We went as far up the street as we could together, but we just didn’t feel like doing anything with one another then, so we went home, each of us, alone. When I got home I went right upstairs. I had to unlock the door myself, because Mom wasn’t home from the library yet.
I didn’t even get myself a glass of milk and a cookie, I felt so bad.
Later that evening, there was a telephone call, and Mom took it and she talked on the telephone for a while. Then she called me over and gave the receiver to me. I asked who is it, covering the receiver with my hand, and she said, you’ll see. Big help.
It was Mr. Henderson, and he told me he had asked the class what had happened while he was gone out of the classroom. Like, with us, me and Jennifer T. He said Donna said that some of the kids were picking on us, and he said, who? And she told him, and he had them stay after school.. That’s when they told him what was going on, and he said he was really angry with them.
“Jennifer”, he said, “I want you to believe that if I had known anything about what was happening, I would have put an end to it. I’m terribly sorry that you and Jennifer Thackeray have had such a difficult time. I must be stupid or something, but I honestly did not know what was happening. You do believe me?”
I said yes, and he said he was calling Jennifer T at home to speak to her, too. He said he felt responsible for what had happened. He should have been more perceptive, he said, and he felt terrible about it. He asked would we come to see him tomorrow after school?
Dad and Mom were very impressed that Mr. Henderson would feel so personally responsible about what had happened, although it really wasn’t his fault, or anything. It wasn’t the first time he had called me at home to straighten something out, a misunderstanding that we had had, but I could hear how upset he was about things, and it made me feel a whole lot better, somehow.
At school the next day, he spoke to the whole class, and told them what he thought of what had happened. He spoke about how what he said was coercion should never be used on people, and that people have a right to make up their own minds about things. He said he really appreciated the thought behind what Pearl and Michelline were doing, but that they had gone about it in a questionable way.
I knew they were mad, steaming mad, and they hated us worse than anything, if that was at all possible. Sally, of course, kept telling them later how we told Mr. Henderson everything and made things sound really bad. Mr. Henderson had made them apologize to me and Jennifer, but we really didn’t want them to.
We went up to them later at lunch time to tell them we didn’t really do anything to tell Mr. Henderson about all of what was happening between us. Like, we felt it was our own private business. And they didn’t respond as badly as we thought they might. We were so surprised; they said forget it, it didn’t matter, maybe they were wrong after all, about things. But Sally was there, and she snarled at them that we were trouble-makers, and planned everything so they would look bad. We just ignored her, and walked away.
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