Ten Good and Bad Things About My Life (So Far) Read online

  By the time the bus reached Fourteenth Street, I was mad and had drawn a comic strip about JBIII getting into a fistfight with a baby and losing. The last panel showed JBIII lying on the sidewalk on Twelfth Street with the baby standing on his chest and Mrs. Mott cheering for the baby.

  I shoved my drawing pad into my backpack and followed Lexie off the bus. JBIII walked far in front of us all the way home. He didn’t turn around once, but something about the way he was holding his head made me think he might be crying just a little.

  Well, too bad.

  * * *

  That was Tuesday. On Wednesday, JBIII and I continued to ignore each other. We ignored each other on Thursday, too.

  Friday was the Camp Merrimac trip to the Garlic Festival. Everyone in the whole camp was going: every camper in every age group, plus all the counselors and some parents. None of us had ever been to a garlic festival before, and to be honest, considering that I don’t like garlic, the trip didn’t sound like a whole lot of fun, even though Lisa had assured the Starlettes that despite the garlic theme, the festival was more like a county fair. I had a feeling it wasn’t going to compare favorably to WaterWorks, but at least there would be some rides and arcade games.

  By Friday, JBIII and I were not talking to each other just as much as we hadn’t been talking to each other on Tuesday. I didn’t feel hurt or mad anymore. What I felt was stubborn. And I wanted an apology from JBIII for making the leash/dog comment in public. I wouldn’t have done that to him.

  At 10:30 a.m. when Camp Merrimac descended on the Garlic Festival, I stepped off the bus with Justine.

  “Let’s be in the same group,” I said to her.

  “Really?” replied Justine, her eyes wide.

  “Sure.”

  Justine and I joined a straggling bunch of kids who I think might have been eight- to nine-year-old Bumblebees, plus one six-year-old Apatosaurus. Whoever they were, JBIII wasn’t among them, and neither was Jill or Cooper or Austin, and that was fine with me. I could have plenty of fun without any of them.

  “Look!” cried Justine, pointing, as we walked through the entrance to the festival. “A giant—” She paused. “What is that? A giant egg?”

  “I think it’s a giant bulb of garlic.”

  “What is garlic anyway?”

  “I’m not sure, but you wouldn’t like it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I bit into some garlic once by accident. It made my eyes water just like the smell of our toilet cleaner does.”

  “Ew. Why would there even be a garlic festival?” asked Justine.

  “I don’t know. Adults must like garlic. But look—there’s a Ferris wheel. That doesn’t have anything to do with garlic.”

  “Oh! And baby animals! I see a barn full of baby animals.”

  The Garlic Festival wasn’t so bad after all. It really was like a county fair, if you could ignore all the garlic. And since a ticket to the festival didn’t cost nearly as much as a ticket to WaterWorks, Mom had given me more spending $$ than she had on Monday. I walked around with Justine and the Bumblebees and the Apatosaurus and we got our faces painted and rode the Ferris wheel and the bumper cars and finally a little train, which was slightly embarrassing because it was clearly for babies and was decorated with kittens playing with alphabet blocks, but whatever. Then we toured the animal barn, and since looking at the animals was free, Justine and I stayed in the barn for a long, long time.

  “Do you think Mom and Dad would let me have a baby goat?” asked Justine. “Since I can’t get my dog until I’m ten?”

  I patted her on the arm and said probably not, and hoped she would forget about the goat by the end of the day.

  Our group ate corndogs for lunch and I tried a drink called Ooh-la-la Orange, which turned out to be orange soda poured over a mound of ice chips. I was wiping an orange ring from around my mouth when I caught sight of JBIII and a bunch of Dudes sitting at a picnic table eating hamburgers and French fries. JBIII saw me, too, but then he just put another French fry in his mouth and turned to Cooper and was like, “Awesome bumper cars.”

  An hour or so later Justine and I had run out of $$, and the only thing left for us to do was look at stuff and try not to inhale the smell of garlic. Suddenly Justine grabbed my hand and said, “Hey! Clowns!”

  Sure enough, two clowns were standing in front of a tent. One was selling helium balloons, and they were both posing for pictures. Little kids kept running to them and hugging them around their waists.

  “You know what I’ve always wondered?” asked Justine. The rest of the kids in our group were riding the Tilt-A-Whirl, and we were sitting on a bench waiting for them. “I’ve always wondered about clown underwear. What do you think it looks like? Is it made especially for clowns? You know, like with ruffles and big polka dots? Or is it just regular underwear?”

  I had never given any thought to clown underwear. “I don’t know,” I said.

  “Let’s go sneak in that tent. Maybe there are other clowns inside and we could see them changing into their costumes.”

  “No!” I cried. “I don’t want to see naked clowns!”

  “Well, maybe there’s a rack of clown costumes we could look through. Come on, Pearl. Aren’t you a little bit curious?”

  I actually was. “Okay. But we’ll just peek through that tent flap,” I said, pointing, “and if anyone is naked in there, we’ll turn around and run. Promise me, okay?”

  “Pinkie swear,” said Justine, extending her hand, so I knew she was serious.

  We tiptoed around to the side of the tent, out of sight of the clowns posing for pictures. I looked over my shoulder to make sure no one was watching us, and then I snaked my hand through the tent flap.

  “Close your eyes!” I whispered to Justine.

  We squeezed our eyes shut, and I pulled the flap aside.

  “Okay, now open them.”

  We blinked our eyes back open and squinted into the dim light. I could see a man sitting on a metal folding chair, reading a newspaper. He was wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt. There were some other things in the tent—a table and some packing cartons, several tanks of helium for blowing up the balloons—but no naked clowns, no clothed clowns, and no clown costumes.

  “Rip-off,” muttered Justine in disgust. She stepped backward, and I let the flap fall closed.

  “Oh, well,” I said.

  I turned to look at the Tilt-A-Whirl. A new group of people were clambering onto the ride.

  “Where are the Bumblebees?” asked Justine.

  I glanced at the bench where we had been sitting. It was empty. I looked at the Tilt-A-Whirl exit. No Bumblebees. No Apatosaurus. I looked at a hot-dog stand and the animal barn and the entrance to the midway. I didn’t see a single familiar person.

  “Um, I don’t exactly see them,” I said.

  “You mean we’re lost?!” cried Justine.

  Technically, we weren’t lost, since I knew we were at the Garlic Festival.

  “Now, don’t panic,” I said, remembering last Halloween when Justine and I had accidentally gotten locked in the basement of our apartment building and Justine had screamed and cried and shrieked before she got distracted by her bucket of candy long enough for me to save us.

  “But where is everyone?” Justine wailed.

  “I don’t know.” I had to admit that it was a little scary to look around and around and not see one face I recognized and also not be able to call for help on a cell phone, which, by the way, I had seen two kids younger than me at the Garlic Festival talking away on what were clearly their own personal cell phones.

  I was tempted to panic, too, but luckily I remembered the incident at the Museum of Natural History and caught myself before I yelled, “Help! Police!”

  I drew in a long, deep breath and let it out again. “Okay, here’s—”

  “HEEEEELP!” yelled Justine.

  I clapped my hand over her mouth and left it there while I scanned the crowd for a police officer.
I didn’t see one, but I did see a tent with a red cross and the words FIRST AID and LOST AND FOUND by the entrance.

  “Justine,” I said, my hand still over her mouth, “see that tent? That’s where we go to get help.”

  I led Justine to the tent and found an official-looking woman sitting at a small table. She glanced up at us and smiled. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes,” I replied in my most pleasant, calm voice. “I found this little girl here and I think she’s lost.”

  This was not hard to believe, since Justine was sniffling, and tears were running down her dusty cheeks, leaving grimy trails that made her look like a movie orphan.

  “All righty,” said the woman. She turned to Justine. “And what is your name?”

  “Justine Lebarro.”

  The woman turned back to me. “Where did you find her?”

  I pointed to the clown tent. “Right over there.”

  “We were spying on the clowns and we lost the Bumblebees,” said Justine.

  The woman looked puzzled. At last she said, “Are you together? Are you both lost?”

  Justine nodded and two more tears escaped from her eyeballs. “Yes. We are both lost. I am Justine Lebarro and she is Pearl Littlefield and we have to find our counselors from Camp Merrimac.”

  “All righty,” the woman said again. She reached for a microphone, and my heart began to pound.

  “Wait!” I cried.

  But it was too late. “Attention! Attention!” said the woman. “I have two lost little girls here at the Information Tent. Their names are Justine Lebarro and Pearl Littlefield. They’re looking for their camp counselors. Please come to the Information Tent. Repeat I have two lost little girls—Justine Lebarro and Pearl Littlefield.” Her voice blared across the grounds of the Garlic Festival.

  The good thing was that in less than five minutes Lisa and Lexie came running into the tent. The bad thing took place approx. twenty minutes later when we had boarded the buses and were on our way back to camp.

  I took a seat by the window next to Eliza, the crying Starlette, and many rows away from Justine. I hoped no one would notice me. But the bus hadn’t even left the parking lot when I heard a familiar voice call, “Help! Police!”

  In front of me I saw the Bra Girls start to laugh.

  Jill called out, “Help! Police!” again more loudly and added, “I’m a lost little girl.”

  Juwanna, Mary Grace, Misty, Austin, and Cooper started to laugh, too.

  I craned my neck around in search of JBIII and spotted him in the back of the bus. He wasn’t laughing. But he wasn’t exactly not laughing, either, if you must know.

  I swiveled around and stared out the window.

  13

  V. JBIII and I had a fight.

  A. It started at WaterWorks.

  B. It continued at the Garlic Festival.

  C. I almost made up with JBIII, but then I didn’t.

  On Monday morning I stood in our front hall and looked at the mound of stuff piled there: two sleeping bags, two jam-packed duffel bags, two backpacks, and a shopping bag full of things I hoped to be able to bring with me to Camp Merrimac, but was pretty sure my parents would ask me to leave at home. Really, though, how was I supposed to spend five days and four nights at overnight camp without my postcard collection, my first-prize ribbon from the art show, my miniature Statue of Liberty, my calendar for crossing off the days, my scrapbook, my stuffed dolphin, and the pillow that Lexie had made for me when she learned how to sew?

  “What’s all this?” asked Dad when he saw the bag.

  I stepped in front of it. “Nothing.”

  Dad leaned over my shoulder and peered down into the bag. “Everyone is allowed one duffel bag and one backpack,” he said. “That’s it. No extras. There isn’t much room in the cabins. Besides, your things will be safer if you leave them here. What if they get lost at camp?”

  I squirmed. I’d never been away from home before, not without at least one member of my family along with me. Well, I had been to sleepovers at Justine’s, but that was when Justine lived down the hall from us and I could run back to our apartment, if necessary.

  Mom came into the hall then with a list in her hand. It was a list of all the things each overnight camper was supposed to pack for a week of sleepaway camp, and it was very specific, like: 5 prs. socks, 5 prs. underwear, 3 prs. jeans, 3 prs. shorts, 5 shirts, 1 pr. pajamas, one towel, one washcloth, bathing suits, cap with brim, sunblock, etc., etc., etc.

  Lexie had insisted on doing her own packing, and Mom had insisted on packing for me, and each of them had followed the list so carefully you would have thought it was actually a list of instructions for how to never get burned up in a fire. I had spied on Lexie through her partially open door while she was following the list and had heard her counting clothing as she pulled things from her drawers: “Socks, one, two, three, four, five. Underwear, one, two, three, four, five. Jeans, one, two, three.” Mom had done the same thing when she was packing for me. Each of them had just barely managed to get everything crammed into one duffel bag and one backpack. That was why I had to pack my extra shopping bag.

  Now I looked at Mom holding the list in our hallway. “You aren’t going to re-check that, are you?” I asked. She had already re-checked the list once, the night before, ticking off the items in my duffel bag and backpack.

  “No, I suppose not,” she said uncertainly.

  My father looked meaningfully at the shopping bag. “Pearl?” he said.

  I carried it back to my room and left it sitting in the middle of the floor where Mom and Dad would see it while I was gone and realize how sad it must have made me to be separated from my favorite possessions the first time I was away from home by myself.

  “All right!” called Dad. “Time to get a move on!”

  Lexie and I had so much gear to lug to camp that both Mom and Dad walked with us to Fourteenth Street. When the bus arrived the driver helped us stow our things and then Mom and Dad hugged Lexie and me forever and Mom was all, “Remember to put your sunblock on every morning. And eat a good big breakfast. And don’t stay up late. And remember to brush your teeth. And listen to your counselors. And try to set aside a little time for reading. And Pearl, please change your underwear every single day.” And Dad was just like, “Have fun!” and then he gave us the sad smile I’d been seeing ever since he became a fired person.

  All of this was only a little embarrassing, because Jill’s parents and JBIII’s parents and Austin’s parents were doing the same things, except not smiling sadly, since none of them had been fired.

  I sat by myself on the way uptown and ignored the occasional calls of “Help! Police!” After the 79th Street stop I sat with Justine. She looked alarmed by the mound of duffel bags and sleeping bags in the back of the bus and said she was never, ever going to sleep away from her parents, even when she was a grown-up.

  I began to feel a little nervous about overnight camp. What if I got a stomachache in the middle of the night? What if I didn’t like the camp food? After all, I didn’t like the birdseed snacks. What if I couldn’t fall asleep in the cabin? What if I had to share a cabin with Jill?

  I felt a little better after we arrived at Camp Merrimac, though. Lisa told us there were two cabins for the Starlettes, and then she read off who would be where, etc., etc., etc., and I was in Sunrise Cabin and Jill was in Blue Jay Cabin, so that was one worry out of my mind. (FYI, the other girls in my cabin were Juwanna, Misty, Deanna, Mary Grace, and Denise.)

  All the kids in the ten- to eleven-year-old groups and the twelve- to fourteen-year-old groups spent the morning getting settled in their cabins and then going to a meeting about what it means to be a Merrimac overnight camper. (In case you’re wondering, a Merrimac overnight camper is polite, responsible, respectful, and follows the rules. I have to admit that that didn’t quite sound like me, but whatever.) We also found out that we would get to have some cookouts and campfires and go to a movie in the recreation hall. The especia
lly good thing about these activities was that they were free.

  During the meeting I looked at Lexie, who was taking notes, since she would be the Starlettes’ CIT on Tuesday and Thursday evenings in addition to the afternoons, and she didn’t want to make any mistakes. Then I looked at JBIII, who was sitting with the Dudes and punching Austin on the arm, and I thought how much more fun the week would be if my best friend and I were speaking to each other.

  But we were not.

  By 5:00 in the afternoon all the younger campers had gotten on their buses and gone home. The rest of us had free time until our first Camp Merrimac supper. Lexie was busy with her friends far away in Juniper Cabin, and the Starlettes were sitting outside talking in whispers, but not about me. I was sitting on my bunk in Sunrise Cabin, looking around. This is what is in a Camp Merrimac cabin: three wooden bunk beds built into the wooden walls; a single wooden bed for our cabin counselor, who was Janie; one wooden shelf over each wooden bed. That’s it. No chairs, no tables, and did you notice that I didn’t mention lamps? That’s because there’s no electricity in the cabins. Now I understood why “flashlight” had been included on the packing list.

  Did you also notice that I didn’t mention anything about bathrooms? That is correct. There are no bathrooms in the Camp Merrimac cabins. The only bathrooms at camp are the ones next to the director’s office, the two (wooden) buildings named Goose Lodge and Gander Lodge (which I had to explain those names to Justine the first time she went to Camp Merrimac). Goose Lodge and Gander Lodge are fine during the day when we can run to them at any moment and see where we’re going in the bright sunlight. But as I sat on my bunk on Monday afternoon I wondered what would happen if I had to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night. I tried to imagine climbing down off of the top bunk without waking anyone up, turning on my flashlight, and then walking through the woods in the pitch-dark wearing only my pajamas. I had no idea what kinds of animals are in the woods in New Jersey after dark, but I imagined that a lone girl in her nightie might be a target for them, whatever they were.