“Okay?” she said, leaning across to give me a kiss. “Because this is your party, Birthday Girl, and I might just read my poem for everyone.”
One of the conveniences The American Diminutives provided at parties and conventions was silverware scaled down to the proper size for us. When it didn’t arrive, we had to use plastic forks and spoons and knives or make do with regular services, which were always too heavy and unwieldy.
Jarvis Allen’s mother always set up a little booth where she took orders for special silverware, kitchen utensils, sporting equipment, and so on, and as I came in the back door of the inn, I saw her assembling it.
“Happy birthday a day early, Little Little,” she said. “You’d better hurry. They’re about to start the meeting in the ballroom!”
By the time I got there, the meeting was underway. Jarvis Allen was announcing the names of TADpoles who had been accepted at colleges around the country.
“… Lydia Schwartz, Syracuse University!”
Applause.
“Norman Powers, Rider College!”
Applause.
“And last of all, with all due humility, yours truly has been accepted for pre-law at the University of Missouri.”
Applause and cheers and whistles.
Jarvis Allen held his hand up for silence.
“And now,” Jarvis Allen said, “before we commence the festivities, I would like to suggest that we all sing our TADpole song, which is the first one on your song sheets, and I would be delighted to start us off!”
He began tapping his good foot and humming to find the pitch, and then to the tune of “The Caissons Go Rolling Along,” he began, and everyone joined in.
Over hill, over dale,
We will hit the dusty trail,
As the TADpoles go rolling along!
In and out, hear us roar,
Little’s better, less is more!
As the TADpoles go rolling along!
And its Hi! Hi! Hee! Diminutives are we!
Shout out your message loud and strong (one, two!)
We’re all small,
And going to have a ball,
As the TADpoles go rolling along! (Keep ’em rolling!)
As the TADpoles go rolling along!
After I said something hateful about someone, I always had the suspicion God was going to get me for it, so I made a beeline to Jarvis Allen’s side after I’d filled my plate with chicken à la king from the buffet.
He was sitting with Lydia Schwartz, and both of them were discussing their college plans, over in a corner of the ballroom.
I began to feel like Lavinia Thumb, Tom Thumb’s wife, with no plans to do anything but what my husband had in mind, as I listened to them, and I tried to get a picture in my mind of what Little Lion even looked like, although there were posters of him all over La Belle. I had the image on that poster registered all right, but I couldn’t remember him in any other pose than that one with his hands stretched out and the Bible in his palm.
What I could see in my mind’s eye was Sydney Cinnamon’s lopsided grin with the snaggly tooth and light blue eyes, and I could hear him talking to me, and hear that theme song of his, “La Cucaracha,” dancing in my head.
“… always been somewhat of an overachiever,” Jarvis Allen was saying, “but they are the ones who make the waves in the world.”
I remembered a day under our raft last August when Jarvis Allen told me he’d be willing to make out with me, so I’d have the experience. I told him thanks, anyway, but I wanted my first experience to lead to my second, not to discourage me from ever doing it again, and he held my head underwater for a slow count of ten.
“I want to be a newspaperwoman,” Lydia Schwartz said. “My mother worked for The New York Times before she got married. She could have been a great reporter but she gave it all up to have a family.”
“Wisely so,” said Jarvis Allen.
“Why wisely so?” I chimed in.
“I wondered how long it’d take you to put in your two cents, Little Little.”
“Why wisely so?” Lydia Schwartz said.
“There can be only one Pope in the Vatican,” said Jarvis Allen.
“Who’s talking about the Vatican?” said Lydia Schwartz. “Not this Jew.”
“All right,” said Jarvis Allen, “a ship can have only one captain.”
“Who’s talking about a ship?” I said.
“You girls know what I mean,” said Jarvis. “Children need a mother. She should be there in the home, ready when they need her.”
“Yawn,” said Lydia Schwartz.
“Snore,” I said.
“I don’t know where the hell I’d be if my mother hadn’t been there for me, and where would you two be?”
I could see my own mother making her way across the ballroom toward us, all smiles, fresh from the PODs’ cash bar.
“Jarvis,” Lydia Schwartz said, “you are a … a …”
I found the words for her. “Diminutive pig,” I said.
Sometimes little lies poured out of my mother’s mouth as easily as rain fell from a stormy April sky.
“Little Little was just saying to me, coming over in the car, how very much she admired you, Jarvis”—my mother, bending over us—“and how much she appreciated your coming all the way from Missouri for her birthday.”
“Did you say all those nice things about me, Little Little?” Jarvis said.
I muttered something under my breath I couldn’t even hear myself.
Jarvis said, “Well, in the same fine spirit of sincerity, I have to say how very much I admired the poem you just read to all of us.”
My mother didn’t get his sarcasm. “Why, thank you, Jarvis,” she said. “I wrote it in a day. Now you all just enjoy your dinner while I get myself something to eat. Lydia, what a sweet little dress you have on. I bet your mama made it.”
“My mother can’t sew,” Lydia answered.
Jarvis said, “They don’t teach sewing in journalism school, though they should, to females.”
“Well, it’s pretty as a picture,” said my mother, “and now excuse me, please.”
Jarvis turned to me after she’d left and said, “What did you really say about me coming over in the car?”
“Wait until we’re finished eating,” I said, “and I’ll
