Page 78 of The Reformatory

Mrs. Hamilton smiled at him as she had in the infirmary. The music lifted her lips. “Robert Stephens, you’ve never played before?”

Robert didn’t know what he should say: the last time he’d answered a teacher in front of other boys, he’d gotten jumped after class.

“Young man, I asked you a question.” Her smile faded quick.

“Yes, ma’am—I mean no, ma’am, I never played before.”

“Speak after you’ve chosen the words,” Mrs. Hamilton said. She’d been in the Army all right. “Don’t let your words spill out willy-nilly. Express yourself clearly.” From the back, someone sniggered. Maybe Redbone was laughing at willy-nilly, not at him.

“Ma’am, I don’t want to sound like I’m boasting, that’s all.”

“You’re a talented beginner, Robert,” Mrs. Hamilton said. “There’s nothing to boast yet. You won’t be here by the time you’d be ready to play first chair, God willing. But, yes, you have a talent and I’d like to see you nurture it once you’re back at home.”

“Yes, ma’am.” His face burned, then cooled, from the pleasure of her compliment, yes, but more from hearing her say he would go home. After the Funhouse, he had begun to doubt it.

Robert glanced farther down the row to Darren, the husky teenager who played first trumpet, and Darren nodded at him, raising his trumpet’s bell in salute. Robert smiled. He wished he’d been in band his first day, or that band time didn’t speed by so fast.

Robert was still smiling when he saw a shadow from the open doorway—tall and lean, with a wide Stetson stretching clear across the floor—and then Warden Haddock was standing at the band room entrance as if an instant’s joy had summoned him. Robert’s shoulders drew close to his neck so he could disappear.

Mrs. Hamilton saw their eyes on the doorway, so she turned to see who was there. Robert thought she stiffened when she saw Warden Haddock, but only a little. Like Mama, she did not seem afraid of white people, even one who was her boss. Or at least she didn’t want them to see if she was. Her smile in her profile was polite but tight, as if her jaw might clench at any time.

“Supervisor,” she greeted him from behind her smile.

Warden Haddock took off his hat and cradled it to his chest in a way that made Robert think of Haddock’s dead sister. “Heard the boys, thought I’d pop in.”

“Nearly half are brand-new, some only yesterday,” Mrs. Hamilton said. An apology.

“Nonetheless,” Warden Haddock said, and only then, for just a flicker, did his eyes skate to Robert’s, finding him right away, just long enough to thrash Robert’s heart. “I thought I’d take a look-see. Whole town will be watching on parade day. You’ll march past the mayor’s booth.”

“I certainly aim to make the Gracetown School for Boys proud.” She had never said sir to him, even though in every war picture Robert had seen it was always yes, sir, no, sir.

“I wager you’ll do just that, Marian.”

Mrs. Hamilton’s smile sharpened from the extra force behind it. She did not like to be called by her first name. She was itching to say it, but she didn’t. Mama had been the same way.

Warden Haddock stood in a silence so long they all heard a hog’s dying squeal from a faraway chopping block. Some boys worked with the butcher, leaving the aluminum sink in the dormitory pink with blood when they washed their hands at night. The cry was horrible and so human that Robert wondered if it was only a hog dying. He was glad when the squeals went quiet. “Help you with something else, Supervisor Haddock?” Mrs. Hamilton said, and Robert felt the other boys let out gentle breaths with him. None of them had breathed while he stood so close.

“Any of these boys giving you trouble?”

“No, the boys in band are very well-behaved.”

He leaned over and said something into her ear as quickly as he’d glanced Robert’s way. While Mrs. Hamilton listened, only the smallest piece of her smile remained. When she nodded, he grinned and put his hat back on.

“I’ll be waiting,” he said for the class to hear.

“I’ll see to it,” she said, and an unspoken sir softened her voice. She didn’t like what he’d said, but she would do it anyway. And knowing that made the warden grin. He spun away to leave the room, playful in a way Robert had never seen. The light through the doorway was brighter without his shadow.

For the rest of band practice, Robert wondered what the warden had said in Mrs. Hamilton’s ear. Blue had said things in the cornfield that made Robert wonder if Warden Haddock did whatever he wanted with women who worked for him. The Reformatory had polluted Robert with ugly thoughts.

Mrs. Hamilton seemed to know he was thinking about her because from time to time her eyes came to his and then quickly away as if they had a secret. He got a funny feeling when she looked at him; like he wanted to be with her all the time and see her the entire day, and like he would kick anyone who tried to bother her, even if it was Warden Haddock. She made him feel like he mattered the way Mama and Gloria and Miz Lottie did. Robert’s distracted thoughts made him fumble through the exercises in the music primer, and he thought she would chide him when band class was over.

As he walked close to her to leave—by himself, since Redbone was still ignoring him—Robert tried to think of something more interesting to say than Bye, Missus Hamilton and wondered what she would think if he said something like Your hair looks very nice. His face flashed hot again as he imagined saying it.

“Missus Hamilton,” he said, lingering near her as the last to leave the practice room, “I’ll practice my scale in my head before I got to sleep. Like I did last night.”

She smiled, but her smile was flimsy and sad. “Robert, stay behind, please. Supervisor Haddock wants to see you.”

Robert’s ears rang from his heartbeat. Redbone, who was already halfway down the steps outside, turned his head to look back at them.