the class.

  They were just starting science when Rich came back and began a whispered report to Suzie and Co Co which the class all strained their ears to hear. Miss Morrison suggested that the twins help Co Co with her geological specimens while the rest of the class worked on the planets.

  Rich and Ray and Co Co went over to the cabinet where the specimens were kept. Rich handed Co Co a rock. “This is feldspar. See the veins? Now what do you think this one is?”

  Co Co shrugged and giggled. “Do you know what I think? I think they are all little stones and they resemble one another. I really do not care what the name is. Tell me more about what to say.”

  Rich picked up a couple of specimens of quartz and, keeping a weather eye on Miss Morrison, he resumed his coaching of all-important American playground speech. “Okay. Now when you’re good and mad at a guy, you call him dumb, dopey, sappy, stinky, lousy, and knothead. Now you try it.”

  Instead of earnestly repeating the words after him, as she usually did, Co Co grinned wickedly. “I am bored with this louse-ey science, and this dumb dopey rock. I would prefer to speak of Bravo. Where is he?”

  Ray gave a snort of laughter and said, “Jiggers—Miss Morrison!”

  Rich picked up a piece of granite. “This is a vein of mica—we call it fool’s gold.”

  Co Co leaned forward so her head was between theirs. “Tell me, do you and Ray prefer the Select Seven or do you prefer Suzie and me?”

  Rich said, “Who wants to know?” and Ray added quickly, “We don’t like girls—period. Now, pay attention to these rocks or we’ll never get to the Art Shack.”

  After lunch, the weather was so lovely that Miss Morrison suggested that they collect their equipment and go out to the picnic tables under the big willow tree, instead of going to the Art Shack. She warned them to speak softly or they would disturb the rest of the school.

  When they arrived at the willow tree, Bravo was lying on the grass panting. At the sight of the children he leapt to his feet and galloped over to Miss Morrison and offered her his paw. Miss Morrison sighed and said Bravo apparently preferred school. She told the boys to put their equipment on the table on the right side of the tree and the girls to sit at the table on the left side and finish cutting the streamers for the Maypoles.

  For the next half hour it was fairly peaceful in the pale filtered sunshine under the willow tree. Then Millicent said, “Fourteen sure thinks she’s smart because seventeen has a swimming pool. We think seventeen is stuck-up and snooty—even if she is half French. Half-baked is more like it.”

  The Select Seven giggled nervously and nudged each other.

  Miss Morrison frowned. “Millicent, if you continue to be rude, I will have to take the class back into the room.”

  Millicent said, “I’m sorry, Miss Morrison,” and made a face at Co Co.

  Co Co leaned back and looked Millicent up and down. “Millicent, I believe I do not like that word ‘’alf baked.’ Taisez-vous, s’il vous plaît, which, if you do not remember, means shut up, if you please.”

  Miss Morrison ignored this and said she had to go to the stock room for more supplies, and she expected the girls to govern themselves as if she were present.

  The moment she was out of earshot, Millicent said, “Seventeen and fourteen wouldn’t think they were so smart if they knew what four and five really thought about them. They think they’re awful babies and goody-goodies and . . .”

  Quick as a flash Suzie reached across the table and yanked Millicent’s hair. “This baby’s going to jerk all one’s hair out by the roots if she doesn’t shut up. If you say one more word in code I’ll . . .” She looked up and saw Miss Morrison and blushed. “I’m awfully sorry, but she . . .”

  “Just a moment, Suzie. I realize you have provocation, but you must not attack Millicent. Please apologize for pulling her hair.”

  Suzie muttered, “I’m sorry, Millicent.” And under her breath added so Millicent could hear, “But you know darned well I’m not. I’ll show you who’s half-baked you old . . .”

  Miss Morrison interrupted. “Perhaps now would be a good time to review the program. Dorothy, you’re program chairman. Please read the schedule and then we’ll discuss it.”

  Dorothy read and Suzie explained to Co Co the parts she didn’t understand. Baseball games, songs, peasant dances, square dances and relay races. Just before the banquet, they would have the Maypole dances by all the classes together. The P.T.A. would provide the food. The banquet would be held in the lunchroom.

  While the girls discussed their plans, Miss Morrison turned to the boys’ table to see what they thought of the program.

  During their discussion the girls all talked at once, Millicent’s bossy voice louder than all the rest, until Co Co said, “I cannot hear and I do not understand. Suzie, your mother and my father can come to the banquet together, n’est-ce-pas?”

  Millicent snorted, “Nes pa! Can’t you ever speak English?” She turned to the Select Seven. “As long as fourteen’s mother and seventeen’s father are so darned crazy about each other, why don’t they just give up and get married!”

  Co Co jumped up and ran around the table, grabbed Millicent, and shook her. “Now, you have gone too far. You insult Suzie’s mother and my papa. I will show you that I, too, know the American. You, Millicent, are dumb, dopey, sappy, stinkey, lousy, knothead. You are not grubby, but you are indeed ghastly and foul. Also you are the one unkind American child I have met. This time I, Clothilde Langdon, am going to punish you. This you will not forget!”

  She stalked to the head of the table and stood in Miss Morrison’s place. Her eyes were blazing, her face was white, and she was shaking with rage. “Girls, may I have your attention please? Suzie, it is indeed loyal of you to quarrel with Millicent and the Sappy Seven to defend me.” She swept them with a withering glance. “But me. I do not need defense. Now I will show you that I, too, can form the club. Will all the girls who are not of the Sappy Seven please join me after school under this willow tree?” She turned and stalked toward the Art Shack, her straight back eloquent of her intense disapproval.

  When school was dismissed, Suzie and Sumiko and Marjorie and Betsy and Barbara and Linda and Penny clustered together under the tree, waiting for Co Co and saying, “Boy! She gets mad!” “Gosh, what a temper!” “Gee, I’m glad she’s not mad at me!” “Gee, Suzie, what do you think she’s going to do?”

  Millicent and the Select Seven, gathered in another uneasy little group, wondered the same thing. Millicent tossed her head. “Well, I personally don’t care what she does. I am never going to speak to Co Co again.”

  But her followers for once did not agree with her. Dorothy said, “Gee, Millicent, you really shouldn’t have said that about her father,” and the rest echoed, “Gosh no! You shouldn’t ever be mean about parents.” They wandered off casting worried looks at the group waiting for Co Co under the willow tree.

  Suzie watched Co Co come running toward them, stop and speak to Miss Morrison, curtsy, and then come over to the bench. “Here you have the French Eight. Sit down, p
lease, and attend.” They sat down without speaking and waited for her to continue. “My friends, I have been thinking since I came to this American school. The Select Seven are ridiculous. Their code is not a secret code—it is the numbers of the seats of the children. All the world can understand it. Millicent is unkind to allow some of the children to be with her and to leave out others. She is rude. Me, I do not care to be rude—but I must punish Millicent. Eh, bien—now we, too, will have the secret code. We will speak French. When those poor idiots speak with the numbers, we will speak French, non?”

  Sumiko asked Co Co timidly if it would not take a long time to learn to speak French.

  Co Co answered, “Oh, we will not speak French, Sumiko. We will use French words to make them—oh, how do you say it?—we will make them irritable—furious—wild with anger. Me, I will speak French entirely. Even if you do not understand, which you probably will not, pretend that you do. That is what I do with English. I will write the French words and the way they sound, so you will appear to be speaking correctly.” Co Co gave a triumphant shout of laughter. “Millicent will hate that!”

  Suzie crowed, “Co Co, that’s absolutely the neatest idea I’ve ever heard of in my life! Come on, everybody, let’s go to my house and practice.”

  So, all the way home from school, Co Co walked backward and faced the French Eight. “Excuse me—‘excusez-moi.’ Now you repeat it—‘excusez-moi.’” Between bouts of hysterical giggles, the girls did their best to mimic Co Co. “Aykskeeusay mooah.” They doubled up with laughter but they practiced.

  Without a flicker of a smile, in Mademoiselle’s most stern manner, Co Co drove them on. “Again—again. It is not good, but it will have to do. Now—what do you want?—‘Que voulez-vous?’” Again they tried and again they laughed so hard they could barely speak. “Kuh voolayvoo—oh, it sounds so funny!” Co Co shook her head. “Do not laugh. Again—again—‘que voulez-vous.’”

  Barbara said, “But it sounds awful when we try it.”

  Co Co shrugged, “It is not perfect, but Millicent will not know. She is an idiot. Again—‘que voulez-vous.’”

  They chanted “kuh voolayvoo” over and over again until Co Co said, “Good—good! Now—come here—‘venez ici.’”

  Before they had reached Mrs. Medlin’s gate, they were saying “vaynay seesee” so even Co Co was pleased. They stopped short when they heard Mrs. Medlin shouting, “Get out! Don’t ever step one foot in this yard again! Don’t let me see your faces even looking over this hedge!” They watched two small boys backing slowly up the walk with Mrs. Medlin shaking her finger right under their noses. She shoved them through the gate with a final, “Now scat!” The boys ran down the street shouting, “Old Medler Medlin! Old Medler Medlin!”

  Co Co said, “‘Je n’aime pas cette mèchante sorcière.’ It means—I do not like that wicked witch!”

  She had no trouble at all teaching her eager pupils, “Zhuh naym pah set meshant soorsair!”

  Grandmother gave them all cookies and lemonade, and they settled down around the kitchen table to practice. By five o’clock they were still getting mixed up and saying, “What did you say?” when they meant, “Come here,” but they sounded French enough to annoy Millicent, and Co Co and Suzie promised to spend the weekend writing eight copies of the French code.

  Chapter Six

  The Boys Have a Code Also

  Co Co stayed all night with Suzie, and Saturday morning they got up very early and made eight copies of the French code. Suzie was all for having just as many phrases as Millicent had numbers, but Co Co was firm. “No, Suzie, no. We wish to annoy the Select Seven—not to teach them.”

  After breakfast they went to Co Co’s house to see what the workmen had accomplished during the week. Paint cans and ladders and canvas littered every room, but the woodwork already had a coat of white paint and the Pink House was beginning to look cheerful and more as Suzie had always imagined it. Co Co’s room was to be papered in blue, and the guest room, which Co Co called Suzie’s room, was to be exactly like it in pink. The bathroom between the two rooms was so torn up they couldn’t get into it, but Co Co said, “Papa and I found the picture in a magazine. It is beautiful like the cinema—not at all like a French bathroom.”

  The kitchen also was all torn up, and Mrs. MacGregor was scurrying around emptying boxes and lining drawers and grumbling that modern kitchens were all very well, but at the rate the workmen were going, hers wouldn’t be ready by Christmas.

  Both Co Co and Suzie were a little afraid of Mrs. MacGregor, although Grandmother said her bark was worse than her bite. But when she called them for lunch and produced chicken sandwiches and hot chocolate and fresh cupcakes, they decided she was probably like Grandmother—prickly on the outside, but warm and friendly on the inside.

  That afternoon, while Suzie’s mother went shopping with Co Co’s father to pick out wallpaper and furniture, Suzie and Co Co decided to stay home and play in the Lookout. They spent the whole afternoon looking through magazines and choosing glamorous furniture for their bedrooms.

  Suzie’s mother asked Co Co to stay for dinner, but Mr. Langdon said they were going to have a farewell dinner for Mademoiselle as she was leaving for France on Sunday afternoon. So Grandmother suggested that they come back from taking Mademoiselle to the plane and have Sunday night supper instead.

  Sunday evening, when they arrived for supper, Co Co’s eyes were red from crying and Mr. Langdon seemed quite sad, too. He said, “Mademoiselle disliked America very much, and she could hardly wait to get back to France, but she has been with us so long, it was almost like saying good-bye to a member of the family.”

  Co Co’s eyes filled with tears. “I did not realize. I thought I would be glad because Mademoiselle would not scold anymore. But when she walked up the steps of the plane and waved to me, I cried and cried. She is almost like my mother. I will miss her so much.” Co Co burst out crying again.

  Suzie’s mother cuddled her and Grandmother said, “I have an idea. Suppose you plan to stay here with us until your house is finished. We have plenty of room, and it’s perfect nonsense for you to have to take a taxi out from the hotel every morning. Then you can get used to your new relatives.”

  Mr. Langdon thanked her but said he would have to stay at the hotel. He had so many conferences it would really be easier for them to stay right where they were. But Suzie and Co Co begged so hard and promised to be so good and helpful that he finally consented to let Co Co stay, at least until her room was finished.

  The idea of living at Grandmother’s house cheered Co Co up so much that she ate three servings of everything and chattered about how awful Millicent was, just as if she’d always lived with Suzie.

  After supper they drove down to the hotel and got Co Co’s luggage and spent a joyful evening, dividing up bureau drawers and closet space. Suzie even gave Co Co half of her signed movie star pictures to hang over her bed. Then they went to bed and giggled and planned what they were going to do to the Select Seven on Monday.

  Suzie said, “I know, we’ll get up early tomorrow and call up everybody in the French Eight and tell them to meet us under the willow tree at eight o’clock.”

  Co Co bounced in her bed and laughed. “Those Sappy Seven. They will be furious!”

  So, on Monday morning, Miss Morrison was just as astonished as the Select Seven, when she was greeted by eight “bonjour, Mademoiselle Morrison”s, followed by hysterical giggles. All morning long “Pardonnezmoi” peppered the classroom, and there were many unnecessary and self-conscious references to the day being “lundi.”

  Co Co seemed to have thrown away her English entirely. She spoke only French, even when Miss Morrison suggested that she repeat her answers in English. Even Sumiko, although sitting right under the clock, kept asking Miss Morrison, “Quelle heure est-il?” She asked the time, however, in such a soft voice that only Millicent heard her, and she kept saying, “For gosh sakes, I suppose you think it’s smart to ask what time it is
in French.”

  Miss Morrison’s face was twitching with laughter, but she behaved just as if this sudden French invasion were perfectly normal and even answered Co Co in French. Millicent’s hand was waving all morning just like a signal flag as she tattled on first one and then another of the French Eight.

  At recess Ray said, “Hey, you guys. I’ve got an idea.” The boys clustered around him and began a whispered consultation. After that all sixteen boys began to talk pig Latin. Rich and Ray held out the sides of their trousers and flounced up to the eight French code speakers. They curtsied elaborately and said in unison, “Irls-gay are-yay or-may umb-day an-thay usual oo-tay ay-day, ont-day ou-yay ink-thay o-say?”

  Rich trilled in a high squeaky voice, “Efinitely-day, my dear Alphonse.”

  Ray answered, “Efinitely-day, my dear Gaston,” and they held their hands in front of their mouths and giggled just the way the Select Seven did.

  Suzie looked haughty. “Oh stop it, Ray. You make me sick!”

  Ray jerked her arm. “Who’s making who sick, that’s what I’d like to know? Now listen, Suzie, you and Co Co are pretty good ball players, but you’re not so sharp that you can fool around acting like a couple of sissies. Now cut it out.”

  Rich said, “Co Co, for gosh sakes, wise up. Cut out all this French nonsense and stuff and come on and play ball.”

  Co Co said primly, “Monsieur Rich, French is not what you call nonsense nor is it stuff. It is the language of love!”

  The French Eight giggled and twined their arms around one another. Co Co switched up to Rich and Ray. “You say you do not like the girls. Then, you go with the boys.” Co Co led her group off giggling and whispering.

  After lunch the classroom was in complete confusion. The boys giggled and talked pig Latin, the French Eight repeated their phrases even when they weren’t called on, and the Select Seven tattled without raising their hands.