'How strange.'
'I was going to ask Mrs. Penny about it, but when she became so agitated over my side trip and my meeting Louis, I decided not to add anymore pepper to the gumbo.'
Abby laughed.
'What?'
'Every once in a while your Cajun background sneaks back,' she said.
'I know. Louis could detect my accent and knew I was from the bayou. He was surprised I was permitted to enroll, considering I wasn't a true blueblood.'
'What do you suppose would happen to me if they found out the truth about my past?' Abby said.
'And what truth is that?' Gisselle demanded.
We both spun around and gasped at the sight of her in our doorway. We were so engrossed in our conversation that we hadn't heard her open the door—or else, knowing her, she had opened it softly just so she could spy on us. She wheeled herself into the room, and I sat up in my bed.
'Having a heart to heart, girls?' she teased.
'You should knock before coming in here, Gisselle. You want
'I thought you'd be happy to have me come by. I happen to have found out the story of poor Louis,' she said, smiling her Cheshire cat smile. Actually, she reminded me more of the sort of muskrat Grandpere Jack trapped.
'And how did you do that?'
'Jacki knew. Seems it isn't all as big a secret as Mrs. Penny pretended. There are skeletons in Mrs. Clairborne's closets,' she sang gleefully.
'What sort of skeletons?' Abby asked.
'What's your secret first?'
'Secret?'
'The thing you don't want Mrs. Ironwood to discover about you. Come on, I heard what you said.'
'It's nothing,' Abby said, her face turning crimson.
'If it's nothing, tell it. Tell it or I'll . . I'll make up something.'
'Gisselle!'
'Well, it's a fair trade. I'll tell you what I learned, but you've got to tell me something too. I just knew you'd share secrets with her and not with your own twin sister. You probably told her things about us too.'
'I did not.' I looked at Abby, whose face was drooping with sadness, both for me and for herself. 'All right, we'll tell,' I said. Abby's eyes widened. 'Gisselle can keep a secret. Can't you?'
'Of course. I know more secrets than you'll ever know, especially about the kids back in our old school, even secrets about Beau,' she added happily.
I thought a moment and then blurted something I knew Gisselle would accept.
'Abby was suspended once for being caught with a boy in the basement of one of her previous schools,' I said. Abby's surprise worked perfectly, because it looked like I had betrayed her. Gisselle gazed from her to me skeptically for a moment and then laughed.
'Big deal,' she said. 'Unless,' she added, 'you were naked when you were caught. Were you?'
Abby looked to me for a moment and then shook her head. 'No, not completely.'
'Not completely? How much then? Did you take off your blouse?' Abby nodded. 'Your bra?' Abby nodded again. Gisselle looked impressed. 'What else?'
'That's all,' Abby said quickly.
'Well, well, little Miss Goody Goody isn't so pure after all.'
'Gisselle, remember, you promised.'
'Oh, who cares? That's not enough to interest anyone anyway,' she said. She thought a moment and then smiled. 'Now I suppose you want me to tell you why Louis is blind and what happened to his parents.'
'You said you would,' I replied.
She hesitated, enjoying her hold over us. 'Maybe later, if I feel like it,' she said and spun herself around in her chair and wheeled herself out of our room.
'Gisselle!' Abby cried.
'Oh, let her go, Abby,' I said. 'She'll just tease us and tease us.'
But I couldn't help wondering myself what it was that had turned that handsome young man into a blind, melancholy soul, revealing his feelings and thoughts only through his fingers on the keys of a piano.
6
