Thomas Tryon - The Night of the Moonbow

And that, Leo thought now, was the rub. Since he was the only Jeremian who wasn’t entered in any swim events, he couldn’t do much there to better the overall score, or erase the humiliation of Major Bowes.

Eddie had made a stop at the Dewdrop Inn before going off to find his folks, and Leo was alone, crossing the lower playing field, when he overheard two campers making snide remarks about a couple of visitors.

“Jeez, who d’you suppose those two old goofers are?” Zipper Tallon was muttering to Klaus.

“Look like a couple of real hicks to me,” Gus replied.

Leo followed their looks across the field to a man and woman who stood by themselves beside a rattletrap car, blinking in the sun as if trying to get their bearings. He had a sudden sinking feeling as he recognized them: Miss Meekum and Supervisor Poe. He couldn’t believe it! What were they doing, turning up here like this? And with no warning? He grew suspicious. Was he being sent back to Pitt for not measuring up? Was his Moonbow summer to be over so soon? For an instant he wanted to turn and run as far away as he could, but it was too late; they had spotted him. With a stone for a heart he dragged his feet toward them: bedraggled Miss Meekum, in her brown dress of home-knit boucle, wearing a brave little hat; Supervisor Poe, looking like an old black crow in his shiny suit and celluloid collar, glasses pinched on the bridge of his red nose.

“Surprise, surprise,” caroled Miss Meekum, beckoning with her hanky as Leo approached.

“Leo, my boy, here you are,” Mr Poe declared in his pale, papery voice, giving Leo’s hand a single, formal jerk. Too stunned by their unexpected advent to say anything, Leo darted him a glance.

Porcelain-pale under her coating of white vanity powder, Miss Meekum was already fussing at him, tugging his collar and brushing off his shoulder, inquiring how he was getting on. “Are you having a good time?”

Leo ducked his head. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“Okay – you guess!” Miss Meekum’s fa-so-la laugh climbed its way up the scale. “Why, I should hope it’s nice!” The steel rims of her glasses sparkled in the sun when she gazed at Leo, as if to assure herself of his well-being. “My goodness, will you look at him,” she went on. “He’s put on weight – hasn’t he put on weight, Mr Poe? And see how tan he is. I can’t get over it. You seem so – so different!” She gave his arm a squeeze. Quickly Leo withdrew it. Several campers were hanging around now watching.

“Did you drive all that way just to see me?” he asked. “Of course we did,” Miss Meekum replied. “We were simply panting to get out of the city – so hot. And we wanted to meet Reverend and Mrs Starbuck and the Society people.”

Leo breathed a sigh of relief. So they hadn’t come to take him back after all. But cripes, he thought; the fact that this was just a social call meant he’d have to introduce them around to everybody. He looked from Miss Meekum to the supervisor, who was eyeing him narrowly.

“Which of these cabins is yours, Leo?” he inquired.

Leo pointed out Cabin 7. “It’s called Jeremiah.”

Miss Meekum craned her neck to look. “Jeremiah,” she repeated. “How quaint. May we have a peek?”

Left no choice, Leo reluctantly escorted them across the field, self-conscious because the only family he could put up against all the others was no relation of his, only these two gray birds, looking so out of place in their badly wrinkled, ill-fitting city clothes. Why hadn’t they at least given him warning so he could have cooked up some kind of story about them?

Mercifully, Jeremiah was vacant when they got there, so Leo, in his chagrin, was not required to deal immediately with making introductions. But as Miss Meekum exclaimed over his ceremonial torch (the carving of a ceremonial torch was* one of the most important traditions at camp, and each incoming camper must perform the ritual of cutting a branch in Indian Woods and decorating it with occult Indian symbols), arid Dr Poe noted approvingly the military neatness of the cabin, he spotted Tiger and the Bomber (thank goodness it was them!) coming along the line-path with a man and woman who turned out to be the Abernathys, pleasant-looking people with kind, sympathetic faces, who had driven up for the big event from their cottage on Long Island Sound. (The Bomber’s folks never came on Sundays – or any other day, either. “My ole lady’s glad to get rid of me,” he bragged; his father, a school janitor with a yen for booze, never seemed to know what his son was up to – or care.) They all walked right inside, and in his easygoing, cheerful way Tiger presented himself, his parents, and “our friend Jerome” to the older couple. Leo was ready to jump out of his skin. What would Supervisor Poe and Miss Meekum talk to the Abernathys about? He quailed at the thought of some inadvertent disclosure, about the goings-on at Pitt, or the unhappy events that had seen him brought to the Institute in the first place. And though the skies were blue, with no sign of rain, in the echo chamber of his mind he heard the alarming crash of thunder and the familiar sound of rain rattling in the downspout, heard the chink of Rudy’s bottle against the glass and his angry voice -

Tell him, you bitch – no rhapsodies -

“I hope you’ll play your violin for us, Leo,” Miss Meekum was saying, as if reading his mind. “I hope you’ve been practicing. Have you?”

“Yes’m.”

A bold-faced lie, but what Miss Meekum didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

Then the others began to appear – first, Eddie with his folks, then Monkey with his – and Leo began to relax. What was there to worry about? Everyone seemed to be getting along just fine. Why, Mr Poe and Miss Meekum were talking away with the Abernathys as if they were old friends, nodding and smiling, fitting right in, just like regular folks! Maybe things were going to turn out okay after all. Maybe they had just driven out for a little holiday, to see how he was getting on.

Before long the Dodges, the Pfeiffers, and the Dillworths had joined the group, and as the crowd spilled out onto the porch, Reece Hartsig, counselor supreme, moved among the parents of “his boys,” speaking with each in turn; discussing with Dump’s father the chances of St Louis winning the pennant this year (now that Dizzy Dean had been traded to the Cubs); confiding a new joke to Wally’s dad; raising his stock with Phil’s parents by remarking on the fine job of work their son was doing on his radio transmitter project; even complimenting Miss Meekum on her hat.

Then across the field a disconcerting one-bar melody was heard – an automobile horn blaring the four zany notes of “How Dry I Am” – and a shiny new car – the latest model Lincoln Zephyr – rolled over the rise and came to a stop in front of Cabin 7. The Hartsigs senior had arrived: Big Rolfe, a large, florid-faced man in a wrinkled seersucker suit, with a Zeiss camera hung around his neck, and, shoved back from his warm brow, a straw hat with a band of striped silk; and his wife, Joy, a petite woman with a shingled bob of bright blondined hair, lots of lipstick and rouge, and a gay laugh, who was attired (in honor of the day’s nautical theme) in a sailor outfit, with a striped collar and gob’s cap emblazoned with an anchor and cord and little gold stars.

“How do you like her, fellows?” Rolfe bawled heartily, flourishing his skimmer at the car, which was now surrounded by campers admiring their reflections in the glossy black finish and the liberally applied chromium trim. Then, with his wife on his arm, he made his way up the porch steps to greet the parents of the Jeremians, most of whom were old friends, and regale them with the tale of how he’d come by his new two-hundred-dollar Swiss watch – “got it for cash off this little sheeny on a street corner. Hot goods,” he joshed, and they all laughed immoderately -while inside the cabin Joy sat herself down on Reece’s cot (she was the only person ever permitted such a trespass) and smiled brightly at Miss Meekum and Supervisor Poe, saying wasn’t Leo lucky to get into Jeremiah, where all the really tiptop campers were.