Inside the journal, there are a few pages from the book, including my favorite story, "Freckle Juice" by Judy Blume. I was thrilled. Not only was this my 3rd grade book, but this was probably the first story I ever read by Judy Blume. I devoured her books in 4th, 5th and 6th grade. I had to bring this home.
This is my madeleine/time machine trip for today, sending me back to Albert Einstein Elementary School in 1978. After my small reading group read this story, we created a little skit of "Freckle Juice." I was Sharon, the conniving little girl who sells Andrew her secret family recipe for freckle juice, which included grape juice, mayonnaise, vinegar and a little piece of onion. I didn't remember Sharon being such a con artist, but she was. I think I imagined her being nicer than she was, which is a stretch because she is awful.
Robbie played Andrew. Robbie was the smartest kid in the grade--likely the entire school--and he shocked our group by putting a dozen blue stickers on his face for the scene where Andrew comes to school with blue freckles. Robbie didn't tell anyone he had planned this -- he just did it.
My memory is faulty here. I somehow recall we all were shocked, and the teacher was not pleased, which makes me wonder if he drew the dots on his face with a Sharpie. Robbie was one of those boys who was 90% brilliant and 10% outlandish, and so it was completely possible. My memory of 90% brilliance suggests that he would have known better to have drawn on his face and not have done something that absurd. Yet, this discrepancy in my memory makes me wonder. The kids would not have been so shocked and the teacher would not have been upset if he had just used stickers. His 10% outlandishness would have drawn on his face to get a reaction.
Robbie didn't always use his best judgment, like the time in sixth grade when he rode his dirt bike down a hill in a construction site, crashed and broke his collar bone. "Hill" is a misnomer. This was more like a wall of dirt with a straight vertical drop. If it was a ski slope, it would have been unskiable. It was remarkable that he didn't break something worse than a collar bone. I wonder what made him try to bike down the dirt cliff. He must have been amplifying the reward and minimizing the risk. It would have been a wild ride if he hadn't gotten hurt. I didn't witness the ride or the accident, nor did I see anyone else ride down the hill. Was it peer pressure? Did other kids make it down successfully? This was a kid who didn't care about drawing spots on his face. I doubted he caved to peer pressure. More likely, he was peer pressure. Given he was the smartest kid in the school, no one would say he was a bad influence. No one would say he wasn't a little imp, though, either.
While I had a brother growing up, I never really understood boys until I had a son. I never understood why Robbie would have done something potentially stupid just "because." Growing up, I never did anything that I thought was intentionally stupid. Now I understand a little bit. (Reading Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid helped me to understand, too.) Boys, as I have observed, sometimes do things just to see what will happen. I remember playing on the Sesame Street website with my son when he was little. There was a little section where he would help Oscar the Grouch sort the trash. The Boy would make mistakes on purpose, just to hear Oscar say "That's not correct!" in his faux grumpy voice. The Boy would laugh and laugh.
I wonder now if I give the Boy enough freedom to make those silly mistakes, to draw blue freckles on his face. I hope he never rides his bike down a dirt cliff, crashes, and breaks a few bones. Yet, I long for him to be a little imp. Just a little.
No comments:
Post a Comment