all the same, and I concentrated on the birdsâ shrieking.
Kath produced a flashlight. âItâs stupid to stay out this late,â she grumbled. âI should have been watching.â
Chapter Nine
Kath
1965-1967 / Western California
WELCOME KATHERINE PETERSON, read the fuchsia cardboard sign on the door to my dorm room. Thrilled and mortified by the public attention, I knocked hesitantly. That first night at U.C. Davis was a bad Carol Burnett skit. There was Dad lugging my high school graduation present luggage that he had won at a union raffle. Mom trailed behind us with an iron in one hand and a shoe box of chocolate chip cookies in the other. My legs were sticking to my jeans from our long, hot car ride. My new roommate, Judy, greeted us with a broad Princess Grace smile, dressed in white shorts and a baby blue blouse, the perfect fashion for 100-degree Sacramento Valley weather. Not that there was anything snooty about her, really. She acted more friendly than I had expected for someone from Anna Head School. Amazingly eager to meet me.
As Mom and Dad entered the modern dormitory cell, they looked shorter, older, worn. After a few awkward exchanges, Dad said, âWell, itâs a long drive back to Oakland. We better get started.â
As Judy and I ate cookies and talked about Orientation Week, I veered between excitement and exhaustion. That night, lying in my twin bed four feet across the tiny room from her, I found it hard to sleep; the dayâs events swirled wildly in my brain. Then there was Judyâs snoring. I didnât know girls could snore. Neither my sister nor any of the girls on the camping trip snored. Well, I would get used to it. I would get used to everything. Still, I couldnât sleep.
That first morning of orientatio n I stood, sniffing the brand-new smell of my books and studying the blond, blond girls and guys bicycling around the green, green campus. Davis felt like a science fiction movie. What the hell was I doing here? No one in my family had been to college. Martha and I were the first ones to finish high school. I didnât have a clue how to be a coed. My stomach turned. Well, these bicyclists had all been new at some point, too. I would learn. The Orientation Week would be fun, filled with movies, hayrides, dances and lectures. Perching on a bench in front of Freeborn Hall, I placed the expensive books beside me. Here I was, finally, at college. This strange place. Alone. My mind hadnât quite arrived. That was the problem. I had spent so much time getting ready to come, finishing up my summer job at Roos Atkins, packing, convincing my parents again and again that college wasnât an absurd idea. I was an average American girl. Look at Adele, Paula, Donna and Nancy. Going to college was the next step. But my parents hadnât taken these stairs and even I wasnât sure they led anywhere. That day, surveying the eerie academic stage set, I felt very scared. I didnât know how to behave in a lecture, whether you wrote down every word or tried to memorize the stuff as the professor went along. What if I didnât make any friends? What if I was in the wrong place? Martha said I was living in some Mademoiselle magazine fantasy. Mom said a secretarial diploma would offer more security; Dad wanted to know (of course, Dad)âwasnât I just going to get married anyway? As I sat in the midst of this sweltering, verdant campus, tears and sweat streamed down to the collar of my once white blouse. I was certain my parents had been killed in a crash on the way home the previous night.
We were all hanging out in Elbeâs room, which was big enough for two beds, although for some reason she didnât have a roommate. I envied her, but Judy said she wouldnât have it any other way and did I mind if she called me Kathy, which sounded softer and prettier than Kath. When I asked her not to, she shrugged and said, all right, everyone had a
Kath produced a flashlight. âItâs stupid to stay out this late,â she grumbled. âI should have been watching.â
Chapter Nine
Kath
1965-1967 / Western California
WELCOME KATHERINE PETERSON, read the fuchsia cardboard sign on the door to my dorm room. Thrilled and mortified by the public attention, I knocked hesitantly. That first night at U.C. Davis was a bad Carol Burnett skit. There was Dad lugging my high school graduation present luggage that he had won at a union raffle. Mom trailed behind us with an iron in one hand and a shoe box of chocolate chip cookies in the other. My legs were sticking to my jeans from our long, hot car ride. My new roommate, Judy, greeted us with a broad Princess Grace smile, dressed in white shorts and a baby blue blouse, the perfect fashion for 100-degree Sacramento Valley weather. Not that there was anything snooty about her, really. She acted more friendly than I had expected for someone from Anna Head School. Amazingly eager to meet me.
As Mom and Dad entered the modern dormitory cell, they looked shorter, older, worn. After a few awkward exchanges, Dad said, âWell, itâs a long drive back to Oakland. We better get started.â
As Judy and I ate cookies and talked about Orientation Week, I veered between excitement and exhaustion. That night, lying in my twin bed four feet across the tiny room from her, I found it hard to sleep; the dayâs events swirled wildly in my brain. Then there was Judyâs snoring. I didnât know girls could snore. Neither my sister nor any of the girls on the camping trip snored. Well, I would get used to it. I would get used to everything. Still, I couldnât sleep.
That first morning of orientatio n I stood, sniffing the brand-new smell of my books and studying the blond, blond girls and guys bicycling around the green, green campus. Davis felt like a science fiction movie. What the hell was I doing here? No one in my family had been to college. Martha and I were the first ones to finish high school. I didnât have a clue how to be a coed. My stomach turned. Well, these bicyclists had all been new at some point, too. I would learn. The Orientation Week would be fun, filled with movies, hayrides, dances and lectures. Perching on a bench in front of Freeborn Hall, I placed the expensive books beside me. Here I was, finally, at college. This strange place. Alone. My mind hadnât quite arrived. That was the problem. I had spent so much time getting ready to come, finishing up my summer job at Roos Atkins, packing, convincing my parents again and again that college wasnât an absurd idea. I was an average American girl. Look at Adele, Paula, Donna and Nancy. Going to college was the next step. But my parents hadnât taken these stairs and even I wasnât sure they led anywhere. That day, surveying the eerie academic stage set, I felt very scared. I didnât know how to behave in a lecture, whether you wrote down every word or tried to memorize the stuff as the professor went along. What if I didnât make any friends? What if I was in the wrong place? Martha said I was living in some Mademoiselle magazine fantasy. Mom said a secretarial diploma would offer more security; Dad wanted to know (of course, Dad)âwasnât I just going to get married anyway? As I sat in the midst of this sweltering, verdant campus, tears and sweat streamed down to the collar of my once white blouse. I was certain my parents had been killed in a crash on the way home the previous night.
We were all hanging out in Elbeâs room, which was big enough for two beds, although for some reason she didnât have a roommate. I envied her, but Judy said she wouldnât have it any other way and did I mind if she called me Kathy, which sounded softer and prettier than Kath. When I asked her not to, she shrugged and said, all right, everyone had a
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