Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Read Online Free Page B

anything.” She shook her head ferociously from side to side, her Egyptian-style pageboy flapping against her cheeks like heavy drapes. “It could have happened. See. Our girls are not retarded. They are delayed learners.” She said this in a syrupy instructional voice, asthough our troop might be delayed learners as well. “We’re from the Decatur Children’s Academy. Many of them just have special needs.”
    “Now we won’t be able to walk to the bathroom by ourselves!” the big girl said.
    “Yes you will,” the troop leader said, “but maybe we’ll wait till we get back to Decatur—”
    “I don’t want to wait!” the girl said. “I want my Independence badge!”
    The girls in my troop were entirely speechless. Arnetta looked stoic, as though she were soon to be tortured but was determined not to appear weak. Mrs. Margolin pursed her lips solemnly and said, “Bless them, Lord. Bless them.”
    In contrast, the Troop 909 leader was full of words and energy. “Some of our girls are echolalic—” She smiled and happily presented one of the girls hanging onto her, but the girl widened her eyes in horror, and violently withdrew herself from the center of attention, sensing she was being sacrificed for the village sins. “Echolalic,” the troop leader continued. “That means they will say whatever they hear, like an echo—that’s where the word comes from. It comes from ‘echo.’” She ducked her head apologetically, “I mean, not all of them have the most progressive of parents, so if they heard a bad word, they might have repeated it. But I guarantee it would not have been intentional. ”
    Arnetta spoke. “I saw her say the word. I heard her.” She pointed to a small girl, smaller than any of us, wearing an oversized T-shirt that read: “Eat Bertha’s Mussels.”
    The troop leader shook her head and smiled, “That’s impossible. She doesn’t speak. She can, but she doesn’t.”
    Arnetta furrowed her brow. “No. It wasn’t her. That’s right. It was her. ”
    The girl Arnetta pointed to grinned as though she’d been paid a compliment. She was the only one from either troop actually wearing a full uniform: the mocha-colored Α-line shift, the orange ascot, the sash covered with badges, though all the same one—the Try-It patch. She took a few steps toward Arnetta and made a grand sweeping gesture toward the sash. “See,” she said, full of self-importance, “I’m a Brownie.” I had a hard time imagining this girl calling anyone a “nigger”; the girl looked perpetually delighted, as though she would have cuddled up with a grizzly if someone had let her.
        
    O N THE fourth morning, we boarded the bus to go home.
    The previous day had been spent building miniature churches from Popsicle sticks. We hardly left the cabin. Mrs. Margolin and Mrs. Hedy guarded us so closely, almost no one talked for the entire day.
    Even on the day of departure from Camp Crescendo, all was serious and silent. The bus ride began quietly enough. Arnetta had to sit beside Mrs. Margolin; Octavia had to sit beside her mother. I sat beside Daphne, who gave me her prize journal without a word of explanation.
    “You don’t want it?”
    She shook her head no. It was empty.
    Then Mrs. Hedy began to weep. “Octavia,” Mrs. Hedy said to her daughter without looking at her, “I’m going to sit with Mrs. Margolin. All right?”
    Arnetta exchanged seats with Mrs. Hedy. With the two women up front, Elise felt it safe to speak. “Hey,” she said, then she set her face into a placid, vacant stare, trying to imitate that of a Troop 909girl. Emboldened, Arnetta made a gesture of mock pride toward an imaginary sash, the way the girl in full uniform had done. Then they all made a game of it, trying to do the most exaggerated imitations of the Troop 909 girls, all without speaking, all without laughing loud enough to catch the women’s attention.
    Daphne looked down at her shoes, white with sneaker polish. I