Five Quarters of the Orange / Пять четвертинок апельсина

Catch Old Mother for something to do!”

And he was off again, rolling alarmingly close to the edge of the platform in his incomprehensible hilarity until Malabar, tied with string at the foot of the tree, began to bark sharply and we fell silent before our cover was blown.

5

Soon after that, I found the lipstick under Reine-Claude’s mattress. A stupid place to hide it, really-anyone could have found it, even Mother-but Reinette was never imaginative. It was my turn to make the beds, and the thing must have worked its way under the bottom sheet, because that was where I found it, tucked between the lip of the mattress and the bedboard.

At first I didn’t recognize it. Mother never used makeup. A small golden cylinder, like a stubby pen. I turned the cap, encountered resistance, opened. I was experimenting rather gingerly on my arm when I heard a gasp behind me and Reinette jerked me round. Her face was pale and contorted.

“Give me that!” she hissed. “That’s mine!”

She snatched the lipstick from my fingers and it fell to the floor, rolling under the bed.

Quickly she scrabbled to retrieve it, her face flaring.

“Where did you get that?” I asked curiously. “Does Mother know you’ve got it?”

“None of your business,“ gasped Reinette, emerging from under the bed. ”You’ve no right to go snooping in my private things. And if you dare tell anyone-“

I grinned. “I might tell,” I told her. “And I might not. It just depends.”

She took a step forward, but I was almost as tall as she was, and though rage had made her reckless, she knew better than to try to fight me.

“Don’t tell,” she said in a wheedling voice. “I’ll go fishing with you this afternoon, if you like. We could go to the Lookout Post and read magazines.”

I shrugged. “Maybe. Where did you get it?”

Reinette looked at me.

“Promise you won’t tell.”

“I promise.”

I spat in my hand. After a moment’s hesitation she followed suit. We sealed the bargain with a spit-clammy handshake.

“All right.” She sat down on the edge of the bed, legs curled underneath her. “It was at school. In spring. We had a Latin teacher there, Monsieur Toubon. Cassis calls him Monsieur Toupet because he looks as if he wears a wig. He was always getting at us. He was the one who made the whole class stay in that time. Everybody hated him.”

“A teacher gave it to you?” I was incredulous.

“No, stupid. Listen.