The Orphan and the Mouse Read Online Free PDF Page B

beau?
    Melissa, who was tall, skinny, blond, and blue-eyed, rolled her eyes at that last question. “Don’t be silly, Ginny. The whole world knows Joanna Grahame hasn’t got a beau. She is done with romance. Her heart has been through the wringer once too often.”
    Betty, an intermediate like Ginny, tsked and shook her head. “You talk like one of those movie magazines.”
    â€œOf course she does, that’s all she reads,” said Ginny.
    â€œThat and comic books,” said Bert.
    â€œDon’t make fun,” said Caro.
    â€œYeah, Bert, ’cause you don’t read at all,” said Melissa.
    Next to Caro at the table was four-year-old Annabelle. She had never seen a motion picture or till now heard the word
glamour
, but still she felt the excitement.
    â€œIs Joanna Grahame a princess?” she whispered to Caro.
    â€œSort of,” Caro said. “Only her mother isn’t a queen.”
    â€œMy mother isn’t a queen,” said Annabelle thoughtfully. “So can I be a princess?”
    Across the table, Ricky heard her and snorted. “You haven’t got a mother, or a father, either.” At fifteen, Ricky had been at Cherry Street longer than any of the other children present. On his sixteenth birthday, he’d be released for good to make his way in the world.
    â€œHave, too, got a mother,” said Annabelle stoutly. “She’s dead. But I’ve still got her. There’s a picture in a frame.”
    This flummoxed Ricky, and Caro jumped in. “You can playact you’re a princess,” she told Annabelle. “That’s what movie stars do. They pretend to be other people and get paid lots of money.”
    Jimmy Levine’s seat was next to Ricky’s. “It’s a good racket, all right,” he said. “Excuse me, ma’am. Mrs. George?”
    â€œWhat is it, Jimmy?” Mrs. George had let the children chatter longer than usual.
    â€œI presume our chores are canceled? Under the circumstances, I mean?”
    â€œOn the contrary,” said Mrs. George. “Miss Grahame is arriving in her automobile at eleven. We’ll want our home looking its best, and you have plenty of time to do chores. Annabelle—there’s jam on your nose.”
    â€œYes, ma’am.” Annabelle touched her tongue to the spot without effect.
    â€œCarolyn?” said Mrs. George.
    â€œYes, ma’am.” Caro took the tip of her napkin and wiped Annabelle’s nose.
    â€œCan I ask a question, ma’am?” said Louisa, who was six. “Will the movie star make a movie about us?”
    â€œShe doesn’t make the movies, she just acts in them,” said Angela, another of the older girls.
    â€œThat’s correct,” said Mrs. George. “But you never know, Louisa. A movie about a nice home like ours, a home with happy children, would be refreshing.”
    Mrs. George never called the Cherry Street Home an orphanage. To her, the word denoted sickly children with hollow eyes who were beaten and fed gruel. Cherry Street was nothing like that. Rather, it had been established by Mr. and Mrs. C. Philips-Bodbetter in 1936 to model the most progressive methods for rearing abandoned children of all races, creeds, and backgrounds.
    A kind couple who had made their fortune manufacturing baby powder, the Philips-Bodbetters were much too busy to run the home themselves. For advice on management, they turned to a lawyer friend, who suggested an attractive widow to serve as headmistress. At the interview, the widow showed herself to be so self-possessed, so well-spoken, and so obviously capable that they hired her after only the most cursory check into her background.
    Similarly impressed, the newly constituted board of directors left it to Mrs. George—for she was the widow—to hire the staff.
    The girls’ matron, Polly Merkel, was an old acquaintance of Mrs. George’s who had been on the job