It had been an ordinary
afternoon in boarding. School was out at
4:10 and we ran down the ramp from the upper school where, as third graders, we
now had our classroom. The “chuts,” the
little ones from lower kindergarten through second grade had their classes in
the building below where the dormitory and dining room were located. Although it was against the rules, if there
was no teacher in sight, we would run down the ramp, jumping to hit the cross
beams every so many feet. Tea was served
in the dining room, stainless steel glasses of hot, sweet Indian tea with white
bread jam sandwiches. After tea Mrs.
DeSantos had the tuck cupboard open. I
went to take a treat or two from my tin of goodies from home, some dried up
fudge, sugary caramelized condensed milk and a few precious Tootsie Rolls sent
in a package from the States.
Playground time was back up the ramp to the school
gymnasium space, two covered basketball courts, with paving between them to let
us skate if we wanted. The latest craze
was the hula hoop which occupied several of us.
No one missed Elspeth. We were
about 80 little girls from 6 to 14 years of age. Some played hopscotch, some walked in pairs
or threes around and around while others skated past and through them. One little girl more or less wasn’t
noticeable.
When the bell sounded for dinner we ran back down the
ramp and stood in line in the Quad by classes.
The teacher on duty stood at the door to the dining room waiting for the
shrieking and chatter to stop. Once we
were all silent she would signal the littlest girls to go in to take their
places in the dining room. We did not
have assigned seats but sat together in class groups. Again no one noticed that Elspeth was not
there.
There were only a few minutes between dinner and
study hall. The girls from third grade
on had study hall for 90 minutes every evening.
We ran up to the dorm, grabbed our books and went to the study hall down
the hall behind the dining room. I
remember that we were learning the times tables in math class and I spent most
of study hall concentrating on memorizing the 9 times table. I liked the orderliness of math – it was
somehow comforting to learn things that had correct answers and to know
them. It was some time during study hall
when Miss Stoner, the teacher on duty, checking the list of girls noticed that
Elspeth was missing. Before we left
study hall Miss Stoner asked if anyone knew where Elspeth was. No one did.
We rushed up the stairs to the dorm, fanning out to
look everywhere, the laundry room, the individual shower stalls, the toilets,
the playroom, the cupboards in the playroom.
It was very quickly obvious that Elspeth was nowhere to be found. Miss Cressman, the matron, was talking with
another teacher in the doorway, watching us scurrying around.
I remember the feeling of dread and sort of a thrill
– someone missing. We couldn’t stop
exclaiming to each other. Some of the
little ones were crying. A couple of the
more religious girls wanted us to all kneel by our beds and pray. Miss Cressman told us to get ourselves ready
for bed but we were all bewildered by this unprecedented event. What could have happened? We were too young and protected to imagine
anything too dire, thankfully. But I
remember the process of being completely bewildered and trying to engage in
some kind of reasoning that would reveal at least a possible option.
Elspeth was a new girl. She spoke with a soft, intriguing Scottish accent
unlike the rest of us mostly American and Canadian girls. She had long, curly hair that the ayah put
into two braids every morning. Little
curls escaped all over. Her clothes were
clearly store bought in Britain, unlike our dresses made by the local Indian
tailor. I remember her shoes especially
which were open-cut sandals, made of soft brown leather. Her parents were in Lahore, Pakistan which we
all knew to be the country that was India’s neighbor but scary rival. Our parents all worked in India, Burma, or
Thailand, not Pakistan although some had lived there before partition and
independence in 1947.
We each had a “best friend” who we tended to do
everything with but Elspeth had not made a close friend. She was included in our play times but she
had remained aloof, different from us in some indefinable way.
Shortly, maybe less than an hour, one of the staff
came up to the Miss Cressman’s door and they conferred for just a minute. She turned, her hands held together at her
midriff in a typical pose, “Girls, they’ve found Elspeth. She is all right.” A collective gasp of relief was our first
reaction. Then a chorus of questions,
“Where was she?” “When will she be back?” “Is she in trouble?”
“Now girls, come in for devotions. We will thank God for keeping Elspeth
safe.” She rather pointedly did not
respond to any of the questions.
We learned later that Elspeth had walked through the
bazaar, about 3 miles, and made it to the bus stand at King Craig where someone
realized she was from our school and contacted the principal. She was returned to the dorm the next
morning. She left at the end of the next
school year and did not return.
The next
year I had my own running-away episode.
My mom had come up to the school community to take me out of boarding
for 6 weeks. The day she was returning
to the plains with my little sister and brother I had piano practice right
before lunch. That involved going to a
basement with a long line of rooms each with a single piano and a high window
looking out over the hillside. I sat
down to practice and was overwhelmed with the grief of separation. I sneaked up the stairs, waited until the
teacher on duty was not looking, ran up the ramp, through the school and up the
hill to our house.
I arrived panting and
sobbing just as my mom was supervising the coolies loading up the luggage to
take them to the bus stand. She walked
me back to the school and the dorm. Miss
Cressman was unusually kind, giving me Honey Bear, the special stuffed animal reserved
for good girls, and offering me dill pickles and fudge. I didn’t have to go to class for the rest of
the day. I don’t recall if anyone had
missed me – just that I slipped back into the routine with my friends when they
came down at tea time.
