That Forgetful Shore by Trudy Morgan-Cole Read Free Book Online Page A

past them all as if she really is so much better than they are that their petty insults don’t even touch her.
    Inside, there’s a Kit who can do that, who is just brazen enough to come out now. But she’s lost access to that Kit, here in this place where her only ally is a teacher who is said to make a pet of her. After a year at Spencer she’s not made one close friend. She was always the centre of a lively circle of girls back on the Point, though Trif was the only one she truly felt close to. Here she is a loner, and has made no effort to change that status.
    If Trif was here, I could do it. I could brazen it out, I could face them all. She hears the girls leave, waits till their voices fade, then steps out into the corridor.
    But worse awaits. One girl is still there, kneeling down, packing her books in a satchel. It’s blonde and pretty Alice Templeman, who plays Bianca – another girl Kit has barely spoken to in her time here. In Alice’s case it’s not dislike but sheer intimidation: she comes from a well-off St. John’s family. What acquaintances Kit does have are girls from around the bay like herself, aspiring teachers who were the brightest and best in their little one-room, outport schools. While Kit’s family connections make her one of the most well-off girls on the Point, she’s well aware that the St. John’s merchant families are a different class of people. She has no experience of girls like Alice, who make up the majority of students in her classes at Spencer. Knowing that Alice was out there, hearing the other girls discuss Kit, makes the whole experience infinitely worse. She can only hope Alice leaves quickly, without saying anything, without meeting her eyes.
    â€œMiss Ellis used a rather coarse word beginning with a B.” Alice’s clear voice has no trace of an accent that needs to be expunged. “I’d say it applies to her more than to anyone else, wouldn’t you?”
    Kit forces herself to meet the other girl’s eyes as Alice straightens up and shoulders her satchel. Alice’s small grin looks positively wicked in her pretty face. “Don’t mind them,” she says. “You know there’s always that kind of girl that has to put other girls down to make herself feel like someone. Nancy’s that kind – I’ve seen it in her ever since she came in here. There’s a few in every school.”
    â€œI suppose so,” Kit says. “Thanks.”
    Alice shrugs. She hasn’t, after all, done anything much – she certainly didn’t tell the other girls to shut up, defend Kit to their faces. But a little friendship offered on the sly is better than nothing at a time like this. “I don’t have much time for people like that,” she explains.
    â€œI knew there’d be all kinds in college,” Kit says, “but to tell the truth I was more worried about – well, girls like you. Townie girls. At home they always say the townies will look down on you.”
    Alice smiles. “So we will. Some of my friends are awful, the way they talk about the bay girls – making fun of their clothes, their accents, the things they didn’t learn in school. But the bay girls are worse to each other, especially if they think anyone’s getting above herself. Like lobsters – you know?”
    â€œLobsters?”
    â€œThey say if you’re cooking a lot of lobsters in a pot, you know, boiling them alive –” Alice wrinkles her pretty nose at the idea. “– if one tries to escape, the others will pull them back down into the pot. I don’t know if it’s true, but you see it all the time with people. Can’t let anyone rise too high, you know.”
    Kit goes home that night and writes to Trif about the lobster pot, and the girls’ cloakroom, the nastiness of Nancy Ellis and the unexpected kindness of Alice Templeman. It would all be more