Things looked up once Nicole began going to school. She was pleased to have made her first friend, Tammy, a girl with remarkably straight legs that were unfortunately dry and splotchy due to a severe case of skin allergies. Kids ran after her in recess, pointing at her peeling legs and yelling that she had some kind of skin disease. Sylvia Welch, whose father was a pastor, said that it was definitely leprosy.
Half the kids didn’t know what leprosy was, but they figured it was probably like catching “the flu,” only worse, because it sounded worse.
“Ewwwww! Leprosy! Tammy has the leprosy!” they shrieked.
Even though she was also put off by Tammy’s sniffles and the constant scratching of her patchy skin, Nicole was able to overlook these flaws once she discovered that Tammy was quite the bright kid. She could already write half the alphabet in cursive and she always got near-perfect-to-perfect scores on everything. Thus Nicole decided to take her on as a project. She cultivated Tammy’s intelligence by giving her additional homework each day on top of what Teacher Gwen already assigned.
"Do I -- do I have t-to memorize all 25 vo-o-cabulary worddd-s?" The dry flakes around Tammy's nostrils fluttered as she breathed. Nicole looked at her friend in distaste.
"Yes Tammy, yes you do. I can't give you less homework today just because you didn't complete last night's,” Nicole said. “I'd only be rewarding your laziness that way. You're lucky I'm not giving you more words today as punishment."
And Tammy, who was afraid to lose her one and only ally in the class, especially one whose popularity was growing rapidly, sniffled once before nodding meekly.
When she reached third grade, Nicole had already learned that if one was to tell a bunch of kids what was best for them as if they’d be foolish to do otherwise, then they were more than likely to follow one’s orders. The key was to believe that she really did know what was right for everyone.
During recess, she told all the girls that it only made sense for each of them to be allotted a color that matched one of the painted circles on the playground wall; this way, she explained, they could immediately see where everyone was at once, and then proceed to split up the teams evenly for games. They nodded dumbly. When she yelled for them to line up, she watched proudly as they all ran to their assigned circles.
Nicole made Linda purple because it was an exotic color fit for an exotic Euro-Malaysian mix. Rachel H., a small-boned girl with princess-long hair, was pink because she was very pretty in a quiet, inoffensive way. Karen was yellow because it suited the sour face she always had on. And Tammy was brown because she had no choice. Actually, none of them really did; it’s just that Tammy was the kind of girl who always got whatever was left over.
