Laura liked Thelma and Ruth Ackerson immediately. Having just turned twelve, they were only months younger than Laura and were wise for their age. They had been orphaned when they were nine and had lived at the shelter for almost three years. Finding adoptive parents for children their age was difficult, especially for twins who were determined not to be split up.
Not pretty girls, they were astonishingly identical in their plainness: lusterless brown hair, myopic brown eyes, broad faces, blunt chins, wide mouths. Although lacking in good looks, they were abundantly intelligent, energetic, and good-natured.
Ruth was wearing blue pajamas with dark green piping on the cuffs and collar, blue slippers; her hair was tied in a ponytail. Thelma wore raspberry-red pajamas and furry yellow slippers, each with two buttons painted to represent eyes, and her hair was unfettered.
With darkfall the insufferable heat of the day had passed. They were less than ten miles from the Pacific, so the night breezes made comfortable sleep possible. Now, with the windows open, currents of mild air stirred the aged curtains and circulated through the room.
"Summer's a bore here," Ruth told Laura as they sat in a circle on the floor. "We're not allowed off the property, and it's just not big enough. And in the summer all the do-gooders are busy with their own vacations, their own trips to the beach, so they forget about us."
"Christmas is great, though," Thelma said.
"All of November and December are great," Ruth said.
"Yeah," Thelma said. "Holidays are fine because the do-gooders start feeling guilty about having so much when we poor, drab, homeless waifs have to wear newspaper coats, cardboard shoes, and eat last year's gruel. So they send us baskets of goodies, take us on shopping sprees and to the movies, though never the good movies."
"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 reach in his pocket for the candy he always carries."
"Candy!" Thelma said. "Little bags of M&M's, 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.
"He wouldn't hurt anyone," Tammy said hesitantly, tremulously, as though stating her opinion about Sheener — about anything, anyone — was like walking on a tightrope without a net.
"He would hurt someone if he could get away with it," Ruth said.
"He's just…" Tammy bit her lip. "He's… lonely."
"No, honey," Thelma said, "he's not lonely. He's so much in love with himself that he'll never be lonely."
Tammy looked away from them. She got up, slipped her feet into floppy slippers, and mumbled, "Almost bedtime." She took her toiletry kit from her nightstand and shuffled out of the room, closing the door behind her, heading for one of the baths at the end of the hall.
"She takes the candy," Ruth explained.
An icy wave of revulsion washed through Laura. "Ah, no."
"Yes," Thelma said. "Not because she wants the candy. She's… messed up. She needs the kind of approval she gets from the Eel."
"But why?" Laura asked.
Ruth and Thelma exchanged another of their looks, through which they seemed to debate an issue and reach a decision in a second or two, without words. Sighing, Ruth said, "Well, see, Tammy needs that kind of approval because… her father taught her to need it."
Laura was jolted. "Her own father?"
"Not all the kids at Mcllroy are orphans," Thelma said. "Some are here because their parents committed crimes and went to jail. And others were abused by their folks physically or… sexually."