Otherwise Known as Sheila the Great

by Judy Blume

I was very happy to hear that.

  * * *

  We walked down the road to her house then. Mouse yo-yoed all the way. She lives at the bottom of the hill, right around the corner from the swimming pool. Her little sister was out front dragging a candy box by a string.

  “That’s Betsy,” Mouse said. “She’s four.”

  “Why does she have a string around that box?”

  “She’s walking her dog.”

  “That box is her dog?” I asked.

  “Yes. I told you how she gets hives from real ones. So that box is her pretend dog. She calls it Ootch.”

  Betsy dragged Ootch over to us. “Who are you?” she asked me.

  “I’m Sunny Tubman,” I told her, trying out my new name.

  “Oh. You don’t look like a boy,” Betsy said.

  “She’s not a boy!” Mouse told her.

  “Then how come her name is Sonny?”

  “It’s not that kind of Sonny,” Mouse explained. “It’s Sunny, like the sun in the sky.”

  “Ohhh,” Betsy said. “Sunny like a sunny day?”

  “That’s it,” Mouse said.

  “My real name is Sheila,” I said to Betsy. “Maybe you should call me that.” I didn’t think about Sunny sounding like Sonny. Maybe it wasn’t such a good name after all.

  Betsy said, “This is my dog, Ootch. Want to pet him?”

  “Oh sure.” I reached over and tapped the candy box. “Nice doggie,” I said. “Nice Ootch.”

  Betsy picked up her box and held it to her ear. Then she put it back down and said, “Ootch says he likes you, Sunny Sheila. He can always tell a person who really and truly loves dogs.”

  I didn’t say anything. I just smiled.

  Mrs. Ellis invited me to stay for lunch. I called home and Mom said I could. Me and Mouse ate peanut butter sandwiches with the crust cut off and Betsy had four slices of plain salami—no bread or anything. She keeps Ootch on the table next to her and every few minutes she made believe she was feeding some of her salami to that box.

  “Ootch loves salami,” she told me. “It’s his favorite lunch.”

  * * *

  That afternoon our mothers took us to the Cultural Arts Center to register for day camp. It is really a private school, but it doesn’t look anything like one. It looks like an old house surrounded by lots and lots of big trees. I have never seen a school like that. Mouse told me that she doesn’t go there. She goes to regular public school. But Bobby Egran has been going there for years. That’s because Bobby refused to do any of his work in public school. All he wanted to do was build models. And since the teachers wouldn’t let him he used to get mad and make a lot of noise. So he was spending most of his time sitting on the bench outside the principal’s office. At this school he is allowed to build all kinds of things. Mouse says her mother told her Bobby is some kind of genius but she doesn’t believe it.

  Mouse and I explored our day camp together. This is her first year too because she was just ten, which means me and Mouse will be two of the youngest kids there. This makes Libby feel like a double big shot! I told Mouse that Libby thinks she is a great ballerina but when she dances she really looks like an elephant. Well, not exactly an elephant, but only because she is too skinny to be one.

  There are a lot of interesting activities at this day camp. But the one that looks best to me is pottery. You get to use a lot of mushy clay and you try to shape it into some kind of bowl on a pottery wheel. Me and Mouse signed up for that, first thing. The pottery counselor’s name is Denise. She was barefoot. I like to go barefoot too, but I’m afraid I might step on a bee and get stung. That happened to Peter Hatcher’s little brother once. I think getting stung on the bottom of your foot would be worse than getting stung someplace ordinary, like your arm. I wonder if Denise has ever stepped on a bee.

  When we got home Mouse asked me to go swimming with her. She said, “What’s your best stroke? Mine’s the crawl.”

  “I’m the same at every stroke,” I said.

  “Then maybe you’ll join the swimming team. We have races every Sunday.”

  She didn’t understand what I meant, I guess. So I said, “No, I really don’t like swimming teams. They take all the fun out of it.”

  “Well, grab your suit and let’s go over anyway. It’s steaming out.”

  “I can’t go in today,” I said. I wasn’t about to tell her I can’t swim.

  “Why can’t you go in?” she asked.

  “I’m just getting over a cold.”

  “Oh, rats! You don’t sound sick. Ask your mother.”

  “I can’t,” I said. “I promised I wouldn’t go in today.”

  “Can’t you even dunk your feet?” Mouse asked.

  That didn’t sound bad. And it was hot out. “Okay,” I said. “I guess dunking my feet can’t hurt me. I’ll go in and get my suit.”

  But just then my mother came out and said, “Sheila, we have to go over to the pool now. I want to sign you up for some swimming lessons. It’s time you learned how to swim!”

  Mouse opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  “How could you do that to me?” I asked my mother when we were alone.

  “I’m sorry,” Mom said. “I didn’t know she thought you could swim.”

  “You just spoiled my whole summer!”

  “Oh really, Sheila! Let’s not make a big thing out of it.”

  “Just when she wanted to be my friend—my first real-live girl friend. You had to go and ruin everything! Well, I’m never going to learn how to swim. So there!”

  “You have to, like it or not!” Mom said. “Otherwise it isn’t safe to go near the water.”

  “I’ll never go near the water. Then you won’t have to worry.”

  “Daddy and I have discussed it and we both agree that you must learn to swim. Even if it takes all summer. And that’s that!”

  “You can’t make me!” I cried.

  “Sheila, you are being unreasonable. Daddy and I try very hard to be understanding. We don’t force you to go near Jennifer. We know how you feel about spiders, and when you hear noises in the middle of the night we try to find out what’s causing them. But we are going to insist that you learn how to swim!”

  “I’ll sink,” I said. “They’ll find me on the bottom of the pool and that will be the end of me.”

  “I don’t think that will happen,” Mom said. “Now get into the car.”

  Mom tooted the horn and Libby came running out of the house. She was wearing her bikini. She looked like a skeleton.

  “Can we take Jennifer with us?” Libby asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “I’m not asking you. Can we, Mom? I’ll bet she’s dying for a little ride in the car.”

  “You promised!” I reminded my mother.

  “Better leave her home, Libby,” Mom said.

  “Some people spoil all the fun!” Libby snapped.

  “There are people who get hives from dogs,” I told Libby. “Did you ever think of that?”

  “But you don’t!”

  “I think I do.”

  “You’re a liar,” Libby yelled. “Isn’t she a liar, Mom?”

  “What do you mean you think you get hives from dogs?” Mom asked me.

  “I do. I get them inside where you can’t see them. But I know they’re there. I’m positive I’m allergic to dogs.”

  “Oh, Sheila!” Mom said.

  Jennifer stood up and barked then. I’m sure she was laughing at me. I hate that dumb old dog!

  Libby sulked all the way to the pool because Mom told her Jennifer had to stay at home. She said this had nothing to do with me. It was just that there was probably a rule about bringing animals to the pool. I don’t think Libby believed Mom, but she seemed
to forget about it when we got there.

  The swimming pool is round at the deep end and curved at the other. My mother says it is kidney-shaped. I wonder if my kidneys are shaped like that. When I get home I will look it up in my encyclopedia and find out. There are two diving boards. One is up high and the other is medium.

  Each family has a tiny dressing room with their name on the door. Ours says Egran. I asked, “Couldn’t we put up a little sign that says Tubman . . . just for the summer?” I felt silly using the Egrans’ dressing room. I kept thinking about those three boys. So my mother let me Scotch tape TUBMAN over EGRAN so at least people will know who we are.

  Libby doesn’t care about going to the beach anymore. Because the pool is full of boys. Besides the lifeguards and the pool boys who work there, plenty of other boys come just to swim. My sister, in her new bikini, thinks she’s the greatest!

  But after she saw my swimming teacher she asked my mother to sign her up for lessons too. My teacher, Marty, is what Libby calls terrific. I do not care one way or the other what my swimming teacher looks like. Because I don’t ever want to swim. I know I won’t be able to. I know I will sink to the bottom and everyone will laugh and Marty will have to save me.

  I told him this right off, when my mother signed me up for fifteen private lessons.

  “I’ll never be able to swim,” I said.

  “Sure you will,” Marty told me.

  “No, I mean it! I won’t!”

  “Anybody can learn to swim,” Marty said.

  “Well, I’m never going to put my face in the water. I’ll tell you that!”

  “Sure you will. It’s easy. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

  “Afraid! Me? Is that what you think?”

  Marty just smiled.

  “I am not afraid of anything!” I told him. “Nothing! I just think it’s dumb of my mother to waste her money on swimming lessons. Because if I felt like it I could jump right in and swim as good as anybody!”

  “That’s great,” Marty said. “Tomorrow you can show me how you do that.”

  I didn’t answer him.

  * * *

  That night Libby begged my parents for swimming lessons.

  “You swim very well now,” Mom told her.

  “But think of all Marty could teach me,” Libby said.

  “You don’t need him to teach you anything,” Daddy told her. “Now that’s that!”

  “Sheila gets all the good things!” Libby cried. “It’s not fair.”

  “You can have my lessons,” I said. “All fifteen of them.”

  But Daddy and Mom said, “Oh no!” together.

  * * *

  The next afternoon I told Mom that I had an awful stomachache and I couldn’t possibly go to the pool. She gave me a spoon of pink peppermint stuff and told me I’d be fine in a few minutes.

  When we got to the pool I told her I had a sore throat and that people with sore throats shouldn’t go swimming. Mom said it was probably just an allergy to the trees. Since when am I allergic to trees?

  I told her that I forgot my bathing cap so I wouldn’t be able to put my head in the water. But she pulled out a new cap and said she brought one along just in case. And then she delivered me to Marty.

  He was waiting at the shallow end of the pool.

  “I don’t feel very well,” I told him.

  “You’re just nervous,” he said.

  “Me, nervous? That’s very funny. I never get nervous!”

  “Good, I’m glad to hear that. It’s much easier to work with a relaxed person than a nervous one.”

  “Do nervous people sink in the water?” I asked.

  “Oh . . . sometimes,” Marty said. “But I haven’t lost more than three or four.”

  I stepped away from him.

  “Hey, that’s a joke, Sheila!”

  “I know,” I said. “Don’t you think I know a joke when I hear one?”

  “Come and sit down at the edge of the pool,” Marty said, lowering himself into the water. “I’ll get wet first.”

  I wished there weren’t so many people around. If I had to take lessons why couldn’t I take them in the middle of the night when nobody could see me?

  “Now the first thing I’m going to show you is how to blow bubbles. Watch this.” Marty put his face into the water and big bubbles came up. Soon he raised his head and said, “You see . . . you just blow bubbles. It’s a cinch!”

  “I told you,” I said. “I’m not putting my face into the water.”

  “I can’t teach you to swim if you don’t.”

  “Well then, I guess you won’t be able to teach me.” I stood up and started to walk away.

  “Wait a minute, Sheila!” Marty reached out and grabbed my ankle. “Get wet first . . . before you make up your mind.”

  “My mind is made up,” I said.

  “Well, get wet anyway. I might get fired if you don’t at least get wet.”

  I didn’t want Marty to lose his job because of me so I walked down the three steps and stood in water up to my waist. “It’s too cold for me,” I said. “I’ll get pneumonia or something. I’m getting out!”

  “Sheila! This pool must be eighty degrees today. You’re not going to catch anything!”

  Marty scooped me up and started walking around the pool with me.

  I said, “Put me down . . . you put me down right now or I’ll scream!”

  “If you do everyone will hear and look over to see what’s going on. Is that what you want?”

  I think he’s a mind reader. I hate him! “What are you going to do with me?” I asked.

  “Nothing. I just want you to get used to the water. And to see that I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”

  “If I drown you’re going to be in big trouble.”

  “You’re not going to drown. I already told you that. And once you learn how to swim you’ll be able to save yourself so there won’t be anything for you to worry about.”

  “Who says I’m worried? I never worry!” I said.

  “That’s swell,” Marty told me.

  “Did you mean it when you said if I learn to swim I’ll be able to save myself?”

  “Yes,” Marty said.

  “Well . . . as long as I’m here I guess I might as well. So go ahead, teach me! But remember, I won’t put my face in the water.”

  Marty sighed. “All right . . . I’ll teach you with your face out of the water.”

  “But you said you couldn’t teach me that way!”

  “Well, I just remembered I can. I’ll teach you to swim like a dog.”

  “I don’t want to swim like a dog!” I said. “I don’t even like dogs!”

  “Maybe you’ll like them when you learn how to swim like one,” Marty said, smiling.

  He gave me a kickboard. He taught me how to hang on with my hands and kick with my legs. At first I wasn’t even a good kicker. I only used one leg. I kept the other one on the bottom of the pool because I felt safer that way. I was hoping I could fool Marty into thinking I was using both of them. But it didn’t work. He said, “That’s not bad, Sheila. But this time let’s use both feet, okay?”

  So, for the first time in my life, I took both feet off the bottom of the pool and I kicked. And I didn’t sink. But I knew that was because I was hanging onto the kickboard. If I didn’t have that I’d be on the bottom in a second.

  My lesson lasted half an hour and all I had to do was practice kicking. When it was over I told Marty it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. He said he’d see me tomorrow, same time.

  I ran over to my mother and she said she was proud of me, even though I didn’t put my face in. I told her Marty said I didn’t have to. And that I’d never have to because he was goi
ng to teach me to swim like a dog and dogs are very good swimmers . . . everyone knows that! My mother looked at me funny and said, “Well, you and Jennifer have something in common after all, don’t you?”

  But I didn’t answer. Because I heard someone calling “Sunny Sheila Tubman . . . Sunny Sheila Tubman . . . watch this!”

  I looked up at the high diving board and saw Betsy Ellis. And if Betsy was at the pool Mouse probably was too. Did she see me in the water with Marty? I hope not. But I guess now she won’t want to be my friend anyway. So what’s the difference if she did see me!

  Betsy called me one more time, then she did a perfect dive into the water. I couldn’t believe it. “Did you see that?” I asked my mother. “She’s only four years old!”

  “Beautiful, wasn’t it?” Mom said. “I hear she’s a champion swimmer.”

  “I don’t see her anywhere,” I said, searching the pool. “Do you suppose she’s all right? Shouldn’t she be up by now?”

  “There she is,” Mom said, pointing. “She swam right across under water.”

  I wondered if maybe Marty could teach me to swim like that. I could just see myself as a swimming champion. I would learn to do the most beautiful dives anyone ever saw. I would be able to swim back and forth in the pool at least twenty times without running out of breath. Mouse would beg me to be her friend. People from all over would come to watch me on Sundays. And Marty would tell them, She’s remarkable . . . she couldn’t swim at all when she came here. And of course I would be able to do everything without ever getting my face wet. I’ll bet there isn’t a dog anywhere who can dive without wetting his face.

  That night, after supper, the doorbell rang. “I’ll get it,” I hollered, running to see who it was.

  It was Mouse. “Hi,” she said. “Come on out.”

  I opened the screen door and stepped outside onto the front porch.

  “How was your swimming lesson?” she asked.

  “It was fine,” I said. “I used to do a lot of swimming when I was a little kid, but. . .”

  Mouse didn’t let me finish. “But where you come from nobody ever goes swimming, right?”

  “Kind of,” I said.

  “If a person doesn’t know how to do something a person should just admit it, don’t you think?” Mouse said.