Girls Rule! (14 page)

I
t was the first week of summer vacation, and time to return the collection cans to the bank in preparation for Saturday’s festival. As the kids lined up, they were given cards to fill out stating whether they would prefer all the strawberry treats they could eat or a place in the parade, and just where in the parade they would most like to be.

All I have ever wanted in this life, in the whole world, is to ride on the float with the Strawberry Queen of Buck-man,
Caroline wrote on her card.

This was not quite true, of course, because what Caroline wanted most in the world was to be an actress on Broadway. In fact, it wasn’t the least little bit true
because she hadn’t even heard of the Strawberry Festival, the parade, or the queen until they’d moved to West Virginia.

But with Eddie involved in summer baseball and Beth helping out at the library and the Hatford boys busily planning for the Bensons’ return, Caroline felt she would shrink up and die if she was not allowed to ride beside the Strawberry Queen on Saturday and wave delicately to the crowd. She might shrivel up anyway, she thought, for the breeze that had made the car wash day so delightful seemed to have deserted them entirely, and the air grew warmer still. Those who had hoped it would not rain on their parade now almost began to hope that it would, just to cool things off.

When Caroline got a last-minute call from a woman who wanted her to take over at a birthday party because the clown she had hired got sick, Caroline realized that her notice was still up on the bulletin board.

“Oh, Mother, no!” she cried when Mrs. Malloy gave her the message. She did
not
want to perform for any more rude, thankless children. She did
not
want to be pushed into an imaginary oven or try to be heard onstage with a lawn mower going next door.

“Caroline, you said you were available for parties, and until that notice comes down, that’s your job,” her mother said. “The woman who called is a friend of one of the professors at the college, and she seemed desperate to find some entertainment for the party.”

So Caroline called the woman back to find out what fairy
tale she wanted. This time the request was for “Goldilocks and the Three Bears,” and the guests at the party would be four-year-olds. Caroline managed to find a cap with bear ears on it, and furry mittens for paws. And though the four-year-olds romped about on the floor and tried to take her cap off, they were more attentive than the six-year-olds had been. If Caroline had been wearing a tail, she would have wagged it when she was through, she was so happy the performance went well.

Thursday, the three Malloy girls received postcards in the mail giving them the name and number of the float each of them would be on.

“Hey! I get to ride with the women’s basketball team from the college!” Eddie yelped delightedly. “All
right
!"

Beth got to be a bookworm on the library’s float.

Caroline was so eager to read her card that she fumbled and dropped it, but then she saw the number two, and beside it the treasured words
Strawberry Queen Float
. She shrieked with happiness.

Eddie took the card away from her to be sure she wasn’t faking it. “Look what else it says, Caroline,” she said, pointing to a note at the bottom:
Please wear a bathing suit.

“What?” cried Caroline. She was going to be a bathing beauty as well?

“Don’t wear a bikini, Caroline,” Eddie said, glancing at her sister’s midsection. “
Please
don’t wear a bikini.”

“This,” said Caroline dramatically, “is beyond my wildest dreams.”

“Well, if you’re going to be standing on a float wearing a bathing suit, we’d better buy you a new one,” Mrs. Malloy said. “The yellow suit you wore last summer was a little too snug even then.”

So off they went, and Caroline and her mother returned an hour later with a one-piece suit—a red one with pink polka dots and a narrow pink ruffle around the neckline.

“Isn’t it beautiful?” Caroline gushed. “I chose it myself.”

“You look like a cupcake,” Beth muttered.

“At least it’s a
strawberry
cupcake!” Caroline retorted.

“Strawberry shortcake, that’s you,” said Eddie.

The day of the parade arrived at last, and Caroline was so excited she could barely contain herself. Her mother had also bought her a wide-brimmed hat so that she wouldn’t get sunburned, and a pair of sunglasses as well.

Eddie was wearing a T-shirt, shorts, and a baseball cap, and Beth had been told that all the bookworms on her float would be given headdresses to wear, with feelers and big goggle eyes.

Unfortunately, the day was not just warm, it was hot—as hot as anyone could remember it being in Buckman in June. When Caroline looked out the window that morning, not a leaf stirred. Not a blade of
grass moved. Everything seemed to sizzle under the gaze of the silent sun.

All the kids who were to be part of the parade were to meet at the Buckman High School parking lot, where the floats were lining up. Mr. and Mrs. Malloy dropped off their three daughters, then drove back downtown to park and find a shady spot where they could watch the action.

“See you!” Eddie said to the others as she set off to find her float.

“Have fun!” Beth said to Caroline as she headed for hers.

Caroline, in her new bathing suit, walked toward the front of the lineup, looking for float number two, and there it was, a beautiful float decorated with artificial strawberries and roses. The Strawberry Queen herself, a redheaded college girl wearing a pink puffy dress and a crown of strawberries, stood in the shade of a tree off to one side, where her mother fanned her.

Her throne, a red padded chair, had a sheet stretched over the top of it temporarily as a canopy to keep the seat cool until the parade began.

To Caroline’s disappointment, two younger girls from Buckman Elementary also showed up in bathing suits, each of them carrying a card that read
?oat number two
.

Oh, well,
thought Caroline, looking them over. She herself was probably the prettiest of the three, and at least her bathing suit was the color of strawberries, not green or purple like the two younger girls’.

But queens, she knew, were supposed to be generous. They were supposed to be nice to everybody whether they felt like it or not, so she smiled at the girls and said wasn’t it hot and wasn’t the Strawberry Queen beautiful and weren’t they all lucky to get to be on the float along with her?

But all the while, Caroline’s eyes were on the Strawberry Queen. Maybe Caroline would stand to the right of her in her bathing suit and help adjust her crown if it slipped. Maybe Caroline would stand to the left of her and refill the little basket of strawberry candies the queen was supposed to toss to the crowd. Or perhaps Caroline, in her pink and red polka-dot bathing suit, would sit at the feet of the Strawberry Queen to keep her skirt from blowing in the breeze. If there was a breeze.

There was not even the slightest hint of a breeze. Already Caroline could feel a trickle of sweat roll down her back between her shoulder blades.

A gray-haired woman in red shorts with an official badge pinned to her T-shirt came hurrying up.

“Ah! My helpers have arrived!” she said, smiling at Caroline and the two younger girls. “The parade is about to start, so we’re going to get you up on the float. As soon as the Strawberry Queen gets on and settled, we’ll go.” She hustled them over to the movable wooden steps leading to the float.

The girls grinned excitedly at each other and followed the parade official up the steps and onto the flatbed truck carrying the queen’s chair, a bower of strawberries and roses overhead.

Caroline started toward the chair, but the parade official clasped her arm and said, “Follow me.”

Caroline’s heart fell as they went to the back of the float instead. There, she saw three giant-size velveteen strawberries.

The official smiled at the smallest girl. “You first,” she said, and held open a slit in the back of one of the strawberries.

In dismay, Caroline watched as the youngest girl climbed uncertainly into the huge strawberry.

“Stick your head out the hole in the top,” the woman instructed her, “and your arms out the holes on either side.”

A small blond head popped up where the stem of the strawberry would be, followed by two small arms through the holes on either side.

“Perfect!” said the official. “Now, remember to smile and wave at the crowd. Next!"

As she watched the second girl climb into the next strawberry, Caroline could not believe this was happening. This was it? This was what Caroline Lenore Malloy had waited for all this time? She had washed all those cars and endured that terrible birthday party just so she could be a stupid strawberry, sweltering up here on a ninety-degree day?

When her turn came, she stepped numbly into the hot velveteen strawberry. She thrust her head through the hole at the top, where the scratchy green leaves chafed her neck. The right arm through the right hole, left arm through the left, and there she was, like a pilgrim
put in the stocks. She turned her head to the left and the leaves scratched her cheek. She turned to the right and the leaves scratched her ear.

Help!
thought Caroline as the parade official disappeared, the band began to play, and slowly, with a fire engine in front, the parade began moving toward Main Street.

Eighteen
Queen for a Day

W
hen Wally got his card in the mail, it said simply, station number 3. It did not give the name of a float. Jake’s card said he was going to ride on the fire truck with a dozen other guys, and Josh’s card said he got to ride in the car with the mayor and two more boys from his class. But Wally had no idea where he would be in the parade.

“I’ll be watching for you guys,” Mrs. Hatford said that morning. She had taken the day off work to stay with Peter at the festival. “All the folks at the hardware store will be waving to you.”

Peter, clutching his tickets for treats, was eager to get going and taste those strawberries, and Mr. Hatford said he would do his mail deliveries in the business district first so that he could see the parade too.

“Jump in my car and I’ll drop you off at the high school,” he told the older boys, and Wally and the twins climbed into the backseat.

There weren’t as many kids at the school as Wally had thought. Evidently a lot had collected some money and then stopped. Everyone who had turned in any money at all got a coupon for strawberry shortcake, but perhaps only thirty or so had earned the right to be in the parade.

“Have a good time!” Mr. Hatford said as they piled out of the car.

“Bye!” said Josh excitedly as he went over to shake hands with the mayor.

“See ya!” said Jake as he headed for the fire truck, which was first in the lineup.

Wally stood still and looked around him. If the fire truck was number one, and the Strawberry Queen float was number two, then number three had to be… Wally looked around some more. There
was
no number three. Number four followed number two, and that was the Women’s Garden Club float.