Dennis’s swing rose as high as he could make it go. He tucked his legs under when he dropped so they wouldn’t hit the ground, and then pumped them out when he rose. “It’s not fucking long enough,” he said. “We need one of these for adults.”
“I don’t think they make them,” I said.
“Goddamn kid swings,” he muttered, and then I’m not sure if he let go or if his hands slipped on the wet chains, but all of a sudden he was in the air and then on the ground, clutching his ankle. By the time I reached him, he was sobbing.
During the last week of fourth grade, Dennis and Margo and I sat down at the kitchen table for a family meeting. I’d cleaned up from dinner and Margo was freshly showered. Dennis had been scanning the classifieds and eating blackberries over the sink. When we were seated, Dennis clasped his hands. He started by explaining our meeting with Mr. Oxley to Margo, who interrupted to remind me that Elise Martinez, our neighbor for years until her family moved, had skipped second grade. She fidgeted until Dennis was finished. “But my friends,” she said. She scratched at the table with a fingernail.
Dennis got up from the table and came back with a steno pad. He drew three rectangles and labeled them FOURTH GRADE, FIFTH GRADE, and SIXTH GRADE. Beside the rectangles, he drew a stick figure in a skirt and labeled it MARGO. Beside the figure, he drew a question mark. “The way I see it,” he said, “we’ll fill these boxes with pros and cons, and whichever has the most pros wins.”
I said, “Fourth grade isn’t an option.”
“It’s the standard by which all other grades are measured,” Dennis said.
I said, “Mr. Oxley thinks you might be a little too mature for the fifth grade, sweetheart.”
“Except he pronounces it matoor,” said Dennis, and Margo giggled.
“I like Mr. Oxley,” said Margo.
“Me too,” I said.
“Me too,” said Dennis, and in the fourth-grade box he wrote: MR. OXLEY.
“I don’t think sixth-graders take art class,” said Margo.
NO ART CLASS, wrote Dennis in the sixth-grade box.
I said, “They have health education in the sixth grade,” and Margo made a face. Dennis pointed out that she’d be in a different class from her friends, and Margo nodded solemnly. FRIENDS, wrote Dennis in the fifth-grade box. Margo pointed out that sixth-graders were allowed to take two elective classes per term. SHOP & HOME-EC, wrote Dennis, and she said she’d prefer to take gymnastics.
“Sixth-grade boys are cuter,” she said, which came as a surprise. This was true, from what I’d observed. CUTE BOYS, wrote Dennis with difficulty. Margo said, “Graduation.”
Dennis was always less reluctant than I to show ignorance. “Meaning what?” he said.
“There’s no ceremony for the sixth-graders,” said Margo.
There were plenty of times when I wasn’t certain what Margo was talking about—music bands, for example, or slang, or comic book characters. For an instant, I thought this was one of those times, but then I remembered the most significant difference between fifth and sixth grades: although they were both located on the same campus, one was elementary school, and the other, as of a school board decision two years earlier, was middle school.
“You’ll miss graduation,” I said, and Margo said, “Obviously.”
Sunset School comprised two large buildings, one for kindergarten through fifth grade, and the other for grades six through eight. Grades nine through twelve, which didn’t yet concern us, were located in a different place entirely. If Margo skipped the fifth grade, not only would she occupy a different desk in a different classroom—she’d cross into a new world order. This was not a minor distinction.
“They have lockers at middle school,” I said.
LOCKERS, wrote Dennis.
“They have different teachers for every subject,” said Margo.
DIFF. TEACHERS, Dennis wrote.
“They don’t have to walk single file in the hall,” said Margo.
Dennis wrote, NO SINGLE FILE. Then, in the fifth-grade box, he wrote, SINGLE FILE.
“I’ll go,” said Margo.
I marveled at her flexibility. “You don’t have to,” I said.
Dennis put down the pencil. “Why don’t you sleep on it?”
Margo bit her lip. “No. It’s OK.” She put her arms around his neck. When she drew back, she hugged me, too, then picked up the steno pad with the boxes all filled in. She tore off the top sheet and folded it as small and tight as a matchbook, then slipped it into her back pocket and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Can I have ice cream?” she said.
Two weeks later, Margo left in a van full of local kids for Camp Cherokee in southern Georgia, where she’d spent a month every summer since she was eight. In July, Dennis and I drove up to Atlanta to spend the weekend with my mother—we met my father and Luanne, whom we’d seen only occasionally over the years, for breakfast—and on the way home we visited Margo at camp on her birthday. We took her out for barbecue and she and Dennis went through ten packets of Wet Wipes each. Camp was only half over and already she was tan and hollow-cheeked, with a newly chipped molar. She explained that she’d been doing backward somersaults in the shallow part of the lake, one after the other without coming up for air, and then the back of her head had hit the metal swim ladder. She’d believed she’d been rolling in place, when really she’d been traveling. As soon as her head had hit, she’d felt something sharp roll over her tongue. She’d stood up and spat into her hand, then presented the shard to her counselor. I wondered why we hadn’t been notified. Dennis sighed—thinking, I assume, of the dentist bill.
“On land,” said Margo, “when I do a somersault, I roll about this far.” She spread her arms. “But I thought that in water, I’d stay in place. Wouldn’t you think I’d stay in place?”
“Like laundry in a machine,” said Dennis, nodding.
Margo shrugged. “I guess not.”
Usually when we drove up for her birthday—as we had done three summers running—Margo begged to stay at camp for another two-week session. We’d always refused. A month was already too much time without her, in my opinion, and Dennis always wanted to spend a week at Stiltsville as a family before school started. Not to mention that camp was expensive. But on the drive up, I’d told Dennis I thought we should let her stay this year. “What on earth for?” he’d said. “Are we feeling guilty?” I didn’t answer. “I guess we are,” he’d said.
I resisted the impulse to wipe a smear of barbecue from Margo’s chin. “Aren’t you going to ask to stay at camp?” I said.
She put a finger in her mouth and felt around. “Look,” she said, pulling apart her lips. The broken tooth looked like the craggy face of a mountain.
“We’ll get it fixed when you’re home,” I said.
“I don’t want to stay this year,” Margo said.
“Good,” said Dennis.
“Why not?” I said.
Margo shrugged. Her shrug had become something of a default reaction, a prelude to the preteen years. She’d also assumed the habit of thinking before answering. “It’s fun, but it’s not that fun,” she said. “You know?”
“Sure,” said Dennis. “More Margo for us.”
That night, in what must have been the crummiest motel room between Tallahassee and Panama City, I cried. Dennis was only moderately sympathetic—he’d long since dubbed our annual camp visit the Trail of Tears. He lay with his head propped on a stack of flat pillows, watching the weather report flashing on the television. “She’s changed,” I said.