Cassidy's Guide to Everyday Etiquette (and Obfuscation)

by Sue Stauffacher

  Jack was kneeling by his bike, working a stick out of the spokes. “Yeah, you know my aunt Nalini. She’s an acupuncturist.”

  I shook my head. Getting needles stuck into me didn’t sound much better than hanging around a bunch of squirming worms.

  “But there aren’t any needles,” Delton said in a rush. “You experience the fear while tapping on your meridian points with your fingertips; it helps you calm down.”

  I wasn’t convinced. “So…where do the worms come in?”

  “They don’t. You’re just thinking about them, and all the time, you’re talking your way through it. First you experience the fear, then you overcome it—no worms necessary.”

  “It’s that easy? You can do it without any bugs?”

  “Well, you have to practice a little. Here, I wrote down a script for you.” Delton patted his shirt pocket. When that didn’t turn anything up, he jammed his hands into his pants pockets. “I’m sure I brought it with me. I’ll be right back. I must have left it in the car.”

  “Don’t come back, Delton.”

  “But…why? I thought finding a cure would make you—”

  “I’m on summer vacation. I’m chilling. I don’t want to do this right now.”

  “Should I…bring it to etiquette class Monday?”

  “Yeah. Sure. That’d be great.”

  Delton turned to go. At least he knew when he wasn’t wanted. “Oh, Cassidy,” he called over his shoulder. “I pulled a prank.”

  “Great. You can tell me all about it at class.”

  “I don’t think it’s a topic for polite conversation.” He stopped, waiting for me to ask him more, but I didn’t.

  “You gotta give old Delton some credit,” Jack said after Delton was out of earshot. “He is trying hard to get in good with you.”

  “And that makes my life better…how?”

  “I don’t know. He’s pretty smart.” Spinning his tire to make sure it was all clear, Jack added, “And you do need to get over this fear thing. It’s spreading. I’ve noticed.”

  “Noticed how?”

  Jack stood up and dusted off his shorts. “Ever since you fell in the river last summer, you don’t walk the log anymore.”

  “So?” I hate it when Jack is right. I fell off the log last summer and hit the bottom of the Grand River. It might be nice for frogs, but it’s mucky and stinky and there’s leeches; ever since, I’ve been shimmying in instead of walking it like a balance beam. It’s not so easy on your thighs, let me tell you.

  “Mom says we create our own reality. You believe you’re going to fall in again…or at least you’re so afraid of it you won’t balance on the log anymore.” Sticking his rod under the bungee cord on his bike rack, he added, “Now that I think of it, you believe your etiquette class is torture and it is.”

  “I don’t think. I know. You don’t.”

  “And you think mowing lawns all day is a walk in the park? It’s hot and sweaty and—”

  “But you don’t have to!”

  “Yes, I do. If I want—” Jack broke off. “Just forget it.”

  “Right. Forget it.”

  “Fishing’s no good tonight, in case you hadn’t noticed.” Jack grabbed his handlebars. “I’m going home.”

  He didn’t say good-bye or even wave, just took off on his bike.

  I thought about hanging around. I had my Frisbees in my backpack, but what fun was that all by myself?

  Ugh. Nothing was right.

  In fact, it was the perfect nothing-is-right Friday night of my eleven-teenth summer.

  Until I thought of riding my bike over to Livvy’s. But…she probably had to help put the little monsters to bed.

  Well, so what? I knew more wrestling holds than the average girl, and even a couple of bedtime stories—though they might not be fit for young children.

  I got on my bike and pedaled in the direction of Livvy’s house; it would be a refreshing change of pace to hang around with a girl who found boys as infuriating as I did.

  There was plenty of squawking and splashing going on in the backyard when I got there.

  “Hey,” I called out to the kid whose head popped into view. It must have been the monsters’ turn on the tramp.

  “Hey, yourself. O-livia! Some girl wants in.”

  Next thing I knew, Livvy’s head appeared over the top of the fence. “Cassidy! Permission granted.”

  The fence door swung open and I was greeted by the world’s youngest pirate, complete with eye patch and plastic sword. “We’re thwabbing the deck,” he said.

  Must be the four-year-old, I thought, following him around an inflated kiddie pool, where another pirate was diving for treasure with a snorkel and mask. The third and oldest pirate was bouncing on the tramp, a hose in his hand.

  “If you spray her, I’ll make you pay. Big-time.” Olivia, in a polka-dot bathing suit, bounced on her butt and then off the trampoline entirely. “When you spray a warm trampoline, you can jump higher,” she explained. “Care to try it? It’s not for the faint of heart.”

  “Not yet.” I stood there, taking in Livvy’s crazy world, as she flopped down on a plastic lawn chair and opened a cooler. “Want a juice box?”

  “Sure.”

  “I want one.” The Fence Pirate ran over and pinched the material of Livvy’s suit. “Pwease, Wivvy.”

  “You had yours already. Go back and guard the door. I saw three more girls out there trying to get in.” Giving him a little push, Livvy used her other hand to reach into the cooler and toss me a juice box. “I’m babysitting. Could there be a less lucrative job than babysitting your own brothers?”

  “I don’t know.” I tore the plastic off the juice-box straw with my teeth and tried to find a spot on the ground that wasn’t soaking wet.

  “Maybe you can stay until after I put them to bed. I want to tell you about the prank I played on my aunt Agnes. I followed your rules to a tee. Even she had to laugh after she got the Onesie off her schnauzer.”

  I started to tell her about the time Jack and I tied helium balloons to Miss Hennessy’s attendance clipboard, but it wasn’t easy with the random sprays of water, the shouts about alien girls approaching, and cutting Jack out of every scene.

  “I meant what I said about that hose!” Livvy shouted at the Trampoline Pirate, whose bouncing practically created a rain shower in the yard. “I will take your battleship apart piece by piece.”

  Reaching under her chair, she pulled out an umbrella. “I’d introduce you,” she said, “but none of my friends can remember their names. They’re just one bratty snarl that doesn’t listen worth a hoot.”

  Livvy flicked open the umbrella just in time to save me from a stream of water as the Tramp Pirate did a flip while keeping hold of the hose.

  “Now do you understand why I feel the way I do about boys?”

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  Poking the Water Pirate with the handle of her umbrella, Livvy said, “Turn over, Leonard! You’ll look like a shriveled old man if you stay under any longer.” She slurped the last of her juice box, crumpled it and threw it back in the cooler. “I can’t wait to get out of here. Will you write to me?”

  “Depends,” I said. “Where are you going?”

  “Camp.”

  “I guess. I went to Girl Scout camp last year, but due to an unfortunate experience with a canoe during nature exploration, I don’t think I’ll be—”

  I was interrupted by a cold jet of water in my face. “Hey! Give a girl a fighting chance, why don’t ya?”

  “Louis! That’s it. Battleship destruction begins now.” Livvy jumped up and ran to the back-porch slider, her bathing suit streaming with water.

  Louis let out a howl like something you’d hear on the nature channel and chased after his sister.

  Leonard sat up and adjusted his goggles. “What did I miss?”

  Wringing out my ponytail, I said, “Not much. A water fight, battleship destruction and possible injuries to your older brother.”


  “You don’t say.” Wiping the fog off his goggles, he held out a wrinkly hand. “I’m Jacques Cousteau, by the way, famous deep-sea explorer.”

  I shook it. “Calamity Cassidy. About to take to the open road. Tell your sister I said good-bye, okay?”

  On the way home, I resolved to come back only during pirate rest time. As I pedaled up our driveway, I saw Dad standing in sprinkler territory, looking up at the flagpole.

  “What is in my hand, Cassidy?” he asked me as I let my bike fall, also in sprinkler territory. Not that it mattered to me. I was already soaking wet, a fact Dad didn’t seem to notice.

  “Your flag.”

  “Then what is that?” He pointed up the flagpole to what looked like a big brown pillowcase.

  “Search me.”

  “It was a rhetorical question. I know what that is. It is Mrs. Delaney’s best nightgown.”

  Never mind that my day so far would measure on the seismic Richter scale of rottenness. I had to know more. “Really? How do you know?”

  Because she rang my doorbell a few minutes ago and handed me my University of Michigan flag, that’s why. It was pinned to her clothesline.”

  I had to look down at the ground so Dad couldn’t see my smile. When I’d wiped it off my face, I looked back up. “You don’t say.”

  “I do. She then wondered if I might know the whereabouts of her missing nightgown. We followed the logical path.”

  I know my dad. He likes a good prank and he liked this one. He was trying not to smile, too.

  “Could she ID it?”

  “Yes. After she found her driving glasses.”

  “So…why didn’t you pull it down?”

  “There’s a problem with the pulley. It seems to be stuck.”

  I covered my mouth—and coughed. “Would you call that a mechanical failure?”

  “You could say that…yes. Cassidy, did you and Jack do this before you went fishing? Or was it swimming? I thought bathing suits were required at Briggs Pool.” Dad handed me the ends of the flag so we could fold it together, military-style.

  Before I took hold, I raised my right hand. “Scout’s honor. We did not do this.”

  “You’re not a Scout, Cassidy.”

  “No, but I respect the institution. Seriously, Dad, this is a sweet prank. I would own up to it if it was mine.”

  “And the dunking you got? That occurred…”

  “On my way home, I was ambushed by a water fight. Kids these days…”

  We finished folding and I handed the flag to Dad.

  After he’d returned my salute, he said, “Any ideas for how to bring her down?”

  My first thought was to volunteer Jack to shinny up there and get it. “Not really.”

  “Well, then, I guess Mrs. Delaney will have to wear her second-best nightgown to bed this evening. That doesn’t seem like too big a tragedy.”

  “I guess not.”

  He put his arm around my shoulder as we walked into the house. “According to Mom, you have successfully completed week two of your etiquette class. No further misdemeanors, I trust?”

  “Dad!”

  “As your parole officer, I need to check in on your doings from time to time. Why don’t you grab one of the clean towels in the laundry room? According to my sprinkling plan, we don’t need to water the carpet until next week.”

  On my way up the stairs to bed, I took a closer look out the window at our new flag. A laundry pin had been knotted in the rope to keep it from sliding through the pulley.

  I watched the nightgown flap in the breeze. Nothing broken. And yes, I totally cracked up watching Dad explain to Mrs. Delaney that we couldn’t get it down…yet.

  If only I could learn etiquette as well as Delton Bean learned pranks.

  As I finished up etiquette class number one for the week, I chose Donna Parker for polite conversation.

  “Miss Parker, didn’t you tell us that you went to Country Day?”

  “Why, yes, Miss Corcoran, I did.” Donna always straightened up when someone asked her a question, like she was the teacher.

  “Do you by any chance know a girl named Livvy?”

  She thought about it. “Livvy. Can’t say I do. Does she go to Country Day? What is her last name?”

  “Um…not a hundred percent sure. She has a trampoline and three younger brothers.”

  “You mean Olivia? Olivia Dunn? We’re on the gymnastics team together.”

  “You’re a…gymnast?”

  “That is so strange, Miss Corcoran. You know, on the first day I thought you reminded me of someone. And that’s who it is! Olivia! Miss Dunn, I mean.”

  “How, exactly?”

  Donna paused; I knew that pause. She was wondering how to put it politely. “Well…uh…” She leaned in. “What’s the polite-conversation word for ‘smart aleck’?”

  “High energy…original mind…future politician?” I replied, quoting my report cards from memory.

  “Yes! Something like that. Do you know her?”

  “I met her last week. I plan to spend more time on her trampoline in the near future. As long as the monsters are resting, that is.”

  “Oh…” Donna bit her lip. “You don’t know, then.”

  “Know what?”

  “She spends most of the summer at gymnastics camp in Wisconsin. She wants to go to the Olympics, you know.”

  “She said she was going, but she hasn’t left yet. I saw her last night. I didn’t know it was all summer.”

  “Well, I know she’s packing. Her mom called my mom and asked if she could borrow my brother Spencer’s sleeping bag. It’s got mosquito netting built right in and he’s studying abroad this summer, so he doesn’t need it.”

  I went back to my seat without excusing myself from the conversation. It figured. Just when I thought I’d found someone as interesting as Bree was to Jack, I learn she’s going away all summer. Class ended and all I wanted to do was go somewhere to think this over. Delton and I were supposed to get a five-minute break between regular class and etiquette suspension, but what’s a break if your only choice is sit at the table and stare at your reflection in the dinner plate? There wasn’t even any room to pace!

  It made me all of a sudden mad as a hornet at Miss Melton-Mowry. Kids need to work off their excess energy! I’d get my fill of Delton for the next hour, so I refused to start making polite conversation before then.

  Hmph. If we didn’t get any personal time, then neither should our teacher.

  I knocked on Miss Melton-Mowry’s office door before I opened it. Even though I did things in the correct order, I don’t think she heard me, because her eyes were closed and she was leaning back in her chair—I could see her knees!—listening to something on the radio. I’d never seen this look on her face before—it might have been a smile.

  I cleared my throat.

  “I was listening to Debussy,” she said, quick sitting up and pushing her skirt over her bony knees.

  “I thought you weren’t supposed to lean back in your chair.”

  “There is such a thing as a private moment, Miss Corcoran. You don’t think I sleep with correct dining posture, do you?”

  “Well…” I never thought about Miss Melton-Mowry sleeping. Or putting her feet up.

  “Debussy is my favorite classical composer. This is one of his arabesques. For me, it is like a four-minute mini-vacation where I am transported…” She stopped talking until she’d got her shoulders back in coat-hanger order and tugged her blouse straight. “But surely you didn’t knock on my door to talk about the music.”

  “No, I…” I was, in fact, going to ask her if we could cover the polite way to eat a melting candy bar. I wanted to make it so she didn’t get a break, either.

  But instead of saying what I’d planned to say, I listened to the music with her. It was all right, a bunch of fancy piano stuff my mom might have chosen when it was her turn to pick the radio station in the car. It seemed to fit with the way I felt—having Li
vvy snatched away when I’d only just met her.

  “So…where do you go? When you’re transported.”

  “A riverbank. This music reminds me of water; there was a time when I was younger…I used to pack a picnic lunch and we’d sit near a bridge by a mill and dip our feet in. Do you hear that? At the end? The way the piano fades out, like little drips of water?”

  I nodded. I did. “Have you ever…do you ever go to Riverside Park?”

  “The public park? No, I don’t.”

  It was probably better that she said no, because if she’d said yes, we might have something in common; that would not be good for my reputation.

  “Maybe I should. Why don’t you tell me more about it during polite conversation?”

  “Okay.” I pulled the door closed, turning the handle like she taught us, so you could barely hear it.

  Turns out, Miss Melton-Mowry was right about the music. It didn’t change anything, but it did make me feel a little better. By the time I was sitting across from Delton, I remembered what I wanted to talk to him about. “Good morning, Mr. Bean,” I said, diving right in. “How was your dinner Friday night? After we saw you at the park?”

  “Very pleasant, Miss Corcoran. We had tuna-noodle casserole.”

  “Tuna-noodle casserole? Really? I thought you said you were going to have pranks and beans.”

  “Pardon me?” Officer Weston leaned closer to hear.

  “I said, I thought Mrs. Bean was serving pranks and beans.” At the risk of having Delton follow me around like a puppy, I shook his hand—and no funny business. “A fine job, Mr. Bean. Your execution was flawless.”

  Delton pinched his earlobe. “Thank you, Miss Corcoran,” he said. “I do take pride in my work.”

  “I need to think up a new prank for one of the lifeguards at Briggs Pool. You’re not afraid of water, are you? We’d have to do it during open swim.”

  “Mrs. Dennon says my fear of water is healthy,” Delton replied, but before I could ask what that meant or even who Mrs. Dennon was, Miss Melton-Mowry joined us at the table; another round of torture was about to begin.

  “I’ll fill you in about Delton’s prank later,” I whispered to Officer Weston. “Hey, look. Miss Information’s back.”

  “She looks well,” Delton said. “Wouldn’t you agree, Miss Corcoran?”