Merry showed us how to press things into the clay to make patterns. A fork made four lines. The mouth of a bottle made a circle. A washer made two circles. Merry even used the point of a pencil to scratch a line into the clay. It was as if she were drawing with the pencil.
Merry held up her bowl. Though it had taken her only a couple of minutes, Merry’s design looked beautiful.
“Now it is your turn to try it,” Merry said. She handed out pie plates and lumps of clay.
We all pressed our clay into the plates, to make our shallow bowls. While we were doing that, Merry put some of the pattern making tools on each table. On my table she put a bottle, a couple of bolts and marbles, two bottle caps, some forks, and some pencils.
“What kind of design are you going to make?” Kathy asked Isabel.
“I am not sure,” said Isabel. “I like the pattern the bottle caps make.” She reached for a bottle cap.
I was thinking about making my plate look like Merry’s. But in the last class, Merry had not seemed to think that was a good idea. She had liked Isabel’s horse much better.
I reached for the other bottle cap.
“I think I will use a fork and a pencil too,” said Isabel. She picked up one of each.
I did too.
I watched Isabel make her pattern. First she pressed her bottle cap into her clay, to make a zigzaggy circle. Next to the zigzaggy circle, she pressed the fork flat into the clay. Next to that she drew a couple of wavy lines with the pointy end of the pencil, and dotted them with the eraser end. Finally, she repeated the pattern.
I carefully pressed my bottle cap into my clay. Then the fork. Then I drew wavy lines. Then dots. Bottle cap, fork, pencil.
I held up my bowl, taking care not to let Isabel see it. (I was not cheating. This was not a test. But still, I did not want Isabel to see it.) I had completed about half the pattern. My bowl looked great!
I reached for my bottle cap. But I could not find it anywhere.
I looked around my place on the table. I did not see it. Maybe it had rolled off. I ducked down and looked on the floor. It wasn’t there.
Then I noticed Andrew. He was pressing it into his clay. And he had a fork and a pencil too! He was copying my pattern.
Andrew was doing everything I did! I felt like I was Karen Two-Two and he was Andrew Two-Two-Too.
“Andrew!” I whispered. “What are you doing?”
“I am making a design,” he said. “What are you doing?”
“I am becoming angry with you,” I said. “You are being a copycat.”
“Am not!”
“Are too!”
“Am not!”
“Are — ”
“Karen, is there a problem?” Merry interrupted.
I looked up. Merry was standing next to Isabel. I was about to say that Andrew was copying me. But then I saw that Merry was holding Isabel’s bowl.
Perhaps complaining about copying was not the smartest thing to do. After all, I had been copying Isabel. But that was different somehow. (I was not sure exactly how, but it did feel different to me.)
“No, Ms. Perkins,” I said. (I called her Ms. Perkins in class, like the rest of the students did.) “No problem.”
“Good,” said Merry. She turned to Isabel. “This is a wonderful pattern, Isabel. You have a real knack for pottery.”
Isabel beamed.
Then Merry stepped around to my side of the table. She looked at my bowl. She looked at me. I smiled. She glanced back at Isabel’s bowl. Had she noticed that they were kind of alike?
“Hmm,” she said. “Good work, Karen.” She looked at Andrew’s. “You too, Andrew.”
Then she moved on to the next table.
Was that all? She had said Isabel had a “real knack,” and yet all I got was “good work.”
Something was not right. Merry had liked Isabel’s project more than she had liked mine. But they were just the same!
I looked at my bowl, then at Isabel’s. Maybe they were not exactly the same. Isabel’s fork marks were closer to her bottle caps. Her wavy lines were wavier.
It seemed that Isabel was the perfect pottery student. If I could only do everything she did, Merry would think I was perfect too and let Hannie and Nancy into the class.
Next time I would have to be more careful. If I wanted Merry to love my project, I would have to make it exactly like Isabel’s.
How Does Isabel Do It?
Hannie and Nancy came over to the little house on Saturday afternoon. We played Trapped for a Night in a Haunted House, Stranded for a Year on a Desert Island, and Tiger on the Loose (Midgie was the tiger). All three games were gigundoly fun.
It was a perfect day until Hannie said, “Has Merry said anything about letting us in the pottery class, Karen?”
“Yes,” said Nancy, “are we in yet?”
I was about to tell them no when Midgie darted out from under my bed. “Look out!” I hollered. “Tiger on the loose!”
We all screamed. Midgie ran around in little circles, barking. We screamed some more, then fell over laughing.
Luckily for me, Hannie and Nancy forgot about the pottery class.
At least for the moment.
* * *
At the beginning of class on Tuesday, Merry held up a pot. “Here is a pot made by coiling clay,” she said. “Today we will coil clay to make a pot, or a bowl, or whatever you wish. Let me show you how.”
Merry held up a long, thin rope of clay. “It is easy to do,” she said. “Make a snake of clay like this one. Then, starting at one end, coil the clay around itself in a circle. When the circle is big enough to be the base of what you are making, start coiling upward.”
As she talked, she showed us what she meant. In no time she had made a simple bowl.
“I did this one quickly, so it is not perfect,” Merry said. (It looked pretty good to me.) “It is lopsided, and some of the coils are falling apart. You have to press the coils together gently. You should also gently wet the edges of the coil wherever they touch. That helps them stick together better.”
Merry explained some more about coiling. Then she said, “At the end of today’s class, we will save our coil projects. Scratch your initials on the bottom of your piece with a toothpick. On Thursday we will work on them some more. Over the weekend they will be fired. And next week we will work on decorating and glazing them.”
Wow. The coil projects would be fired and glazed. They would be keepers! I would have to take extra-special care with my coil project. I wanted it to be perfect. I decided to watch Isabel again. I would try to do what she did.
First Isabel rolled her clay out into a long snake. That was easy. I already knew how to do that.
Then she coiled it into a circle, pressing the coils together as she went. She took a small paintbrush, dipped it in water, and wet the edges of the coils wherever they touched. I did the exact same thing.
But then Isabel started coiling up. It looked simple. In one hand she turned the circle of clay she had already made. With the other hand she placed down new clay in a coil.
Somehow I could not do it like she could. My fingers kept getting confused. It was as if I were trying to do everything backward.
My coil was crooked and full of gaps. It looked terrible! Isabel’s was perfect.
How did Isabel do it?
I had to squoosh mine up and start all over again. Meanwhile Isabel finished her piece (it was a vase) and scratched her initials on the bottom of it. Then she started on another.
By the time class ended, Isabel had made three perfect coil vases. I had made one vase. And it was not perfect. As I looked at it, its walls fell over. Now it was a bowl. After working hard for a whole class, I had made only one lumpy, stumpy, bumpy bowl. Maybe I could give it to Emily Jr. as her food bowl. It looked like the kind of bowl a rat would like.
Boo and bullfrogs!
“I see that some of you have made more than one coil project,” said Merry. “I want you to choose the one yo
u like most. We will work on those next class. The others will be recycled.”
Isabel chose one of her three perfect vases and carried it to the storage cabinet. Then she put her two rejects on the scrap heap next to the recycling tub.
Class was over.
As usual, Andrew and I stayed behind to help Merry tidy up.
I helped Andrew move chairs for awhile. Then I wandered over to the recycling tub. I wanted to get a closer look at Isabel’s vases. How had she done it?
I picked up the one on top.
“Why, Karen,” said Merry.
I spun around. I was holding Isabel’s vase in front of me.
“Why, Karen,” Merry repeated. “Your vase is lovely. You should put it in the storage cabinet with the others. You will want to work on it again on Thursday.”
The Big Switch
“You do not understand,” I said. “This is not my — ”
“Not your best work?” Merry said. “Well, you only had one class period to work on it. You can work on it again on Thursday. It would be a shame to put it in the recycling tub.”
She gently led me toward the storage cabinet.
“But — but,” I stammered. My mind was whirling.
“That is a terrific first try, Karen,” Merry said, smiling. “You really have a feel for pottery. I knew you could do it. Now, put your vase in the cupboard while I run outside to get another garbage bag.”
She left me standing at the storage cabinet, holding Isabel’s vase. I did not know what to do. I had tried to explain that it was not mine, but Merry had not let me. She wanted me to save the vase. She was happy with this vase.
I looked down at it. I thought of my rat bowl.
I knew I should rush back to the recycling tub and toss the vase in. But Merry had said it would be a shame to recycle the vase.
Should I save it instead? I thought and thought.
Isabel was going to throw it out anyway. She did not want it anymore. If I saved it from the recycling tub, it was not really stealing, was it?
And Merry did say it was lovely. She said I had a feel for pottery.
I opened the storage cabinet and looked at my bowl. It was saggy, baggy, and draggy.
I looked at the vase in my hands. It was perfect.
Merry would not have said my rat bowl was lovely. She would not have thought I had a feel for pottery. She would have thought I was too young for this class. And she would have thought she had made a mistake letting Andrew and me take her class.
My face burning, I turned Isabel’s vase over. Her initials were scratched in the bottom:
Quickly, before I could change my mind, I grabbed a pencil out of a cup in the storage cabinet. I changed the initials on the bottom of the vase to:
Then I placed my new vase on the shelf and snatched up my bowl. As I rushed it to the recycling tub, I felt as if I were in a dream. I could not believe I was actually doing this.
I tossed my bowl into the tub. Bubble, bubble, down it sank. I felt terrible. But the deed was done.
I looked around. Had anyone seen what I had done?
Andrew was busy shoving chairs around. Merry had not come back yet.
I had pulled the Big Switch. And I had gotten away with it.
Karen Is Doomed
There was no way I was going to get away with it. I realized that the next day.
Switching projects was wrong. I had known it was wrong when I did it. It was dishonest. Only a meanie-mo would do it.
And I was going to get caught. On Thursday Isabel would recognize her vase. She would accuse me of stealing. The truth would come out. Everyone would know what I had done.
Merry would hate me. Even Andrew would lose respect for me. (He would probably stop copying me, though.)
I was doomed.
“I am doomed,” I moaned on the bus to school.
“I am doomed,” I moaned before class.
“I am doomed,” I moaned in the lunch line.
“Why do you keep saying you are doomed, Karen?” asked Hannie.
“Do you have some horrible disease?” asked Nancy, looking worried.
“I wish,” I said. “But I am not that lucky. I am dooooomed.”
Hannie and Nancy drew circles in the air next to their heads. They thought I was going crazy.
I wanted to tell them why I was doomed — but I was too ashamed. I did not want my best friends to know about the terrible thing I had done.
And besides, I did not want to bring up the subject of Merry’s class. Hannie and Nancy were still wondering when they would be allowed to join. I did not want them to know I had ruined their chances.
They did not know how lucky they were not to be taking pottery class. It was nothing but Trouble with a capital T.
* * *
“I am home,” I said sadly after school.
“Karen!” Andrew came running to greet me. “Guess what! Merry and I had so much fun this afternoon. First we made…”
Usually I am very happy to see Andrew when I get home from school. But today had been a terrible day. I did not want to see anyone or talk to anyone.
Andrew said, “… and then we went outside to look for tulips, and — ”
“Andrew,” I said, interrupting him. “I am sorry, but I am in a bad mood.”
Andrew’s face grew serious. “Oh, me too,” he said.
“I just want to be alone.”
“Me too.”
I started to walk upstairs to my room. Andrew followed me.
I stopped and turned to face him. “Andrew, did you understand what I said?” I asked. “I do not want to see anyone right now.”
“Me too!” Andrew said.
I marched down the hall. I opened the door to my room. I started to close it, but Andrew was in the way.
“Andrew, stop following me!” I said.
“I am not following you!”
“Yes you are! You are a copycat and a pest.”
“Am not!”
“Are too! Copycat! Pest!” I yelled.
Andrew burst into tears and ran down the hall to his room.
Now I had done it.
I heard Merry in the hall. I remembered I wanted to be on my best behavior. I remembered I wanted to be the most wonderful child in the world. I remembered I wanted to make Merry love us. Now I had blown it.
Merry came into my room and shut the door behind her. That is never a good sign.
“I could not help overhearing your fight with Andrew,” Merry said. “What was all the yelling about?” She smiled. I could not smile back.
“You know, Karen,” Merry went on, “Andrew is not trying to bother you. He is only four.”
“Going on five,” I reminded her.
“Right, going on five,” Merry said. “Sometimes little kids like Andrew do not realize that they can be annoying. He is not following you around and copying you to make you mad. He is doing it because he looks up to you. He wants to be like you.”
I had not thought of that.
“Try to keep that in mind the next time he gets on your nerves,” said Merry. “Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay.”
“Now I am going to talk to Andrew,” said Merry. She opened the door to leave, then paused in the doorway. “I think your brother is a very special child, you know. And I think you are too.”
Merry started to walk down the hall to Andrew’s room.
“Merry?” I called after her.
She turned. “Yes?”
I smiled. “Thanks. I think you are special too.”
Karen Is Saved
After Merry was so nice to me, I felt worse than ever. How could I tell her that I had switched projects with another student?
I could not.
But it did not matter. I knew that as soon as Isabel Linden saw “my” vase, she would recognize it as hers. I would be caught.
Before class on Thursday I sat stiffly at my table, waiting for Isabel to arrive. It was pure torture. All the other students were at
their seats. Isabel was late.
Then Merry announced, “Isabel Linden’s mother just called. Isabel has a cold and will not be coming to today’s class.”
I almost fell out of my chair. Isabel was sick. Hooray! I knew it was not very nice to be glad that Isabel was sick, but I could not help it. I was saved, saved, saved!
At least for now.
I raced to the storage cabinet to retrieve my vase.
Just in case Isabel recovered soon, I would have to disguise the vase. If I decorated it enough, Isabel might not recognize it.
I sat happily at my table, scratching a tiny triangle pattern into the rim of the vase. I hummed a little tune (“Everything’s Coming Up Roses”) as I worked.
“Stop it,” said Andrew.
I turned to him. He was making a family of clay snakes. He had given up on making a coil project.
“Stop what?” I asked.
“That humming,” he said. “It is bothering me.”
Andrew was still mad at me for yelling at him the day before.
I did not want to tease him on purpose, so I stopped humming. I worked on my vase some more.
“Stop it!” Andrew said.
“Stop what?”
“Stop that humming! You were doing it again.”
“Was not!”
“Were too!”
I turned to Kathy Mullhouse, on the other side of the table.
“Was I humming?” I asked her.
“Yes, you were,” she said. “And it is a little annoying.”
Hmph. I do not know why Andrew and Kathy thought my humming was annoying. I am a good hummer.
“I will not do it again,” I said to Kathy. Then to Andrew I said, “Happy now?”
He nodded but did not say anything. He went back to rolling out snake children.
When Andrew is mad, he sure can be frosty.
Oh, well. At least he was not following me around and copying me anymore. And he would get over being mad at me someday.
I hoped.
By the time class was over, I had decorated the rim of the vase with triangles. And I had added a pattern of squiggly lines around the center. Isabel would never know the vase had been hers.