Dance ballerina, dance… Sally sang softly. She twirled around and around in her black inner tube, her head back, her eyes closed. The ocean was calm and blue and the sun, hot on her face. Earlier, she had talked to Daddy on the phone. He had wished her a happy Hanukkah and said he’d be down to visit in just two more weeks. She wished he could be there tonight, to light the first candle on the menorah. It was hard to believe that Hanukkah was beginning. Usually the weather was very cold for her favorite holiday. Sometimes it even snowed. She laughed out loud at the idea of celebrating Hanukkah in the middle of summer, then opened her eyes to make sure no one had heard. It was okay. There was no one near enough to have noticed.
Dance ballerina, dance… what a good song! No wonder it was number one on the hit parade. After Christmas vacation she and Andrea were going to take ballet lessons. Their mothers had already signed them up at Miss Beverly’s School of Classic Ballet. Sally could hardly wait. Her hands skimmed the water, keeping time to her music. She hoped that at Miss Beverly’s ballet school she’d get to wear a tutu instead of an exercise dress. She pictured herself in pink net with pink satin toe slippers to match, like Margaret O’Brien in The Unfinished Dance, the best movie Sally had ever seen. Mom bought her the coloring book and the paper doll set because she’d enjoyed the film so much.
Some people, like Mrs. Daniels, from next door, thought fifth graders were too old for that stuff. Sally heard her say so to Mom. “When my Bubbles was that age she was sewing her own clothes and reading fine literature from the library.” What Mrs. Daniels didn’t know was that you could play with paper dolls like a baby or you could play with them in a very grown-up way, making up stories inside your head. Like Margaret O’Brien meets Mr. Zavodsky… This takes place before she becomes a famous movie star. She’s just a regular kid, like Sally. Margaret finds out Mr. Zavodsky is Adolf Hitler in disguise and reports him to the police. They capture Mr. Zavodsky and award the Medal of Honor to Margaret O’Brien. At the medal ceremony a well-known Hollywood producer says, We’re looking for a girl just like you to play the lead in a new movie. How are you at ballet? Well, sir… Margaret answers, I’m in the Junior Advanced class and I hope to be in Advanced next year at the latest. She then performs for him and gets the part.
It bothered Sally that Mom had said to Mrs. Daniels, “Each child matures at her own rate.” But Mom didn’t know about Sally’s stories so maybe she thought Sally played like a baby too.
Suddenly Sally felt a sharp, stinging pain on her leg. She cried out and reached down. Something was there. Something was on her leg. She tried to pull it off but the same pain hit her hand and wrist. “Stop…” she cried, “stop it… stop it…” She began to kick and scream as the painful sting spread. She thrashed about but she couldn’t get it off her. She couldn’t stop the stinging pain. “Help…” she called. “Please… somebody help me…”
It seemed like hours before the lifeguard reached her. He lifted her out of the tube, trying to hold her still, but the pain made her squirm and cry even though she knew it was important to be quiet during a rescue. She moaned and closed her eyes.
“You’ll be okay now…” the lifeguard said. He sounded very far away. Sally wondered why. And then, everything went black.
When she opened her eyes again she was on the beach, wrapped in a blanket, and Mom was at her side. She could hear Ma Fanny and Douglas talking to her, but she couldn’t turn her head to see them. A crowd had gathered around her. “Oh, my baby… my poor little girl…” Mom cried.
“It hurts,” Sally said. She closed her eyes again, too tired to say any more.
“How could such a thing have happened?” she heard her mother ask, and was surprised that Mom sounded so angry.
“I don’t know, Ma’am…” the lifeguard answered. “We had no warning… you can look through my glasses yourself… there’s not another Man O’ War in sight.”
“Are you absolutely sure that’s what it was?” Mom asked.
“Yes, Ma’am… positive… wrapped itself right around her leg and when she tried to pull it off it got her hand. I’ve seen plenty of cases and it hurts like hell… pardon my language… but she’ll be okay. You can call the Board of Health… they’ll tell you what to do.”
“Come…” Ma Fanny said, “let’s get her home.”
“But how?” Mom sounded confused now and frightened. “She can’t walk…”
“Never mind,” Ma Fanny said. “Dougie… go and ask that woman if we can borrow her baby stroller… tell her we’ll bring it back right away.”
“For Sally?” Douglas asked.
Sally tried to open her eyes again, tried to speak, but she hadn’t the strength. The pain was less acute now but she could still feel the stinging and she couldn’t move her fingers or toes.
“Just go and do it, Douglas!” Mom said.
“Okay… but Sally won’t like it.”
“Never mind,” Mom said. “She’ll never know… she’s only half-conscious… you can see that…”
I am not, Sally wanted to say. I can hear every word and I’ll die if you take me home like a baby!
“I’ll carry her for you, Ma’am,” the lifeguard said and Sally felt his arms around her again.
He lowered her into the stroller. Sally kept her eyes tightly shut. If any of her friends were around she didn’t want to know.
“Watch her legs,” Mom said. “Let them dangle over the sides… that’s it.”
“Can you make it home now, Ma’am?” the lifeguard asked.
“Yes, I think so… and thank you very much.”
“Any time.”
“I’ll push her,” Douglas said.
“No,” Mom told him, “I will. You walk at her side and make sure she doesn’t fall out.”
Sally felt herself moving, first on grass and then on concrete. “Listen, Ma…” Mom said to Ma Fanny, “you better walk home slowly. I don’t want you to get out of breath and have a spell.”
“Spell… schmell…” Ma Fanny said. “I can keep up with anybody.”
The Board of Health told Mom that Sally should sit in a tub of tepid water with baking soda. She soaked so long the skin on her fingers and toes got crinkly. The pain eased up and soon she could move her fingers again. The family took turns sitting in the bathroom with her. She didn’t mind because she was still wearing her bathing suit. Besides, she was grateful for the company. She watched as Mom filed her nails, as Ma Fanny worked on her afghan, and as Douglas blew the insides out of an egg.
“You were pretty brave,” Douglas said, pausing for a breath. “You really surprised me.”
“I screamed in the water,” Sally said. “I remember…”
“Yeah… but once you were on the beach you shut up.”
“Because it hurt too bad to do anything,” Sally said.
“Worse than a shot?”
“Much worse.”
“Worse than a bee sting?”
“I don’t know… I never got stung by a bee… but Christine did once, on the bottom of her foot. She cried a lot.”
“She would!” Douglas held his eggshell up to the light. “I wonder if it hurt worse than my kidney infection?”
“I can’t say… I’ve never had a kidney infection.”
“It looked like it hurt worse.”
Sally shrugged.
“I hope I never get stung by a Man O’ War,” Douglas said.
“I hope you don’t either… I wouldn’t wish that on anybody… not even Harriet Goodman and I hate her.”
“Who’s Harriet Goodman?”
“This jerk in my class who hates me for no reason.”
“Oh.”
Three hours later Mom said, “Okay… you can get out now.”
Sally pulled the stopper from the tub. “At last!”
“I’ll help you,” Mom said. “I don’t want you to faint again.”
“Is that what happened before… when everything got black?”
“Yes, you passed out… and the lifeguard said it’s lucky you did… because you were fighting him so badly he could hardly handle you.”
At sundown they lit the first candle on the menorah and sang the Hanukkah blessing. Sally was lying on the sofa with a thick, baking soda paste covering her hand and leg, where she’d been stung. It felt yuckiest between her toes.
All the neighbors came to visit that night.
Andrea said, “Of all days to go to Monkey Jungle… and just when something exciting happened…”
“How was it?” Sally asked.
“To tell the truth, it wasn’t that great… and you could smell monkeys everywhere.”
“My mother thinks you can get diseases from monkeys so I’ll probably never get there,” Sally said.
“Well, you’re not missing much.”
“But I like chimps…”
“So do I… but not that many at one time… besides, I’d have rather been at the beach with you.”
“Then you might have been stung by a Man O’ War too.”
“I know…”
“And it wasn’t any fun… I’ll tell you that…”
“So I hear…”
“But Douglas says I was really brave.”
“Brave is a matter of opinion,” Andrea said. “Everyone acts differently in an emergency… passing out isn’t necessarily brave.”
“I didn’t want to pass out… it just happened.”
“Don’t get me wrong… I’m not saying it wasn’t brave to pass out… who knows, I might have done the same thing.” She looked down for a minute. “Anyway, I’m glad you’re okay now.”
“Thanks.”
Mrs. Daniels came over with a honey cake. “My Bubbles was stung two years ago… on her foot… we went straight to the hospital… when it comes to my Bubbles we don’t fool around.”
“We don’t fool around when it comes to our children either,” Mom said. “When Douglas had nephritis we went to the biggest specialist in New Jersey. And today, we called the Board of Health about Sally.”
“The Board of Health!” Mrs. Daniels said. “Who’d trust them?”
“What did they do for Bubbles in the hospital?” Mom asked.
“Told us to put her in a tub of baking-soda water.”
“Well, that’s exactly what the Board of Health told us.” Sally could tell that Mom was pleased. “And now she’s just fine, as you can see for yourself.”
“So this time you were lucky,” Mrs. Daniels said.
“Knock wood!” Ma Fanny thumped the dining table.
“Knock wood,” Mrs. Daniels repeated.
Later, before she went to sleep, Douglas gave Sally a freshly painted egg shell. “It’s supposed to be Margaret O’Brien.”
Sally held the fragile shell in the palm of her good hand. “I can tell by the braids,” she said. “It’s a beautiful shell… the best one you’ve ever done.”
Douglas half-smiled. “It’ll stand by itself on your shelf… the feet are supposed to be ballet shoes but I had to make them kind of wide to support the weight… so they might not look like ballet shoes to you…”
“Oh, no…” Sally said. “I can tell they are…”
“Good.”
“Thank you, Douglas.”
“Good night… I’m glad you’re okay,” Douglas said.