Once A Pond Of Time

I have moved from the 11 and 12-year-old cabin to the very youngest cabin on camp: 7 to 9-year-olds. I’m shocked at the huge difference that reversing just a few years can make in a child. These kids have all the sass, imagination, and personality that the older kids do, but are lacking in a few other areas—hygiene, listening skills, and the ability to filter through thoughts before verbalizing them.

This means that this week, while I have a few new tasks (tying shoelaces, brushing hair, saying the phrase “don’t forget new underwear”), I also have the pleasure of 24/7 comic relief. It’s amazing!

This week is also new because now we have a foster child in our cabin. I don’t want to label her, but I’ll admit that the words “foster child” are big enough that every now and then, I see them in giant letters hanging over her head like a cloud.

I'll call her Elizabeth. Before she even arrived at camp, I knew about the tragedies in her life. They were presented to me in tiny bullet points. Her camper profile had circles and stars in pen ink that screamed “SCARY!”

And I was scared. When she showed up to our cabin, the woman that brought her piled her stuff on a bunk in the corner (by my bunk, and for this I was glad) and promptly left camp. A few minutes later I found Elizabeth crying on the porch in the arms of my co-counselor. While this was going on, I climbed onto her bunk and made her bed. Her sheets and blanket were stained and smelled of cigarette smoke. Elizabeth came into the cabin and waited, watching me from under her strangely cut hair (which I later found out had been hacked off in some areas due to a “gum accident”). As soon as I was back down the ladder she scrambled into her bed, threw the covers over herself, and burst into tears again.

I lent her my teddy bear (she didn’t have her own stuffed animal, which I couldn’t believe!) and told her that his name was Benji, and if she told him her troubles, he would take them away for her. Later that night my co-counselor and I found Elizabeth passed out in bed while all the other girls were still brushing their teeth. We tucked her in, and left her there, holding Benji tucked under her chin.

Elizabeth spent her first 18 or so hours at camp crying. She cried the day she got here. She cried the next morning. During cabin cleanup, my co and I told the girls fantastic stories about the “Cabin Fairy” who would come check our cabin while we were out at activities. We left the Fairy notes and moved all our stuffed animals onto the porch to see if the cabin fairy would “bring them to life”. I asked Elizabeth if she wanted to put Benji out there too, and she shrugged, uncaring, and then climbed back into bed until we practically dragged her out to go to breakfast.

She cried through our morning activities saying she wanted to go home because we wouldn’t let her climb trees. “I ain’t having fun,” she said bluntly during my newspaper class after I had convinced her it would be the best part of her day.

Finally, lunch ended and we went back to our cabin for naptime (P.S. we won the silver broom at lunch for the cleanest cabin) and the girls began to excitedly converse because their stuffed animals had all been moved. They were everywhere in the cabin, even in the rafters of our ceiling. There was even a polaroid of the legendary “Golden Gnome” left on our mirror. The girls were hysterical, completely convinced that the cabin fairy was at work. Elizabeth eyed me suspiciously when I said “That’s funny, the Cabin Fairy has been very naughty but she hasn’t left me a note like she usually does! How sad!”

We climbed into our bunks for rest hour and I sat quietly working on the camp newspaper for about ten minutes until I heard a shriek: “A NOTE!” It was Elizabeth. “The cabin fairy left a note!” she climbed out of her bunk and came over to mine, tossing up a small piece of pink notebook paper.

Dear, Sarah

You did a good job!

“It’s for you from the fairy...” Elizabeth muttered, and ran back to her bunk.

I was amazed at the small act of unexpected cleverness. The beginning of a new leaf for this camper.

That was all Monday. Today is Tuesday. Elizabeth has now convinced the entire cabin that she personally knows the Cabin Fairy (and the Golden Gnome: the Fairy’s cousin!) and the other campers all view her as a strange but IMPORTANT little person. She rattles off fantastic stories about the Gnome and his Gnome Land constantly. In my newspaper class she starts to write a story about her “unicorn friend” Ivy. I look over her shoulder and see the opening words scrawled in pencil:

Once A Pond of Time, there was a unicorn.

Elizabeth runs out of paper, so I lend her my own personal journal so she can continue her story during rest hour. At one point she breaks the “no talking!” rule to call out, “Miss Sarah! What should I write about now?” and I do NOT reprimand her.

There are many times I don’t reprimand her. Not that she doesn’t deserve it, because she does. After swim, I found out she was in possession of some contraband gum.

“Spit it out,” I said cheerfully. “You know we can’t have gum at camp, sweet pea.”

She won’t spit it out.

“Spit it out, RIGHT NOW.” I finally said firmly, after a few minutes of battling her excuses.

She spits it out into the trashcan, turns, and abruptly storms out of the cabin. Any other child and I would run out after them screaming, “You need to get back here! You cannot leave the cabin by yourself!” But Elizabeth… I just watched from the window.

She storms about fifteen feet away from the cabin, stops, and sneakily runs back towards the cabin and veers off to the back. I know this trick, though. Once, when I was around her age, I hid under my own bed for nearly an hour hoping my parents would think I had run away from home. I was in trouble- unfairly, of course- and wanted to make them “appreciate me”.

So I knew what Elizabeth wanted. I waited a minute, then went around to the back of the cabin and said, “Elizabeth, what do you think you’re doing?”

“I want to go home!” she immediately growled, squinting her eyes evilly. “You won’t let me have gum!”

“Fine,” I said calmly. “Go pack your stuff. You want to go home? Go on then!”

She stared at me intently for a second, maybe realizing she was too deep in the game to quit, and then stormed into the cabin and started to shove all her things into her suitcase.

“Elizabeth’s leaving,” I announced bluntly to the other girls. “Because I won’t let her have gum.” They all nervously watched. A few said, “Come on Elizabeth. Please stay.”

She continued packing, and I stood beside her with my arms crossed, watching nervously, knowing one of us had to crack. She was shoving towels, swimsuits, paper and pens, everything, all into one pocket of her duffel bag, angrily.

“YOU WOULDN’T MISS ME ANYWAY!” she finally screamed, bursting into tears.

I scooped up her tiny, angry body and stood her up. “You know that’s not true,” I said, pushing her poky hair out of her face. “You KNOW that’s simply not true.”

After a minute or two of fierce arguing that I WOULD miss her, Elizabeth caved. She crumpled awkwardly against my shoulder in something like a hug, and said, “PROMISE?”

I promised.

(How do people give their hearts to children like this- children that have no home, no stability, no PROMISE of being taken care of? I can only promise to miss Elizabeth. Not to care for her, or protect her, or make anything right in her unfair, unjust, warped world. )

She continues to have ups and downs throughout the day. One minute, she’s smiling, handing a girl in our cabin a cutely crafted friendship bracelet, looking sweet as a Hallmark card… and the next minute, she’s terrorizing the camp, running around with the American flag she kidnapped from the pavilion, waving it wildly and forcing me to chase after her in the rain.

After dinner, she decided to become “jungle girl” and another counselor told me they found her with her mouth full of ladybugs. A poor substitute for gum, but at least she has good luck. Somehow, when we weren’t looking, she managed to wave an assortment of foliage into her hair, leaving her afterward with dreadlocks that would put Tarzan to shame.

Counselors around me don’t know what to think of her-- some laugh, some cringe, most ask “should she be doing that…?” and I know most of the time she shouldn’t, but I can’t help but give her an extra ounce of patience.

Tonight, after everyone else was asleep, I was washing my face at the sink when I heard Elizabeth bolt upright in her bed. “MISS SARAH.” She said. “I’M SCARED.”

I hurried over to the side of her bunk and she clicked her flashlight on, shining it right into my face. “BAHA! You look awful!” she muttered maniacally and flopped back down. “I’m not even scared anymore, thanks.”

You’re welcome, Elizabeth, you’re welcome.

Wednesday has now come, and Elizabeth began the day by refusing to get out of bed for the optional early-morning activity she had begged to do the night before.

“You can stay here,” I said.

“But you ain’t gonna look after me!” she mumbled.

“Laura will!” I promised (Laura is my amazing co-counselor, who is herself a magical creature.)

“Oh. Then I’ll be okay.” And she rolled back over and I didn’t see her until we met up at the flag for the pledge of allegiance, which she always takes very seriously.

Throughout Wednesday, Elizabeth begged for stories of the Cabin Fairy and the Golden Gnome. She clung to my arm during swim time and I told her how the lake was made (by a falling comet, obviously) and also about a “Secret Path”. The other girls in the cabin quickly chimed in that they wanted to see the path too. So, after swim, instead of taking them down the short, dusty road we usually trekked, I led them down the winding shady path that no one ever uses.

“But girls,” I said before we entered the trees. “We can only whisper in here, because the trees are asleep on this path. The gnome makes them sleep in a magic slumber so powerful that being near these trees will cure you of any sadness you have!”

We walked the path in near silence—ten little girls, with their towels over their shoulders and their flip-flops squeaking. Occasionally someone would say, "LOOK!" and point at nothing and then whisper, "I thought it was a fairy..."

After swim, the kids were playing gaga ball. A boy hit a girl in the face with a ball accidentally and Elizabeth screamed, "HEY!" and immediately jumped to tackle him. She has a strong, strong sense of justice, and this will cause a lot of problems for her in this unjust world. 

"We can't hit people just because they upset us," I explained to her as we sat on the grass by the gaga pit after I'd coaxed her out. 

"It's not fair," She cried. "It's just not fair and I hate it!"

Later, as I was collecting my girls from their activities I noticed my co-counselor and one of our good friends crowded around a huddled up Elizabeth on the edge of the pit. I ran up in alarm, only to hear her cry, "BUT I MISS MY MOM...I got lots of people but I ain't got my mom!" and the harsh reality of her situation hit me and the counselors around me in a way it hadn't before. This child is looked after, but not by people who offer the eternal, unconditional love of a parent. And it's just not fair. 

At dinner, my boss handed me a thick stack of letters and I dished them out to the girls. Everyone got at least one letter (some got many), all except Elizabeth. 

"You got a letter for me?" she asked excitedly, between bites of lasagna.

"Yes," I lied. "I left it downstairs, let me grab it."

"Who's it from?" she asked, lighting up. "Is it from gramma?" 

"No..." I bluffed. "I'm not sure who it's from!"

"MAMA?" she gasped. "It's from mama?" 

"No, sweet pea, it's not. But it's from someone special." 

I ran downstairs to the arts-and-crafts room and hurriedly scrawled a page-long letter to Elizabeth from the Golden Gnome. It was a terrible letter, some of my worst writing ever shared with mankind, but she loved it. 

During evening vespers, Elizabeth's "rose" of the day was that she got to sit in a hammock with "Miss Sarah" during free time. Her "thorn" was that too many people in our cabin had argued about who would be her swim-time buddy that day. (It's hard to be popular.) 

Miss Sarah's "rose" was that Elizabeth had earlier declared, "You're my favorite camp teacher. You should get an office since you're a writer. Do you really hiberate all winter in a cave in the woods, or is that just a story?!" 

Miss Sarah's "thorn" was that after writing the letter from the golden gnome, Miss Sarah ran off to a quiet place in the woods and cried for a long time. Because it's just not fair. It's just not fair and I hate it. 

And so I'm sitting here now on the porch of the glass lodge, looking over everything I've written the past few days, and wishing there was a way I could make the real world magical for this small heart. I only have one week. And maybe that's enough time to fill her head with things like hope and self-confidence. I know that for sure, while this is only one week of her life, she'll remember it forever. 

I certainly will. 

And, if I ever write a story, a REALLY good one, I have the perfect first sentence:

Once a pond of time