4B Goes Wild

by Jamie Gilson

  “Marshmallows?” I asked. “What’s potentially dangerous about marshmallows?”

  “What’s ‘potentially dangerous’?” Rolf asked, his voice shaking a little.

  “I think,” Nick said, as we climbed the steps back to our room on the second floor, “I think that means it could kill you, but not for sure.”

  “Marshmallows?” I asked again.

  “What if it doesn’t stay swallowed long?” Rolf wanted to know.

  “Oh, then it’s perfectly safe,” Nick told him, making it up for sure.

  “Except for the goldfish,” I said. “It couldn’t have been very safe for the goldfish.”

  “Speaking of meals that won’t stay down,” Rolf interrupted, “when you gonna eat with Fearless Leader?”

  “She says the day after Outdoor Ed because that’s when her calendar has an empty space, but I’m gonna get out of it,” I told him.

  “Sounds potentially dangerous,” he giggled.

  “If we’re late he’ll kill us,” Michelle was saying as she and Molly ran up the stairs behind us.

  “No, he won’t. He outlawed capital punishment,” Molly told her, passing the three of us at a trot.

  Actually, the city charter rules fined you a hundred dollars a minute for tardiness. We all made it to the room about fifty dollars after the bell. But Mr. Star didn’t notice. He was standing at the front of the room talking to a pretty lady with thick black hair. We knew her. Her name is Svetlana Ivanovitch. And she is this wild sub who taught us two days in February while Mr. Star was out with the flu. She threw a wicked snowball, square danced like an Early American, and wasn’t afraid to get her feet wet. Mr. Star had to talk down to her because he is over six feet tall and she is barely five. They were smiling and laughing, though, and couldn’t have been thinking about us, late or not.

  Miss Ivanovitch was wearing the same bell earrings she’d worn that day in February when we’d bet we could make her cry just by being awful. The earrings were jingling like crazy as she laughed at something Mr. Star told her.

  “Jack,” she asked, raising her dark eyebrows, “will we meet before then?”

  Mr. Star nodded and handed her a big manila envelope.

  “Jack?” Molly whispered to me, as we sank back in our desks. “Jack! She called Mr. Star ‘Jack’!”

  “That’s because Jack is his name,” I explained.

  “I know Jack is his name, but how does she know it?” She shifted nervously in her seat. “I don’t like this one bit. They’re friends!”

  “They’re so cueshee together,” I heard Tracey tell Jenny. The girls make up these dumb words and then use them all the time. Cueshee means “cute.”

  “I love her green velvet skirt, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, and he’s got that, like, darling dimple, and she’s so—”

  “Short,” Molly said to them, leaning over the front of my desk. “She’s much too short for him.”

  “She’s taller than you are,” Jenny said.

  “Yes, but I’m going to grow and she’s not. She’s as high as she’s ever going to get. And she’s just all wrong for him. When I grow up—”

  “He’ll be married and have two kids,” Eugene told her. “He must be at least twenty-five years old.”

  Molly turned her head away, flipping her hair especially far to show how much she thought of that idea. She raised her hand and, when Mr. Star didn’t notice, started flapping it around. The drone in the class got louder.

  “Mr. Star,” Molly finally demanded, “what are we supposed to be doing?”

  Mr. Star stopped talking to the sub. “My friends, you are supposed to be silent while I talk with our guest, Miss Ivanovitch, whom I think you all know.”

  She bobbed her head at us, her earrings pinging, to let us know she remembered.

  Miss Ivanovitch hugged the big envelope Mr. Star had given her and said to us, “I am sorry to interrupt your lessons, but Mr. Star and I …” She looked up at him as though she’d just thought of something. “Mr. Star had some important papers for me. Perhaps I could tell you …” And she glanced up to Mr. Star to see if telling us was OK. When he nodded, she went on, “We’re going to—”

  “To get married,” Molly gasped, turning to look at me in horror. As she turned, she knocked the gavel off her desk, and it clattered to the floor.

  Miss Ivanovitch, startled, reached over to pick the gavel up, stepping, as she did, inside the taped-off section of Molly’s property. According to class rules, that was trespassing unless you asked permission, or were invited, or like that.

  “Miss Ivan-low-witch,” Molly said sweetly, “you probably don’t know it, but you’re on private property.”

  Miss Ivanovitch, totally puzzled, pushed the hair out of her eyes with the handle of the gavel and looked to Mr. Star for an explanation.

  “Molly,” he said impatiently, “it should be perfectly clear that Miss Ivanovitch is a visitor and—”

  “I know,” Molly told him with a little laugh. “I do apologize. It was just an automatic thing. Miss Ivan-slow-itch is an outsider. I’m sorry.”

  A lot of Miss Ivanovitch’s bounce had disappeared, and she looked as though she wasn’t sure she wanted to go on. But she took a deep breath and did.

  “We are going to go on a trip together,” she continued, skipping over Molly and smiling out at the rest of the class. She spread both her arms wide. Molly groaned. “All of us. Mr. Star and Miss Hutter have asked me to go with you to Wisconsin to learn about nature.” She glanced back at Molly and smiled. “Isn’t that wonderful!”

  “Wonderful,” Molly muttered, and, leaning back in her chair, she narrowed her eyes and folded her arms tight. “Just wonderful.”

  3

  IF ONE OF THOSE BOTTLES SHOULD HAPPEN TO FALL

  Sometimes three weeks seems like forever, but those three whipped past so fast I didn’t have time to catch a cold or sprain a toe. On the morning we were supposed to leave for camp I still hadn’t made up a really good reason to stay home. Mom refused to buy my fever and sore throat. She took my temperature and made me say Ah-ah-h-h-h. My father growled from the bedroom that he had a bellyache, and when I said I did too, she opened the front door and waved me out. “Hobie Hanson, it’s going to be a terrific trip,” she said. I walked halfway down the steps and looked back at her without smiling.

  That’s when I saw the cat streak out between her legs. Fido’s an indoor cat, so I rushed over to trap him under the bushes.

  “Leave him to me,” she said. “The Rossis are ready to leave.” So, even though my throat felt like it really might start to hurt at any minute, I climbed into the Rossis’ car with my suitcase.

  That’s how I ended up at school marching to the camp bus at nine-fifteen, laughing, wondering if anybody else was dying to stay home.

  Mrs. Rossi and the other mothers waved as we filed past. Two or three had babies strapped to their chests in kangaroo pouches. Toby was there, too.

  “I want to go,” he wailed. “I want to put a shark in Miss Hutter’s sleeping bag.” He yanked his mother forward by the knee of her jeans. “That was last year,” Mrs. Rossi explained calmly. Then she reached over and stretched a wool cap over my head. “Your mother said to give this to you at the last minute so you wouldn’t leave it behind,” she told me. “And you’re to wear it so you’re sure to be well for your lunch with Miss Hutter on Thursday.”

  Toby howled. “This year,” she explained to him, “they’re going to be good at camp. You’ll be happier at home.”

  It took two school buses to hold fifty-one kids with their duffles and suitcases. We had so many bags it looked like we were off for a year in Australia. Three kids stayed home sick. Nick said they were just scared to leave their teddy bears. I laughed and laughed, and my woollyworms started doing gymnastics in my stomach.

  “Marshall, hold still!” Marshall stopped, embarrassed, and faced his mother’s camera. Then he grabbed the guys around him and made us stay too. “OK, all fou
r of you, smile!” she said.

  Nick held two fingers up behind Marshall’s head like they were horns. I stood totally in back of Nick except for one leg and one arm, which I stuck out so it looked like Nick had three of each. R.X. shoved one side of his face up and pulled the other down like it was made of Silly Putty.

  Mrs. Ezry laughed and clicked the shutter. “Well, there’s the Before picture. When you get back I’ll take an After. Be good, now,” she called as we climbed up the steps.

  Nick and I sat in the second row of the front bus. The back bus had Ms. O’Malley in it with her 4A’s and Mr. Plate, their student teacher from National College of Education. Miss Hutter and Mrs. Bosco were driving all the way to Camp Trotter so there’d be a car in case of emergency, and, I think, so they wouldn’t have to ride with us.

  Everyone was on our bus but Miss Ivanovitch, who stood searching up and down the sidewalk both ways like she was about to cross the street in heavy traffic, only there weren’t any cars coming. She wore a purple check shirt, jeans that had a few miles on them, and hiking boots with major scars.

  Mr. Star opened the window by his seat in the middle of the bus. “Come aboard,” he called to her. “We’re ready to roll.”

  She took a step back and checked behind both buses, then shifted her feet like she wasn’t sure she wanted to leave.

  Mr. Star called again. “We’re all here,” he said, “and accounted for.”

  Molly, who was sitting one row ahead and across the aisle from him, poked Lisa, who was next to her. “They’re going to fight,” she giggled.

  “Maybe she’s going to chicken out,” Nick said, turning around in his seat and laughing with her. “She knows us.” I laughed too. It felt pretty good to be laughing at someone.

  So when Miss Ivanovitch finally climbed on the bus and the driver swooshed the doors closed, we were all breaking up over funny, purple, late Miss Ivanovitch.

  She sat next to Mr. Star, stuffing her fancy embroidered purse under the seat, but he didn’t bark at her for being late. He smiled.

  As we pulled away, mothers called goodbye and Toby stood on his tiptoes, waving like crazy. Mrs. Ezry took a picture of the bus.

  “Let’s sing,” Jenny yelled from the back.

  “Let’s not,” Rolf called from the front.

  Mr. Star and Miss Ivanovitch started talking. Jack and Svetlana. “Molly’s jealous,” Aretha said from the seat across from us.

  “I am not,” Molly leaned forward, whispering. “I just happen to think she is totally wrong for him. They’d never ever be happy.”

  Miss I. and Mr. S. broke into this huge hysterical guffaw like one of them had told the all-time funny joke. Then Miss I. opened her flowery purse and offered him a mint, and he took it.

  Molly sank down in her seat. Nick and I laughed out loud.

  “You’re absolutely right, Molly,” Lisa said, looking straight over at me. “They’d probably fight and end up getting divorced. It happens all the time. Michelle’s parents are divorced. So are Rolf’s. Mine are even thinking about it. It happens all the time.” And it seemed like she was talking to me. I wondered what she knew.

  The bus was rolling past my house. Was she talking about my folks? I stood up and wondered what I could do so they’d let me off.

  “Down in front,” Michelle said, and I sat.

  It could be that those ladies at the fair knew something I didn’t. They smiled like they felt really sorry for me. I felt sorry for me too.

  In the back of the bus they were singing,

  There was an old man named Michael Finnegan.

  He had whiskers on his chinnegan.

  Along came the wind and blew them in again.

  Poor old Michael Finnegan. Begin again.

  And they began again. And again.

  I began to wonder if I’d left my bike outside. I might have. If I did and my folks were getting a divorce, they wouldn’t see it out there turning to rust. There were clouds and it looked like rain.

  I was half listening as Nick and R.X. and Marshall started to sing,

  Ninety-nine bottles of beer on the wall,

  Ninety-nine bottles of beer—

  Miss Ivanovitch jumped up and rushed over. “Oh, my dears, don’t,” she said. “I can’t travel all the way to Wisconsin in a busful of broken beer bottles. How about ninety-nine cans of pop?”

  “It won’t sell,” R.X. said. “Bottles of gin?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Cartons of milk, maybe?”

  “Pitchers of spit?” Nick suggested.

  “Oh, good grief,” she laughed, turning back to Mr. Star. “I give up.”

  If one of those pitchers should happen to fall Ninety-five pitchers …

  When I sang with them my flip-flopping woollyworms dozed, and I decided this was going to be fun after all.

  Rolf read signs out loud: “‘WOW Exotic Dancers,’ ‘FM 100, a Beautiful Place To Be,’ ‘Great America Theme Park, Second Right,’ ‘Filling Station Restaurant, Fabulous Food,’ ‘You are leaving Illinois, Land of Lincoln.’”

  But we were still less than an hour away from school when Eugene hurried up from the back of the bus, tugged on Miss Ivanovitch’s shirt, and said, “When are we going to be there?”

  “Oh, ages,” she told him. “We’re not even halfway. We’ll be there in about ninety minutes.”

  “I don’t feel so good,” he whispered, and she got up and followed him to the back of the bus.

  As soon as she left, Molly moved over to Miss Ivanovitch’s seat.

  “How about a page or two of Mad Libs, Mr. Star?” she asked.

  “I’m game,” he told her. “Shoot.”

  Molly smiled over at us. “Adjective?”

  “Peaceful,” he said with a sigh.

  After we’d stopped at the side of the road for Eugene to get sick in the bushes, we started passing more plain hills than billboard ones. There was a huge blackbird sitting in the top of a tree with no leaves, a pick-your-own-strawberries farm that was closed because it wasn’t strawberry season yet, great green lakes around almost every curve, and lots of black-and-white cows that Michelle said were cueshee and Aretha said were Holsteins.

  “What are we going to do up there?” Marshall came over and asked Nick. “I mean do. Last year’s fourth grade got famous for Outdoor Ed. You want to plan ahead or shall we just make it up as we go along?”

  Nick reached into the small paper bag he’d brought on the bus and opened it up a crack so Marshall and I could look inside. A hairy, warty, gangrene-gray rubber hand lay limp in the bottom of the sack, ready to pick up and wave at night through somebody’s open window. I felt like it was already dark, and I wished I was home with my blue striped sheets pulled over my head. And my mom and dad listening to the Late Evening News. And then I remembered that my dad hadn’t said goodbye and that the cat was lost and my bike dead or stolen. My hands began to sweat.

  Beep-beep-beep-beep-beep—beep-beep! The bus driver honked to announce we had arrived at Camp Trotter. The sun was shining now, and the cap I’d forgotten I was wearing was much too hot.

  “I’m starving,” R.X. called as the bus ground to a stop. “It’s eleven thirty-seven—when do they feed us?”

  We climbed out and gathered around while the driver opened the back door of the bus and handed out bags. Tracey, the littlest kid in our class, had a suitcase with wheels on it. She tried to pull it along the gravel by its strap, but it fell over on its side like a stubborn dog. My things were in a little red suitcase of my mother’s. You could tell those kids who’d been to camp before. They had scruffy duffles that looked like they’d been stored in caves.

  I followed Mr. Star up the steps to the long stone building we’d be staying in. He was carrying two suitcases—his and hers. At the landing he picked some guy’s underwear off the tip of the Camp Trotter sign, dropped it in the trash barrel, and barked, straight at me, “Don’t get any ideas, my friend.”

  “Where are we going now?” Eugene asked, lookin
g pale still.

  “I don’t know,” Marshall said, resting his long khaki duffle on the lodge’s porch railing. “But I gotta get there fast. It feels like I’ve got two dogs and a cat in here.”

  Even though they’d shown us a map and told us ahead of time who we were rooming with and where, it was a madhouse inside. Miss Ivanovitch had rushed ahead of the mob and was stationed in the front hall, handing everybody who came in two white sheets, a pillowcase, and a towel. “I want to see snappy hospital corners on your beds,” she told us all. Mr. Plate, next to her, shouted out room numbers to people who’d forgotten. I went searching for room nine.

  “Hey, you guys,” Rolf yelled, tromping down the steps. “Room nine is next to the girls’ shower. A room with a view. Can you believe it?”

  “Don’t believe it,” Miss Ivanovitch called. “Upstairs is the girls’ floor. Boys are downstairs.”

  As we headed into the real room nine, Rolf and I bumped into Nick rushing out. “I’m not going to sleep in that smelly place,” he said, brushing past us. “I’m going to complain.” When we walked in and looked around, I thought it smelled good, damp and musty, like our basement after a good rain.

  The room was small, with two dressers and two double-decker beds, a blanket folded on each. Nick’s stuff was piled on one of the top bunks. I threw my red bag on the top of the other. Rolf sat down on the bed under Nick’s and sank about eight inches.

  “What’s a hospital corner?” he asked.

  I climbed on my top bunk and tried to fold the neat, sharp corners like my dad had made in the Army and taught me how. Except I wonder how people make top bunks. With my suitcase and my feet at one end, I spread out the sheet and tucked in the corners, crawled to the other end, pushed the suitcase behind me and tried to pull the sheet straight. But I was on top of it and it wouldn’t pull. When I tried jumping in the air and yanking at the same time, all I did was bang my head on the ceiling. My bed looked like a plate of spaghetti.

  “Doesn’t look so great from underneath,” Rolf said. “Look, don’t tell anybody, but I never made a bed before.”