How to Be an American Housewife - Margaret Dilloway [38]
“Where do they live?”
“Hide underground. Egg dry up.” We crested the small hill. Yes, there it was, the small pond, bordered by boulders and wild shrubs and an old mattress someone had dumped. I sent her down with the jar. “Go find egg.”
Sue grew the tadpole eggs in two jars. One she kept in a dark closet, the other in the light. Naturally, the one in the light grew better. It was as good of a project as I could come up with. Sue was happy with it, reporting on their progress every day. “When they turn into frogs I’ll put them back in the pond,” she said.
We made the science fair display board out of an old cardboard box. I cut it as square as I could with a pair of scissors, but it turned out crooked. Sue used her father’s old typewriter to type out her findings. We carefully lettered the headings by hand and glued it all onto the board with rubber cement.
“It looks pretty good,” Sue said.
“Course. ’Cause Mommy help you,” I said. She smiled.
The morning of the school science fair, I drove her to school. We walked into the auditorium with the sign and the jars.
Instantly I saw that her project wasn’t right. The other students had bought their display boards, so they were bright white and perfectly straight. The headings were made out of stickers. But that wasn’t all that caught my attention. It was the quality. One had a big machine heart that pumped fluid from one plastic compartment to the next. One had chemistry-lab results posted, with charts and results from experiments that could never be done at home. Another had a huge working model of an engine.
“How do this?” I asked Sue, pointing to the heart.
“His dad’s a cardiologist,” she said. “That one’s dad is a mechanical engineer. That one’s mother is a chemist.” She drew her arms into her body and slouched. I did not tell her to stand up straight.
In front of the stage, I spotted Sue’s science teacher in a cluster of parents. “I be right back,” I said to her, walking over to the teacher.
I had only seen him once before, at the Open House in the fall. He was a short man, even shorter than I was. He looked like a skinny garden gnome. “’Scuse me, Mr. Moynahan,” I said in my sweetest voice, tapping him on the shoulder.
He turned away from the other parents, who smiled smoothly and blankly. This neighborhood school had both wealthy and not-so-wealthy families, but these parents all looked like professionals to me. Well groomed, the women in short heels and slacks, the men in polo shirts and khakis. I looked no different, I thought, in my own slacks and sweater set with my string of pearls. I looked like I belonged.
Mr. Moynahan held out his hand. “Mrs. Morgan! Isn’t the fair wonderful?”
I nodded. “Oh, yes. But why you no tell Sue ’bout what buy? How we know how do all this?” I gestured to the machines and charts. “How I know all this?”
He frowned, then shrugged his plaid-shirt-covered shoulders. “This is how science fairs are always done.”
“But you no tell kid how do. I no doctor. I no scientist. How expect me know?” I tried to keep my voice polite, but I could not remember when I was last so angry. “No fair, parent do all work.” I took his arm and walked him back to where Sue’s project leaned crookedly on a table. She was nowhere to be found. “See? I don’t know ’bout these boards you can buy at store.”
“Haven’t you ever been to a craft store, Mrs. Morgan?” He examined Sue’s project.
“I don’t got money for craft store.” I tried to think of how I could express myself better and wished Sue would come help. I spotted her in the corner with her friends, turned deliberately away from me. I leaned toward Mr. Moynahan. “You gonna give my daughter bad grade ’cause you no tell her how to do this? Huh?”
He took a red Sharpie out of his pocket and wrote a B on her board. “That’s for the project, Mrs. Morgan. Not for the display. The display only matters if you go to the county.”
“And you going tell people ’bout board and how make look pretty?” I wanted him to tell me that next year he would do a better job. Next year,