'If she gets up, keep her here!' he told the class. He turned and ran. He heard his flat feet clatter in the corridor, and he felt his bad heart beat. At first the Principal didn't believe him.
'Collapse? Dorothy Gael? That girl has the constitution of an ox.'
'Even an ox can die of heartbreak,' said the Substitute. 'There's been something terrible going on. She shouted it out, and all the children heard.'
'Did they indeed? What's she been doing, stealing peaches? All right, Mr. Baum, I'll come and see.'
She was still there on the floor, no longer wailing, but shivering, and she had stuck her thumb in her mouth. Professor Lantz walked in and one of the children giggled. They were all biting their nails.
'DeEtta,' the Principal said to his assistant, 'take the children out into the yard, please.'
'Come on, children, there's nothing more to see here,' said Mrs. Warren as the children gaped in wonder.
'What she said!' breathed out one of the girls.
The Principal looked up and waited until the children had left. He was taking Dorothy's pulse rate. It was a scientific thing to do.
'All right, Mr. Baum. What did she say?'
The Substitute found he couldn't say it. He had had a delicate upbringing. The Substitute could feel his cheeks roasting with embarrassment. He sighed and hissed with the difficulty of even finding words for it.
'Out with it, Mr. Baum, there are only us men here.'
'She says that her uncle has relations with her.'
For just a flicker, as if time had blinked, Professor Lantz went still.
'I mean, what she actually said was that he pushed his thing up her.' Frank Baum felt his voice suddenly shudder and go weak. He was nearly in tears.
'Buck up, man,' said Professor Lantz. 'It doesn't surprise me. Dorothy Gael is quite capable of imagining anything. She said this in front of the other children?'
'Yes,' said the Substitute, overwhelmed by the horror of it.
'Dorothy Gael,' said the Principal, as if the child were not curled up under his hands, 'is a very wicked creature. At times she almost convinces me of the truth of demonic possession. She has said before, herself, that she lies about everything. She is capable of uttering any untruth and, I'm afraid to say, of thinking up all manner of foulness by herself. You do not know the girl, Mr. Baum.' The Principal was fat and had to grunt as he stood up. Without realizing it, he made a gesture of wiping his hands.
'We'll get your relative, Dr. Lyman, in to have a look at her. And then we will bundle her up and send her home and ask her never to come back to this school.'
The Substitute followed him out of the room glancing back and forth between him and the girl. 'Are you sure? Are you sure you should send her home?'
'Where else does she belong, Mr. Baum?'
'Whatever else may be true, she is desperately unhappy there, Professor Lantz. Please! Look at her! What would make a child try to dig her way into the floor?'
'I don't know,' said Professor Lantz, looking back with a half smile. 'Perhaps a handsome young actor from New York.'
The Substitute found that dismay was turning to anger. You are going to blame me for that in there? 'What,' the Substitute asked, drawing himself up, 'what if what she said is the truth?'
Professor Lantz stopped smiling and his gaze went steely.
'There must be a reason for it!' exclaimed the Substitute.
'The only reason,' said the Principal, 'is fantasy. Fantasy is pretty unhealthy as a general rule. I will remind you, Sir, that you are an itinerant actor invited here to teach class for a few days at the suggestion of Dr. Lyman. You do not know Dorothy Gael, nor her guardians, the Gulches. You could not hope to meet more God-fearing or civic-minded people. Her uncle takes her to and from Manhattan every day, the distance of four miles each way, simply to bring her here since her last school failed to effect any improvement. She gets the best care her people can afford. Particularly since she must be a very great trial to them. And I am afraid, Sir, that we will not be requiring your services tomorrow. After creating that incident in there I think you can see why. Cigar smoke and all.'
The Professor waved his hand in the air as if to wipe away the stench of smoke, of actor, of fantasy.
Dr. Lyman arrived, with a weary glance at his worthless young cousin. 'Sexual hysteria,' he pronounced, having heard the story from Professor Lantz. 'There's not much I can do for her, except take her home. Which under the circumstances I will do gratis. Not my normal policy.' He glanced up again at the actor. 'Frank, perhaps you would care to assist.'
'I will ride back with her,' said the Substitute.
'No,' said the Doctor. 'You will not.'
They got the great lump of a girl to stand. She really was huge, the size of a grown woman and stronger than most boys her age. The Substitute took her hand, and she grasped his firmly, but he had the feeling she did not know who he was. The flesh on her face hung dead and limp and yellow. She was quite tame. She stepped up onto the Doctor's coach as if somnambulating. The effect was curiously ladylike. She sat tall and straight. The face had a faraway expression, almost refined, and the Substitute had time to see that the face was beautiful. With the anger and the pain fallen from her, Dorothy Gael would have been a beautiful woman.
And then the child murmured, 'Frank. Frank.'
