The Wednesday Wars: May–June

“Since we are living so very close to New York City,” she said, “Camillo Junior High School is certainly a likely target for an atomic bomb if the Soviet Union should ever choose to attack. It behooves us to be prepared.”

But we followed our government’s drill procedures precisely and stayed under our desks for eighteen minutes, until the wind would have whisked away the first waves of airborne radioactive particles, and the blast of burning air would have passed overhead, and the mushroom cloud would no longer be expanding, and every living thing would have been incinerated except for us because we were scrunched under our gummy desks with our hands over our heads, breathing quietly and evenly.

This is the story of a son who is asked to take vengeance for what has happened to his father, who has been dreadfully murdered. But he’s not sure that he can trust anyone in his family. What might you do in such a situation?

Let me tell you, you don’t want to be in the seventh grade and have people hear you snore. What you hear when you wake up is humiliating. Not as humiliating as yellow tights with white feathers on the butt, but humiliating enough.

We crossed over the Long Island Expressway to the north side of town, and meandered down side roads until we stopped beside the Quaker meetinghouse.

It was the first Catholic church I’d ever been inside, mostly because Catholic churches are supposed to be filled with idols and smoking incense that would make you so woozy that you’d give in and start praying on your knees, which Presbyterians know is something that should not be done.

“Whether or not I spoke about the renovations to Yankee Stadium is not something you need to know, Holling.”

See, this is the kind of stuff you start to think about when you’re reading Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. You just can’t help being kind of melancholy — even though if you had to play him on stage at the Festival Theater, at least you’d be a prince and wearing a black cape instead of being a fairy and wearing yellow tights.

And sometimes the real world is more like Bobby Kennedy, who was a sure bet for the Democratic nomination and probably would have been president of the United States and stopped the war, but who got shot at point-blank range.

Still, it was a June day to be blithe and bonny in.

They probably weren’t carrying hefty cans of chili.

Every time she cut one, she would glare at me, and I don’t think she was thinking thoughts about nurturing one of her students in wisdom and learning.

When she finally got to the end and shouted out the climax — which was supposed to make us all scream in fascinated terror — not much happened.

"If you get bitten, you have to swallow this very quickly”—she held up a small glass vial — “so that you can make it to the hospital..."

And that’s how Mrs. Bigio found us when she hiked in at dusk — all huddled into small groups, swatting hopelessly at hordes of mosquitoes, nothing cooking on the fire.