Dicey's Song by Cynthia Voigt Page A

of pieces on the piano. Then he asked them to sing for him, because Maybeth had told him they liked to sing, so they sang “Amazing Grace.” Mr. Lingerle joined in with a rich bass harmony. Gram asked them to sing “Who Will Sing for Me,” and they did. Then Sammy wanted to sing “The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly.” When they had sung themselves out, Mr. Lingerle thanked them for a pleasant evening and left, getting himself, somehow, into a little Volkswagen that jounced off down the driveway, following its thin beams of light. They turned back to homework.
    When Dicey was saying good night to Sammy, her brother said to her: “I didn’t know he was like that.”
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œNice.”
    â€œWhat did you think he was like?”
    â€œFunny.” Sammy rolled over and looked at her with hazel eyes. “The kids all laugh at him.”
    â€œBecause he’s fat?”
    He nodded.
    â€œDo you?”
    Sammy shrugged. “I’ve never been in trouble yet,” he said.
    DICEY FINISHED her work apron the earliest of anyone in the home ec class. She spent the rest of the days assigned to this project pretending she still had work to do (so that Miss Eversleigh would keep off her back) and getting her other homework finished. On the day the project was due, Miss Eversleigh told every girl to put on her apron. Dicey stuck a marker in the story she was reading for English and jerked her apron over her head. She sat down again and opened her book.
    But everybody had to stand up. Dicey wasn’t sorry she’d done as bad a job as she’d done, but she wished she didn’t have to stand up so everybody else could see. She made her face stony.
    There was silence for a few minutes, while everybody looked at what everybody else had made (everybody except Dicey, who kept on reading), and Miss Eversleigh went around to everyone, like a general reviewing the troops, Dicey thought, acting as if the aprons mattered. When the first ripple of laughter began, Dicey looked up.
    They were looking at her, at her apron. Well, she knew the hem rippled up and down, and the neckband pulled one side of the bib up to her shoulder, and the two big red buttons she’d used for decoration on the bib sat at just the wrong places. She knew that and she didn’t care. She glared at the laughing faces, her chin high. Wilhemina was trying not to laugh, but her cheeks puffed out with holding it in, and her eyes glistened. Dicey just stared at her. The only other angry person in the room was Miss Eversleigh, and she was staring anger at Dicey. Dicey was thinking of what to say, and she kept her chin up high like Gram’s, when the bell rang. Ending class.
    Dicey whipped her apron up over her head and rolled it into a ball. She grabbed her books, fast, because Miss Eversleigh was moving toward her. She rushed out of the room, slamming the apron into the trash basket by the door.
    In the hall she collided with Mina. “What do
you
want,” she demanded.
    â€œIt
was
funny-looking,” Mina said.
    â€œI wanted to take mechanical drawing,” Dicey said. “If I were a boy, they’d have found room for me in that class.” She heard the anger in her own voice.
    â€œDon’t take it out on me,” Mina said, angry herself now. “Boy. I thought I could count on you not to be — ordinary.”
    â€œI never asked you to count on me for anything,” Dicey said. She stormed down the hall, riding the waves of her own anger. At least it was Friday and she wouldn’t have to go to school again until two days later.
    When Dicey got home on Fridays, she usually had the house to herself for a few minutes. Gram picked Sammy up at school, and they did grocery shopping before returning together in the outboard. James was off delivering papers. Maybeth had her second piano lesson on Fridays.
    Dicey slammed around the house, taking her books up to her room,