The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

Instantly, there was complete silence. There was not a peep, a squeak, a rustle, not even from the squirmy Georgie. I realized that Miss Brown had the same threatening hold over all her other pupils as she had over me. Why, I thought, I bet she smacks all of us. Probably not Harry, but everybody else. So it’s not just me. Well, how about that.

“In ten minutes you will line up,” Miss Brown said, “from youngest to oldest, and then you will file into the auditorium behind me in an orderly—an orderly—fashion. You will then sit in the row of chairs along the back of the stage until it is your turn to play. There will be no talking. There will be no fidgeting. And there will especially be no pushing. Do I make myself clear?” Mute nods all around.

“Do not forget to bow or curtsy after your selection. Mothers, ten minutes.” And she turned and swept out, kicking her train behind her in one practiced motion. Viola and Mother both fell on me again with a vengeance, beating and thrashing my hair with brushes and tongs. Finally they stepped back to admire their work.

“There,” said Mother, “don’t you look a picture? I wouldn’t have recognized you. Look.” She handed me a mirror.

I wouldn’t have recognized me, either, what with the elaborate structural pile teetering on my head. Above my forehead rose a steep cliff of hair, which then swooped into an intricate pointy arrangement at the crown, all massed above triple pontoons of hair along each temple; bringing up the rear was a trailing cascade of fat curls down my back. This magnificence was topped off with the world’s largest pink satin bow. Mother and Viola looked well pleased. They didn’t bother to ask me what I thought, so I didn’t have to say that I thought I looked . . . appalling.

“See how pretty you look?” said Mother.

My hand drifted up to my hair.

“Don’t you touch that,” said Viola. “Don’t you dare.” She gathered up their tools while Mother struck up a conversation with Mrs. Gates.

I sidled over to Lula and whispered, “Hey, Lula, are you all right?”

She looked at me with her enormous hazel eyes and nodded but didn’t—couldn’t—speak. I noticed with envy that she had escaped drastic coiffuric ministrations; her pale, silvery-blond hair hung down her back in two neat braids. I tried to jolly her out of her panic. I nudged her and whispered, “Lula, look at what they did to my hair. It’s the worst, isn’t it?” Lula’s lips were clamped together. She responded with a long, quivering breath through her nose. I had the feeling she didn’t remember how to speak English.

“Lula,” I said, “you’ll be all right. You’ve played that piece a million times. Take some more deep breaths. And if that doesn’t work, well, you’ve always got your bucket.”

I looked around. Harry stood before a mirror in the corner, dousing himself with lavender pomade and painstakingly parting his hair with a comb, over and over. I had never known him to take such care with his appearance before. As the oldest student, he would play last, but he would have to sit onstage and suffer through the rest of us until it was his turn.

Miss Brown returned, and we received final admonishments from our mothers before they hurried out. My last whispered instructions were from Viola: “Don’t touch that hair. I mean it.” We lined up in silence. No one talked or fidgeted or pushed. Harry winked at me from the back of the line. Lula quaked in front of me, shivering all the way to the tips of her braids.

“Lula,” said Miss Brown, frowning, “you have to put that bucket down.” Lula didn’t move. “Calpurnia, take that bucket from her.” I tapped Lula on the shoulder and said, “Give it over, Lula. It’s time.” She stared at me in mute appeal. I ended up prying it from her damp hands.

Miss Brown said, “Children, this is the time for your very best deportment. Chins up. Chests out.”

She opened the side door to the auditorium, and we marched in behind her to what sounded like hard rain on a tin roof. It was applause, and Lula flinched like a startled fawn. For a moment, I thought she would bolt. I did a rapid and complex series of mental calculations about the range of possible blame that could be assigned to me if she got away, but good old Lula stuck it out and stayed in line.

Then I saw Miss Brown floating majestically upward at the front of the line. Why? How? What was happening? It took me a second to remember that there were a dozen or so steps up to the stage and she was walking up them.