The Day Elspeth Ran Away

               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.