Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great (9 page)

   
That's when Mrs. Bindel said she would get the machine going for me. I told her, "What this camp needs is a good photocopier."

   
"You'll be more experienced next week, Sheila. It probably won't take so long then."

   
I didn't want to think about next week or the week after that, or spending the rest of the summer putting out the camp newspaper.

   
Two hours later I was still cranking out copies. They looked better than the first batch, which I had to throw away. This time you could read practically everything-But the pictures in the margins weren't too clear. Still, if you looked hard you could see that they were pictures. I couldn't understand why the crossword puzzle came out with such wavy lines though. But at least I had my seventy-five copies of
NEWS-DATE
ready. I didn't much care how they looked anymore. I was so glad to be done!

   
I took my seventy-five copies, yelled Good-bye to Mrs. Bindel, and ran out of the office. I personally handed a copy of my newspaper to every kid in camp.

   
When Mouse saw it she said, "What kind of newspaper is this?"

   
And I said, "What do you mean by that?"

   
She said, "I never heard of a newspaper that's handwritten. It doesn't even look like a newspaper to me."

   
"Well, that's how much you know!" I told her. "Anybody can type out a newspaper. It takes special talent and a lot more work to handwrite one!"

   
"What are these funny smudges up and down the sides of the paper?"

   
"Funny smudges! You must need glasses. Anyone with eyes can see they're pictures of our camp activities!"

   
"No kidding!" Mouse said, looking closer. "All I see are ink blots."

   
"You better have your eyes examined," I told her. "Everyone else in camp knows that they are pictures."

   
That's when Russ came up to me and said, "Hey, Sheila. . . why didn't you get my mother to help you with the mimeograph? Then you wouldn't have gotten your papers all smudged up."

   
Before I had a chance to say anything two big boys walked over to us and handed me the finished crossword puzzle.

   
"Okay, Sheila the Great," one of them said. "What's the big prize?"

   
That's when I realized I didn't have a prize to give. I was so sure nobody would be able to figure out my puzzle!

   
"Well. . ." the other boy said.

   
I had to think fast. How would it look if
SHEILA THE GREAT
didn't have a super prize to give? "Congratulations!" I said. "You are both very lucky. Very lucky. Very, very lucky!"

   
"So what do we win?" they asked.

   
"You win the camp newspaper! That's what you win! Next week you get to run it all by yourself! Unless, of course, you feel you need a committee. Most people aren't able to run newspapers by themselves."

   
"Some prize!"

   
"I knew you'd think so," I told them, smiling at Mouse and Russ.

   
That night I made up my mind that the next time I think up such a great project I will be the boss and my committee of workers will do everything else!

   
IT turned out that Allen and Paul, the boys who won my contest, liked being in charge of the camp newspaper. They formed all kinds of committees and hardly missed any of their regular activities. Mrs. Bindel volunteered to do all their typing. Some people really take the easy way out! They even changed the name of my paper from
NEWSDATE BY SHEILA THE GREAT
, to
Allen and Paul . . . Tell All.

   
Mouse is one of the camp reporters. She acts like that's a big deal.

   
"You must really not like newspaper work if you gave up after just one week," Mouse said.

   
"It's not that I don't like it," I told her. "It's just that the challenge was gone."

   
"Well," Mouse said, "I think it's a challenge every week and I've decided that I'm going to be a real reporter some day. And I'm going to have a byline too! So when you see 'By Mouse Ellis' in your paper you can tell your friends you knew me when I was starting out."

   
"Swell," I said. "You do that. I will probably be something more exciting myself."

   
"Like what?" Mouse asked.

   
"Oh. . . something!"

   
"You can't tell me because you don't know. Right?"

   
"I'm still deciding," I said. "I might be a weather forecaster."

   
"A weather forecaster?"

   
"Yes. I think it would be pretty exciting to always know the weather in advance."

   
"Hey," Mouse said. "I just got a swell idea. Maybe I can be a reporter on TV and you can be the weather forecaster and we'll call our show
Ellis and Tubman Report
."

   
"I like
Tubman and Ellis Report
better," I said.

   
"Maybe it should be
Mouse and Sheila Report
."

   
"Or
Sheila and Mouse Report
," I said.

   
"Well, we don't have to decide about that now."

   
"Right. It's the show that's the good idea," I said. "What we call it isn't that important."

   
"But we'll definitely be a team," Mouse said.

   
"Of course we will," I told her.

   
"Let's shake on it."

   
"Okay," I said. We shook hands hard.

   
One reason I want to be a weather foreëaster is that I will always know in advance if there is going to be a thunderstorm and I will have time to prepare myself. Last night there was an awful storm. My mother and father don't know this, but I sat in my closet until it was over.

   
This afternoon, when I got home from camp, I turned on the radio. I sat next to it until I heard the weather report. Tonight is supposed to be clear and cool. That's good. That means there's nothing for me to worry about.

   
I fell asleep with no trouble. But in the middle of the night I woke up. There was a terrible racket outside. It wasn't thunder but it sounded pretty scary anyway. At first I put my pillow over my head, hoping the noise would go away. But it didn't.

   
When I couldn't stand it anymore I jumped out of bed and ran to my window. And what did I see? Two Jennifers! As if one isn't bad enough! And both of them baying at the moon at the same time.

   
The next morning at breakfast I told the whole family about Jennifer's friend. Everyone seemed to think it was very funny. Everyone except me!

   
Two days later Libby reported that Jennifer's friend is definitely a boy dog. "How do you know?" I asked.

   
"I saw him make," Libby said. "He used the big tree in the backyard, near the fence."

   
"I'm not surprised," Daddy said.

   
Jennifer's friend comes to visit every night now. It is getting harder and harder to sleep in this house. In the morning Jennifer's friend is gone. We don't know who he belongs to.

   
I don't like leaving the house these days. I know it isn't safe. I told my mother, "Jennifer's friend just runs around loose. You can't expect me to go outside with that dog around here."

   
"He only comes at night," Mom said.

   
"That's what you
think
," I told her. "But you can't be sure, can you?"

   
"No," Mom said. "I can't be sure. But there is nothing for you to worry about. Jennifer's friend is perfectly harmless."

   
"Oh he is, is he! Did he tell you that? Did he ring the bell and say,
Hello Mrs. Tubman. I'm perfectly harmless!
"

   
My mother sighed, "I can see there's no point in discussing it with you. Your mind is already made up."

   
A few days later Mouse was over. We were yo-yoing in the driveway. Mouse has a new Duncan Butterfly. A Butterfly is a regular yo-yo put together backwards, so the flat ends are on the outside. Nobody told me this. I figured it out myself. Mouse was trying to teach me a new yo-yo trick called 'Round the World, but I kept missing and hitting myself in the head.

   
All of a sudden I had the feeling I was being watched. I turned around slowly and there he was- Jennifer's friend! I screamed and threw my yo-yo at him. He came after me. I ran as fast as I could-right into the yard where Jennifer was tied up. Her friend was barking like crazy and I could tell he was already thinking about how I would taste. So I kept running and screaming until I tripped over Jennifer's chain. I fell down and was sure that was the end of me. So I closed my eyes and cried. When I felt my legs were wet all over I knew the blood was pouring out of them.

   
In a minute my mother was bending over me and I heard Mouse say, "She just went crazy, Mrs. Tubman. I couldn't even stop her!"

   
"My legs . . . my legs
    
I cried. "Do something, stop the blood."

   
"What blood?" Mom asked. "There's no blood."

   
"But they're all wet," I sobbed. "I can feel how wet they are."

   
"Open your eyes, Sheila," Mom said. "And you'll see why."

   
I opened one eye and then the other. I rolled over and Mom helped me sit up. Jennifer, that dumb old dog, was licking my legs!

   
"I'm going to get awful hives," I told Mouse. "Just awful! They'll probably be as big as apples."

   
Mouse didn't say anything. She just looked at me and shook her head.

   
Later, Mom took me to the doctor because when I tripped over Jennifer's chain I scraped up my leg. I said, "I told you, didn't I? I told you it wasn't safe to keep that dog around here. Just see what she's done to me. . . just see!"

   
"Jennifer and her friend did not do anything to you, Sheila," Mom said. "And if you had just kept calm nothing would have happened at all."

   
"I was calm!" I said. "Jennifer's friend is the one who got all excited. And did you see the size of his teeth?"

   
Mouse came over after supper. "I wanted to make sure you were okay," she said.

   
"I'm fine," I told her.

   
"Did you get hives?"

   
"Hives?"

   
"Yes, from Jennifer licking you."