Starring Sally J. Freedman as Herself (15 page)

“It hurts,” Sally said. She closed her eyes again, too tired to say any more.

“How could such a thing have happened?” she heard her mother ask, and was surprised that Mom sounded so angry.

“I don’t know, Ma’am …” the lifeguard answered. “We had no warning … you can look through my glasses yourself … there’s not another Man O’ War in sight.”

“Are you absolutely sure that’s what it was?” Mom asked.

“Yes, Ma’am … positive … wrapped itself right around her leg and when she tried to pull it off it got her hand. I’ve seen plenty of cases and it hurts like hell … pardon my language … but she’ll be okay. You can call the Board of Health … they’ll tell you what to do.”

“Come …” Ma Fanny said, “let’s get her home.”

“But how?” Mom sounded confused now and frightened. “She can’t walk …”

“Never mind,” Ma Fanny said. “Dougie … go and ask that woman if we can borrow her baby stroller … tell her we’ll bring it back right away.”

“For Sally?” Douglas asked.

Sally tried to open her eyes again, tried to speak, but she hadn’t the strength. The pain was less acute now but she could still feel the stinging and she couldn’t move her fingers or toes.

“Just go and do it, Douglas!” Mom said.

“Okay … but Sally won’t like it.”

“Never mind,” Mom said. “She’ll never know … she’s only half-conscious … you can see that …”

I am not, Sally wanted to say. I can hear every word and I’ll die if you take me home like a baby!

“I’ll carry her for you, Ma’am,” the lifeguard said and Sally felt his arms around her again.

He lowered her into the stroller. Sally kept her eyes tightly shut. If any of her friends were around she didn’t want to know.

“Watch her legs,” Mom said. “Let them dangle over the sides … that’s it.”

“Can you make it home now, Ma’am?” the lifeguard asked.

“Yes, I think so … and thank you very much.”

“Any time.”

“I’ll push her,” Douglas said.

“No,” Mom told him, “I will. You walk at her side and make sure she doesn’t fall out.”

Sally felt herself moving, first on grass and then on concrete. “Listen, Ma …” Mom said to Ma Fanny, “you better walk home slowly. I don’t want you to get out of breath and have a spell.”

“Spell … schmell …” Ma Fanny said. “I can keep up with anybody.”

The Board of Health told Mom that Sally should sit in a tub of tepid water with baking soda. She soaked so long the skin on her fingers and toes got crinkly. The pain eased up and soon she could move her fingers again. The family took turns sitting in the bathroom with her. She didn’t mind because she was still wearing her bathing suit. Besides, she was grateful for the company. She watched as Mom filed her nails, as Ma Fanny worked on her afghan, and as Douglas blew the insides out of an egg.

“You were pretty brave,” Douglas said, pausing for a breath. “You really surprised me.”

“I screamed in the water,” Sally said. “I remember …”

“Yeah … but once you were on the beach you shut up.”

“Because it hurt too bad to do anything,” Sally said.

“Worse than a shot?”

“Much worse.”

“Worse than a bee sting?”

“I don’t know … I never got stung by a bee … but Christine did once, on the bottom of her foot. She cried a lot.”

“She would!” Douglas held his eggshell up to the
light. “I wonder if it hurt worse than my kidney infection?”

“I can’t say … I’ve never had a kidney infection.”

“It looked like it hurt worse.”

Sally shrugged.

“I hope I never get stung by a Man O’ War,” Douglas said.

“I hope you don’t either … I wouldn’t wish that on anybody … not even Harriet Goodman and I hate her.”

“Who’s Harriet Goodman?”

“This jerk in my class who hates me for no reason.”

“Oh.”

Three hours later Mom said, “Okay … you can get out now.”

Sally pulled the stopper from the tub. “At last!”

“I’ll help you,” Mom said. “I don’t want you to faint again.”

“Is that what happened before … when everything got black?”

“Yes, you passed out … and the lifeguard said it’s lucky you did … because you were fighting him so badly he could hardly handle you.”

At sundown they lit the first candle on the menorah and sang the Hanukkah blessing. Sally was
lying on the sofa with a thick, baking soda paste covering her hand and leg, where she’d been stung. It felt yuckiest between her toes.

All the neighbors came to visit that night.

Andrea said, “Of all days to go to Monkey Jungle … and just when something exciting happened …”

“How was it?” Sally asked.

“To tell the truth, it wasn’t that great … and you could smell monkeys everywhere.”

“My mother thinks you can get diseases from monkeys so I’ll probably never get there,” Sally said.

“Well, you’re not missing much.”

“But I like chimps …”

“So do I … but not
that
many at one time … besides, I’d have rather been at the beach with you.”

“Then you might have been stung by a Man O’ War too.”

“I know …”

“And it wasn’t any fun … I’ll tell you that …”

“So I hear …”

“But Douglas says I was really brave.”

“Brave is a matter of opinion,” Andrea said. “Everyone acts differently in an emergency … passing out isn’t necessarily brave.”

“I didn’t
want
to pass out … it just happened.”

“Don’t get me wrong … I’m not saying it
wasn’t
brave to pass out … who knows, I might have done the same thing.” She looked down for a minute. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re okay now.”

“Thanks.”

Mrs. Daniels came over with a honey cake. “My Bubbles was stung two years ago … on her foot … we went straight to the hospital … when it comes to my Bubbles we don’t fool around.”

“We don’t fool around when it comes to our children either,” Mom said. “When Douglas had nephritis we went to the biggest specialist in New Jersey. And today, we called the Board of Health about Sally.”

“The Board of Health!” Mrs. Daniels said. “Who’d trust them?”

“What did they do for Bubbles in the hospital?” Mom asked.

“Told us to put her in a tub of baking-soda, water.”

“Well, that’s exactly what the Board of Health told us.” Sally could tell that Mom was pleased. “And now she’s just fine, as you can see for yourself.”

“So this time you were lucky,” Mrs. Daniels said.

“Knock wood!” Ma Fanny thumped the dining table.

“Knock wood,” Mrs. Daniels repeated.

Later, before she went to sleep, Douglas gave Sally a freshly painted egg shell. “It’s supposed to be Margaret O’Brien.”

Sally held the fragile shell in the palm of her good hand. “I can tell by the braids,” she said. “It’s a beautiful shell … the best one you’ve ever done.”

Douglas half-smiled. “It’ll stand by itself on your shelf … the feet are supposed to be ballet shoes but I had to make them kind of wide to support the weight … so they might not look like ballet shoes to you …”

“Oh, no …” Sally said. “I can tell they are …”

“Good.”

“Thank you, Douglas.”

“Good night … I’m glad you’re okay,” Douglas said.

“No school for you today!” Mom said the next morning.

“But I’m fine,” Sally told her.

“We’re not going to take any chances. A day of rest can’t hurt.”

“But I don’t want to miss school today … we’re having a Hanukkah party with songs and games …”

“I know, honey … but your health comes first,” Mom said.

“Please, Mom … please let me go to school …”

“We’ll have our own Hanukkah party, right here,” Mom said.

“That’s not the same!”

“Tell you what … I was saving your Hanukkah present until Daddy gets here, but I’m sure he’ll understand if I give it to you now …”

“My Hanukkah present?” Can it be a baton? she wondered.

Mom went into the sleeping alcove and came back with a slender box. “I haven’t even wrapped it yet.”

It can’t be a baton, Sally thought, opening the box. It’s much too small. Instead, she found a Mickey Mouse watch with a red patent leather strap. “Oh, Mom … I love it! It’s exactly what I wanted. It’s even better than a baton. Oh, thank you … thank you …” She jumped off the day bed and hugged her mother.

“I didn’t know you wanted a baton,” Mom said.

“You didn’t?”

“No … you never mentioned it.”

“You mean I forgot? Oh well … it doesn’t matter … because this is even better … and now I’ve just
got
to go to school … I’ve got to show all my friends my new watch.”

“Tomorrow …” Mom said, laughing. “Today you stay on your bed and rest.”

So Sally rested. She watched the hours go by on her new watch. She read a Nancy Drew mystery. She studied Ma Fanny’s collection of family photos. She always had trouble believing that the chubby baby on Ma Fanny’s lap was once her mother. And then there was her favorite picture. Lila. She held it, running her hands along the silver frame, then tracing Lila’s features with one finger—her eyes, nose, mouth—beautiful Lila.

Dear Mr. Zavodsky
,

I’m thinking about you. I know you didn’t get my other letters because I didn’t send them yet. But that doesn’t mean I’m not
going
to send them because I
am.
They are safe, inside my keepsake box. I am just waiting for the right moment. A detective has to get evidence and that is what I’m doing now. I know plenty about you. I know you killed Lila. So don’t think that just because you haven’t heard from me you’re safe
.

Two weeks later, when Sally’s father arrived, they joined the Seagull Pool Club. Mom said it had nothing to do with the Man O’ Wars in the ocean but Sally didn’t believe her.

“Does this mean we can’t go to the beach anymore?” she asked.

“Of course not,” Daddy said. “This is just something extra.”

“And you can take swimming lessons,” Mom said. “I hear they have an excellent instructor.”

“I can already float on my back.”

“But there are lots of other strokes,” Daddy said.

“I don’t want swimming lessons. I’d rather learn by myself,” Sally said.

“Well, that’s all right too,” Mom told her. “You know I don’t believe in forcing children when it comes to swimming.”

“And neither do I,” Daddy added.

“I’m hoping Douglas will make some friends at the pool,” Mom said, more to Daddy than Sally. “He’s always alone, riding his bicycle … even on the beach he keeps to himself …”

“Douglas doesn’t need friends,” Sally said.

“Everybody needs friends,” Mom said, “even Douglas.”

It wasn’t that Sally objected to joining the Seagull Pool Club. Shelby belonged there and so did a lot of other kids from school. It was just that she wanted to make sure she could still go to the beach. In spite of the Man O’ Wars, she loved the ocean—the smell of it, the sound of it, the salty taste—her toes squishing into the sand at the water’s edge …

On her first day at the Seagull Pool Club, Shelby taught Sally how to hold her nose and sit on the bottom. Then Sally showed Shelby how she could float on her back. While she was demonstrating, someone swam so close she felt a foot brush the side of her face. “Hey …” Sally called, loosing her balance. She stood in waist-high water. “Why don’t you watch where you’re going?”

He turned to face her. “Why don’t you watch out yourself?” he drawled. It was Georgia Blue Eyes.

“Did you see that boy who kicked me?” Sally asked Shelby.

“Yes.”

“Well, Andrea is hopelessly in love with him.”

“She is?”

“Oops …” Sally covered her mouth with her hand. “That’s supposed to be a secret. I shouldn’t have told you.”

“It’s okay,” Shelby said. “I know how to keep secrets.”

“How was the Seagull?” Andrea asked that night. They were sitting at the side of the goldfish pool, watching Omar stalk a salamander.

“It was pretty good,” Sally said, stirring the fish pool with a long stick.

“Any interesting boys?”

“I haven’t looked around yet.” Sally was surprised by her own answer. She had expected to tell Andrea about Georgia Blue Eyes right away. But having a secret from Andrea was so exciting she decided to keep her news to herself. Someday she would tell Andrea. Some day when the time was right. She would say,
Oh, by the way … Georgia Blue Eyes once put his foot in my face
.

“We might join in March,” Andrea said. “My father’s going to think about it. He got me and Linda a raft for Hanukkah … we rode the waves all day … it was so much fun.”

“Shelby taught me to hold my nose and sit on the bottom of the pool.”

“I don’t like water in my eyes.”

“Me neither … but Shelby told me to keep them closed and I wouldn’t feel a thing.”

“Yes … but you could bump into someone that way.”

“Listen,” Sally said, “you could bump into someone just floating on your back … you never know …”

“That’s true,” Andrea said.

“I don’t want to fly to Cuba,” Mom said.

“Just for the weekend, Louise,” Daddy told her.

Sally sat at the table in the breakfast nook, shelling lima beans for Ma Fanny, who was in the kitchen, fixing dinner. She and Ma Fanny were very quiet so that they could hear the conversation between Daddy and Mom, who were in the sleeping alcove.