by Betsy Haynes
"So who needs them? Men only point them out as a sign of our inferiority."
I couldn't help snickering. The day that I would feel inferior because I had a gorgeous figure would be some freaky day. But I didn't say it out loud. It would have only made her madder.
"Even Gloria Steinem has breasts," I offered hopefully.
Katie made a horrible snorting noise and lapsed into silence.
I stood it as long as I could and then plunged in again. "Well, look at it this way. It's a step toward becoming a genuine, bona fide bra burner. I mean, in order to burn one, you've got to own one. Right?"
I could hear her laughing at the other end of the line, and although she wouldn't agree to go along with the plan for another fifteen minutes, I knew that I had her. By the end of the conversation she actually said that the whole idea was far out.
After we hung up, I got two pairs of rolled-up socks out of my bureau drawer and stuck them under my blouse. Then I sauntered up to the mirror, turned sideways, and surveyed my shape.
"Your money back if you don't get results in two weeks," I whispered to the curvaceous female staring out at me.
CHAPTER THREE
The first day of school was a disaster. I knew it would be the minute I opened one eye and saw Mom rummaging around in my closet. I knew what she was doing. She was looking for the icky purple dress that she had bought for me to wear on the first day of school. I hated it the minute I saw it. It had a white collar and matching tights and looked like something a first grader would wear. Worst of all, the top was made out of some kind of stretchy material that's all puckery and sewn with elastic thread. It fit so tightly across my front that I almost couldn't breathe. The whole world would be able to tell at a glance how flat-chested I was.
I had hidden it in the back of my closet, hoping that Mom would forget all about it, but of course she didn't. I kept telling her that all my friends were wearing jeans and T-shirts. She kept telling me that I should be an individual, and besides, that the dress had cost a fortune. She finally hit the ceiling when I told her I thought that she had been gypped.
I walked all the way to school holding my notebook across my front. Nobody said anything about my icky purple dress. My friends are all too polite for that. But I could tell that they didn't like it, either.
It was great to get back to school and see a lot of kids that I hadn't seen all summer. Sally Schmidt had been to Europe, and Clarence Marshall had his arm in a cast. Clarence Marshall is a real drip. He is always doing weird things, like squirting the water fountain all over everybody. I never could stand him, but I was sorry that he broke his arm.
I kept looking around the school ground for Taffy Sinclair. It was almost time for the bell and she was nowhere to be seen. I wondered if she was planning to be late so that she could make a grand entrance.
Then I saw her. I almost died. She was crossing the street and coming toward school in an icky purple dress just like mine. It had the same white collar and the same matching tights, and the front was made of that tight, stretchy stuff, just like mine. Worst of all, there wasn't any doubt that she had breasts.
My heart sank into my shoes. I clutched my notebook against my front. My arms were already getting numb from holding it there so long, but I didn't care. Gangrene could set in before I'd move that notebook.
If looks could kill, I would have been dead the instant Taffy Sinclair spotted me. Well, one thing was certain. I would never wear that icky purple dress again, no matter how much it had cost!
You would have thought that those were enough troubles for one day. I sure thought so, anyway. But that was before the bell rang and I saw my new fifth-grade teacher.
Beth and Melanie and Christie and Katie and I had all gotten seats next to each other on the right side of the room and were talking so hard that we didn't hear him come in.
His name was Mr. Neal, and he was the dreamiest man I'd ever seen in my whole life. He had wavy brown hair and blue eyes. They must have been the bluest eyes in the whole world. They were kind, too. You could tell that he was kind and sensitive, the sort of person you'd want to tell your troubles to.
It was plain to see that my friends felt the same way about Mr. Neal as I did. Melanie was staring at him so hard that her mouth was open. I thought about poking her and telling her to close it. I would have died if he had caught me doing something like that.
Naturally Taffy Sinclair was sitting in the front row. She was so close to him that she could have reached out and touched his desk. She kept looking at me over her shoulder. Gloating. I hated her more than ever.
Then he started talking about the subjects we would be studying and what he hoped we would accomplish during the year. How on earth could I do schoolwork with someone like that in the same room? What would I do when he called on me or sent me to the blackboard? Good grief! What if I had to go to the bathroom? How could I possibly raise my hand and ask to leave the room? He would know where I was going. I would be so embarrassed that I'd die.
Next he made a big speech about how important it was for students and teachers to be able to communicate with each other. He said that we should always come to him if we had any problems or difficulties.
I always had difficulties with history. It was my worst subject. I just couldn't memorize all those stupid dates. I didn't see why they were so important anyway. Maybe I'd go to him about history. No. I'd feel dumb and self-conscious.
Then I got this great idea. Math had always been my best subject. I'd fake not understanding a problem. Then he would sit beside me under the giant copper beech tree in front of the school, and while everybody watched he would patiently explain it to me. Then I would look up at him and tell him how grateful I was and that now I understood. Then I would work all the problems in just about a split second and he would tell me how proud of me he was and how glad he was that I was in his class.
"Pssst. Pssst. Jana. It's your turn."
I looked around to see the whole class and Mr. Neal staring straight at me. I thought I'd die. While I had been dreaming about sitting under the copper beech tree with him, the rest of the class had been doing something else. Now it was my turn, and I didn't know what to do.
"Stand up and give your name, please," said Mr. Neal. There was a trace of irritation in his voice.
I stood up very slowly. My ears were so hot that I thought any minute they would melt and drip down my shoulders.
"Jana Morgan," I said in a quivery voice about three octaves higher than usual. Then I realized that I didn't have my notebook over my front. Everybody was still looking at me. Me and my flat front. I couldn't have sat down any faster if the floor had opened up underneath me.
The rest of the day went pretty smoothly. When the dismissal bell finally rang, Beth and Melanie and Katie and Christie and I headed for the door in a cluster. Mr. Neal was standing there saying goodbye to everybody as they left. We all exchanged knowing glances as we watched Taffy Sinclair leaving just ahead of us.
"Watch her faint so that he has to catch her," said Katie.
Taffy moved slowly toward the crowded doorway. With each step she edged a little closer to the side where Mr. Neal stood. Finally she was right beside him. I didn't understand at first when I saw her put her hand on her hip. Then I realized that she had done it so that her elbow would stick out. I swallowed hard as I saw her elbow brush against his sleeve as she walked by. That was bad enough, but then she turned around and looked at me. She might as well have been carrying a neon sign and said, I touched him.
I couldn't let her get away with a thing like that.
"I just can't wait until the next meeting of Lambda Rho," I blurted out.
That stopped her cold. Somebody was jabbing me in the side, but I ignored it and just enjoyed the look on Taffy's face. You would have thought that I had just been named Miss America and that Taffy was first runner-up. Then she whirled around and stomped off down the hall.
"Jana, are you crazy?" shrieked Beth when we got
outside the building. "You said that in front of Mr. Neal."
"So what?" I said. "He doesn't know what it means."
"But he's been to college," Beth insisted. "He probably knows Greek letters."
"Okay, okay. But how could he possibly know that I and r stand for 'little raisins'?" I asked, trying to sound more confident than I felt.
All the way home I kept wondering if it was possible that Beth was right. I had never felt so stupid in my whole life. I just had to make a good impression on Mr. Neal, especially after the way I'd goofed by not knowing when to stand up and say my name. I had to make him see me for what I really am. What would he think if he figured out what Lambda Rho meant? I'd be so embarrassed that I'd die.
CHAPTER FOUR
I nearly worried myself weird for the next few days, but if Mr. Neal understood what Lambda Rho meant, he didn't give himself away. He did something almost as bad, though. He told us to write a five-hundred-word essay entitled "How I Spent My Summer Vacation." The last thing in the world that I wanted to tell anyone about was how I spent my summer vacation.
Sally Schmidt could probably write five hundred pages about her trip to Europe. Taffy Sinclair's parents had a summer cottage on Cape Cod, and Melanie Edwards had gone to Mexico. Even drippy old Clarence Marshall could tell about how he broke his arm. But I couldn't tell anybody about my summer, especially Mr. Neal.
It wasn't what I had done that had made my summer vacation so terrible. It was what I hadn't done. I hadn't gone out west on a two-week vacation with my father, and what was worse, I couldn't figure out why.
I had been on top of the world when I got that letter asking me to go. I hadn't seen him since he and my mother were divorced. I couldn't even remember him. I must have read that letter five thousand times before Mom finally said yes. Then she wrote him giving permission for me to go, and I waited.
I was sure he'd answer soon. I had to know when he was coming for me. After a while, when he didn't write, Mom said that he probably hadn't found out yet when he could take his vacation. I told her that I thought she was right, but deep down I had an awful feeling. All I could think of was that he had asked me to go with him. That was a promise, in a way.
I stationed myself at the mailbox at eleven fifteen every morning. That's the time our mailman usually comes. In fact, I was there so much that I could probably have called my essay, "I Spent My Summer Vacation at the Mailbox."
Around the middle of June Mom said that I should write to him myself and ask him when he was planning to come and explain to him that I needed to know so that I could get ready. She was right, but it took me a whole week just to get out my stationery. I kept giving him one more day. I didn't want to rush him. That would have been embarrassing.
One of the toughest parts of writing to him was figuring out how to start the letter. I tried "Dear Father," "Dear Daddy," and "Dear Dad," but nothing felt right. Those are really personal names to call somebody, especially somebody you can't even remember. A person can't just go around calling people "Father" without the word sticking in her throat unless, of course, she's Catholic, but that's different.
I used to call him "Daddy Bill" in my letters, and that made him seem more like an uncle. I guess I could call just about anybody "Uncle." That's not so personal. But "Daddy Bill" was too babyish for a fifth grader who had been invited on a two-week vacation out west.
He had signed his letter to me "Your Father." I sure couldn't start mine "Dear Your Father." I finally decided to skip that part until later. I could always add it just before I licked the envelope.
The message part of the letter wasn't much easier to write. I would have liked to have skipped it, too. I even thought about sending him a little piece of paper with just my name on it to sort of remind him that I was alive. I thought about it for two whole days. But I knew it wouldn't be the right thing to do. He'd think I was some kind of nut.
What I really wanted to ask him was to explain to me about the divorce. It just didn't make any sense.
Take Mom, for instance. Nobody could be any greater. Even though she works all day and has lots to do when she comes home at night, she's always glad for me to have my friends in. She feeds them and talks to them. And she hardly ever complains about anything except my room. She's really super.
Then there's my father. Mom is always telling me what a wonderful person he is. She says that he's kind and gentle and that he's always the life of the party.
So, like I said, it just didn't make any sense for two people like that to get divorced. That's why I decided that it must have been somebody else's fault. The worst part about that is that I was the only other person around at the time. That had to be why he hardly ever wrote me letters. He hated me for breaking up him and Mom.
That's a pretty terrible thing to find out about yourself. When I thought about it, which I mostly did after I went to bed at night, my stomach got floppy and my ears got hot. Once I thought I was going to throw up, but I didn't. I just lay there in the dark asking myself over and over again what on earth I could have done. It must have been pretty grim.
I tried to think of what a baby could do. Mom said I cried a lot. In fact, I guess I cried pretty much all the time for a while. But you couldn't hate a baby just because it cried.
No, it must have been something else. Maybe it was something that happened when I was three, since that was how old I was when they got divorced. I couldn't remember being three. I racked my brain trying to think if I'd ever been told anything about myself when I was three that would give me a clue. All I knew was that I'd had pneumonia. You sure couldn't turn against a little kid for getting sick.
I had asked Mom about the divorce lots of time, and she always said that when I was older she would explain. Well, I get older every day, and I understand all kinds of things that I didn't used to understand, but she still hasn't explained it.
My father was my only hope, but I didn't have the nerve to write that kind of letter. Besides, maybe he had forgiven me, and that was why he had invited me on a two-week vacation out west. What I finally wrote was just three sentences.
I hope I'll be hearing from you soon. I need to know when you're coming to take me out west so that I can get my things packed. I can't wait to go.
Love,
Jana
Just as I dropped it into the mailbox I remembered the "Dear" part. I had forgotten to go back and put that on. I almost died.
Anyway, nothing else happened all summer. I never did hear from my father. I never did go on a two-week vacation out west. And I never did figure out what I had done to cause my parents to get a divorce. It was an awful summer. How could I put that into an essay for Mr. Neal? I hadn't even been able to talk about it to my friends.
Then I got this great idea. Mr. Neal didn't know how I spent my summer vacation. For all he knew, I might have really gone out west. I went to the library and checked out a lot of books. I read up on all kinds of places like the Grand Canyon and Pike's Peak and the Painted Desert. Then I remembered this other book I had read. It was all about a girl who spent a summer on a ranch. She had a lot of exciting adventures like getting lost on a pack trip in the mountains and getting thrown by her horse and breaking her leg while she was all alone and finally getting rescued in the middle of a terrible storm just minutes before a mud slide covered up the spot where she had been. The more I thought about it, the more excited I got. I'd write about it as if it had happened to me. It would be the greatest essay in the whole fifth grade.
I really slaved over that essay. I never worked so hard on anything in my whole life. I changed a few things in the story, though. For instance, I said that I just sprained my ankle when I fell off the horse since broken bones take a long time to heal and Mr. Neal might wonder where my cast was or why I didn't limp or something.
The essay was due on Friday. I wanted to go straight home after school on Thursday and get it finished, but I had to go to Melanie Edwards' house for a Lambda Rho meeting.
I
called the meeting to order, and Christie, who is treasurer, reported that we had seventeen cents in our treasury left over from last year. Then she collected ten cents dues from everybody, bringing the total up to sixty-seven cents.
"That's sure a long way from nineteen ninety-five," said Katie, shaking her head.
"Has anybody thought up a good money-making scheme?" I asked hopefully.
Nobody had, so Beth suggested that we keep thinking about it until the next meeting. Then I asked for the reports on Taffy Sinclair.
"I have one," said Melanie. She stood up and opened her Against Taffy Sinclair Club notebook. "September fifteen, one-oh-seven P.M. Math class. Taffy Sinclair goes to Mr. Neal's desk and asks for help on a problem. Bats eyes and smiles sickeningly. Mr. Neal smiles."
My heart jumped into my throat. Math! I remembered how I had dreamed of going to him with my math problems, and now Taffy Sinclair was beating me at my own game. I couldn't let her get away with a thing like that. I'd think of some fantastic way to raise that nineteen ninety-five. Then I'd show her.
There weren't any other reports on Taffy, so Beth asked if she could have the floor. "Even if we had the nineteen ninety-five right now, it would take a while to order the Milo Venus Bust Developer and get it through the mail," she said. "In the meantime, we can't just sit around doing nothing and let Taffy Sinclair get farther and farther ahead of us."
There were nods and murmurs of agreement and Beth got that old mysterious look on her face again.
"I've got another plan," she whispered gleefully. Then she reached into her book bag and pulled out a long, blue measuring tape like the one Mom keeps in her sewing basket.
"This . . ." Beth said, holding up the measuring tape, "and this . . ." she waved her Against Taffy Sinclair Club notebook in the other hand, ". . . is going to take the place of our Milo Venus Bust Developer until it arrives."
We must all have had puzzled looks on our faces because she began talking fast.