and ridicule her cruelly .
During the next few years Catherine donned an armor of indifference , which she wore as a shield against the attacks of the other children . When the armor was pierced , she struck back with a trenchant , caustic wit . Her intention was to alienate her tormentors so that they would leave her alone , but it had an unexpectedly different effect . She worked on the school paper , and in her first review about a musical that her classmates had staged , she wrote , “ Tommy Belden had a trumpet solo in the second act , but he blew it .” The line was widely quoted , and — surprise of surprises — Tommy Belden came up to her in the hall the next day and told Catherine that he thought it was funny .
In English the students were assigned Captain Horatio Hornblower to read . Catherine hated it . Her book report consisted of one sentence : “ His barque was worse than his bight ,” and her teacher , who was a weekend sailor , gave her an “ A .” Her classmates began to quote her remarks and in a short time she was known as the school wit .
That year Catherine turned fourteen and her body was beginning to show the promise of a ripening woman . She would examine herself in the mirror for hours on end , brooding about how to change the disaster she saw reflected . Inside she was Myrna Loy , driving men mad with her beauty , but her mirror — which was her bitter enemy — showed hopelessly tangled black hair that was impossible to manage , solemn gray eyes , a mouth that seemed to grow wider by the hour and a nose that was slightly turned up . Maybe she wasn ’ t really ugly , she told herself cautiously , but on the other hand no one was going to knock down doors to sign her up as a movie star . Sucking in her cheeks and squinting her eyes sexily she tried to visualize herself as a model . It was depressing . She struck another pose . Eyes open wide , expression eager , a big friendly smile . No use . She wasn ’ t the All- American type either . She wasn ’ t anything . Her body was going to be all right , she dourly supposed , but nothing special . And that , of course , was what she wanted more than anything in the world : to be something special , to be Somebody , to be Remembered , and never , never , never , never , to die .
The summer she was fifteen , Catherine came across Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy and for the next two weeks she spent an hour a day before her mirror , willing her reflection to become beautiful . At the end of that time the only change she could detect was a new patch of acne on her chin and a pimple on her forehead . She gave up sweets , Mary Baker Eddy and looking in the mirror .
Catherine and her family had moved back to Chicago and settled in a small , dreary apartment on the north side , in Rogers Park , where the rent was cheap . The country was moving deeper into an economic depression . Catherine ’ s father was working less and drinking more , and he and her mother were constantly yelling at each other in a neverending series of recriminations that drove Catherine out of the house . She would go down to the beach half a dozen blocks away and walk along the shore , letting the brisk wind give wings to her thin body . She spent long hours staring at the restless gray lake , filled with some desperate longing to which she could not put a name . She wanted something so much that at times it would engulf her in a sudden wave of unbearable pain .
Catherine had discovered Thomas Wolfe , and his books were like a mirror image of