The problem with square-dance lessons was that most of the boys were a lot more interested in stepping on our feet than they were in learning how to dance. And a few of them were so good at it they could step on us in time to the music. Mostly, I concentrated on not getting my feet squashed.
On the morning of the square dance I dressed in my new skirt and blouse.
Are you there God? It's me, Margaret. I can't wait until two o'clock God. That's when out dance starts. Do you think I'll get Philip Leroy for a partner? It's not so much that I like him as a person God, but as a boy he's very handsome. And I'd love to dance with him… just once or twice. Thank you God.
The PTA decorated the gym. It was supposed to look like a barn, I think. There were two piles of hay and three scarecrows. And a big sign on the wall in yellow letters saying Welcome to the Sixth Grade Square Dance… as if we didn't know.
I was glad my mother wasn't a chaperone. It's bad enough trying to act natural at a dance, but when your mother's there it's impossible. I know because Mrs. Wheeler was a chaperone and Nancy was a wreck. The chaperones were dressed funny, like farmers or something. I mean, Nancy 's mother wore dungarees, a plaid shirt and a big straw hat. I didn't blame Nancy for pretending not to know her.
We had a genuine square-dance caller. He was dressed up a lot like Mrs. Wheeler. He stood on the stage and told us what steps to do. He also worked the record player. He stamped his feet and jumped around and now and then I saw him mop his face off with a red handkerchief. Mr. Benedict kept telling us to get into the spirit of the party. "Relax and enjoy yourselves," he said.
The three sixth grades were supposed to mingle but the Four PTS's stuck close together. We had to line up every time there was a new dance. The girls lined up on one side and the boys on the other. That's how you got a partner. The only trouble was there were four more girls than boys, so whoever wound up last on line had to dance with another leftover girl. That only happened to me and Janie once, thank goodness!
What we did was try to figure out who our partner was going to be in advance. Like, I knew when I was fourth in line that Norman Fishbein was going to be my partner because he was fourth in line on the boys' side. So I switched around fast because Norman Fishbein is the biggest drip in my class. Well, at least one of the biggest drips. Also, Freddy Barnett was to be avoided because all he would do was tease me about how come I didn't look like Laura Danker in a sweater. But I noticed that once when he danced with her his face was so red he looked more like a lobster than he did when he was all sunburned.
The girls shuffled around more than the boys because most of us wanted to get Philip Leroy for a partner. And finally I got him. This is how it happened. After everyone had a partner we had to make a square. My partner was Jay Hassler who was very polite and didn't try to step on my foot once. Then the caller told us to switch partners with whoever was on our right side. Well, Philip Leroy was with Nancy on my right side, and Nancy was so mad she almost cried right in front of everyone. Even though I was thrilled to have Philip Leroy all to myself for a whole record, he was one of the foot steppers! And dancing with him made my hands sweat so bad I had to wipe them off on my new skirt.
At four o'clock the chaperones served us punch and cookies and at quarter to five the dance was over and my mother picked me up in our new car. (My father gave in around Halloween when my mother explained that she couldn't even get a quart of milk because she had no car. And that Margaret couldn't possibly walk to and from school in bad weather and that bad weather would be coming very soon. My mother didn't like my father's suggestion that if she got up early and drove him to the station she could use his car all day long.) Our new car is a Chevy. It's green.
My mother was in a hurry to drive home from the square dance because she was in the middle of a new painting. It was a picture of a lot of different fruits in honor of Thanksgiving. My mother gives away a whole bunch of pictures every Christmas. My father thinks they wind up in other people's attics.
11
By the first week in December we no longer used our secret names at PTS meetings. It was too confusing, Nancy said. Also, we just about gave up on our Boy Books. For one thing the names never changed. Nancy managed to shift hers around. It was easy for her-with eighteen boys. But Janie and Gretchen and I always listed Philip Leroy number one. There was no suspense about the whole thing. And I wondered, did they list Philip Leroy because they really liked him or were they doing what I did-making him number one because he was so good-looking. Maybe they were ashamed to write who they really liked too.
The day that Gretchen finally got up the guts to sneak out her father's anatomy book we met at my house, in my bedroom, with the door closed and a chair shoved in front of it. We sat on the floor in a circle with the book opened to the male body.
"Do you suppose that's what Philip Leroy looks like without his clothes on?" Janie asked.
"Naturally, dope!" Nancy said. "He's male, isn't he?"
"Look at all those veins and stuff," Janie said.
"Well, we all have them," Gretchen said.
"I think they're ugly," Janie said.
"You better never be a doctor or a nurse," Gretchen told her. "They have to look at this stuff all the time."
"Turn the page, Gretchen," Nancy said.
The next page was the male reproductive system.
None of us said anything. We just looked until Nancy told us, "My brother looks like that."
"How do you know?" I asked.
"He walks around naked," Nancy said.
"My father used to walk around naked," Gretchen said. "But lately he's stopped doing it."
"My aunt went to a nudist colony last summer," Janie said.
"No kidding!" Nancy looked up.
"She stayed a month," Janie told us. "My mother didn't talk to her for three weeks after that. She thought it was a disgrace. My aunt's divorced."
"Because of the nudist colony?" I asked.
"No," Janie said. "She was divorced before she went."
"What do you suppose they do there?" Gretchen asked.
"Just walk around naked is all. My aunt says it's very peaceful. But I'll never walk around naked in front of anybody!"
"What about when you get married?" Gretchen asked.
"Even then," Janie insisted.
"You're a prude!" Nancy said.
"I am not! It has nothing to do with being a prude."
"When you grow you'll change your mind," Nancy told her. "You'll want everybody to see you. Like those girls in Playboy."
"What girls in Playboy?" Janie asked.
"Didn't you ever see a copy of Playboy?"
"Where would I see it?" Janie asked.
"My father gets it," I said.
"Do you have it around?" Nancy asked.
"Sure."
"Well, get it!" Nancy told me.
"Now?" I asked.
"Of course."
"Well, I don't know," I said.
"Listen, Margaret-Gretchen went to all the trouble of sneaking out her father's medical book. The least you could do is show us Playboy."
So I opened my bedroom door and went downstairs, trying to remember where I had seen the latest issue. I didn't want to ask my mother. Not that it was so wrong to show it to my friends. I mean, if it was so wrong my father shouldn't get it at all, right? Although lately I think he's been hiding it because it's never in the magazine rack where it used to be. Finally, I found it in his night table drawer and I thought if my mother caught me and asked me what I was doing I'd say we were making booklets and I needed some old magazines to cut up. But she didn't catch me.