Chapter 23: Show and Tell

On the first Monday of term, thirty second graders sat on the reading rug and stared at my shoulder.

It was peeling in a long pale strip above the collar of my blouse.

"Miss T.," said a boy in the front, with his hand already up. "What happened to your arm?"

"It's a sunburn."

"How did you get it?"

"That's a good question."

I sat down on the little chair they had put out for me.

"Do you want the true story?"

Thirty heads nodded.

They knew the difference between a real story and a grown-up one.

"This summer I went to a very hot place called a desert," I said.

"It was so hot that the air shook."

"Like in a cartoon," a girl said.

"Like that. I went for a walk with two people I loved."

"They left me by myself with no water."

A gasp went around the rug.

"Why?" the boy said.

"They thought it would be funny to see what I'd do."

"That's not funny," said a small girl in the front, flatly, and several others agreed.

"No. It wasn't."

"I got very hot and very scared. I sat down in the shade of a rock."

"Did you die?" somebody whispered.

"I did not."

"A man in a gray shirt came up the trail on a bicycle and gave me his water."

"A stranger?"

"A stranger. I know we don't take things from strangers."

"But he was a park ranger. That's a grown-up whose job is to help people on the trail."

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