by Alice Ozma
“Now you’re just being showy,” my father said, also noticing the nearby family. But after they crossed into another exhibit, he looked to see if anyone else was coming and then nodded my cue.
“We’re the Boy-Haters’ Club of America!” I said, this time more of a chant.
He took his shoes off of his feet and put them on his hands like gloves, tapping out a rhythm that was in no way related to what I was singing but still seemed quite fitting. When I had finished singing or chanting the song for perhaps the tenth time and eventually tired myself out, he kept his shoes on his hands, still merrily pounding a beat to whatever song he had stuck in his head. I waited quietly for him to finish, but he continued and started bobbing his head, closing his eyes and humming. When I realized that he was actually singing a Hank Williams song, I called his attention back to the meeting. The location was sometimes distracting, but not distracting enough to excuse such behavior.
The Boy-Haters’ Club of America didn’t require quite the commitment that The Streak did. We were now at close to two hundred nights of reading, and we were absolutely devouring the Ramona Quimby books, reading them out of sequential order but never finding them any less entertaining. I saw some Ramona in my freckled, skinny self. As a member of the Boy-Haters’ Club of America, I especially enjoyed laughing along as she chased Davy around the playground in Ramona the Pest. I didn’t think of myself as a pest, per se, but I did my fair share of terrorizing boys when the moment called for it. The moment often did call for it, since I was a true and loyal member of the BHCA.
We met sporadically, whenever we were near the clubhouse, which was more often than you might think since it was an hour away. Our clubhouse was in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia, on the second floor, behind an exhibit about dinosaurs. A set of carpeted steps led up to a large window with spectacular views that made it the ideal location for our meetings. There were two items on our agenda, and we had already done the first—singing the namesake song. My father wrote it, and the tune’s not very specific; it is most closely related to the opening for a local news show. Because it was so short we often sang it multiple times, as we did that day, the quality of our performances going down with each repetition. Once we’d settled down from that, it was time for the second half of our club business.
“Look at that one! Geez, you can tell right away what his problem is: he’s got a messy bedroom. Filthy. Dirty clothes piled everywhere, food under the bed, magazines in every corner. Disgraceful.”
I hadn’t been in the bedroom of any boys, but we’d read about them.
“You’re not in a position to talk, Lovie. Have you seen your room in the past year or two?”
“Is this the Daughter-Haters’ Club, or the Boy-Haters’? Because I am not quite a boy.”
“No, not quite. Well look at this one waddling along. His problem is about as obvious as they come, all you need is one good look at him to know. He always eats with his mouth hanging open.”
I squinted down at the boy, who was at this point directly below us. He did have an awfully big, pouting mouth. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he didn’t even have full motor control over it. Tricky.
Not everyone can tell these things about boys at first glance, especially from forty or more feet away. For many, it would take practice and some serious skill. We just happened to have both. We had been coming to our hideout for years, even back when I was in diapers, even before The Streak. It felt nice to have something secret to do right in the middle of a big public museum. It made me feel like Claudia Kincaid, hiding out in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I would crawl up into my spot, stare out the window, and look for boys who were just begging for our disapproval. At first, this was difficult for me. In preschool my best friends were boys, because they shared my interest in getting our clothes as dirty as possible before the end of the day. But as I got older and boys got weirder, it became less and less of a challenge to think of things to say about them. In third grade, I now saw them for what they were: strange, foreign creatures, typically with bad breath and ill-fitting football jerseys. They had it coming, I would think. So we sat in our clubhouse and mocked them mercilessly, because there were probably boys sitting in clubhouses all over the world doing the same thing to girls and to each other. Maybe not quite the same thing, but similar. I had been meaning to ask my father something about our meetings, though. Something was suspicious.
“Dad, I’ve been thinking it over, and aren’t you sort of a traitor for being vice president of the Boy-Haters’ Club of America? I have seen your photos from elementary school and you were definitely a boy. You had the haircut and everything. And in some of the pictures you are laughing in a boy way.”
“I am not trying to deny it. I was a boy. Right in there with the worst of the bunch, smelly and loud. We didn’t have indoor plumbing so I always stunk. I mean I just assumed I did, I didn’t notice it particularly because all boys stink around that age. I blended in quite nicely, I’ve got to admit.”
“Yes, it sounds like you were definitely a boy. I’ve met boys like that, the stinky ones.”
“Well, in my younger days I really wasn’t so bad. I was clean and polite enough to pass for a girl. My kindergarten teacher thought my name was Jane, not James. She never figured it out, either.”
“How did she never figure it out!? She thought you were a girl all along? Didn’t you say anything? Didn’t Grammom say something? I don’t believe you. I think she was teasing you.”
“No no no, I’m certain there’s a jertain behind the curtain,” he said, slightly misquoting Dr. Seuss’s There’s a Wocket in My Pocket to hammer his point home. “I’m certain she thought I was a girl and my name was Jane. If she were still alive today and I ran into her on the street, I think she’d call me that even now.”
I looked at all six foot three of my father, his muscular frame draped in a button-up shirt and long pants. I don’t think anyone could walk up to him and call him by a female name without laughing.
“Why didn’t you ever correct her, if you knew she had your name and gender wrong?”
“Well, Lovie, don’t you think Jane is a much better name than James? Hands down?”
“No! I think they are about even, but I think I’d want people to call me my name either way.”
“Well, maybe someday you will change your mind. I would change my name to Jane.”
“So do it. Who is stopping you? You are a grown-up and have a house and a job.”
I presented this as evidence that he could do whatever he wanted without repercussions.
“That’s just the problem. The papers for the house are under James. It’s too late now.”
I gave him a pitying look. It did make sense, though. I’d seen my father sign his name on hundreds of things, sometimes half a dozen in one day if he was paying bills. How unfortunate that people grow up using names they never liked in the first place, all because they never thought to change them. My father should have taken his opportunity to latch onto “Jane” when he had the chance. I considered calling him Jane from then on, but it wouldn’t have made much sense since I’d never called him James to begin with.
“Don’t worry,” I said soothingly. “I talked it over with the rest of the club and being a former Jane is good enough for us. You are still a full-fledged member of the BHCA. We choose to ignore your boyhood. Though the records will indicate that you admit to being stinky, we will try to get past it.”
“Thank you. Please tell the club members that I am eternally grateful for their leniency.”
I looked out the window for a while. Then he turned to me and asked, sincerely, “If you ever decide you don’t hate boys, will we stop having our club meetings?”
“Well, I don’t really hate them now,” I admitted. “I just hate them in spirit. So no, I don’t think so. What made you think of that?”
“It could be that one day you will want to get a boy in
the dreaded kiss-lock.”
This was a wrestling move my father often described, where one person held the other down and forced mouth-to-face contact, usually lips to cheek; but sometimes, in a worst-case scenario, lip-to-lip contact accidentally occurred. This, he informed me, was actually poisonous and to be avoided at all costs. An accident of such proportions could be nearly fatal, if not properly treated. Sometimes it happened in the books we read and no one died, but my father was careful to remind me that those were works of fiction written for children. They left out the imminent-doom factor because it was scary.
“I know better than to do that,” I said. “I am too young to risk my life for no good reason.”
“There really is no good reason, you are right. It is a needless risk. When you see it in movies, they have medics standing by, waiting on the sidelines. They’re highly trained professionals.”
“Do other girls know this? Because no one seems to believe me at school when I bring it up. No one’s even heard of the dreaded kiss-lock. They’ve heard of kisses, but I think that is different.”
“No, not everyone knows, and you can’t just go around blabbing about it, either. These are club secrets, for Pete’s sake. You need to guard them with your life; anyone in a secret club knows that.”
“I am sorry, I didn’t realize,” I said. “I thought this was public information. I understand.”
I crossed my heart as though it were some sort of a club sign, though it really wasn’t. We didn’t have a sign or a handshake or even a high five. All the club did was sing our song and make fun of boys as they walked by. Our meetings usually lasted between two and four minutes. This one was actually on the long side, because we got sidetracked. We weren’t even getting our work done. That’s why I was president and he was vice president: I knew how to keep things running smoothly, and I did just that.
“Look,” I said, pointing out the window again in a very businesslike manner to draw attention to the task at hand. “He sticks his gum under the desks at school. Disgusting. Never gets caught.”
Just as I said this, the boy reached into his pocket and pulled out a pack of gum. He popped a piece in his mouth and carelessly threw the wrapper on the ground behind him. Predictable!
“You’ve really got these boys all figured out,” my father said, as he helped me down from my perch. A school group was approaching the room and we couldn’t risk compromising our location.
“All figured out,” I said. As the group entered, a boy in the line smiled at me. I gave him a long, hard look. Then I smiled back, to avoid blowing my cover.
CHAPTER FIVE
Day 211
Memories are forever.
—Lois Lowry, The Giver
Franklin was named after my favorite bridge into Philadelphia. There are only two bridges, but I always had favorites of everything. He was a beta fish, brightly colored and exotic looking. Someone once told me that betas are such fighters they will attack their reflection in a mirror if they see one. Franklin never would have done this. He was a kind, loving fish.
When I read to him, which I often did, he came to the glass to listen. He would swim in place, his wide eyes looking up at me, and stay there until I put the book down and walked away. He especially liked adventure stories, which made me feel guilty because he lived in a bowl. But the bowl had a great view of our front yard, and he spent most of his time looking out at the birds and the trees. I think that made his bowl seem much bigger than it was, like living in a house made of windows.
One day as I was getting ready for school, I heard Kath and my mother whispering downstairs. My father and mother had been fighting a lot lately, and she’d even told me, in a whispered conversation a few nights before, that she was planning to move out soon. Was she telling Kath now, or did the conversation have something to do with my upcoming birthday? I stepped out into the hall and listened, but what I heard was:
“Should I wait until she gets home to tell her?”
“No, she says hello to him every morning. She will notice.”
“Well what should I tell her?”
“I don’t know, you’re the mother. Figure something out.”
I ran down the stairs and into the kitchen. Franklin’s bowl was on the counter, apparently moved from the living room for better lighting. When they saw me coming they quickly jumped in front of me, but I had already seen. The bowl was empty.
“Franklin died,” I stated rather than asking, already crying.
My mother looked at my sister, held her breath, and nodded.
“Egg,” my sister said, using her nickname for me, “you knew this day was coming. He already lived past his life expectancy. He was pretty old, for a fish.”
“But he was a happy fish,” I reminded her.
“Yes,” my mother said. “The world’s happiest fish. You two will miss each other very much, I am sure. It is hard. Should I ask Daddy to take care of him before you get home from school today?”
I immediately shook my head. It wasn’t even an option. Franklin was my fish, not my father’s. His final moments needed to be with me, and they needed to be special.
“He needs a funeral,” I said. “Will you all come to his funeral? Today after school?”
“Of course we will,” my mother said a little uneasily. “But don’t you think that might make you a little more sad? Funerals can be very difficult, even for adults. Is this something you really want?”
“Yes, I will plan it today during school. It will be the perfect good-bye for such a good friend.”
“I think you should be doing your schoolwork during school,” my sister said.
“I’m in third grade,” I reminded her, hoping that excused me from serious academics.
“Maybe just during lunch and recess,” my mother suggested helpfully.
When I got home from school, I pulled out a folder of sketches and notes. I hadn’t had enough time to organize my thoughts during lunch and recess, so I also took advantage of math, science, and social studies. On such a sad day, it’s not like I could have paid much attention anyway. I had made a series of sequential drawings, and I put them in order and fanned the pages like a flip book. They didn’t create any sort of moving picture, but I felt that it was a good enough preview either way. I began preparations for the event.
I’d never been to a funeral, so I went up to my father’s room to thumb through the books we’d read together. Books, I was starting to discover, could be great points of reference, even if they weren’t true. Some of them had a way of telling things how they were, whether they were completely true or not. They could really be helpful. I didn’t remember a funeral in any of them, but maybe I’d missed it. To my surprise, none of the books my father and I had read so far even talked about death. Was he trying to protect me? I looked through the books we’d read that mentioned pets, but It’s Like This, Cat wasn’t much help. The book that focused on a girl who lived in a funeral home and would become one of my favorites from The Streak, Each Little Bird That Sings, would have been great help, but we wouldn’t read that until years later. The Streak was still new, and there wasn’t much material to work with. I decided that I didn’t know much about funerals, but I sure knew a lot about parties. Were they similar? Close enough, I reasoned.
First, I made invitations. My spelling had yet to catch up with my vocabulary, but I didn’t know it. To me, the letters were perfect. They read:
FRANKLIN THE FISH PAST AWAY IN HIS
SLEEP LAST NIGHT. HE WAS A DEAR FISH
AND EVERYONE WILL MISS HIM,
ESPESHULLY OUR FAMILY. PLEASE COME
TO HIS FYUNRAL TONIGHT IN ONE HOUR.
WHERE BLACK. PLEASE.
I distributed these to the family with a somber look. My father read his and said, “Lovie, in an hour I hope to be asleep. You know I need a nap after I eat. Can I just pay my respects now?”
“No,” I said, “I’m sorry, but that won’t work because you are the funeral speaker. You have to come
out and say some nice things before we bury him, to help everyone remember him.”
“Well, that is an important job. You want me to give the eulogy, then?”
“No, just some things about how great he was and how much everyone will miss him.”
“All right,” he said. “I will try to prepare my thoughts. It will be a privilege and an honor.”
An hour later, everyone met in the kitchen, and I was disappointed to see that my father and I were the only ones appropriately dressed. My mother wore black pants with a dark blue shirt, because she didn’t have any black tops. I made her go upstairs and put on lipstick to at least make her outfit a little more formal. Although she had a nice black skirt, the only black shirt my sister could find had a band’s name printed across the front. I suggested that she turn it backward. The tag stuck out and scratched her neck. I told her that we all had to feel some pain when we lost a loved one.
Hors d’oeuvres were served on a silver platter that I’d constructed out of tinfoil. I knew that there should be food, but I didn’t know what, so I served them the snack I usually made when I was fending for myself: wheat bread microwaved with string cheese on top, chopped up into little squares, and served with a white raisin garnish. The appetizers did not disappear as quickly as I had planned, and after ten minutes of standing around my father suggested that I leave the rest out for the birds, as a heartfelt gesture of sacrifice. It seemed right to selflessly go without food in honor of the occasion.
We marched to the spot I had selected in the backyard, because walking was not formal enough. The location was perfect: under a great big tree, near a bush that sometimes produced flowers, in the tallest part of the grass. The leaves all fell away and then came back, so the little patch of land got sunshine in the winter and shade in the summer. Today it was a bit chilly, but bright and maybe even a little too cheerful. I wanted to remind the world that we were here for a funeral, not a birthday party. Had Mother Nature’s father been screening the books that included death from her, too? The sky was supposed to be dark, and maybe a little rainy, even I knew that much. I said we were supposed to hold umbrellas, so we did, but they didn’t protect us from anything aside from the occasional indignant March breeze.
