The Aqua Net Diaries (23 page)

We were well into the fall of our junior year and time was running out. If we were ever going to get Tom Dehner, we needed to figure something out now.

This time I was the one who thought of the plan. I said, “What about a history team?” We sat facing the high school.

Joey said, “What's a history team?”

I said, “It's something that sounds really nerdy, but is actually only slightly nerdy. You get to wear costumes and perform in front of people and have them clap for you and win awards. I did it twice in junior high. I won district and state both times, and got to go to nationals in Washington, D.C.”

“Washington?” Joey sat up straight. I could tell his mind was already spinning with images of him, me, and Tom Dehner in D.C.

“You can have as many as five to a group.”

Much like with the speech team, we considered the candidates carefully. More carefully this time because there was an actual competition involved and I wanted to win. We both did. We needed people who could help us do that. They had to be smart, capable, and, if possible, comfortable in front of an audience.

We both agreed Holly Ogren fit the criteria. She was in our AP History class, a good student, and as responsible as a parent. She was also used to performing because she sang not only in concert choir but in Madrigals and sometimes appeared in Drama Club productions.

The next day at school, we asked Holly if she would be interested and she said yes. Then Joey wrote a note to
Ronnie Stier, who was also in our History class. Ronnie was good-looking and smart, a super-cool jock. We were sort-of friends with him, but asking him to be on the history team was something else. Ronnie and Tom were very good friends. We couldn't approach Tom Dehner till we found out Ronnie's decision. Getting Tom depended on getting Ronnie.

Ronnie said he'd think about it. For days we lived on pins and needles. Would he do it? He was a football player. Why would he be interested in a history team? Finally, on a Monday morning, after an endless weekend of waiting and wondering, I wrote Ronnie a note in AP History and passed it back to him.

R., Have you thought about it? Write back this time because I want to know what you think. Jennifer

After about a hundred years, the piece of paper came back to me. It said:
I'll do it.

We got Ronnie to ask Tom Dehner, and, miracle of miracles, Tom said yes.
Yes!
The Richmond High School History Team was complete.

One snowy day, we all met at my house. Joey arrived first and then Holly. We ran from window to window screaming—even responsible, rational Holly—until we saw Ronnie's red car pull up in front. Tom and Ronnie got out and came up the walk, wearing their letter jackets. They kind of ambled, hands shoved in jean pockets to ward off the cold, as if they had all the time in the world to get to the front door. Out on my front lawn, the red and gray of their letter jackets standing out against all that white, they glimmered almost a little above perfect.

Inside, Tom sat on the long, low sofa by Joey's chair, and I sat next to Tom. Ronnie sat in a chair across from Joey. Holly was on the piano bench. I thanked God we had a cool
house with cool artwork, even if we did live on the wrong side of town. My parents may have lacked good real estate sense, but they did have taste.

We talked about the parameters and themes of this year's contest: Triumphs and Tragedies in History. We tossed out possible ideas. All of mine were based on costumes I might like to wear (a hoop skirt, a flapper's dress, a pencil skirt and pumps like Bonnie Parker) or stories that I was fascinated by (Leopold and Loeb, Bonnie and Clyde, Jesse James). Joey's wit was sharp and on target. I did my best to both shimmer and not be too silly. Holly didn't talk and we were thankful. Ronnie was sweet and cute. Tom was easy, warm, and funny—completely himself. He was sitting on my couch—
my
couch!

Hours later, after Tom and Ronnie left, we weren't any nearer to figuring out what the subject of our performance should be—maybe something on the Civil War? No event in American history seemed more dramatic or complicated or more tragic. Reconstruction could be considered a triumph in many ways. Plus, I loved Scarlett O'Hara.

After Holly left, Joey stayed. I moved over onto the very spot where Tom Dehner had sat. It was still warm. “Oh,” I said. “Tom Dehner sat here …”

“Let me have a turn,” Joey said.

“Not yet,” I said. “Just a minute longer.”

For days afterward, Joey and I talked about the meeting. Had Tom Dehner really been at my house? Had he sat on my sofa? Was he really and truly on the history team?

One week later, we presented everyone with the schedule of district, state, and nationals—when each competition would occur, should we advance, so that everyone could write it on their calendars. Tom not only played football, he
also played baseball, which was one of the many reasons we loved him. He could, it was clear, do anything.

As soon as he saw the schedule, Tom came to us and said he had a problem. “I can't do the history team. My baseball schedule conflicts with state and nationals.”

Joey said, “We don't even know that we're going to get to state or nationals.”

Tom said, “But what if we do? I can't hold us back. We haven't even picked a topic. It's better that you guys get someone else now before we even get started.”

We couldn't believe it. We had been so close and now, just like that, he was gone.

We had to decide what to do. Forget about the whole idea, tell Ronnie and Holly we weren't going to do it, or move on with someone else.

Holly said, “I still want to do it.”

Ronnie said, “I'm still in. But who are we going to get?”

We went round and round about it.
How do you replace Tom Dehner?
Finally, we decided on Eric Ruger. He was a good friend of Ronnie's—quiet, good-looking. He threw fun parties on his farm. He was a wild card because we didn't know if he could perform in front of an audience or if he was even a good history student, but we liked him. The most important thing was he was someone we could all agree on.

We based our play on a private collection of letters to and from W. G. Eaton, agent for the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands in Georgia and South Carolina from 1865 to 1866. A friend of my mom and dad's had given them the letters, knowing how much they both loved history. We decided that so many of the human problems of Reconstruction in the South had passed through
the Freedmen's bureau offices, and we tried to show a slice of life by dramatizing just such an hour in W. G. Eaton's workday.

Ronnie played W. G. Eaton. Holly was Emily, a northern schoolteacher who was in the South to teach black children. Eric was Robert, owner of Mulberry Plantation, who came to the Freedmen's bureau to hire freed slaves to work his fields. I was Margaret, a southern plantation owner widowed in the war and resentful of the North. Joey played a college student (and our narrator) just returned from presenting a paper he wrote about the era of Reconstruction.

We ended the play with Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address: “With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in …” My mom, who served as our coach, helped us sort through the research and draft our ten-minute play, which we called
Malice, Charity, and the Children of Pride: The Reconstruction of the South.
Mr. Johns, our AP History teacher, became our faculty sponsor.

In April, we won the district competition. The
Palladium-Item
covered the story, saying:
The group chose the Reconstruction for two reasons. After reading
Gone With the Wind,
McJunkin said, she always wanted to wear a hoop skirt and this would give her the perfect opportunity. Second, the topic fit in well with the theme of the competition—“Triumphs and Tragedies in History.”

My mom said, “Mercy, Jennifer, why did you say that about the hoop skirt?”

“Because it's true.”

“But it makes your whole reason for wanting to do a project on the Civil War sound so frivolous.”

“But it's true,” I said. I thought it made me sound funny
and flirty. “I do want to wear a hoop skirt. That's one of the main reasons we chose Reconstruction.”

I got to wear a wonderful costume—all of our costumes except for Joey's (his own jacket and tie) and Ronnie's (an actual Union officer's uniform from the actual Civil War) came from the Earlham College costume department. Besides my hoop skirt I had a wide hat with streamers that looked like something Vivien Leigh might have worn. As the northern schoolteacher, Holly's plain blue dress and crocheted shawl were dumpy and frumpy, and Eric's suspenders and black hat made him look like a member of Duran Duran.

May 10 and 11, just days before my birthday, we headed to Indiana University in Bloomington for the state finals. At IU, we stayed in the dorms with the other contestants. The night before our presentation, the five of us broke into the theater where we'd be performing and chased one another in the dark wings of the stage. Afterward, we came out into the lobby into a crowd of people dressed up for a prom. There was a fat girl in an ugly dress who was loud and obnoxious. Joey or Ronnie insulted her and her boyfriend started a fight. Ronnie was given a black eye, which Joey explained, in an impromptu way during our performance the next day, was a result of a bad scene in the Civil War. I stepped out of character and said, “I love a man who can stand being hit. I think it's courageous.”

We won first place. We were going to nationals. The
Palladium-Item
wrote,
Jennifer McJunkin's prediction came true. She said five weeks ago that the five members of the Richmond High School history team would win the state contest—and they did—Saturday in the Indiana University auditorium. Now she will get to wear her hoop skirt again.

• • •

Even Ronnie seemed excited about D.C. He had remained wildly unmoved through district and state, but he wasn't nearly as Steve McQueen–cool over nationals. Almost everyone went with us June 11–14 to the University of Maryland, where the competition was held—our teacher Mr. Johns, Mr. and Mrs. Kraemer and Joey's brothers Mitchell and Matthew, Mr. and Mrs. Ruger, Mrs. Stier, and my mom.

Our families stayed in hotels while the five of us lived in one of the dorms at the University of Maryland with all the other History Day participants. We were separated by the elevators—the boys on one side of the hall, girls on the other. Holly and I had a huge, spacious room with wide windows, large enough for ten people. We had never felt so free.

On the afternoon of Thursday, June 13, we competed on stage in front of other groups and an audience of people from all over the country. It was our best performance to date—we all knew it and felt it. After it was over we were flushed and excited and jumpy. Strangers came up to congratulate us and tell us how much they loved us and our presentation. “We won,” I said. “I know we won.”

Not long after, we were called back into the auditorium to hear the results: the announcement of the six groups to make it to the final round. We sat side by side in the audience, surrounded by our families and our teacher, and waited for our names to be called. But when the list was read, six other groups were chosen. They didn't call our names. We couldn't believe it. We hadn't won.
We hadn't even made it to the finals.
We sat there deflated while people approached us and said, “What happened?” “You were the best.” “The judges are crazy.” “Don't give up. You guys can win next year.”

We were allowed to pick up our scores in the judges' room. Eric and I went with my mom while the others waited outside. Inside, the room was a mob scene as coaches and teachers and students fought their way through, holding manila envelopes, reading over judges' comments and scores. My mom was handed ours and passed it back to me. Eric followed her out of the room, staying close. I opened the envelope and pulled out our tally sheet, grabbing on to the back of Eric's shirt so I wouldn't get left behind.

Judge one—98.      
Judge two—99.      
Judge three—97.    
Average score—94.

“The numbers are wrong!” I was yanking on Eric's shirt.

“What?” It was too loud. He couldn't hear me. I held the sheet in front of his face and pointed.

“They added wrong! Our average was ninety-eight, not ninety-four. Tell Mom. Get my mom!”

Eric started reaching for my mom. “Mrs. McJunkin!”

We stumbled outside into the hall after her. She said, “What is it?”

We showed her. She went white and then red. Then she moved into action. She found Mr. Johns. Together they went to every official, every representative, every judge they could find for the 1985 National History Day. While they did this, Eric and I found the others and told them what happened. Surely they would fix this. It was their mistake, not ours. The final round hadn't happened yet. There was still time. We could still compete and win.

My mother and Mr. Johns were passed from one person
to another to another to another until they were finally handed over to the national director of National History Day, Dr. Sharon Lutz. She was a small, defensive woman with white-blond hair and black glasses and a sharp bird's face. The five of us—Joey, Eric, Holly, Ronnie, and I—went with them to meet her. Mom and Mr. Johns explained what had happened. They showed her the judges' scores and the miscalculation that had been made.

Dr. Lutz said, “What do you expect me to do about it?”

My mother, in her most gracious tone, said, “We're hoping that you will include them in the final round and not punish them for an error they didn't make.”

Dr. Lutz said, “It's too late. We've already made the announcement.” And then she looked at us. “It's time these children learned that life isn't always fair. Life is just a poker game. They'll get over it.”