Trying to Float

by Nicolaia Rips

  As the papers were being distributed, Daisy began to recite the different types of goat feed and what went into them.

  “Chaffhaye, clover, alfalfa, grass . . . ”

  A tiny boy in the front raised his hand.

  “Excuse me, Miss Daisy?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why do we have to sign this?”

  Daisy’s cute began to blacken.

  “Why, honey, in case you get hurt.”

  “I am only eleven years old, I don’t think I can sign things,” the little kid insisted.

  Daisy had already returned to the feed list.

  “Oats, wildflower honey, urea . . . ”

  What did she say?

  “Buddy up!” Daisy hollered, ushering us inside the barn.

  As we marched past, Daisy forced our sleeves up to our shoulders.

  The barn was dark inside. In the middle of it were two large vats, one filled with an amber liquid and the other with a mixture of oats. Daisy grabbed the nearest camper, dipped her arms into the amber liquid—honey—then into the feed.

  Daisy did this with each of us, and when she was finished, we stood there, arms perpendicular to our bodies, dripping with honey and goat feed.

  She opened another door leading to the outdoor goat pen.

  “Walk two-by-two through the pen,” Daisy shouted. “In a nice straight line.”

  Miss Clavel?

  “Arms out straight. And don’t come out until all the goats are fed! Bye now.”

  The door closed behind us.

  As our eyes adjusted to the sun, we discovered that we were standing directly before forty ill-tempered goats.

  The goats moved toward us and began to nibble and slurp at our arms. We were all too scared to move. Some of us began to tremble.

  It was not very long before the boy who’d asked about the papers panicked, bolting toward the wall of the pen.

  Anarchy.

  We ran around as the goats butted us and nipped at our arms. I could hear Maria pounding at the door to the barn, begging Daisy to free us.

  Racing toward Maria, a goat bleating at my heels, I hauled her under my arm and broke toward a bush at the corner of the pen.

  We dove into the bush, just ahead of the goat.

  “Well, this was unexpected,” I said to Maria.

  No response from Maria.

  I turned around.

  She was licking her arms.

  Holy mother.

  She extended one of her arms toward me.

  “Molto delizioso!”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  “Really?” she questioned. “Wildflower honey and oats.”

  There was no convincing me.

  Maria seemed offended.

  “And what do we get at this camp?! Cheeses and mac—­disgustoso.”

  “Urea, Maria.” I felt obligated to mention this as a possible ingredient in the goat feed.

  “Who’s that?”

  The door to the pen opened. Daisy.

  “What did you think of our goats?” she asked cheerily.

  We swarmed passed her. Maria looked back.

  “Vado a mangiare il damn capre!”

  Which, as Marie explained it later, meant that given half a chance, she would eat Daisy’s damn goats.

  —

  The boys at camp were nothing like what we had imagined.

  What they lacked in sophistication, they made up for with other talents. Such a boy was Jimmy Robbins, whom Maria and I befriended in baking class. Jimmy looked like the love child of Robert Downey Jr. and a gorilla.

  Maria and I signed up for all the baking classes because they were really more like eating classes. We would sit and chat as the teacher cooked food. It was perfect. As with most classes, the boys immediately claimed one side of the room, the girls the other.

  We encountered Jimmy when we heard a commotion from across the room. Needing only the smallest excuse to visit the boys, we rushed over.

  Jimmy was standing in the center of a small group. Next to him was his best friend. Half Jimmy’s size, he was known as “Half-Jimmy.”

  Half-Jimmy was holding a roll of brown paper towels—the sort one finds in a gas station bathroom.

  Jimmy addressed his namesake (well, half namesake): “Half-Jimmy, I’m ready.”

  Half-Jimmy grabbed Full Jimmy.

  “You don’t have to do this, Jimmy.”

  “I must,” Jimmy replied.

  Half-Jimmy handed him the roll.

  Jimmy tore off a sheet. Inserting it between his lips, Jimmy began to chew. When he had swallowed it, he tore off another, looked it over, and placed it in his mouth.

  And so it continued.

  As Jimmy’s saliva ran out, he gripped the table, making the ungodly noises of a person scrubbing his throat with sandpaper.

  Half-Jimmy stood by, pen and notebook in hand. Nervously, Half-Jimmy scribbled—the time, the people, the number of paper towels—all the while checking Jimmy to make sure he was okay.

  Sweat gushed across Jimmy’s face, the towels bulging in his mouth. Slowly the entire roll wiggled its way into his bowel.

  Half-Jimmy hugged Jimmy. Jimmy belched.

  “You’ve still got it, Jimmy,” Half-Jimmy cried.

  Half-Jimmy then pulled Jimmy toward a chair, making certain Jimmy was seated before checking his pulse.

  Maria and I ran back to the other side of the room to report the scene to the girls. No one cared.

  As the summer passed, we came to learn more of Jimmy.

  As a child in rural Iowa, he was no different from the others until, one afternoon, walking home from school, he was struck by lightning. What Jimmy lost mentally, he made up for in other ways, including the ability to swallow paper towels. He also won an award for being the least lucky person in camp (he managed to find a dead dog in a cave and was struck again by lightning, this second time with no effect).

  While other boys found Jimmy freakish, Half-Jimmy loved and encouraged him, becoming his nurse and biographer.

  —

  Toward the end of our final week at camp, our cabin counselor, Lauren, asked Maria and me if we wanted to join an overnight outing arranged by the camp. She assured us that we would love connecting with nature—something us city kids didn’t do a lot. Nature to me meant roaches, squirrels, and rats. When we heard there was going to be free food, we agreed to go. Having to stick to a strict three-meals-a-day schedule was hard, so Maria and I spent many hours scheming about how to get more food.

  Decked out in flip-flops, shorts, and tank tops, we waddled to the mess hall, where Lauren shoved two plastic bags into our arms.

  “What is this?” Maria asked after peeking inside.

  I looked inside my own bag. “One uncooked hot dog, and one apple,” I announced.

  “Camp!” Maria cursed.

  Lauren ushered us to where the other kids were standing. They were dressed in down jackets and hiking shoes. My stomach started to turn.

  “All right, survivalists,” Lauren joked, “let’s get moving. We have a long hike ahead of us.”

  She led us to the edge of camp where a tiny path snaked through the trees.

  Maria and I lagged behind the group in our entirely unsuitable attire. Three hours later we entered a tiny clearing where the group stopped. Maria picked a splinter out of her heel.

  In addition to courses on animal care (read dissection), the camp offered a class on wilderness survival. On the last weekend of camp, all the kids who took the class got to test their training on a trip to the woods. There were to be no s’mores, tents, or ghost stories. What Lauren had neglected to mention was that Maria and I had signed up for the survival weekend.

  Lauren grinned. “Pair up!”

  Maria and I st
arted to look for more capable partners; the more capable partners started looking for anyone other than Maria and me.

  The two of us were sent to the last clearing, where a girl with frizzy red hair and a camouflage bandanna and her burly partner were already setting up. Maria and I eyed each other warily.

  Across the clearing campers were stacking branches to create teepees.

  I nudged Maria. “We’d better start doing that.”

  Maria grudgingly agreed, and we started to collect and pile branches. An hour later the sun was nearing the horizon, and all we had was a small pile of twigs. I took some of the twigs and attempted to create a fire, while Maria worked on the teepee.

  “I’m hungry,” I whined.

  “No surprise there,” Maria retorted.

  Nature tests even the best of friendships.

  With no fire but something like a teepee, we huddled together and began to wolf down the uncooked weenies. The sun set. From the relative safety of our shelter, we watched the bandanna girl and her companion enjoy themselves in front of a roaring fire.

  “How did they do it?” Maria hissed.

  “Maybe it was something they learned in the survival class?” I replied.

  Just then, we saw the stout girl reach into her backpack, grab a can of bug spray, and spray it into the fire. The fire blazed.

  Maria looked troubled, something that could have been a side effect of the uncooked hot dogs.

  “I don’t think they should be doing that,” she moaned, now clutching her stomach.

  I nodded intelligently, making an effort to control my own bowels.

  As Lauren made the rounds to check each campsite, we waved her over and reported on what the duo across the way were up to. Lauren immediately told them to pack their bags. She promptly called the camp to come pick them up. Maria and I sank further beneath our twigs. Bandanna girl and her partner glared in our direction, suspecting that it was us who’d ratted them out.

  Our apprehension over what the two girls might do to us, combined with the ill and fragrant effects of the weenies, made me sweat. Maria was not faring any better. Crouching there, beneath the twigs of a dilapidated teepee, in desperate need of a bathroom, and fearing the wrath of those two girls, Maria and I started to laugh. Laugh and laugh and laugh.

  What a pair we were. Two weenies.

  AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY

  TOWARD THE END of seventh grade, there was to be an election for student president. A number of the most well liked and well known kids had declared their candidacies.

  As the posters accumulated on the walls of the school, I was seized by this logic:

  popular kids, though liked by those in their own cliques, were often disliked, or even hated, by those in other groups;

  certain kids, like me, though popular with no one, were hated by no one; and

  if both of the above were true, then someone like me might get elected student council president.

  Several days later it hit me: if “someone like me” might get elected student council president, then why not me?

  I discussed it with my parents that evening. At first they were perplexed. My mom explained that to be on the student government, I would need to have friends who would vote for me. She immediately started to compose what she would say when I lost the election. My dad was taken aback by my newfound initiative, a trait which had skipped so many generations of Ripses that they hardly knew how to spell it.

  The next day I announced my candidacy.

  Of those who were running against me, and there were many, one was a portly, popular boy named Tim. Another, a Chinese American girl named Saijin. She had beautiful posters: “SAIJIN, It Rhymes with ASIAN.” Not subtle, but likely effective in a school where half the students were Asian Americans.

  My own candidacy was greeted with a strong lack of interest. Even the friends I had—my table—didn’t support me, claiming that I couldn’t win and that my candidacy would further humiliate us. In the days leading up to the election, candidates were supposed to describe our campaigns to the school. I had no slogans, no posters, no buttons, and the election was just weeks away.

  Even Maria, my best friend, insisted that, out of fairness, she would have to give the other candidates a good look.

  Toward the end of the campaign, a man who I did not recognize appeared at one of my parents’ cocktail parties. He was sitting alone and had the expression on his face that I had when I was told I’d be sleeping next to the camp toilet.

  He may have noticed me staring at him, for he waved me over.

  “I am an old friend of your father’s. And you are?”

  “His daughter.”

  “Not entirely surprising, I suppose.”

  I headed in a different direction.

  “It is a pleasure to meet you, sir, but I am running for class president and need to figure out how to get people to like me.”

  “Having trouble with that?”

  “Since I was an infant.”

  “Where do you go to school?”

  Suddenly I was deep into my school and what was happening with the election. Quite surprisingly, he listened.

  At the end of my description of Tim, Saijin, and the other candidates, he announced, “Well, young lady, it sounds as if you are the best of a bad bunch.”

  The next day my posters went up at school:

  “Nicolaia Rips, The Best of a Bad Bunch.”

  Students loved it.

  After our final platform speeches in the cafeteria (mine was all about how we needed a water fountain on the fifth floor), I walked into the school, and there was a sign with the results of the election: “Nicolaia Rips—President.”

  This came as a surprise to everyone, and, yes, to me.

  Once elected, I tried to carry out my campaign pledge, which was nothing more than giving kids a sense of what they have in common (and installing a water fountain). I tried to organize more dances and events so that kids from all cliques could be included. To be honest, it was difficult. As Karl Marx had offered, only the folks at the bottom yearn for equality. The popular kids could have cared less about my community outreach efforts. They already had each other. I did however manage to get that water fountain installed. It broke after a week but I fought hard to get it there. I may not have succeeded in schoolwide unity, but I did get my first taste of pointless educational bureaucracy.

  One day, I asked my father about the man I’d met at the cocktail party.

  “A good old friend,” my father replied. “Brilliant fellow.”

  “But why haven’t I met him before?”

  “He was just released from prison.”

  “What was he in for?”

  “Smuggling antiquities or something like that. I don’t know all the details.”

  I glanced at the collection of terra-cotta figures on top of our bookshelves.

  “How does he support himself now that he’s out of prison?”

  “Gin and tonics.”

  MY INTERESTED LOOK

  I PASSED THE final few weeks of seventh grade sitting in the Stoner Corner next to Joseph (Greta’s boyfriend). By this point in the year, teachers had given up trying to educate us and were content to sit back as we conversed quietly. One afternoon, Joseph and I had just finished a game of tic-tac-toe, and he was filling me in on the latest school gossip.

  He was going on about how Hunter had been asked out by the prettiest girl in the school (Penelope Brewster) and how he had rejected her. This piece of news was very interesting since I’d always had a bit of a thing for Hunter.

  Though I was eager to hear more, Joseph stopped and refused to continue. When I pressed him, he remarked that I obviously wasn’t interested in what he was saying. I was dumbstruck.

  “Me? Not interested! How could you think that?!”

  “You look bo
red—you’ve got the expression my grandfather has on his face after he falls asleep but before his dentures slide out of his mouth.”

  What was this?

  I’d assumed that when I was interested in something I showed it.

  A day or so later, I was at a piano recital, organized and filmed by an actor whom my parents knew from the Chelsea. There were about fifty people.

  The piano player, a man in his eighties, had been a child sensation but, owing to stage fright, no longer played publicly. My parents’ friend, the actor, had met the piano player and become intrigued by him. Soon the actor made it his mission to coax the pianist back on stage. The concert that evening was the pianist’s first in fifty-five years.

  The actor began the evening by telling the story of the pianist. But the actor also spoke of his own difficulties: he’d begun acting as a child, achieved great success in his twenties and thirties, but was now worried about his future.

  I was in awe of what I was listening to. The actor was both brave and humble.

  “Nicki?”

  Me?

  “Nicki?”

  No doubt about it. The actor was staring at me from the podium and calling my name.

  “How old are you?” he asked.

  “Thirteen.”

  I was confused by his question since he knew exactly how old I was. I was the same age as his daughter, one of my oldest family friends. But he was smart and I imagined he was using the question as a lead into something like:

  “I was exactly Nicki’s age when I started acting. At first it was difficult. I had to struggle to learn how to act. People thought that only sissies acted, and kids made fun of me. When I look at Nicki, I feel the need to tell her that whatever fears she may have along the way, she will one day be a great success.”

  Instead, he announced to the audience:

  “As soon as I started telling you about my midlife crisis, Nicki got bored.”

  The audience laughed.

  I was embarrassed. And confused. Why did he think I was bored? I had on my interested face!

  I buried my head in my mother’s shoulder as the cameras zoomed in on me. As the crowd’s laughter died down, Mom whispered, “It’s true, as soon as he started talking about his life your face went slack.”