The Excellent Lombards(15)
“She’s a Thowoughbwed.”
Where was she getting her information? “Brianna Kraselnik,” I said, “has hair to her waist.”
“She’s going to babysit me sometime.”
This stopped me cold. I had never been babysat in my life, one of my parents always at home, or Gloria came over if necessary. I had only seen Brianna from a distance and maybe she was nearly as regal and lovely as her mother, but still—I said scornfully, “Babysit!”
I had gathered some of the facts myself, on occasion quietly making my way up to the Cortland line, the row that abutted the Kraselnik property. On several afternoons I’d climbed a tree, keeping watch for our teacher. Once I saw her drive into the garage, a heart-stopping moment. Followed by her taking groceries into the house. As children have been for time immemorial I, too, was stricken by the revelation: My teacher cooked food and she ate. On another day I watched her work with her horse, walking the animal around on a lead-line. Any view from the Cortland line was partially obstructed by the cedar trees but I could usually see the bright ribbon on her ponytail, and here and there the swish of Suzie’s own tail, and I could hear the firm commands, Suzie naturally being a good girl for her trainer. When I mentioned to Amanda that she might join me in the reconnaissance we both sat on a sturdy limb, waiting. We ate Fig Newtons. Our patience was at last rewarded, the goddess appearing on the driveway, and there she shook out a small blue rug. Amanda froze. She fortunately understood how still a witness should be. Amanda, my companion in Velta, observing the rite, the Mrs. Kraselnik devotion. She couldn’t even chew.
Then school started and by order of the law we were required to be in Mrs. Kraselnik’s presence for roughly six hours for the next 188 days, not counting holidays and weekends. It was on the very first morning that our teacher told us we were going to be studying Shakespeare and the Greek gods and the planets, and we were going to investigate big cats at risk, and also we would memorize the highest elevations, the longest rivers, the driest deserts, we’d track violent storms, as well as study our school neighborhood and climate. We would do so, she said, in service to learning, each of us creating our own minds. “Do you realize, boys and girls, that you can create your own mind? Creating your own minds,” she repeated, a habit she had when the message was crucial. Our learning, she went on, would also be essential preparation for the Geography Bee.
So, Amanda had been right. She smiled at me not in a gloating way but as if to say, Can’t you hardly wait, Fwances?
What Amanda didn’t know was that when Mrs. Kraselnik came to the apple barn on the weekends to buy a bushel, a forty-pound weight that would include all my favorite varieties, I would be on hand to assist her. Amanda never helped at the barn. Instead of giving my teacher one red apple I could bestow upon her a whole orchard’s worth. Mary Frances, how in the world can you tell all these varieties apart? Never have I seen a girl who could do such a thing!
There wasn’t a moment to be lost, Mrs. Kraselnik was saying. Each of us was going to participate in the bee in November in order that the winning student could go on to the county competition, and then state, and possibly to Washington, DC, in March. “You will discover this year, boys and girls, why geography is at the heart of every subject you could ever hope to study. You will discover this secret and at the same time you will become informed citizens of the world.”
Informed citizens of the world? Amanda and I, pencils in hand, notebooks open, were prepared. I was already certain that it would be I, Mary Frances Lombard, who would go to Washington, DC, in March, boarding a plane, hand in hand with Mrs. Kraselnik, turning to wave on the steps to Amanda and the rest of the family, and also pausing to respectfully listen to the high school band’s selection for our send-off.
6.
The Incident During
the Fifth Cloth
A few weeks later we had a day off from school, a misery, a punishment. When we left the classroom it was clear that Mrs. Kraselnik didn’t want to be without us on a weekday, either, a mournful tone in her good-bye. The so-called holiday took place right after she announced an assignment that she said we could do in pairs. To my dismay, before I could make my choice Amanda had raced across the room and chosen me for her partner. There was nothing I could do, no wriggling out of her hold. It was an important, primary-source research project—that’s how Mrs. Kraselnik had described it. We were to interview someone in our community, someone who had valuable information about the history of our region, or who held a job of interest. Because Amanda had snapped me up I told her that I would chose the subject of our interview, that this was only fair. I was thinking of my father, because he was the chairman of the Farmland Preservation Committee for our town. Or Mrs. Bushberger, who was a member of the Reverend Moon’s church. She’d even had a baby for someone in her congregation in Chicago, Reverend Moon having demanded that charity of her. Stephen Lombard then crossed my mind as a subject. Did any other classmate have a relative who was probably a secret agent? He was going to be with us at least for the harvest and maybe longer now that he and Gloria were supposedly in love. But he was not someone who was truly a part of our community, Mrs. Kraselnik probably taking off points for our failure to follow directions.
At dinner the assignment slipped my mind because Mr. Gilbert, a library patron, the man who always came in with his snake, Rosy, wrapped around his neck, had been arrested for possession of drugs. My mother told us all about it. The police had discovered not only marijuana in his house but also his exotic pets, the bearded dragon, the leopard geckos, the poison dart frogs, the veiled chameleons. My mother said that the one time she’d gone to his door to collect a fine the smell was overpowering. So because of the Mr. Gilbert story I had forgotten to ask my father if he would submit to the interview.