Pretty Is

The new campers arrived that afternoon in a thunderstorm. Most of the kids who were staying over hung around in the dining hall or out on its wide porch, watching as vans and SUVs rumbled in, maneuvering to park as near the building as possible. People leaped from their vehicles and dashed for the porch, loaded with backpacks and sleeping bags, wiping rain from their faces as they came up the steps.

I stayed close to Isabel, and as far from Monica as possible. I’d explained to Isabel about Mama’s operation, leaving Monica’s existence out of it. But Isabel hadn’t forgotten.

“Um—I don’t think I said that—did I?” I answered, as innocently as I could manage. “Yeah, she was here.”

Name-tagged counselors with clipboards went around greeting the newcomers and pointing out where they should pile their things. I looked curiously at the ones who seemed to be joining Jeff and Amy’s group—a slightly flat-faced boy with red hair, a girl with a lot of well-tanned middle showing between her shorts and her top, and a fat boy in a Nike T-shirt three sizes too big.

In spite of the dismal weather the counselors all acted cheerful. Amy was positively beaming. She was wearing her SMILE—GOD LOVES YOU pin next to her name tag.

A huge lightning flash lit up half the sky, and a second or two later there was a boom so loud it surrounded us—it seemed to come from all directions at once. It made my heart thump, and I shrank back against the wall, even as I told myself I was too old to be afraid of thunder.

Tommy and a couple of other boys whooped and hollered. “Oh baby, that’s the best one yet,” one of them yelled. Either they actually liked the noise of thunder, I thought, or they were scared and trying to cover it up.

Monica—the dork—seemed to be trying to join in, or maybe just to show she was older than most of us. “Thunder can’t hurt you,” she said loudly, to nobody in particular. As if we didn’t know that, even the third graders, although a couple of them did scurry inside. “It’s nothing but air expanding.”

“Thanks, professor,” said one of the giggling boys, saluting her and squeezing a grin back behind his teeth. “Thanks for telling us.” He went back to shoving and fooling around with the others.

Dork, dork, dork, I thought grimly, although it also occurred to me that on a basketball court she could show those boys a thing or two. But there wasn’t so much as a single hoop at Gilead.

That evening after supper and singing, a steady rain was still falling, so nearly everyone hung around the dining hall, playing games or just talking. I sat alone at a table in the corner, reading a book. I’d found it on the meagerly stocked bookshelf next to the game table, and it was a stupid book, part of some series about a nurse. On the cover was an old-fashioned picture of a nurse in a white dress and a little white cap, looking over the shoulder at a doctor in the background. You could tell he was meant to look handsome, but what he really looked like was an idiot.

“This is all kind of a shock, huh?” he said, crossing an ankle over the other knee. “I mean, like, you were expecting to go home today, and instead you find out your mom’s sick and you have to stay another week.”

“Yeah.” I stared out across the crowded, noisy dining hall. Isabel was playing Monopoly with some other kids, and Monica was watching. Amy and a couple of other counselors sat talking at one of the tables. Tommy and Kevin were trying to juggle tennis balls. On the far side of the room a girl who looked about eight was pounding out “Heart and Soul” on the plinkety old piano.

“Yeah. They knew all along that she had to have this operation. They just didn’t tell us.” I could hear the bitter edge in my voice.

Jeff had a puzzled frown, so I explained. “She was supposed to have the operation Friday and be back home before we got home from camp. But a couple of emergencies came up that the doctor had to take care of, so he put off her operation till next Wednesday. So Daddy called Mr. Haywood and asked him if we could stay here another week.”

“Yeah. I mean, I’m not too worried, because Daddy said it’s not dangerous. It’s called a hysterectomy, where they have to take out a woman’s—uterus?”

I felt slightly better, hearing Jeff’s calm voice confirming that everything would be fine. But still—home was far away, and I was stuck here with Monica. I scowled across the dining hall.

“I want to be there and take care of Mama,” I burst out. “And I don’t want to be stuck here with my stupid sister.”

“I bet when you do get home you can still do a lot to help your mom,” Jeff said. “But I know what you mean about sisters. I always wanted to get away from my big sister. A big sister can really drive you crazy.”

After that I said very little to him or anyone else for the rest of the night, not in the dining hall and not in the cabin, where I hid myself close to the concrete-block wall in one of the top bunks. Isabel was below me. Amy was in another top one, with Monica underneath her, and the new girl, whose name was Jasmine, had a bunk to herself. It was a long time before I slept.

The next morning after breakfast, Tommy poked his head into the girls’ side of the cabin. Only Monica and I were there; the others were still in the dining hall. “Hey, Erin.”

He leaned in the doorway, spinning a baseball cap on one finger. “Just trying to cheer you up, Erin. You don’t look too thrilled about another week with me and the lovey-birds.”

“Your mom’s gonna be okay, you know,” Tommy said. He kept spinning the cap and didn’t look at either of us. “I heard Mr. Haywood talking to Jean—you know, the cook? He said it’s not that bad of an operation; your dad just wanted you to stay here so you wouldn’t be home alone.”

“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, I know.” But I felt a little lighter. “Hey, Tommy. Don’t tell the new kids about Jeff and Amy, okay? Let’em figure it out.”

Later, at the very first after-lunch rest time, when we all climbed into our bunks, Monica took something out of her backpack that I’d never suspected she had brought—her knitting. I groaned silently, my insides clenching. Further evidence of her dorkiness—as if Isabel and Jasmine hadn’t already pegged her as a dork because of her baggy T-shirts and too-long shorts, her unshaved legs, the way she hardly talked to anybody.

She must have been working on her knitting project during the past week, because whatever it was had gotten bigger. She sat on the edge of her bed with a tumble of heathery green yarn in her lap, and the two big needles began to click.

Good old Grandma Monica. I rolled onto my back and clapped my pillow over my face. I wondered if someone would snicker, or if they’d just roll their eyes.

With my nose in the faintly damp cotton pillowcase, I listened as Jasmine and Isabel continued talking about a movie they’d seen. It didn’t sound like anyone was paying attention to Monica.

Then Jasmine, who so far hadn’t worn a single item of clothing without an expensive label showing, suddenly said, “Hey, Monica, what are you making?”

I was surprised, never having seen her knit anything more complicated than a plain scarf. But I was even more surprised at what came next.

“That is so cool,” Jasmine said, and then Isabel said, “Let me see.” I pushed aside the pillow and looked down in time to see her hop off her bed and go over to look at Monica’s knitting.

“My cousin just taught me how to knit,” Isabel said. “But I haven’t made anything that hard yet. But my cousin, she’s so great at it—she made this beautiful red sweater for her mom last Christmas.”

Monica seemed flustered by all the attention. “Oh,” she murmured, “well, I don’t know. I—I’ve never tried a sweater before.”

I lay there staring at the ceiling. My stomach was relaxing, now that Monica’s knitting hadn’t embarrassed me after all. On the other hand, I’d always thought knitting was old-lady stuff—so when did it get to be cool, and why didn’t I know about it?