Applewhites at Wit's End by Tolan Stephanie S

Author:Tolan, Stephanie S. [Tolan, Stephanie S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Childrens, Young Adult, Humour, Mystery
ISBN: 9780606318051
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2011-04-08T06:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

It was a good thing, Jake thought, that E.D. had been sent out with a folding chair, a lantern, and her walkie-talkie to sit between the boys’ bunk and the girls’ to listen for possible disturbances so Hal and Cordelia could come to the staff meeting. She’d been freaking all afternoon about the destruction of her precious camp schedule, and the stress level was high enough in the room already. Winston, always upset by intense emotions, had gone from one person to another at first, wagging his tail, trying to comfort everybody. But he’d given up and gone to hide out in the hall. Jake knew how he felt.

So far no one had done anything in this meeting except complain. It hadn’t occurred to the family, when they’d planned to have the campers do all the things that gave them joy, that the campers were likely to be as different from one another as the Applewhites. The camper priority lists had been something of a shock. Randolph’s theater workshop was the only one that all six wanted to take. Jake’s singing workshop was next, with five, and then Cordelia’s, with four. Even Lucille had lost her usual glow of rosy optimism. “I’d been so looking forward to sharing the joys of poetry with six children. Now there’s only one!”

“At least you’ve got one,” Archie said. “Hal and I have to share Samantha Peterman.”

“The good thing is, that means I only have half a person,” Hal pointed out, “or a person only half the time. The bad thing is, she wants to do murals! She says a piece of canvas is too small to hold her vision!”

“It isn’t just that I only have one,” Lucille said. “It could be wonderful to have only a single budding poet to concentrate on. It could be an opportunity to help shape a whole life’s work. But this afternoon I shared with her some of the very best of contemporary American poetry—to show her how magnificent, how transcendent, a poem can be—and she was impervious. She listens. She nods. But what does she write? Verse!” Lucille shuddered as she said the word. “All her poems rhyme. They gallop. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-dum! Da-da-da-da-da-dum!”

“It would appear,” Zedediah observed, “that she understands rhythm, at least.”

Cordelia moaned. “Don’t mention that word! While Lucille was doing Poetry, I had Dance. Thanks to all the talk about passion, Q decided the workshop ought to be all about Step! He was like a freight train. He took over entirely. Step. All rhythm. No music. Think about that—dance with no music! All foot stomping and hand clapping.”

“You have to admit, he’s really, really good at it,” Hal said.

“Of course he’s good at it! He’s good at everything! He’d be good at any kind of dance—including the kind I want to teach! And then there’s David. David brought tap shoes today! I ask you—tap shoes? The two of them were absolutely competing with each other. My workshop has turned into some kind of a reality show.

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