to dog shows, and a Gordon setter that her dad hunted with. The poodle’s best trick was that she could balance a piece of cheese on her nose, then toss it in the air and catch it.
At lunch, I always sat with Gloria and Stella, while Sophia sat with another girl who was her next-door neighbour – they had known each other since they were babies. Gloria and Stella thought that Sophia could do with a makeover. Gloria said that her clothes were fine, ‘good-quality,’ so the best thing in the world would be for her to cut her plaits and wear her hair in a nice shoulder-length flip – fairly conservative, but with some bounce. That would offset the thinness of her face and emphasise her eyes, which were her best feature. Stella said that Sophia should get herself a padded bra, because her shoulders were so big that she looked like a boy. I did not tell Sophia any of these things. Gloria and Stella got two other girls to sit with us, Mary and Luisa, and Leslie sat with us most of the time, too. I have to say that we all, literally, looked up to Leslie now. She was four inches taller than Stella, who was the tallest, and she confided that the camp had been a weight-loss camp – she had lost twenty pounds and she knew exactly how to keep it off, which was swimming or playing basketball every day of the week. She had lots of opinions, which was not the Leslie I had ever known, but one of the things they had done at her camp was spend two whole days and nights alone, with only a knife, a box of matches, some water, and a blanket. They were supposed to fast and think about their goals and rename themselves a secret name that they would never reveal, but that was the name of their future self. I noticed that some of the older boys looked at her, too.
*
I always looked into the mailbox before reaching in, because Brian Connelly had reached into his mailbox in the spring and pulled out a black widow spider. Of course, he knew just what it was because he had seen a show about spiders on TV. It didn’t bite him, but he knew that it could, and he told us all about ten times that if he had to choose between being bitten by a black widow and being bitten by a tarantula, he would take the tarantula any day. Thanks to the fact that Brian repeated this story so much, I always remembered to check, and also to think about tarantulas, wolf spiders, jumping spiders, and all the other spiders Brian had seen on TV. There were no spiders in the mailbox that day, but there was a letter from Barbie Goldman, addressed to me, and the envelope was decorated with pictures of faces making all sorts of expressions, from surprised to happy to scared to sad. On the back of the envelope were three horse faces, and they were also looking surprised, glad, and sad. I tore open the envelope very carefully, and pulled out the letter. It read:
Dear Abby –
We have now been at the Jackson School for twelve hours. We have built three fires, carried seven buckets of water, fed ten horses, ground some corn into meal, dug a giant hole in the dirt for a latrine, identified seven plants (including poison oak), six species of birds, four species of trees, three types of clouds, and learned the difference between schist and granite. Alexis says that when the pioneers came to California, they skipped the Jackson School, and so it must be our job to set up the homestead and apply for statehood. All the teachers are tall and muscular, and you can’t tell the men from the women. Whenever you say, ‘Mr So-and-so, how do I do such and such?’ Mr So-and-so says, ‘Well, Barbara, let’s think about that. What do YOU think would be a good way to approach that problem?’ And then Mr So-and-so waits a very long time for you to think up something. It is strange. I do think that Alexis is going to try the patience of every single one of them to the limit, but I haven’t warned them. The thing is, if you ask Alexis a question, she asks you a question back, and keeps doing
At lunch, I always sat with Gloria and Stella, while Sophia sat with another girl who was her next-door neighbour – they had known each other since they were babies. Gloria and Stella thought that Sophia could do with a makeover. Gloria said that her clothes were fine, ‘good-quality,’ so the best thing in the world would be for her to cut her plaits and wear her hair in a nice shoulder-length flip – fairly conservative, but with some bounce. That would offset the thinness of her face and emphasise her eyes, which were her best feature. Stella said that Sophia should get herself a padded bra, because her shoulders were so big that she looked like a boy. I did not tell Sophia any of these things. Gloria and Stella got two other girls to sit with us, Mary and Luisa, and Leslie sat with us most of the time, too. I have to say that we all, literally, looked up to Leslie now. She was four inches taller than Stella, who was the tallest, and she confided that the camp had been a weight-loss camp – she had lost twenty pounds and she knew exactly how to keep it off, which was swimming or playing basketball every day of the week. She had lots of opinions, which was not the Leslie I had ever known, but one of the things they had done at her camp was spend two whole days and nights alone, with only a knife, a box of matches, some water, and a blanket. They were supposed to fast and think about their goals and rename themselves a secret name that they would never reveal, but that was the name of their future self. I noticed that some of the older boys looked at her, too.
*
I always looked into the mailbox before reaching in, because Brian Connelly had reached into his mailbox in the spring and pulled out a black widow spider. Of course, he knew just what it was because he had seen a show about spiders on TV. It didn’t bite him, but he knew that it could, and he told us all about ten times that if he had to choose between being bitten by a black widow and being bitten by a tarantula, he would take the tarantula any day. Thanks to the fact that Brian repeated this story so much, I always remembered to check, and also to think about tarantulas, wolf spiders, jumping spiders, and all the other spiders Brian had seen on TV. There were no spiders in the mailbox that day, but there was a letter from Barbie Goldman, addressed to me, and the envelope was decorated with pictures of faces making all sorts of expressions, from surprised to happy to scared to sad. On the back of the envelope were three horse faces, and they were also looking surprised, glad, and sad. I tore open the envelope very carefully, and pulled out the letter. It read:
Dear Abby –
We have now been at the Jackson School for twelve hours. We have built three fires, carried seven buckets of water, fed ten horses, ground some corn into meal, dug a giant hole in the dirt for a latrine, identified seven plants (including poison oak), six species of birds, four species of trees, three types of clouds, and learned the difference between schist and granite. Alexis says that when the pioneers came to California, they skipped the Jackson School, and so it must be our job to set up the homestead and apply for statehood. All the teachers are tall and muscular, and you can’t tell the men from the women. Whenever you say, ‘Mr So-and-so, how do I do such and such?’ Mr So-and-so says, ‘Well, Barbara, let’s think about that. What do YOU think would be a good way to approach that problem?’ And then Mr So-and-so waits a very long time for you to think up something. It is strange. I do think that Alexis is going to try the patience of every single one of them to the limit, but I haven’t warned them. The thing is, if you ask Alexis a question, she asks you a question back, and keeps doing
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