There's a Bat in Bunk Five (14 page)

I decide to go back to the cabin and see Ted later. That's what I was hired to do, to be with the kids. I knew when I signed up that it wasn't a nine-to-five job.

There's laughter coming from the bunk.

As I walk in, Linda says, “Marcy, how many counselors does it take to change a light bulb?”

I sigh, “How many?”

“Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change.”

I laugh.

Ginger. The joke makes me think of her. Maybe that's why Linda told me the joke.

Heidi's with the kids. “If everyone in the United States owns a pink automobile, what would the country be called?”

“A pink carnation.”

Groans.

Risa yells, “What's green and hangs from trees?”

No one knows.

She yells again. “Giraffe snot.”

People throw pillows at her.

Finally it quiets down.

“So what's happening with Ginger?” Helene asks.

Everyone's staring at me.

“Her parents are coming up to discuss things.”

“I hope that they take her home,” Betsy says.

Alicia nods. “They'll probably get into another fight like the one they had Visitors' Day.”

I remember. Everyone's parents came up and were standing around talking when Mrs. Simon yelled at Mr. Simon for not sending child-support checks. It was absolutely awful.

“I bet neither of them wants to take her home.” Alicia makes a face.

Heidi shakes her head. “I know it's been difficult to have Ginger in the bunk, but I think you've all learned something from this.”

“Yeah, what a creep she is.” That's from Ellen.

Heidi shakes her head. “No, that it's not always easy to get along with everyone but that you should try to understand his or her problems.”

“You sound like Barbara,” Stacey says.

“That's not a bad thing.” I come to her defense. “She only wants what's best for all of us. She doesn't have to be perfect.”

“That's what my parents always say when I complain about something. That they are doing their best. But that doesn't stop them from being pains,” Janie says.

“Well, they may be pains, but I think you should
try to see them as human beings,” I say and think of what my parents' reaction would be if they could hear me say that. They'd probably have me write it down, sign it, and get it notarized.

Heidi says, “My parents are always saying, ‘How much longer must we be punished for the things we did that we thought were right?' Maybe we should all trade parents for a while and see if it's any different.”

The girls talk about that for a while. They decide to write to their parents and tell them about how when camp's over, everyone in bunk five's going home with a different family.

“Are you serious?” I ask.

“No,” Risa says. “You're so gullible.”

“I kind of thought it would be a good idea.” Janie smiles.

“Who should I ask to the Sadie Hawkins' Dance? That's more important right now,” Linda says. “I don't want to go with Howard anymore.”

I didn't even know that she was going with Howard. That must have been the shortest “going together” in the world.

It's kind of hard to know who's going with whom.
At camp all of the kids past a certain age seem to pair up. “Going out” means walking together to meals and sitting together at campfires.

The girls all discuss their choices.

With summer almost over they've really changed, become a group, developed more of their individual personalities. I think that camp's a place to try out new behavior, see what works, discover who you are in relation to other people. And that is, I'm learning, not just true for campers. It's also true for counselors. And directors. For everyone.

I'm not sure what's going to happen to Ginger.

Or with Ted and me once camp's over.

Or with my parents when I return home feeling as different as I do.

It's really strange. I don't want camp to ever end and yet I can't wait until I get home to experience new things. It's all kind of funny and sad and joyful and exciting at the same time.

It's kind of like what I've always thought, that my life goes on like a novel with lots of character development. But there is a change. There is a plot.

I can hardly wait for the next chapter.

Text copyright © 1974 by Paula Danziger

I
hate my father. I hate school. I hate being fat. I hate the principal because he wanted to fire Ms. Finney, my English teacher.

My name is Marcy Lewis. I'm thirteen years old and in the ninth grade at Dwight D. Eisenhower Junior High.

All my life I've thought that I looked like a baby blimp with wire-frame glasses and mousy brown hair. Everyone always said that I'd grow out of it,
but I was convinced that I'd become an adolescent blimp with wire-frame glasses, mousy brown hair, and acne.

My life is not easy. I know I'm not poor. Nobody beats me. I have clothes to wear, my own room, a stereo, a TV, and a push-button phone. Sometimes I feel guilty being so miserable, but middle-class kids have problems too.

Mom always made me go to tap and ballet lessons. She said that they'd make me more graceful. When it came time for the recital, I accidentally sat on the record that I was supposed to dance to, and broke it. I had to hum along with the tap dancing. I sing as badly as I dance. It was a disaster.

Father says that girl children should be born at the age of eighteen and married off immediately.

Stuart, my four-year-old brother, wants to be my best friend so that I can help him put orange pits in a hole in his teddy bear's head.

I'm flat-chested. I used to buy training bras and put tucks in them.

I never had any friends, except Nancy Sheridan. She's very popular, but her mother and mine are PTA officers and old friends, so I always figured that
Mrs. Sheridan made her talk to me—Beauty and the Blimp.

School is a bummer. The only creative writing I could do was anonymous letters to the Student Council suggestion box. Lunches are lousy. We never get past the First World War in history class. We never learned anything good, at least not till Ms. Finney came along.

So my life is not easy.

The thing with Ms. Finney is what I want to talk about. She took over for Mr. Edwards, our first English teacher. He left after the first month. One rumor is that he had a nervous breakdown in the faculty lounge while correcting a test on noun clauses. Another is that he had to go to a home for unwed fathers in Secaucus, New Jersey. I personally think that he realized that he was a horrible teacher, so he took a job somewhere as a principal or a guidance counselor.

When Mr. Edwards left, we got a whole bunch of substitutes. None of them lasted more than two days. That'll teach the school to group all the smart kids in one class. We were indestructible.

The entire class dropped books, pencils, and pens
at an assigned time. Someone put bubble gum in the pencil sharpener. Nancy pulled her fainting act. We made up names and wrote them on the attendance list. All the desks got turned around. Mr. Stone, the principal, kept coming in and yelling.

And then Ms. Finney came.

C
eleste Sanders was the first to spread the news.

“Hey, we got a new English teacher. A real one, not a sub. First-period class says she looks like a kid.”

“A new one. Let's walk in backwards.”

“Everyone give a wrong name.”

“Let's show her who's boss.”

Everybody rushed down the halls and into class. Some of the guys started to make and throw paper airplanes. Alan Smith played “Clementine” on his
harmonica. He'd learned it from the instructions on a Good and Plenty box. Jim Heston played the Good and Plenty box, and Ted Martin played a comb. There was applause and cheering after the performance. At 1:15 the coughing started. A few kids didn't do anything, but I did. I really didn't like what was happening, but if you're a blimp with fears of impending acne, you go along with the crowd.

Ms. Finney just sat there. She was young and wore a long denim skirt, a turtleneck jersey and had on weird jewelry—giant earrings that hung down to her shoulders, and a macrame necklace. She didn't smile or yell or cry or read a paper or do any of the things that teachers normally do when a class gets out of hand. She just sat there and looked at everybody.

Finally it got quiet. Everyone started to squirm. It was really creepy after a while.

“O.K. Give her a chance,” someone muttered.

We all looked around to see who was talking. It was Joel Anderson, the smartest kid in the class. When almost everybody else would be fooling around, he would sit there reading a book. Some of the kids thought he was a little weird, but everybody usually listened to him.

He put his book down, looked at Ms. Finney, and said, “Are you going to teach us anything?”

Somebody giggled.

The class got very quiet.

I looked at Joel and thought how brave and smart and cute he was. We'd been in the same classes since kindergarten, but I hadn't said more to him than “Hi” and “What's the homework assignment?” I didn't like to embarrass anyone by having them be seen talking to me.

Ms. Finney stood up, looked at the class, smiled, turned to the blackboard, picked up a piece of chalk, and wrote:

“Ms. Barbara Finney.”

Turning around again, she smiled and said, “That's my name. I'm your new English teacher, and I hope this year is going to be a good one for all of us.”

I thought about that. First of all, she'd written “Ms.” Was she just trying to be sharp, or was she really into it? And she'd written her first name. Teachers never do that. They never admit to having first names. They're always Miss or Mr. or Mrs., hardly ever Ms., and never with first names. It's supposed to be a big mystery, like do teachers really
have to go to the bathroom or do anything but teach and go to meetings?

She spoke again.

“I decided to be an English teacher because I care about people communicating with people. That's why I'm here. I want to do it and help you all to do it too, as effectively as possible. A poet named Theodore Roethke once said, ‘Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.' Please, let's try to move among mysteries together.”

The class looked at her and at one another.

Alan Smith laughed and said, “What is this gonna be, a class of detectives?”

Ms. Finney looked at him without smiling. But she didn't yell, either.

“I know that this may all seem a little strange to you now. Maybe it won't work, but let's try. Take out a piece of paper, and for the rest of the period think about communication and write about what it means to you.”

We all took out paper. I stared at mine and then snuck looks at Ms. Finney. She was young and pretty and seemed nice. She sounded smart. She was different, but I wasn't sure how, and I didn't know if I could trust her.