Poisoned Pins by Joan Hess

I don’t think some of them are right. My preacher back home would have a fit if he knew what all I’ve done to try to get initiated into Kappa Theta Eta.”
    â€œOh, really? I thought hazing was outlawed on this campus after one fraternity boy jumped off the roof and fractured his leg, and another nearly died of alcohol poisoning.”
    She stopped snuffling to give me a prissy frown. “We don’t allow alcohol in the house, or smoking, either. Some of the seniors smoke in their rooms, and everybody knows Winkie keeps wine in her refrigerator and a bottle of brandy under her bed. One night when I couldn’t sleep on account of worrying over my midterms, I went down to get a glass of milk and I could have sworn I heard a man’s voice right there in Winkie’s suite. I asked her about it the next morning, and she got real peevish with me and told me I’d better stop imagining things and concern myself with my grades. When I told Jean about it, she just laughed and said the same thing Winkie did.”
    I clucked my tongue. “Let’s hope National never hears of this. So, what pledge activities would scandalize your preacher back home?”
    â€œMostly silly stuff, but sometimes . . . well, you know, things that sure might . . .” She gulped and turned away, but not before I saw the red blotches on her cheeks. “I shouldn’t talk to you about those things. If anyone overheard me, I’d be out on my fanny in no time flat.” She promptly discarded her own advice, and dropped her voice to a husky whisper more suitable for secret agents exchanging bomb recipes. “There was one time when I got so upset I thought I’d throw up, but Jean was real sweet and talked to me half the night. She kept repeating how Kappa Theta Eta meant a life-time of sisterhood and how I’d better learn to accept their ways if I ever hoped to be initiated. Now I don’t know if I want to be a Kappa or not!”
    I took a tissue from the box below the counter and gave it to her. “If you’re so miserable, why not quit and live in a dorm?” I said pragmatically, if not sympathetically.
    â€œMama would skin me alive if I quit,” she said. “I just can’t make her understand that most of the girls make fun of me. Jean’s been real kind about lending me clothes, and Pippa did that color thing for half price, but it didn’t do any good. I don’t dress like them, talk like them, have families like them, or drive fancy cars like them. Everything about me’s wrong, according to them. My hair, my accent, my major—everything!”
    She sank to the floor and began to snuffle with increasing vigor, until she was sobbing and I was trying to decide what to do about her. Since there were no customers, she was not likely to discourage sales, but it seemed rather cold-blooded to simply watch her until she subsided and I could shoo her out the door. On the other hand, I had no desire to cuddle her in my arms and make soothing noises while she splattered my shirt with tears, not to mention less desirable fluids. She was a wet creature, I thought, and inclined to dribble on every possible occasion.
    I opted for a middling approach. “Come now, Debbie Anne, it can’t be all that bad,” I said consolingly, but from a prudent distance. “Your friends will be back in the fall, and you’ll have raised your grade point so you can be initiated and you’ll feel more like a real Kappa Theta . . . whatever.”
    She wiped her nose and looked up at me. “I don’t see how I can ever be initiated. I’m too scared to go into the chapter room after what happened at the last meeting.”
    â€œJean said you’d been inadvertently locked in the room.”
    â€œInadvertently my foot! Jean asked me in a real sugary voice to put away the candles in the ritual closet, then locked the closet door, turned out the