Summary

“The Debutante” is narrated from the first-person perspective of an unnamed woman looking back on the time in which she was a debutante. She spent a lot of time at the zoo because she did not like people. One day, her mother planned to throw a ball, and the narrator confessed to her friend the hyena (whom she had taught French) that she did not want to go. The hyena offered to take her place, and the two snuck back to her house to get ready for the ball. The hyena dressed in the narrator’s clothes and shoes and gloves, but they could not hide her face. The narrator’s mother came into her room to tell her to come down for breakfast, but left because the room smelled...