by Judy Blume
“Tell the little computer to keep his facts to himself today … please, Mom.”
“Kenny’s facts are very interesting,” Mom said.
“Yeah …”
“Not to me,” I told him.
“Stop arguing … we’ve got to find the sanctuary,” Mom said. “We’re late enough now.”
We walked all around before we came to a man standing in a doorway. He had rosy cheeks and a flower in his buttonhole. He smiled at Mom and handed her a prayerbook. Then he put his finger to his lips as if me and Kenny didn’t know enough to be quiet. We followed Mom into the sanctuary.
Warren was on the stage. He looked as creepy as ever, except for his hair. That looked worse. Usually it hangs into his eyes but today it was parted and looked like it had been sprayed.
As soon as he noticed us tiptoeing into the sanctuary he stopped reciting, right in the middle of a prayer. Everyone turned around to see who Warren was watching. My mother tried to smile but as she took a seat in the last row she dropped her pocketbook. It has a chain handle so when it hit the floor it made a clinking noise. Mom bent down and picked it up. She had this funny look on her face. I recognized it right away. It meant I don’t think I can live through this without a cigarette. I’m very good at knowing what my mother is thinking.
Warren went back to his prayer but he must have lost his place because he stumbled along until the Rabbi pointed and said a few words. I was really surprised that Warren could read Hebrew at all. The last time he was over I showed him my book, Poems for the John and he had trouble with every word over two syllables, and that was in English!
When my father walked into the sanctuary a few minutes later, Warren stopped again. This time when everyone turned around there was a lot of whispering. Dad sat down next to me and I could tell he was embarrassed because the back of his neck turned red. That’s when Kenny started to sneeze. He never sneezes once like a normal person—it’s always twenty or thirty times in a row.
I knew that I shouldn’t laugh. I also knew that if I looked at Kenny I would. So I stared straight ahead, right at the back of some girl’s head. It reminded me of Linda Fischer’s. It was the same potato shape and the hair was the same too—reddish-brown and curled up at the edges.
At least that gave me something to think about so I didn’t have to listen to Warren’s stupid speech which was something about being grateful to everyone he knew.
After the service we went to a party at Mr. Winkler’s country club. As soon as we walked into the lobby this woman asked us our names.
“Brenner,” Dad told her.
“Oh yes,” she said, fishing some little white cards out of a pile. She handed them to my father. He passed one to me and one to Kenny.
“What’s this?” Kenny asked.
“It tells you what table to sit at for lunch,” Mom said.
“You mean me and Kenny can’t sit with you?” I asked.
“We’re at Table Nineteen,” Dad told me.
“I’m at Table One,” Kenny said.
I looked at my card. “I’m at Table One, too.”
“All the young people are probably sitting together,” Mom said.
“But I’d rather sit with you,” I said. “Suppose I don’t like what they have to eat?”
“Just say no, thank you,” Dad told me. “Nobody’s going to force you to eat anything.”
“You should have brought your peanut butter!” Kenny laughed. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry.”
“Shut up, you little brat!”
“It won’t hurt you to try something new,” my father said.
“Look, Jill …” Mom told me, “you don’t have to eat a thing. If you’re hungry, that’s your problem. Now, I’m going to the Ladies’ Room … do you want to come?”
“All right.” I didn’t want to stand around talking about food anymore. I was glad I’d brought a secret sandwich with me.
On the way to the Ladies’ Room we passed a big room filled with round tables. In the center of each one was a bunch of blue and white flowers.
“Look at that!” I said. “Blue daisies … I didn’t know there was such a thing.”
“They’re dyed,” Mom said.
“They are?”
“To match the tablecloths.”
“This is some party,” I said. “I’ll bet Warren will get a ton of presents.”
“I suppose so …”
“Hundreds, I’ll bet.”
“Probably.”
“He’s lucky. I wish I could get bar mitzvahed.”
“That doesn’t necessarily mean big parties and lots of presents, Jill.”
“It doesn’t?”
“No … it’s the ceremony that counts, the tradition of reading from the Torah.”
“Oh.”
We went into the Ladies’ Room and took booths next to each other. I watched my mother’s feet. It looked like she was dancing.
When we came out there was a woman standing in front of the mirror, putting on lipstick. And next to her was the girl with the potato-shaped head. Only this time I didn’t see just the back of her head—I saw her whole face in the mirror, including her gray tooth, which is why I suddenly sucked in my breath.
“What’s the matter?” Mom asked.
I shook my head a little and whispered, “Nothing.” I should have known there couldn’t be two heads exactly alike. I should have known it was Blubber.
“I have to fix my hair,” Mom said. She stood next to the other woman, who must have been Mrs. Fischer.
Linda turned around and faced me then. We stared at each other. I could tell that she was just as surprised to see me as I was to see her. Neither one of us spoke.
Mrs. Fischer finished with her lips and started in on her eyes. Mom isn’t fussy about anything but her hair. She held a pocket mirror up so she could see the back of it. When she was satisfied she put her comb away and took out a little jar of lip gloss. She rubbed some into her lips. It made them shine. Then she turned to Mrs. Fischer and said, “You look so familiar … have we met?”
I wanted to grab my mother’s hand and pull her out of the Ladies’ Room before it was too late. Of all people, why did she have to start up with Mrs. Fischer?
“I was just thinking the same thing,” Mrs. Fischer said.
“Where are you from?” Mom asked.
“We live outside of Philadelphia.”
“So do we!” Mom said. “In Radnor.”
“Well … that’s how we must know each other. I live there too … in Hidden Valley.”
“This is a coincidence!” Mom said. “We live right near there … off Crestview Drive.”
“Isn’t this something?” Mrs. Fischer said, “to meet here … of all places.”
“Are you related to the Winklers?” Mom asked Mrs. Fischer.
“No, Peg was my college roommate.”
“And my husband grew up with Harold.”
“This is just so funny!”
I didn’t think it was funny at all.
“I’m Ann Brenner,” Mom said, offering her hand to Mrs. Fischer. “And this is my daughter, Jill.”
Mrs. Fischer shook Mom’s hand and smiled at me. Any second now they’re going to introduce me to Blubber, I thought.
“I’m Janice Fischer and this is my daughter, Linda.”
Here it comes!
“You two must know each other,” Mom said.
“We do,” I mumbled.
“Oh … are you the Jill Brenner in Linda’s class?” Mrs. Fischer asked.
That did it! “Yes,” I said, “but …”
“Mom!” Linda tugged at her mother’s arm. “Come on …”
When they were gone my mother asked, “What was that all about?”
And I told her, “We’re not exactly friends.”
14
“I’d rather be a skeleton
than a whale.”
We wound up at Table One, sitting next to each other, of course, and right across the t
able from Kenny. Everyone else sitting there looked about thirteen. They were all friends of Warren’s. None of them spoke to us.
I told Linda, “Just because I’m sitting next to you doesn’t mean anything is different. I know what you did.” I wanted to let her know I’d figured out she was the one who told Mr. Machinist on me and Tracy. “And just wait till Wendy finds out!”
“Finds out what?”
“You know.”
“No, I don’t!”
“You’re not even a good liar!” I told her.
“Neither are you.”
“I’m not lying!”
“Well, neither am I.”
The waitress served our first course then. It was chunks of fruit in a pineapple boat. It looked pretty but I don’t eat stuff like pineapple in public because the threads get caught in my teeth and make me very uncomfortable. It’s the same with celery. I did find two pieces of melon though, before I passed the rest to Kenny.
Next came the soup, which would have been all right except for the vegetables. I don’t like vegetables. When Mrs. Sandmeier makes us soup she strains mine so I won’t know what I’m eating. Kenny finished my soup too.
While we were waiting for our main course Kenny asked Linda if she believes in ESP. She told him, “Yes … and reincarnation too.”
“So do I,” Kenny said.
Then they had this long conversation about what they were in their other lives and I muttered, A smelly whale and Linda said, “If you call me that today I’ll tell on you. I really will.”
I felt like asking her if Mr. Machinist found out about me and Tracy by ESP or did she meet him face to face and identify us that way?
But Kenny was reciting one of his dumb jokes and right in the middle Linda laughed! I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t know she knew how.
Our main course was rare roast beef, a tomato stuffed with green peas and funny potatoes in some kind of milky sauce. I hate tomatoes, peas make me choke, and I can’t even look at meat with blood dripping out of it. Potatoes in sauce are out of the question. I thought about my peanut butter sandwich and how I might be able to eat it without anyone noticing.
“Don’t you eat anything?” Linda asked, after a while.
“Yeah …” Kenny told her. “She eats peanut butter.”
“Butt out!” I said.
“No wonder you look like a skeleton,” Linda said.
“I wouldn’t talk if I were you … I’d rather be a skeleton than a whale.”
“Not me,” Kenny said. “Whales are loveable animals … skeletons are just dead, bony things.”
“Who asked you!”
“You want to share her dinner?” Kenny said to Linda, like I wasn’t even there. That fink!
“No, thank you,” Linda said. “I’ve got enough.”
“Just a minute,” I said. “Who told you I was giving you my dinner?”
“Well, it’s just sitting there getting cold,” Linda said.
“Yeah, Jill …” Kenny told me. “Pass your plate.”
“You shouldn’t waste good food,” Linda said. “Don’t you know there are people starving to death in this world?”
“But you’re not one of them and neither is my pig of a brother!”
They looked at each other, then at me. “Oh, here …” I said, shoving my plate at Kenny. “What do I care if you wind up with a belly ache.” I stood up and went to the Ladies’ Room. I was the only one in there besides the attendant. I locked myself into a booth, sat down on the toilet, unwrapped my peanut butter sandwich, and ate it. It made me very thirsty but there was no way I could ask for a cold glass of milk.
Just as I got back to my seat at the table, Kenny yelled, “Hey Warren … this is a great party.”
One of Warren’s friends looked over at Kenny and said, “You’re right, kid … I’ll bet it’s the biggest and best party you’ve ever been to … right?”
“Well,” Kenny said, “it’s big, but it’s not the biggest party there ever was.”
“I say it is!”
“You’re wrong … I know all about the biggest party,” Kenny said.
Everyone stopped talking and looked over at Kenny.
“Yeah?” Warren’s friend said.
“Yeah,” Kenny told him.
“I suppose it was at your house.” Everybody laughed when Warren’s friend said that.
“No,” Kenny told them. “It was given by Mr. and Mrs. Bradley Martin of Troy, New York, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City.”
“And I suppose you were there … right?”
“Hardly,” Kenny said. “It was in 1897.”
Now everybody laughed at Warren’s friend.
After all the tables had been cleared the lights dimmed and two men rolled in the biggest birthday cake I’d ever seen. It was shaped like a book. The icing was blue and white. I hoped the inside was chocolate.
“Wow,” Kenny said, “that looks delicious.”
“Mmmm …” Linda licked her lips.
“What about your diet?” I asked. “No sweets … remember?”
“My mother said I should eat everything today. It’s a special occasion.”
“I’ll bet that’s why your front tooth is gray and rotten,” I said, “… because you eat too much junk.”
“That is not why!”
“Then why is it?”
“Because I ran into a tree and hurt it … it’s dead.”
“The tree?”
“No, my tooth!”
I started to laugh. “Whoever heard of a dead tooth?”
“I did,” Kenny said. “But don’t worry,” he told Linda, “you might grow a whole other set of teeth when you get old. Some people really do.”
“They do?” Linda asked.
“Yeah … and did you know some babies are born with teeth?”
“They are?” Linda said.
“Kenny!” I gave him a warning look.
He ignored me. “For instance, Louis XIV of France was born with two teeth.”
“Nobody’s interested, Kenny!” I said.
“I am,” Linda told us.
Kenny didn’t have time to say anything else because one of the men who had rolled in the cake started blowing into a microphone. I thought maybe he was getting ready to sing “The Star Spangled Banner,” like at a ball game, and I wondered if I should stand up. But he didn’t sing anything, not even “Happy Birthday.” What he did was call up lots of people to light candles on Warren’s cake. First Warren’s mother and father, then his grandparents, then his aunts and uncles and cousins. The other man had a camera and every time someone lit a candle he snapped a picture.
Then the man with the microphone looked in my direction and said, “Representing the friendship of two old family friends, the Brenners and the Fischers … two young ladies will light the thirteenth candle on Warren’s cake … Jill and Linda.”
Both of us were surprised and for a second we didn’t move. Finally I pushed my chair back and stood up. Linda followed me. When the man with the microphone held out a lighted candle I took it.
Just as I was about to light the candle on Warren’s cake the photographer called, “Hold it … let the other girl put her hand on the candle too.”
The candle really wasn’t big enough for both of us to hold but Linda wrapped her hand around it anyway, forcing my fingers closer to the flame. I was sure I’d wind up getting burned.
“Ready …” the photographer called, “now smile …”
The flashbulb popped and I couldn’t see anything but yellow spots. I let go of the candle to rub my eyes and when I did, Linda lit the one on the cake by herself.
On the way home Kenny announced, “I think Linda Fischer’s great. She’s been reincarnated six times.”
Just to change the subject I told my mother, “I’ve got a rash all over my behind from this dumb, itchy dress!”
15
“Nobody else
had a reason to get us.”
“Guess
who I saw at Warren Winkler’s bar mitzvah?” I asked Tracy the next morning, on our way to Mr. Machinist’s house.
“Who?”
“Blubber!”
“No kidding.”
“And I had to sit next to her all through lunch.”
“Lucky you.”
“I’m sure she’s the one who told on us, even though she denied it.”
“You asked her?”
“Not exactly, but I hinted.”
“I don’t know,” Tracy said. “Plenty of kids in Hidden Valley could have recognized me by my costume.”
“But nobody else had a reason to get us,” I said.
“Yeah … but if it was Blubber how come she didn’t tell on Wendy and Caroline too?”
“They weren’t in the picture.”
“You could be right,” Tracy said.
When we got to Mr. Machinist’s house he was outside, waiting for us. We’d rehearsed exactly what we would say to him. Tracy whispered, “One … two … three …” and then we both said, “It was wrong of us to put eggs in your mailbox … we’re sorry we did it.”
“You’d better be,” Mr. Machinist said. He wasn’t nearly as old as I’d expected. I wondered if he was married or if he lived in that big house all by himself? He showed us the rakes and the bags and then pointed to all the leaves before he went into his house. As if we couldn’t find them ourselves.
When he was gone Tracy said, “I think he wears a wig.”
“How can you tell?”
“Nobody has hair that thick … besides, he didn’t have it on straight.”
“Wouldn’t you love to pull it off?”
“Yes … but I’m not going to.”
“Me neither.”
“He has funny eyes, too.”
“I didn’t notice.”
“Well, I did. They turn down at the corners and they’re mean. You can tell a lot about people by staring into their eyes.”
By noon we’d been working for three hours and we weren’t even halfway through. My mother drove by with lunch for us.
“How are things going?” she asked.
“We’ll never finish!” I told her.
“Just do the best you can,” she said. “But don’t fool around and waste time.”