Let's Go Play at the Adams'

Barbara assumed that since he was no longer one of the children and yet not an adult (as

she firmly felt herself to be), he was merely in the fashionable process of making himself,

of finding himself. It made him rather nice, and made her rather more kindly toward him.

Toward John, she had the Christian sort of superiority that made her want to help, made

her want to see him succeed.

Paul-poor little thing-was absolutely a mess.

This instant assessment rested not so much on his small skinny frame, thin lips, brown

hair, gnome like steelrimmed glasses, as upon his manner. Paul was squirmy. In girlish

reaction, Barbara was a little revolted: in motherly reaction, she was full of pity.

Paul twitched; he moved from foot to foot as if the ground was burning; he twisted his head

and craned his neck when he talked. It was as if he were straining to put into words and

actions some pouring torrent of ideas that could be neither checked nor investigated. His

voice cracked and warbled; his eyes darted about. He was obviously a creature in torment

caused again-by trying to translate back and forth between the world he found himself to

live in externally and the one within that was visible only to him. He would eventually grow

up to be something quick, bright, complicated, and comically deformed-a full professional

inventor of the useless, a doctor to computers, a teacher of the theoretical and distant. In

short, he too would become civilized, "normal," and useful, but that would be long after the

itch in him was tamed. For now, he remained squirmy.

Dianne, of course, was a stick. It wasn't unlikely that she was so considered by classmates

at school. Oldest of the five by possibly half a year, she ap-

25

preached her eighteenth birthday unblossomed, unfavored and, at this late date,

unpromising. Even Dianne, hopeful as she might allow herself to be in moments of

absolute privacy, must now begin to sense the cold cast of the future. Where other girls

had by this time begun to spread their child-bearing hips and lift out their breasts, she

remained a tall, thin girl with long, white feet, bony legs in which the knees were

prominent, absent hips, flat chest, prominent collarbone and sharp edged elbows and

wrists. Dianne rose· to some height, and then dangled down again. Probably to combat

this, she was agonizingly neat, quiet, withdrawn, undemonstrative, and chilly. Her hair

was severely pulled back-strand by strand, each exactly parallel; she was spotlessly

clean and smelled (nicely) of soap. She always stood a fastidious step apart, and only

by her occasional use of authority over the other children-an authority they seemed to

grant her willingly for some reason--did she reveal that there might be a person

within the stick.

"'

Because she felt superior-again-Barbara had felt her heart envelop the girl. She was

extra kind to her and wanted to be more so. She wanted to tell her things, coax her:

after all, no one need be that unattractive. But how to approach the wall Dianne had

around her? Well, that would come in time.

So it had been, so they had seemed; so they had all behaved on the bright Sunday-

yesterday-after church and a picnic on the beach and a swim. And among them,

Barbara had moved and directed with assumed, cheerful responsibility, already the

pretty new teacher with her first class of pupils. How different now.

By bright yesterday afternoon, Barbara realized now, her capture had all been fixed as

a plan, her indignity assured except for chance and error. Bobby would have had his

father's chloroform hidden away in a plastic sandwich bag in a jar, perhaps: there would

have .... been rope in his own closet in the dark. Even

26

Cindy would have been primed to silence in spite of her voluble, willful nature.

Seen in that light, how unreal their innocent splashings, their carefully taken

instructions, their casual obedience seemed. What a bad job new Teacher had done in

her analyses, how easily Teacher was made the fool. Beneath the glib little caricatures

she had drawn of the children, they were people--learn that! They were organized; they

could plan; they could keep their own counsel; they could execute; and now it appeared

that they could keep their composure once commitment had been made.

How quickly the tables were reversed. The children were children no more, and Teacher

was Teacher no more. With a neat, short plot, they had erased her advantages and

made her just a girl again, one who was now no better than they.

Less better!

Having heard the meeting which they took no trouble to keep secret, Barbara, of

course, knew her captivity was not intended to be short. The moment of release,

triumph, retribution, that she had felt to lie only a short while ahead, was not here or

even near. Only another hour lay beyond this hour, perhaps only another day beyond

this day.