Altogether, One at a Time Read online

  Grandmother explained about the Leonids.

  The Leonids are trash that falls from the comet called Temple-Tuttle. Comets go around the sun just as the planet Earth does. But not quite just like the planet Earth. Comets don’t make regular circles around the sun. They loop around the sun, and they leak. Loop and leak. Loop and leak. The parts that leak are called the tail. The path that Earth takes around the sun and the path that Temple-Tuttle takes around the sun were about to cross each other. Parts of the tail would get caught in the earth’s atmosphere and light up as they burn up as they fall down. Little bits at a time. A hundred little bits at a time. A thousand little bits at a time. A million bits.

  The parts that burn up look like falling stars. That is why Grandmother and the Commissioner of Parks called it a Shower of Stars. The falling stars from Temple-Tuttle are called the Leonids. Leonids happen only once every thirty-three and one-third years. The whole sky over the city would light up with them. The reason that everyone was invited to the park was so that we city people could see a big piece of sky instead of just a hallway of sky between the buildings.

  It would be an upside-down Grand Canyon of fireworks.

  I decided that we ought to go. Grandmother felt the same way I did. Maybe even more so.

  Right after we decided to go, Grandmother made me go to bed. She said that I should be rested and that she would wake me in plenty of time to get dressed and walk to Central Park. She promised to wake me at eleven o’clock.

  An d I believed her.

  I believed her.

  I really did believe her.

  Grandmother said to me, “Do you think that I want to miss something that happens only three times in one century?”

  “Didn’t you see it last time?” I asked. After all, there was a Shower of Leonids thirty-three and one-third years ago when she was only thirty, and Til bet there was no one making her go to bed.

  “No, I didn’t see it last time,” she said.

  “What was the matter? Didn’t the Commissioner of Parks invite you?”

  “No, that was not the matter.”

  “Why didn’t you see it then?”

  “Because,” she explained.

  “Because you forgot your glasses and you didn’t have Lewis, Lewis to get them for you?”

  “I didn’t even wear glasses when I was thirty.”

  “Then why didn’t you see it?”

  “Because,” she said, “because I didn’t bother to find out about it, and I lost my chance.”

  I said, “Oh.” I went to bed. I knew about lost chances.

  Grandmother woke me. She made me bundle up. She was bundled, too. She looked sixty-three years lumpy. I knew that she wouldn’t like it if I expressed an opinion, so I didn’t. Somehow.

  We left the apartment.

  We found the place in the park. The only part that wasn’t crowded was up. Which was all right because that was where the action would be.

  The shower of stars was to begin in forty-five minutes.

  We waited. And waited.

  And saw

  “What are you crying about?” Grandmother asked. Not kindly.

  “I have to wait thirty-three and one-third years before I can see a big spectacular Shower of Stars.

  I’ll be forty-three before I can ever see a Leonid.”

  “Oh, shut up!” Grandmother said. Not kindly.

  “I’ll be middle-aged.”

  “What was that for?” I asked. “What did I do?” I asked. “What did I do?” I asked again. I had al-ways thought that we got along pretty well, my grandmother and I.

  “You add it up,” Grandmother said. Not kindly.

  So I did. I added it up. Sixty-three and thirty-three don’t add up to another chance.

  I held Grandmother’s hand on the way back to her apartment. She let me even though neither one of us adores handholding. I held the hand that hit me.

  Camp Fat

  illustrated by Gary Parker

  OUR CAMP had an Indian name just like every other camp in the mountains, but we called it Camp Fat. And so did every other camp in the mountains.

  Sarah was going to music camp. Linda to arts and crafts, Gloria was going to science camp and Fay to water sports. When they asked me where I was going, I told them regular camp. Sarah said that she didn’t believe me, and Linda said that she didn’t either because there was no such thing as regular camp. I asked them where they thought regular kids went, and they said that regular kids didn’t ever go to camp.

  The day I left, my mother said, “Clara, inside every fat little girl, there is a skinny little girl screaming to get out.”

  And I said, “Inside this fat little girl, there is a skinny little girl screaming, T m hungry!’ “

  They sent me anyway. Camp To Ke Ro No. Camp Fat.

  The first thing they tell you after they take away all your money so that you can’t buy snacks even if they had a snack bar, the first thing they tell you is that being fat isn’t healthy. Miss Coolidge, who is in charge of Camp Fat, also tells you that you’ll like yourself much better if you’re thin. I liked myself enough already. My trouble was that I especially liked myself well-fed.

  They had an assembly for the parents, too. Here Miss Coolidge told them how Camp Fat was going to make us lovely and healthy. They added the lovely for the parents. They showed slides of kids before and after camp. The whole program was like a long commercial for Diet Pepsi, so I watched the audience; it was easy to see where a lot of baby fat comes from.

  At the first weigh-in all you’re allowed to wear is a towel. I took a very small one. It is more embarrassing, but it weighs less. If you’ve been fat as long as I have, you’ve learned a thing or two. Some kids who had been to Camp Fat for three years in a row didn’t know that. My goal was to lose fifteen pounds in six weeks. That’s a lot for a kid.

  All of our counsellors were middle-aged and muscular except Miss Natasha. Miss Natasha came only at night; she came to our cabin only on Friday night. That first Friday, I had been lying in bed thinking that if they didn’t put something chocolate on the menu soon, I was going to either foam at the mouth or kick the cook some place indecent, when this pin-point of light came waving through the darkness. It stopped at Christy Long’s bed. Christy had been crying again. An d don’t think that listening to her helped anything. Of course, Christy had two reasons to cry; she was supposed to stop sucking her thumb besides stop eating. Miss Coolidge had promised to work on the crying the next year.

  Miss Natasha’s light didn’t stop at every bed. She came to mine right after Christy’s. She introduced herself.

  “That’s a weird name,” I said. “Really weird.” “It’s Russian,” she answered.

  “Well, you guys sure didn’t make it to the moon first,” I said.

  “You mean the moon moon?” she asked.

  “Yeah, like up-in-the-sky moon. Ho w come you don’t know?”

  “Oh,” she said, “I don’t think about things like that very much. I hardly think big at all. I think little.”

  “I thought that Miss Coolidge would want you to think thin.”

  “Oh, yes, that, too,” she said. “That’s why I’m here. To help you to think thin. Do you wish to have dialogue?”

  “If it’s chocolate covered and has three scoops of whipped cream,” I answered.

  “When I ask you if you wish to have dialogue, it means, do you wish to talk, back and forth, with me?”

  “You want me to talk?”

  “Yes. Tell me what you’re thinking, and then I can tell you what I think of what you’re thinking, and so on.”

  “First of all, I’m thinking that I would like to run a fever, a fever of about one hundred and eighteen degrees. They’d get me out of here pretty fast then.”

  Miss Natasha said, “I really thought that since you were awake, you would want to talk. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have bothered to come tonight.”

  “What kind of dialogue did you have with Christy Long?” I a
sked. I didn’t wait for Miss Natasha to answer because I wanted to tell her something- else that I was thinking: “That Christy is one kid I’m sure going to show to my parents. She makes me look good. She’s not only fat and sucks her thumb but she also cries a whole lot. The next one I’m going to show m y mother is Lind a Stark. She has pimples and picks her nose besides being fat.” Miss Natasha didn’t say anything, so I continued with some of that week’s thinking. “D o you realize that the two Robins i n our cabin weigh more than the three Lindas in Cabin Twelve? Robins! Their mothers should have named them Pelicans or Ostriches. Probably Pelican would be best because neither one of them can run worth a darn. Kim is the worst brat, though. She’s only plump, so she acts like she’s Miss Universe. She says that she has a glandular imbalance. Ha ! “ That was all I said to Miss Natasha. I had run out of dialogue.

  Miss Natasha waited. When I didn’t add any-thing else, she said, “Well , Clara, that’s a start. No t an especially good one, but a start.” An d then she patted the blanket over m y knee. A s she did so, the ring that she wore on the little finger of her left hand, a plain looking gold dome ring, sprang open. I lifted her hand that had the ring, and it was the most beautiful watch I have ever seen.

  Miss Natasha focussed her flashlight on it. The face of the watch was a thin layer of mother-of-pearl, and the numbers that weren’t actual numbers were tiny jewelled flowers. That’s why the lid was domed so that they wouldn’t get mashed. The hands seemed to float to the proper time.

  “Oh,” I said, “I thought that that was just a plain old ring.”

  “Yes,” Miss Natasha said, “It looks plain, but I made it open easily.”

  “You made it?”

  “Yes, I made it. That was my work long ago.”

  “In Russia? I thought that Communists don’t like fancy watches or people to wear them.”

  “When I lived in Russia, there was not only a shop for fancy things like this but also a very fancy king and queen who bought many of them.”

  “What was the matter with this one? Couldn’t you sell it?”

  “I never tried. I couldn’t take the things that I made out of the country when I left. Except one thing. I made this watch in America.”

  “It sure doesn’t look like what it is.”

  “Yes. It looks plain, but, you see, I made it open easily.”

  She was about to close the ring again when I asked her to give me another look. She held her hand close under my face and focused the light on it again. I put my ear to it and heard the faintest whir. A tiny whir. “Is it a Swiss watch movement?” I asked.

  “No, Timex,” she laughed. An d then she closed the top dome over the watch. Miss Natasha checked the other beds quickly but did not stop at any others. She must have gone on to the next cabin. I fell asleep right after she left.

  We had to jog to breakfast every day. It was never anything worth running for. You just had to run— one of the rules. You would think that Camp Fat would be the cheapest camp in the nation. They spent practically nothing on food and absolutely nothing on chocolate.

  We had to write home every Sunday.

  At our first weekly weigh-in I had starved off fourteen pounds, but the scale said two. Liar. Even the kids who had lost more than average didn’t get any reward. Like chocolate.

  Miss Natasha didn’t come again until the next Friday night. I guessed that that was her night for our cabin. I was figuring out how I could manage a convulsion while I was waiting in line at the next weigh-in. I had just decided that I would throw myself on the floor, jerk my arms and legs around and mutter “chocolate, chocolate,” when I saw Miss Natasha’s light. She stopped at Christy’s bed again. Christy had made progress; now she cried silently and only sucked her thumb between meals. Miss Natasha stayed at Christy’s bed a long time. Then she flashed her pinpoint of light on this bed and that on her way to me. Everyone was either asleep or pretending, so mine was the next bed she stopped at.

  “Do you wish to have dialogue?” she asked.

  “Only if it’s about French fried potatoes or cheeseburgers,” I answered.

  Miss Natasha laughed and sat on the edge of my bed. She put her flashlight into her lap and her hands on either side and leaned back, stretching her neck.

  “Where’s your ring?” I asked.

  “I chose not to wear it this evening,” she said.

  “That’s too bad,” I said. “I thought we could dialogue about it.”

  “Not tonight. Is there anything else you’d like to talk about?”

  “Frozen custard.” I answered.

  “Well, goodnight then,” Miss Natasha said. She leaned over as if she were going to kiss me.

  “Don’t you dare kiss me,” I hissed. “M y over-weight is due to a severe disease which is extremely contagious. One kiss from me, and you’ll be fat all the rest of your entire life.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” I told her. “The State Department is thinking of sending me to India and Biafra to kiss all the kids there to fatten them up, but my mother and father are extremely prejudiced and besides, my dad is not sure that the trip is tax deductible.”

  “Well,” Miss Natasha said, “I was leaning over only to straighten your pillow.”

  “You can do that,” I said.

  She didn’t move.

  “You may do it now,” I said.

  As she leaned over, I started saying, “A t the moment I am very busy making a list of people that I am very personally going to kiss and give ... “ I noticed a locket dangling from a chain around Miss Natasha’s neck. The locket was shaped like a tear-drop and was no bigger than a Tootsie Pop; on the front cover was a scene of children wearing wreaths of flowers on their heads and dancing in a circle. Miss Natasha leaned forward so that I could examine it better. It looked like a locket, but I couldn’t find any way to open it.

  “What’s the matter with this thing? Is it some kind of phony locket?” I asked.

  “No,” Miss Natasha said, “I don’t make phony jewels. It has had an accident. Look on the back of it.”

  I did. The whole back of the locket was cracked and chipped. It must have been beautiful before it was broken. Al l green and gold. “Can’t it open at all now?” I asked.

  “Yes, it can. But it is very difficult.”

  “Why don’t you fix it?”

  “I did the best I can.”

  I looked down at her hands and this time I noticed that her knuckles were all swollen, and her fingers looked like someone had once taken them off and reattached them at crazy angles. Funny that I hadn’t noticed them when I had seen the ring. I guessed that I had been too busy looking at the ring. “You got arthritis or something?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  “Do you take aspirin for it? Aspirin is supposed to be good for the minor pains of arthritis and other stuff.”

  “I’m afraid that I’m beyond taking aspirin,” Miss Natasha said. “If you care to try to get the locket open, I think that you’ll find that it is worth the effort. I was furious when it was damaged, but then I realized that nothing was coming out of my fury, so I repaired it as best I could. There is something very beautiful about having this locket work in spite of its being hurt.”

  All the time that she was talking about being beautiful and hurt, I was trying to get it open. Miss Natasha had been leaning forward and holding her flashlight so that I could work it. “Did Christy see this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she get it open?”

  “No. She couldn’t. I tried to help her, though. But she couldn’t get it open yet.”

  “No wonder it’s so hard for me. Her spit from sucking her thumb is probably all over it, making it icky for me.” Most of the trouble, though, was that the repair work had hidden the hinge, and I couldn’t find whichways it opened. Finally, I did. An d it did.

  “Those are the same tiny children pictured on the outside,” 1 said.

  Miss Natasha smiled and nodded yes. />
  “Why they’re jewelled and gorgeous enough to make every Barbie doll in the country want to barf from jealousy. Tiny princes and princesses no bigger than peeled pistachios.”

  “Can you find the ring, on the top of the may-pole?” Miss Natasha asked.

  I did.

  “Pull it.”

  I did. The tiny, jewelled children started swinging around the pole, and chimes played a pretty tune.

  “Au Clair de la Lune” Miss Natasha said. “In the Moonlight. That’s the name of the song. Doesn’t that fit?” she asked looking out the window.

  “I guess I would say that it does,” I admitted. “Is this a Swiss movement?” I asked.

  “No, Walt Disney,” she laughed. Then she snapped closed the beautiful locket.

  “It sure closes easier than it opens,” I said.

  “Most things do,” she answered. An d then Miss Natasha left my bed and left our cabin.

  How they could expect all that fresh air and exercise to do anything but make me more hungry, I’ll never know. A t our next weigh-in, I had lost a total of five pounds. That’s a lot for a kid, but according to them, I was just on schedule. Five pounds every two weeks.

  We had to write home again:

  I thought that maybe Miss Natasha was coming on some other night of the week, too, and that I was missing her because I was so sleepy from starvation and exhaustion. I waited for her to appear on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but she didn’t come. When she finally did come on Friday night, I asked her, “You sure don’t do much work around here. Don’t you think it would be cheaper for Miss Coolidge to have a record player playing ‘think thin’ under our pillows?”