Rita laughed awkwardly for both were subjects she often asked about. "I want..." She gargled again and spat the mouthwash out. "I like to find out if people's ideas change." "This people doesn't change. I'm glad the little--" She was going to say "little fucker" but she censored it out. "...guy is in school as I've said for the umpteenth time." Gabriele chortled when Rita/Lily came back looking battered and weakened from her experience with tobacco. "Rita," she said, "It will take practice but before long you'll get the hang of it. You'll be chewing tobacco just like one of the boys. Then after more years of experience...if you practice...you'll be a pro' like me. You might even begin to condition American Barbie dames in the proper ways to spit it out like a cannon." Lily laughed diffidently since she was in a depressed state and words were running about nonsensibly in her head like the yelping cries of wild savages. She sat down stiff as lead and Gabriele could see the terror of visceral loneliness in her face. She was afraid that the girl would be anchored like that during the rest of the day as a hindrance of her painting. "Oh," said Rita/Lily suddenly out of her saturnine depths, "I nearly forgot. The call. In my room." "What call?" "Huh?" asked the obtuse girl "What call?" Rita tried to reign in her thoughts and focus on where she was at and her relationship with Gabriele. "The school couldn't reach you. You've got to call them. They said it was really important." From her pocket she pulled out a slip of paper that had a phone number on it and gave it to Gabriele. "Hmm, okay," said Gabriele. She took her telephone out of a drawer and put it in the phone jack. When she arrived at the door of the home room with a bag of treats dangling inside a fist, her son's teacher told her that she had go go to the principal's office. The word, "must," took some swallowing but she accepted it magnanimously. She could see that the teacher, Mrs. Recla, found her daunting. The proof was in the face that was being taxed by not being able to frown. She knew that she was emoting a more civil aversion than the teacher could muster. As Gabriele tried not to conceptualize her as "the dinosaur" or "Reclasaur," demeaning second grader terminology, there was a subtle smile on her countenance (feigned or not). In part, it was amusement about the word, Reclasaur, but it was mostly of one who was valiently beyond worldly matters. With her equanimity she also displayed an obdurate, formidable haughtiness no different than any engraving or statue from Akhenaten to Lincoln, or Joan of Ark to Eleanor Roosevelt.