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Tom is six years old, and he only wants to watch Elsie Monroe brush her hair. It is yellow, and shiny, and it never has any stupid bows or ribbons in it like the other girls, because it doesn't need it: it's perfect the way it is. He only wants to touch it, only sometimes, during storytime. She is popular, always turning her head to the left and to the right to talk to someone, and her hair bounces when she does it. She never turns behind her, where he is sitting.
She is older than him by two years, and Mrs. Cole is always calling her a little lady. He hears Mrs. Cole tell Elsie she will be very beautiful one day, and that she'll have to beat away boys with sticks when she's older. He doesn't know what that means, but the other boys here are awful and mean, and the ones that aren't those things are boring, which is just as bad, so he's sure they'll deserve any stick beating. He'll even help her with it.
Elsie is kind, too, and not annoying like everyone else here. When Tom accidentally calls Mrs. Cole 'mother' during breakfast, all the children laugh at him, like it is the funniest thing in the world, but Elsie doesn't laugh at all. She even gives him her only slice of bacon, because there wasn't any left for him, and she smiles as she sneaks it under the table to his hesitant hand. It feels like a secret, a smile, and no one has ever shared a secret with him before.
And Elsie does not scream and scrunch her face up in disgust when he shows her the little snake he found slithering outside, the one that's missing some of its scales, the one that Tom is certain knows exactly how he feels, for he knows exactly how it feels.
He tries to show the other girls, for Mrs. Cole is always telling them to be kind and sweet and good, and maybe they have listened to her. Perhaps that is why he hates the boys here so much: no one ever tells them to be any such thing. But these girls are not kind and sweet and good, and so they screech at him, call him freak. And maybe Elsie is not very smart, or just confused, for after the other girls leave she pets the snake, gently drags her finger up and down its head, even over those ugly missing scales, and whispers to it: you're not a freak—just a bit different. She smiles at Tom, then, and he smiles back, only a little. He is not used to so many secrets.
That had been a good day, he thinks, but today is a perfect day. The other children are outside playing, and since they never like the games Tom wants to play, he stays inside. It is the perfect day, today, for Elsie is inside too.
He hears a song being hummed, not a stupid church hymn, but something pretty, something real, vibrating softly through the hallway. Tom knows it's Elsie. He doesn't think she'd even know any hymns anyway, for she is always falling asleep during mass, her head tilted back, her yellow hair hanging loose. And sometimes he wonders if she does it on purpose: gathers up her long hair, lifts it in the air for a moment too long, then lets it fall down and behind her over the back of the pew. Behind her, where he is always sitting.
The song is coming from the girls’ bathroom, the one with the door that doesn't like to shut all the way.
He only wants to watch her brush her hair, that's all. He takes his shoes off, leaves his socks on, and he is as quiet as a mouse as he goes towards the bathroom. He holds his breath as he does it. He even remembers to step over the floorboard with the nail sticking out of it, because he stubbed his toe on it the last time and almost cried out, almost ruined everything.
Tom watches her through the crack in the door like she's on a film screen that has been stretched thin, pulled up and down so much that he can only see a sliver of her.
He has only been to the cinema once. Some pinched-faced woman with painted lips and a rope of pearls and what he is certain is a dead animal strewn round her shoulders takes them once; keeps making him and all the other orphans stop for photographs, but disappears once she's paid for their tickets. He does not much care for the film, or the queer-looking man with the little mustache and stupid hat in it. But Tom thinks that Elsie must like it, for though he cannot see her face from where he is sitting behind her, he can see the little movement of her head during scenes he knows are supposed to be funny, her locks shaking loose like golden leaves from the branch of her braid. He tries to time his laughs with hers. But they sound false, even to his ears, and then Billy brings a fat finger to his fat lips and shushes Tom, as if he has the right to, as if he is not always talking about his stupid rabbit.
But Tom doesn't want to think about Billy right now. Just Elsie, who is still humming. He can also hear the bristles of the brush as they go through her hair, and it is a continuous, smooth sound; tangles and knots are interruptions for other girls, he thinks, not her.
He knows he cannot push the door in further, she'll notice if he does, and so he concentrates very hard on trying to make do with his sliver of Elsie Monroe. And he is so focused that he doesn't hear at all the footsteps of the other children, who are snickering behind their hands, creeping towards Tom. What is Riddle up to now? they whisper, and they think it must be really something because still Tom does not hear them.
Not until the children are right behind him does he realize, and they give him such a fright that he whirls around to face them, tripping as he does it. Tom falls backwards, into the door and onto the ground. Now everyone can see what he was doing. Elsie gasps from behind him, and when he looks up at her, her face is bright red. He’s sure it’s not as red as his, though.
One of the children laughs, and he’s pretty sure it’s Dennis, and that makes perfect sense because Dennis is the worst. They’re all laughing now, and it’s so loud that it draws the attention of Mrs. Cole. She comes up the stairs flapping her arms like a big, cranky bird because she’s taking a nap, she says, and what exactly is so funny up here? she asks the crowd of children around Tom and Elsie.
He doesn’t know who starts saying it. But now the laughs are chants. Peeping tom, peeping tom, what a peeping tom he is! It is even funnier to the children because his name is Tom, and when one of them mentions that, the laughing starts all over again. The ends of Elsie's skirt flutter past him, tickling his ear, and now she is not behind him anymore. She's with the others. He is the one on a screen now, and the children watch him like he is a queer fellow with a funny little mustache and bowler hat.
Tom looks to Mrs. Cole. And though he is bright, and knows that hearts cannot open or close, he thinks he feels his own heart latch shut, because Mrs. Cole is staring at him like he did something awful. He thinks she looks like something has been proven true for her, something that he doesn't understand. She shakes her head and says words he cannot hear.
He looks to Elsie. She's not laughing, but she looks annoyed, and frightened. There’s no smile on her face, only a frown, and frowns aren’t secrets and they aren’t special, either—Tom is given those all the time. He hates, hates, hates her, now, and her stupid yellow hair. He balls up his fists, and when he doesn't cry, the children leave, because now it's just boring. They want to watch something else.
Elsie leaves with them.
So Tom sneaks into the girls' room in the middle of the night, and he is quieter than a mouse. He carries scissors that he stole from Mrs. Cole’s office. Her door was locked when he first tried it, but then he screwed his eyes shut tight and wished really hard and it seemed to open all on its own.
He finds Elsie's bed and stands over it. Her face is twitching like she's in very deep sleep, and her hair is tied in pigtails. He touches her hair with the scissors, silver on top of gold. He thinks she would look really funny if they were sticking out of her chest like metal bunny ears. But that would make too much noise.
Tom has always been good at cutting things—there are lots of street cats around, though not as many as there used to be. His hands don't shake at all. The next morning he hears a scream from the girls' room and he smiles, because Elsie's hair won’t be bouncing anytime soon. Her hair will need a lot of stupid bows and ribbons in it, now. Tom keeps smiling, because he realizes he doesn’t even want to look at her hair anymore, he doesn’t want to touch it.
And now no one else will either.