Chapter 11: The shoes

A few weeks after that day with the nurse, Cookie walked into her fifth hour combined class to find the few of her classmates, who were already there, happily chattering among themselves.

Stepping down the row to her desk, Cookie's attention was drawn to Margarita Santana who was sitting at her own desk, over by the windows, with her head down in her folded arms and trembling in obvious, emotional distress.

Cookie walked right over to her and asked her what was wrong.

With tears wetting her face the daughter of recent immigrants from Mexico looked up at Cookie and said, "Somebody stole my shoes from my gym locker last hour. The lock, it does not work. I thought it would be okay. But somebody took them. Now I have no shoes to wear." With her accent, she pronounced the word as "chews".

Cookie looked down and saw that Margarita was indeed only wearing her white ankle socks.

"It will be okay," Cookie told her, patting her shoulder to try and console her.

"No it won't. You don't understand," Margarita cried. "My father will kill me. Those shoes were very expensive and he worked hard to buy them for me. I will be punished severely. I know I will."

Cookie did not like the sound of that at all. "What kind of shoes were they?" she asked.

"They were black with flat heels and a gold buckle in the front," Margarita explained. Looking down at Cookie's feet now and pointing, she added, "They were just like your shoes, Cookie."

Looking down at her own shoes now too, Cookie asked, "What size were they?"

"They were size six."

"Mine too," Cookie said brightly. "Look. Why don't I just give my shoes to you?"

"What?"

"I have other shoes at home and this way your father won't know that your shoes were ever stolen and you won't be in any trouble."

"Would you really do that for me?" Margarita asked, her facial expression brightening visibly as she spoke.

"Of course," Cookie smiled, stepping out of her shoes and then picking them up and handing them to the Mexican girl.

"Oh, thank you, Cookie. Gracias mucho, Galleta!" Margarita gushed, taking the offered shoes from Cookie and putting them on the floor to step into. They fit her perfectly. Margarita now smiled broadly in relief but then her cheery grin faded as she looked up and inquired, "But, if I have your shoes, what will you wear now?"

"Oh, I'll just run back to the locker room and put on my gym shoes for the rest of the day. It will be alright, you'll see."

And Cookie hurried from the classroom and did just that, elated that she had helped a girl who really needed her help. Maybe this was a beginning of a change in her fortune and Margarita would be the friend that she had so longed to have.

Cookie got back to the classroom just as the bell was ringing and Mr. Gilley was about to begin a lecture.

As Cookie took her seat Mr. Gilley, standing in front of his desk, looked her up and down and asked, "Miss Mullins, what are you wearing on your feet?"

"My gym shoes, Mr. Gilley."

"But you're aware that gym shoes are for gym only and against the school dress code, aren't you?"

"Yes. I'm sorry, Mr. Gilley," Cookie started to explain, "but I gave my shoes to Margarita, over there, because her shoes were stolen and I didn't want her to be in trouble with her father."

Mr. Gilley looked over to Margarita now in the first row by the windows. "Is this true, Miss Santana?"

Margarita looked back at Mr. Gilley with a sudden look of trepidation on her acne-pocked face and said, "No. That is not true, Mr. Gilley. Don't take my shoes from me, please. These are my shoes."

Mr. Gilley looked back to Cookie now. "So then you're lying to me, right?"

"No, sir. I gave my shoes to Margarita. She has nothing to be afraid of. They're her shoes now. I gave them to her."

"Margarita?" Mr. Gilley looked back to her. "Are those, or are those not, Cookie's shoes that you're wearing?"

"They are not, Mr. Gilley. She is lying. These are my shoes."

"Alright," Mr. Gilley said, walking to behind his desk and writing something down on a scrap of paper. Looking to Cookie now, he said, "It's bad enough that you flaunt your breaking of the rules by coming to class in the wrong shoes but you add to it by making up a lie about it."

"No, sir," Cookie said, her heart starting to beat faster as that all too familiar ache of fear started to come over her. "I didn't."

"Stan," he said to the boy in the front row, "take this note to the office, for me, right now."