Cousins

by Virginia Hamilton

  She pushed away all worrisome thoughts. She had walked a mile to the Lawn where they started out for day camp. Lawn used to be this mansion place, her mama said. It was all painted white with green trimming, and with the biggest rooms, and a porch all the way around. No one lived in it now. But once, Mr. Harrison lived there. Now there were just offices belonging to the town in there.

  They had sat on the Lawn porch and waited for the bus. Right in front of them was the flagpole with the American flag moving so gentle. Hardly a breeze.

  I pledge a-lee-juhnce! And the sun was there on the side of the pole. And all of the kids and Cammy sat in the sunshine on the porch. All of them in shorts and tennis shoes, hair combed. They were all cleaned up for the day camp. The sky was all blue—still was—and the flagpole was about to poke it, it looked like. The girls were together and the boys were together on the veranda with just a little space between one side and the other.

  Sometimes, one of us goes steady with a boy, Cammy thought. Mama says we don’t “go” anyplace, except on the way to and from school, or to a party. Because we are too young, she says. But I don’t know. Patty Ann goes with Larry Hughes all this week. Aunt Effie doesn’t know it and would murder Patty Ann if she did. Aunt Effie says there best be a war-between-the-sexes until a girl gets a ring on her finger. “Never trust a man,” she says, “until he pays for the wedding and the first year’s rent.”

  Patty Ann and Larry had sat together coming home from day camp on Tuesday. Boys had teased them. Some mean stuff. “Watch out, Larry, she might upchuck in your face!” Stuff like that.

  Larry jumped up, said stuff like, “Step outside. Step outside!” Just like some grown man about to fight, too.

  Everybody laughed, because how do you step outside on a moving bus? That is, everybody laughed except Patty Ann.

  Boys loved her face and her hair and her attitude, Mama called it. The way she “carried” herself. But the rest of her from the neck down was junk-and-sick. Patty Ann was real like a stick; she didn’t stand up straight, either.

  Elodie and me, we don’t go with anyone right now, Cammy was thinking. But I like the day camp a lot. Some say it’s lonely. That’s because kids whose mamas work or ones who don’t have mamas, or the ones who live at the Christian Shelter, are the only kind that come to day camp. And not your true friends.

  Well, Aunt Effie didn’t lift a finger; didn’t have to get up to go to work because Uncle Earl had a fine job as a car salesman. She wasn’t poor at all and let Patty Ann come. Wouldn’t think somebody like Patty Ann would want to.

  But I think she wants to get good and away from Aunt Effie, too, Cammy thought. I bet that’s why she comes to camp.

  Looking out the window on this day-camp day of Thursday. One more day-camp day this week and that will be Saturday. That’s how Cammy was thinking, her thoughts moving with the bus. Thinking on wheels.

  Cammy liked it that she could be alone by herself but, also, with Elodie whenever she wanted company. Elodie didn’t mind when Cammy looked out the window and didn’t talk. Cammy knew Elodie watched her closely, waiting for her to say something so she could jump in. Be friends. Or Elodie waited to tell her something, if and when Cammy got bored with looking out.

  Oh, it was a swell day.

  The bus went all the way downtown to get gas at the filling station. They were relaxed like passengers going to the Mall. Then it went all the way up the main street and then turned left. They got on Devil’s Backbone, which was scary.

  Kids called it the D-bone road. All shade and light making funny shapes, going on-off, light-dark as they went through trees on each side of the road.

  All the windows were wide open. The breeze blew in Cammy’s face, dried the sweat on her forehead and the wet of her hair behind her ears. It felt cool on her face after that. Cammy closed her eyes. She knew when Elodie leaned around to try to see her. She opened her eyes. “What is it, girl?” she said, none too kind.

  “You going to sleep right here?” Elodie asked.

  “I’m taking the breeze,” Cammy said, “but if I feel like dozing off, I sure will.” She wasn’t sleepy. But she did want to be left alone.

  “If I come home with you after day camp, we can play or something?” Elodie said.

  “Girl, don’t bother me about when-we-come-home. We haven’t even started, yet.”

  Elodie set back in her seat. She knew Cammy didn’t want her over. But always, she tried asking.

  Cammy felt funny about it each time Elodie asked to come home with her. Felt funny about saying no. She didn’t want people seeing her with Elodie, that was her deep, dark secret. She was ashamed of it. But she was more ashamed of Elodie.

  She’s poor, Cammy thought and felt ashamed, thinking. Has to live at the Christian Shelter a lot, in the summer, like now. With her mom up by the lakes on a crew doing the migrant work.

  They let Elodie stay for day camp. Cammy didn’t know who “they” were, exactly. But her mama said that “they” paid for Elodie. Because cousin Marie didn’t have the money to send her to camp, but didn’t want Elodie up there with her, either. North, by the lakes, where the crew lived practically in the fields from sunup until almost night.

  “They” paid for it and helped the family so Elodie wouldn’t have to migrant labor, Cammy was thinking.

  “It’s a good town,” Cammy’s mama said often enough. Had a good Care for Cammy’s Gram. And kindness for the less fortunate, like Elodie.

  So I should be nice to her, Cammy thought. I know that! But what will other kids think if she comes to my house? Richie’s enough trouble!

  Cammy fidgeted. It’s not right to feel bad about Elodie because she’s poor and near homeless. But kids will tease me. They see me playing with her in my own yard. I could say I just ran into her downtown, or something.

  It’s different at day camp, Cammy thought. Me and Patty Ann are the best here because we have houses to live in and good stuff at home. She’s got better stuff than I have. She has nice clothes.

  It’s okay to be kind to kids that are worse off.

  Oh, I hate all about it!

  She sighed. She turned to Elodie, who was sitting there not looking out or anything. She stared straight ahead. Cammy was just about ready to invite her home after day camp today when Elodie nodded toward Patty Ann and Larry.

  Cammy looked. Larry had his arm across the back of the seat. He was playing with Patty Ann’s long, pretty braid. Then, he twisted and untwisted it around his hand, gently pulled it. The pulling made Patty Ann’s head jerk back a little each time. Larry was turned toward her, looking down at her face. Patty Ann leaned toward him. Just a little. Elodie and Cammy could see she was grinning all over herself.

  Her face, what they could see of it, looked dreamy.

  “They make me sick,” Cammy whispered to Elodie. Elodie didn’t say anything. She wrung her hands in her lap; laced and unlaced her fingers.

  “You still crazy about Larry?” Cammy asked her. She tried to speak kindly.

  Elodie nodded. She didn’t look up.

  “Well, he’s too old,” Cammy said. “He’s almost thirteen. I mean, he’s twelve,” she whispered, “but anybody that old shouldn’t be going to day camp when some of the kids on this bus aren’t but ten.”

  Elodie looked about to say something. But instead, she shrugged. Her eyes were misty. She was sure still in love, thought Cammy.

  “Listen. You can come over after day camp,” she said. “But I have to go see my Gram Tut before we can play.”

  “That’s okay with me. I always did like Gram Tut,” said Elodie.

  Well, she’s not your Gram, Cammy thought. She didn’t say it. Oh, it was hard, always thinking about other people’s feelings. Her mama said she was different from most children by the way she cared about other people’s feelings.

  Wish I didn’t, Cammy thought. Wish I could be just hard as nails like some people I know.

  She looked at Patty Ann. Cammy felt hard as nails inside toward
her one second. The next second, she felt peevish that she wasn’t more like her.

  Why wasn’t I made that pretty? she wondered. Why does she have everything and I don’t? Good in school, and I am good only sometimes, not in everything. Knows how to say things to the teachers that they like. And can sit just as still in Assembly when it is all so pitiful! Me and Elodie have to slump down and poke each other. Like the rest of the kids, and cause a commotion. Not Patty Ann!

  Don’t think about it. Oh, look out the window. Oh, look! We’re off the D-bone already. We’re climbing the steep road up to the State Park. Oh, it about drives me crazy that it takes so long. But we are up and up, soon. We go around the school forest. Kids planted all the trees there for at least the last seventy-five years, Mama says. Whew! That’s a lo-oo-ong time!

  Cammy looked over into the pine forest as they went by. She could see some of it, the paths where the trees were cut and dragged out at Christmastime.

  Everybody in town came up to get a Christmas tree and have hot chocolate. Her mama said it was a swell tradition, the Christmas tree-cutting at the school pine forest.

  You can see our town—Mama says its no more than a village. If you are a town, you have to have a jail! But you can see our “town” way off on another hill from where the bus goes by, Cammy thought. She caught a glimpse of it just now.

  She leaned back to watch as the gravel road changed to a dark, pavement road. And they were in the State Park. Wood signs, direction arrows carved in the wood. Upper Level, Lower Level.

  Old coach road to Cincinnati. Parking, Lower Level.

  There’s the sign I want! Oh, great! Shelter, Lower Level. That’s us! Cammy thought, excitedly.

  “It’s so fun, the first thing in the morning,” she said to Elodie.

  “Yeah, it is,” Elodie answered. She was close behind Cammy’s back. Cammy leaned against her. Elodie rested her chin on Cammy’s shoulder. For a moment, they were just like sisters, looking, feeling the same and seeing the same.

  “I can’t wait!” Cammy said. “You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, me neither,” Elodie said. They both straightened up and turned facing front.

  The bus pulled into a parking space. They all grabbed their belongings and headed for the stone and wood shelter. It was open all around for four feet above the stone walls. The roof was dark brown like the trim. The shelter was large and roomy, with long tables, a standing grill in the center and a big, old fireplace at one end. You had to sign up for the shelter.

  Our day camp has it for three mornings a week, Cammy thought.

  “Line your lunches on the table,” said Ms. Devine, as they went inside the shelter.

  The counselor for the day camp met them there. He was John Blockson. Mr. Blockson had the kids write their names on slips of paper and pin the papers to their swim-towel rolls. These were then stowed in duffel bags. Next, their lunches were stacked in a kind of rolling locker. Tim took the duffels and locker on a wagon to stow in the baggage part of the bus.

  Cammy was so excited! The duffels with their lunches and swim clothes would go to the next stop and be waiting for them at lunchtime.

  When Tim came back, he blew his whistle. No need to tell the campers. They all lined up on the open grass behind the shelter. The dew was still dampening the ground and wetting their sneakers.

  “Calisthenics,” said Mr. Blockson. Tim helped him lead, bending deeply where the counselor couldn’t.

  They went through their routines to music from a tape player with a small loudspeaker. Oh, they sure could exercise to music. The girls tried to make it almost a dance, knee bends and stretches, side bends and leg lifts. The boys tried to be cool, almost break-dancing, it seemed like. Everybody was grinning. Even laughing. Ms. Devine sat on a picnic table just kind of smiling in the sunlight. It wasn’t her turn to work them yet. She was too big to move fast. Once in a great while, she would do the exercises.

  They were all breathing hard after a half an hour. But, oh, the fresh air! thought Cammy.

  “Did you see how Patty Ann had to set down not even halfway through?” asked Elodie. They were sitting in the shade at a picnic table. They rested while finishing up the cornhusk dolls they’d learned to make last week.

  “I don’t care,” Cammy said. “She gets tired quick, I guess,” she said.

  “And wearing those shorts,” Elodie went on. “They look about to fall off to her feet—no hips.”

  “L-O-D, I don’t care. Let’s just forget her,” Cammy said.

  They did forget Patty Ann, or tried to. But she always caught their attention. There she was, she and Larry with some kids at the next picnic table. All of them in shade but Patty Ann. She was in light and shade. The light caught strands of her hair. Her hair framed her face in waves rippling into that perfect French braid down her back. The waves shone like copper. So did her lashes. She looked like a princess.

  And the whole park must be her daddy’s kingdom, Cammy thought. Oh, I don’t care!

  Until Ms. Devine had to go and use Patty Ann to show them stuff.

  “Students,” said Ms. Devine. “If you will stop a moment and see what Patty Ann is doing. Children! Patty Ann, stand up and show your doll. Now some of you are having trouble with the arms. Show them, dear, how to take the shuck and wrap it around one arm. See, she forms the sleeve starting somewhere around a fourth inch from the hand of the arm. She wraps it up toward the head—see? Now some of you have had trouble with getting the head tight enough. Patty Ann will go around and show you all who are having trouble. Some of you boys with your boy dolls need to pay attention.”

  Cammy liked Ms. Devine fine, until she had to let Patty Ann show them stuff. Andrew once told Cammy that what Patty Ann was about was some “self-filling profit,” it sounded like he said. Since everybody knew Patty Ann was good in school, she got to be the leader of things just on general principles. And because she was made the leader, she thought she was one, too, and would be good in school because it was expected of her.

  But what was wrong with making the kind of doll you wanted? Cammy thought suddenly. I mean, I wet the husk for five minutes like Ms. Devine says to. But I want my doll to be like I want it and not the way she says it ought to be.

  Cammy stuck her lip out and did it her way. She liked her doll’s head to look more round than square. She wanted the arms to be longer and clasped in front, not sticking out to the sides. The whole thing made her fed up with Patty Ann.

  When she came around to their table, Patty Ann acted real nice. She didn’t look at Cammy. But she smiled down at Elodie. She took Elodie’s doll into her hands. You could hardly see her hands work over it, but you could see the doll change into something really good. Right before Cammy’s eyes, too.

  “Well, I’ll be,” said Elodie. She looked up at Patty Ann as if Patty Ann were some kind of queen. “Can I come sit beside you to do her hair?” Elodie asked.

  “I know how to do the hair, look at mine,” Cammy told her. She had her doll’s hair almost done. She tied the dampened cornsilks around her dolly’s forehead with the string, then flipped back the cornsilks so the face would show and the string would be hidden under the hairline. It was nice that cornsilk hair could be blond, or reddish or dark brown, depending on when it was stripped off the corn.

  But Elodie pretended she didn’t hear Cammy.

  “Sure, you can come sit by me,” Patty Ann told Elodie.

  Elodie got up, left Cammy’s side to sit with Patty Ann. Cammy couldn’t believe it. It was like Elodie forgot how she felt about Patty Ann. Forgot how they both felt about her.

  Elodie settled down on one side of Patty Ann, who had Larry on her other side. And then, Larry started being nice to Elodie, since Patty Ann was. It was as if all of a sudden the three of them were best friends. All at once, Elodie had become popular. Everyone else at the table over there began to notice Elodie. “See my doll, ain’t it cute?” somebody said to her.

  Cammy pretended she was deaf, busy with he
r doll.

  “Elodie, your doll’s hair is the same shade as mine is.”

  Cammy could’ve cried. I don’t care! Who cares? she thought.

  But it felt like suffering forever, being left out the way she was. There were only two other people at her table, both boys and both nerds. Well, there was Esther Lovejoy, who was also at the table. She didn’t count. She was near raggedy and they say she had lice sometimes. When you lifted her hair in back, her neck was dark gray, it was so dirty. Cammy had seen it once. And here she was by herself, with Esther of the pale fish eyes across the table from her. Just because Patty Ann stole Elodie away.

  6

  IT WAS AN agonizing time before the doll-making was over. Cammy made her way through it, feeling awful inside. But before it was over, Elodie got what was coming to her, too. Patty Ann lost interest in her, or forgot that she was paying Cammy back for the other day, when Cammy was over there during the rainstorm. When Cammy said bad stuff to Patty Ann and ran away from Aunt Effie, too.

  Patty Ann got back at Cammy and then she and Larry just up and left Elodie. And then, everybody at that table shied away from Ms. Eloise Odie.

  Cammy watched it all. Larry and Patty Ann finished their dolls first. Then everybody else finished, except Elodie, who sat there looking like somebody had stolen her heart and then cut it up and ate it. Big eyes, all misty and sad. Cammy almost felt sorry for her, but not quite. Elodie turned around and looked over at Cammy. Cammy stared right back. She smirked. But then, she turned away.

  Elodie did come back to Cammy’s table. Too late. They weren’t quite friends anymore but they would probably play together.

  “Can I still come over after camp? Remember, you said I could,” Elodie had the guts to ask.

  Kid, you’ve got a lot of nerve! Cammy should’ve said, but she didn’t. She was still too mad, and upset, she had to admit. “Should of thought about that before,” was what she managed to say without her voice trembling.

  Elodie’s eyes brimmed with tears. Then the tears kind of sank back.