Child Number Seven by Sally Lotz - Spratt (which ebook reader .txt) 📕

Child Number Seven or How I Became Queen of the 4th of July Parade

Main Street was lined with people, nobody missed the 4th of July Parade. I saw a few little kids sitting on their dad’s shoulders. Families who were lucky enough to live on Main Street sat in their front yards; eating hotdogs and drinking cold bottles of soda. Old Mrs. Waverly’s yard overflowed with her family, I think half the town was related to her. Waverly’s of all shapes and sizes were crammed on her porch. Fat Peg (she was in my class and she always had her finger in her nose) sat cross legged in the long grass. Peg’s mom sat next to her in one of those green and white aluminum chairs, the legs bending from her weight. I saw Fred and waved, he’s the kid who lives in the old house across the alley from me. Fred was a good kid, just a little dirty, but that wasn’t his fault, I don’t think his family could afford soap or water, plus he doesn’t’ have a momma. I made sure to toss Fred a couple extras of the red, white and blue suckers I had. Old Mr. Lindeman from the bank supplied the suckers, so they were those dumb tiny suckers with the bent stick, safety suckers they were called. I only threw the suckers to special people. I made sure that Meg didn’t get one. She was in my class too, she was stuck-up - always had new stuff, she made sure to show everyone. I was pretty sure she didn’t need a 4th of July sucker. Me being the Queen of the Parade, I could make these decisions.

I can hardly believe that I am finally here, Queen of the 4th of July Parade! It has taken months of careful planning and a lot of hard work, but I made it. Finally, I have done something that no one else in my family has done – I am Queen of the 4th of July Parade. For the last five months, every night while I was trying to fall asleep, I would say over and over to myself, “I AM Queen of the 4th of July Parade”. Now here I am riding on the lead float; it’s a beautiful float, the sides are covered with red, white and blue paper swags. The older Girl Scouts made tons of white carnations out of tissue paper; they crammed the flowers into every visible space. There are a couple other kids on the float with me, but they are behind me and they aren’t the Queen, there can only be one Queen. They are my Royal Court. I make sure to glance over at them every now and then, and wave my scepter at them.

First I have to explain; I am the youngest girl in my family, I have six older sisters all who are prettier, smarter, and faster than me. And, if that wasn’t enough I got stuck with the worst name, Lucinda. My sisters used up all the good “L” names: Lacey, Laura, Linda, Lorelei, Loretta, Luanne and last but not least me, Lucinda. Whose idea was it that our names all had to start with the letter L? There must be better letters. Maybe it was because mom’s name was Lucille (her friends from bridge club call her Lucy) and Dad’s name was Louis, oh and our last name is Long. Secondly I am child number seven, which means that everything I do has already been done or tried before. Most people say it must be great to be the “baby” of the family, it would be if they treated me like the baby, but they don’t – I get everyone else’s hand-me-downs (clothes, shoes, hair ribbons, school books), even the dress I wear to my Girl Scout meeting is a hand-me-down. I’ve never had a new bike or a new pair of roller skates. My parents don’t give fun stuff for Christmas or birthday’s, that’s when I get the only new dress for the year or other practical stuff that is hard to hand down, you know like underwear and socks, stuff like that. Just one time I would like to get a doll, not that I would play with it, I am almost too old for that sort of thing.

Momma is always telling me, “Don’t worry about trying to find something to do that no one else has done, you are your own person, whatever you do, I love you – no matter what.” She has to stay stuff like that she’s my mother. My sister’s love to laugh at me, “oh isn’t she so cute” they say. Their boyfriends love to pat me on the head and laugh at me too, which makes me mad and I turn red, so they laugh at me even harder. Daddy sits behind his newspaper reading and seems to be in a daze most of the time. I think what he wanted most was a boy, someone to play baseball with, or who would go fishing and camping with him, do those “manly things” guys do. I tried some of those things, but the squishy worms and hooking a fish made me feel funny inside, and then sitting in the boat, well let’s just say I turned all shades of green. Baseball, I tried but I can never seem to catch the ball. I have to chase after it into the rose bushes. I broke the kitchen window trying to hit a home run; that was the last straw. I think mom and dad gave up after me, he wasn’t going to get any boys and seven daughters was enough. I had heard talk about me being an accident, that was for sure, I always dropped stuff and broke things. I wasn’t allowed to do the dishes anymore, momma was afraid I would break a glass and cut myself (thank goodness for that). So my chores are always “safe” meaning it wouldn’t matter if anything got broken, so that translates to trash cans, and yard work (the boys stuff).

I heard about the Queen of the 4th of July parade at my very first Girls Scout meeting. We meet in the school gym (which is also the lunchroom) every Thursday after school. Mrs. Olson, Meg’s mom, was our den mother. I have to wear my sister’s old faded dress; I only had two sisters who were in Girl Scouts, so at least my dress had only been handed down twice. When I get older I get to wear a sash with the badges I’ve earned. My mom carefully removed all of my sister’s badges from the sash, which wasn’t too hard because Luanne had only earned two badges before she quit. I was excited about Girl Scouts, Mrs. Olson told us all about how if we stuck with it we would get to do all kinds of neato things like cure sick people and bake lots of cookies. I was thinking about the sick people I would cure in South America when I heard Mrs. Olson say, “Queen of the 4th of July Parade”. After the meeting I cornered the den mother and had her list out all the things I needed to do in order to be Queen. I had only six months to prepare. The list was long, but if I put my mind to it, I could do it. No one else in my family had been crowned Queen, let alone be in a parade. I ran home with my list and hid it in a safe place, my underwear drawer.

First on my list: sell the most cookies out of the whole den. When received our order forms I was the first out the door, I started on my way home taking orders. Some of the girls had their parents get cookie orders from work or from their families. This left uncharted streets and avenues for me. After my first few no’s I had my story down, I encouraged (Lily said pestered) each person until they couldn’t refuse. I stood outside the post office on Saturday, outside the bank after school and even my Sunday school teacher couldn’t refuse. I managed to sell the most – 952 boxes! Smarty pants Meg only sold 54, and my sister’s never sold cookies. Here was a first for me – I was the first one in my family to sell Girl Scout cookies! I could have stopped here and been happy, but I had my eye on that float, the crown and scepter and the word QUEEN!

Next on the list: earn 5 merit badges. I searched through my handbook and selected 5 that I thought I could achieve: sewing, cooking, gardening, art and first aid. – No problem. I wasn’t a very good sewer, but it wasn’t the quality that counted. Girl Scouts were all about trying – so the fact that I tried was enough. I made a pillow for our sofa out of a pretty shade of purple fabric I found at the bottom of mom’s sewing basket. I sewed it together with a needle and thread, and stuffed it full of fluffy stuff. I used some of the stuffing out of the dog bed and some feathers I found in Old Lady Waverly’s chicken coop. I made a hand shaped potholder for grandma, which by the way she loved. I overheard her saying something to my mom about the fingers I had created on the pot holder; I think I may have made the ring finger too big. But she loved it and it hangs on the knob of her kitchen drawer. Gardening, not hard at all, since that was already one of my chores at home. Cooking was a little tricky. My cookies came out burnt and my pancakes wouldn’t flip. Dad suggested I stick to sandwiches. So I made him a cooler full of baloney, Velveeta cheese and ketchup sandwiches to take on his fishing trip. I think he liked them; the cooler was empty when he got home. First aid seemed a little bit harder to earn. Ralphy our dog and Suzie our cat were my patients since I don’t have any dolls to practice on. I made a nice casts for Ralphy’s legs, and Suzie didn’t look too bad when I shaved her side. My sisters wouldn’t let me practice on them after that.

I had to do some stuff too that wouldn’t get me a merit badge. They were just thing to help the community. I had to visit old folks who couldn’t leave home or who were stuck in the hospital. This would be hard since the only old folks I knew who were stuck at home were Mr. Gordon, who lived in a haunted house, and Mrs. Waverly. She didn’t need any visitors and there was no way I was going in that haunted house, so I was stuck with the hospital route. I grabbed my copy of Charlotte’s Web and one of dad’s National Geographic magazines