“Oh, I like some of them,” Ruth said.
‘ ‘The kind of movies where no one ever, ever gets blown up. And never any feelies. They’ll never take us to a movie in which some guy puts his hand on a girl’s boob. Family films. Dull, dull, dull.”
“You’ll have to forgive my sister,” Ruth told Laura. “She thinks she’s on the trembling edge of puberty—”
“I am on the trembling edge of puberty! I feel my sap rising!” Thelma said, thrusting one thin arm into the air above her head.
Ruth said, “The lack of parental guidance has taken a toll on her, I’m afraid. She hasn’t adapted well to being an orphan.”
“You’ll have to forgive my sister,” Thelma said. “She’s decided to skip puberty and go directly from childhood to senility.”
Laura said, “What about Willy Sheener?”
The Ackerson twins glanced knowingly at each other and spoke with such synchronization that not a fraction of a second was lost between their statements: “Oh, a disturbed man,” Ruth said, and Thelma said, “He’s scum,” and Ruth said, “He needs therapy,” and Thelma said, “No, what he needs is a hit over the head with a baseball bat maybe a dozen times, maybe two dozen, then locked away for the rest of his life.”
Laura told them about encountering Sheener in her doorway.
“He didn’t say anything?” Ruth asked. “That’s creepy. Usually he says ‘You’re a very pretty little girl’ or—”
“—he offers you candy.” Thelma grimaced. “Can you imagine? Candy? How trite! It’s as if he learned to be a scumbag by reading those booklets the police hand out to warn kids about perverts.”
“No candy,” Laura said, shivering as she remembered Sheener’s sun-silvered eyes and heavy, rhythmic breathing.
Thelma leaned forward, lowering her voice to a stage whisper. “Sounds like the White Eel was tongue-tied, too hot even to think of his usual lines. Maybe he has a special lech for you, Laura.”
“White Eel?”
“That’s Sheener,” Ruth said. “Or just the Eel for short.”
“Pale and slick as he is,” Thelma said, “the name fits. I’ll bet the Eel has a special lech for you. I mean, kid, you are a knockout.”
“Not me,” Laura said.
“Are you kidding?” Ruth said. “That dark hair, those big eyes.”
Laura blushed and started to protest, and Thelma said, “Listen, Shane, the Dazzling Ackerson Duo—Ruth and moi—cannot abide false modesty any more than we can tolerate bragging. We’re straight-from-the-shoulder types. We know what our strengths are, and we’re proud of them. God knows, neither of us will win the Miss America contest, but we’re intelligent, very intelligent, and we’re not reluctant to admit to brains. And you are gorgeous, so stop being coy.”
“My sister is sometimes too blunt and too colorful in the way she expresses herself,” Ruth said apologetically.
“And my sister,” Thelma told Laura, “is trying out for the part of Melanie in Gone With the Wind.” She put on a thick Southern accent and spoke with exaggerated sympathy: “Oh, Scarlett doesn’t mean any harm. Scarlett’s a lovely girl, really she is. Rhett is so lovely at heart, too, and even the Yankees are lovely, even those who sacked Tara, burned our crops, and made boots out of the skin of our babies.”
Laura began to giggle halfway through Thelma’s performance.
“So drop the modest maiden act, Shane! You’re gorgeous.”
“Okay, okay. I know I’m . . . pretty.”
“Kiddo, when the White Eel saw you, a fuse blew in his brain.”
“Yes,” Ruth agreed, “you stunned him. That’s why he couldn’t even think to peach in his pocket for the candy he always carries.”
“Candy!” Thelma said. “Little bags of M&Ms, Tootsie Rolls!”
“Laura, be real careful,” Ruth warned. “He’s a sick man—”
“He’s a geek!” Thelma said. “A sewer rat!”
From the far corner of the room, Tammy said softly, “He’s not as bad as you say.”
The blond girl was so quiet, so thin and colorless, so adept at fading into the background that Laura had forgotten her. Now she saw that Tammy had put her book aside and was sitting up in bed; she had drawn her bony knees against her chest and wrapped her arms around her legs. She was ten, two years younger than her roommates, small for her age. In a white nightgown and socks Tammy looked more like an apparition than like a real person.