“Yes,” she answered.

  “Do you take aspirin for it? Aspirin is supposed to be good for the minor pains of arthritis and other stuff.”

  “I’m afraid that I’m beyond taking aspirin,” Miss Natasha said. “If you care to try to get the locket open, I think that you’ll find that it is worth the effort. I was furious when it was damaged, but then I realized that nothing was coming out of my fury, so I repaired it as best I could. There is something very beautiful about having this locket work in spite of its being hurt.”

  All the time that she was talking about being beautiful and hurt, I was trying to get it open. Miss Natasha had been leaning forward and holding her flashlight so that I could work it. “Did Christy see this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did she get it open?”

  “No. She couldn’t. I tried to help her, though. But she couldn’t get it open yet.”

  “No wonder it’s so hard for me. Her spit from sucking her thumb is probably all over it, making it icky for me.” Most of the trouble, though, was that the repair work had hidden the hinge, and I couldn’t find whichways it opened. Finally, I did. And it did.

  “Those are the same tiny children pictured on the outside,” I said.

  Miss Natasha smiled and nodded yes.

  “Why they’re jewelled and gorgeous enough to make every Barbie doll in the country want to puke from jealousy. Tiny princes and princesses no bigger than peeled pistachios.”

  “Can you find the ring, on the top of the maypole?” Miss Natasha asked.

  I did.

  “Pull it.”

  I did. The tiny, jewelled children started swinging around the pole, and chimes played a pretty tune.

  “Au Clair de la Lune,” Miss Natasha said. “In the Moonlight. That’s the name of the song. Doesn’t that fit?” she asked looking out the window.

  “I guess I would say that it does,” I admitted. “Is this a Swiss movement?” I asked.

  “No, Walt Disney,” she laughed. Then she snapped closed the beautiful locket.

  “It sure closes easier than it opens,” I said.

  “Most things do,” she answered. And then Miss Natasha left my bed and left our cabin.

  How they could expect all that fresh air and exercise to do anything but make me more hungry, I’ll never know. At our next weigh-in, I had lost a total of five pounds. That’s a lot for a kid, but according to them, I was just on schedule. Five pounds every two weeks.

  We had to write home again:

  I thought that maybe Miss Natasha was coming on some other night of the week, too, and that I was missing her because I was so sleepy from starvation and exhaustion. I waited for her to appear on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but she didn’t come. When she finally did come on Friday night, I asked her, “You sure don’t do much work around here. Don’t you think it would be cheaper for Miss Coolidge to have a record player playing ‘think thin’ under our pillows?”

  “But a record player can’t talk back,” she said, “or show you this.” Miss Natasha held out her hand. In it was the ugliest, smelliest looking blob that I had ever seen in my life. There were no words to describe it, so I said, “Yicchh.”

  She didn’t say anything, so I asked, “Did you damage this one, too?”

  “In a way, I did. I was trying to preserve what is in here. Inside here is the only thing that I was allowed to bring out of my country when I left. I should have known better than to think that adding layers of plastic could preserve all of my fine workmanship. A plain, simple but strong exterior would have been better.”

  “It stinks. It sure smells rotten. Is that Christy’s spit?”

  “No. Christy is still working on the locket. You see, the plastics that they had when I left my country were not nearly as refined as they are now. This is celluloid, and it is discolored by light, and it smells so bad because it once caught on fire. Well, actually, I tried to bum off the plastic, but I found that the whole thing was in danger of melting. There is nothing to do but to chip it away. Very carefully. A little bit at a time.”

  “Yicchh,” I explained. Miss Natasha continued holding her blob. “I don’t think that I want to bother with it,” I added.

  “Most people don’t want to,” she said.

  “Are you sure that Christy’s spit isn’t on it?”

  “I’m sure,” she said. “It’s messy to get all the way through to the good parts, but it’s worth it.”

  “Why don’t you peel away all the gunk by yourself?”

  “It is very difficult for me.”

  “Because of your arthritis?”

  “Partly. And partly because I am not always sure that it is worth the trouble.”

  “Hunh! You just told me that it was worth it. Just this minute you told me that.”

  “But, of course, I can tell you that because for you it is. You are young, and you will have almost your whole life to enjoy what you will find inside. I have none of that anymore.”

  “Do you mean that when I get to what is inside that,” I said, pointing to her blob, “that you will give it to me? Is that what you mean when you say that I will have my whole life to enjoy it?”

  “No. That isn’t what I meant. What I have inside here is too valuable for me to give you. I can only let you see it. What do you think I am? A fairy godmother?”

  “And what do you think I am? Your mother’s helper, Cinderella? Do you expect me to do all that work just to get a look at what’s inside?”

  “That’s what you expect of everyone you meet,” she said. “You expect everyone to see what is inside all that fat of yours. And not everyone can take the time. But you can. You have the time.”

  “Well, I’m not about to do all the work,” I told her. “Even though you’ll have the image of what is inside with you for all the rest of your life?”

  At that point in the dialogue I zonked my head to one side on the pillow and pretended that I had suddenly fallen asleep. Miss Natasha picked up her blob and walked out. She didn’t even bother flashing her light on the other beds. She sure didn’t earn her pay, I thought. Dialoguing with only two kids in a whole cabin. One stupid Friday night a week.

  I had lost three pounds at the next weigh-in. It was really three and one fourth, but Miss Coolidge said that ounces don’t count. Miss Coolidge is as narrow-minded as her skinny hips.

  Well, my parents came to Parents Visiting Day. They always like to see if they are getting their money’s worth. To show them how lucky they were to have me for a daughter, I showed them two Lindas and one of the Robins. Also Christy Long. I noticed Christy showing me to her mother.

  I looked all over for Miss Natasha, but she wasn’t there. I even bothered to ask Christy if she had seen her today, and Christy took her thumb out of her mouth long enough to say that she had not.

  Some parents must have brought some kids some goodies, which the weigh-in the next Monday showed up. Miss Coolidge shook her narrow head, clicked her thin tongue and said to every single girl who didn’t lose any weight or who didn’t lose enough, “Did Santa Claus come to you early this year?” She said it to each one. Including Kim. Ha. Ha.

  I waited up for Miss Natasha on Friday, and after she finished with Christy, I pretended that I was asleep. Who was she that she should think that I would wait up for her? She sat on the edge of my bed, and I noticed that she was holding her blob. It wasn’t hard to notice; it stunk as bad as ever. “Aren’t you even going to ask if I want dialogue?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “All I want to know is why you didn’t show up on Parents Visiting Day.”

  “I’ll show up when they have Parents Visiting Night.”

  “Do you still want me to peel that gunk for you?” I asked. “No,” she said, “I want you to peel it for you.”

  “Aha!” I said. “You mean that you’ve thought it over, and you are going to give it to me after all.”

  “I told you that I am no fairy godmother. I do want you to work on it. It is worth it. But you must believe that yourself.”

  “Will you help?” I asked.

  “I’ve already helped as much as I can.”

  I picked up Miss Natasha’s smelly old blob and began prodding it with my finger. “You know,” I said, “you ought to bring the watch so that I can keep track of the time and you ought to bring the locket so that I can listen to it as I work on this.”

  “I’ll bring them. I’m glad you like them so much. As a matter of fact, I have to go back to Christy’s bed to get the locket. She’s still working on it. Now you must start alone. I’ll be back shortly.”

  “Why don’t you just leave it in my little old shop here, ma’am. I’ll give you a claim check, and I’ll call you when it’s done.”

  “Clara,” Miss Natasha said, “if you had all day to do it, you’d put it off and put it off, and it would never get done.”

  So I began the gruesome job, letting my mind wander. Miss Natasha returned to my bed and watched me work a little while longer before she picked up her blob and walked out. I had gotten so interested in picking away at that mess that I forgot that she had the locket on when she had returned from Christy’s bed. I was sorry that I missed another chance to see and hear it.

  I had decided to be friendly; that’s why I signed it Fondly.

  Even the smell of Miss Natasha’s burnt plastic ball didn’t bother me anymore. Maybe because I was so close to the end and there wasn’t much of it left. Maybe because Miss Natasha brought the ring and the locket now and that helped to take my mind off it.

  I finished on the last Friday before I went home. The week before the plastic coat had gotten so thin that I was able to see what was inside. It was gold and the size of an airmail stamp. I peeled away the last of the plastic and saw that the gold was a tiny book whose cover was jewelled and locked. “I’ll bet it is a miniature Bible,” I said.

  Miss Natasha was as anxious as I was to get to it. “Open it! Open it!” she urged.

  I did.

  “Oh. Ohhhhhhh! Oh. Ohhh,” I repeated, which is not at all like me. “I know now that you are going to give it to me, after all. That is me. That’s a thin Clara. You made it just for me, didn’t you?” I looked up at Miss Natasha with grateful tears in my eyes, which is also not at all like me. “You put all that mess on it so that I would have to realize that I’m not plain on the outside like the watch and I’m not damaged like the locket. I’m fat and a little nasty and have to take all that off by myself so that people can see the beauty inside. I know now, dear Miss Natasha, that you are going to give me the tiny gold book, the greatest treasure of them all.”

  “No, I am not,” Miss Natasha said. “I told you that I’m no fairy godmother. Make your own pictures.” And with that, Miss Natasha took the book from me and left.

  When my parents came to take me home from camp, I could tell that they were pleased with the way I looked, so I said, “I need new clothes. Nothing fits.”

  They had another assembly for parents to tell them about how they should help us by making only skinny suppers and by not having a lot of snacks except cottage cheese and carrots around the house. I looked for Miss Natasha at the assembly. I wanted to say a different goodbye to her. I couldn’t find her.

  After the assembly broke up, I separated from my parents and found Christy Long to ask her if she had seen Miss Natasha, and she hadn’t either. There was nothing to do but to ask Miss Coolidge. I should have written my parents that Miss Coolidge was the fourth thing that made me sick. I thought that my mother and father ought to meet Miss Natasha. And I did owe her another goodbye, a better goodbye. I asked Miss Coolidge if she had seen Miss Natasha.

  “Miss Who?” she asked.

  “Miss Natasha, the evening counsellor,” I said.

  “We have no Miss Natasha,” Miss Coolidge said. “As a matter of fact, we have no evening counsellor.”

  I looked at Miss Coolidge. She was skinny. Her legs were skinny. Her elbows were skinny. Her brain was skinny. I stared into her skinny eyes.

  “Miss Natasha, you say?” she said. “Years ago, Camp To Ke Ro No was an Arts and Crafts camp, and we had someone here named Miss Natasha. She taught jewelry making. She claimed that she used to work for the royal Russian court.”

  “Where do you think she is now?” I asked.

  “Oh, she’s dead. She died. As a matter of fact, it was after she died that our arts and crafts enrollment went down so badly that we had to change the camp. If Miss Natasha were still with us, we never would have gone into the beef business.”

  It wasn’t because Miss Coolidge called me beef that I knew that I would never return to Camp Fat, and it wasn’t because she told me Miss Natasha was dead that I knew that I would never return to Camp Fat. It was because of Miss Natasha that I knew that I would never need to.

  Elizabeth Coatsworth

  THE HORSE OF THE

  WAR GOD

  THE BOY LIKED BEST tending the white horse in his shrine near the temple. All day the beautiful animal stood looking out through the pine trees towards the lake beyond, drowsing sometimes, and sometimes rousing himself to stamp his hoofs and switch his long tail. Then he would whinny in a long note that clanged like a trumpet through the temple grove and out across the roofs of the village, so that the villagers said, “The horse of the War God is calling to his master.”

  But when the boy came to the shrine with food and water for the white horse, and cloths to clean his glossy sides and combs to unravel the cascades of his mane and tail, the horse arched his neck down to his shoulder, and breathed softly against his face. No one except the horse loved the boy who was an orphan and a temple servant, and no one but the boy really loved the horse, though the villagers on their way to the temple of the War God stopped at his shrine to admire him and make their offerings.

  And in fact so beautiful a steed could not be found in the length and breadth of the countryside. He was as white as the snow-covered crest of Fujiyama; his neck was as curved as a warrior’s bow; and he was without blemish. If the God of War ever wished a worthy mount when he should ride out to meet the enemy, this was the animal.

  But being a horse in a shrine is monotonous. It needed fortitude to endure the long hours when the rain drummed ceaselessly on the roof or the snow swept past the heavy open lattice of his dwelling. Then the boy would come slipping away from his other duties to bring his friend some special treat to make the day go quickly for them both.

  He was a plain-looking boy, used to bearing heat and cold, used to harsh words and sometimes blows, used to wet garments and the feel of snow about his bare ankles. Since he had served the temple the priests had not been unkind to him. But to tell the truth they were a lazy lot, and more work fell on his shoulders than they were meant to bear. The head priest was an old man not fitted to serve the God of War. All his thoughts were on his garden and the etiquette of the tea ceremony. He never noticed that the tiles were beginning to fall from the temple roof like leaves from an old tree, nor that fewer and fewer of the villagers came to so run-down a temple. The other priests were shiftless and as long as their bowls were full of rice each day they did not care how the rats might carry away the offerings set on the tables before the god. Only the white horse in his separate shrine shone like a jewel in its case under the untiring care of the boy.

  One day an elderly man came to the temple. For many years he had been away from his village. Now when he saw what had happened to the temple he was indignant. He had to speak out his mind to someone and as the hoy happened to be the only one near, it was to him he spoke.

  “This is a lamentable state of affairs indeed,” he exclaimed. “When I was a young man this place was one of the most beautiful in Japan. People came from distant provinces to worship at the spot where the dragon died.”

  “What dragon, sir, may I venture to inquire?” asked the boy.

  “Are you a temple servant and do not even know about the dragon?” cried the man. “Every village child used to know the story. Long ago on the bare mountain slope above this temple there lived a dragon which laid waste the countryside. Hero after hero went to fight with the monster but each left his bones to whiten the entrance of the dragon’s cave. At last a young nobleman at the Emperor’s court determined to take upon himself the quest. He was only sixteen years old, but he had a will like a sword, and would listen to no attempts to dissuade him. So, all in armour, he rode away towards this abode of death.

  “But he was not alone. With him came a young girl, a lady-in-waiting at the court, who loved him, and insisted on sharing with him the dangers of the encounter. Surely now,” said the villager, breaking off, “you remember the rest of the story?”

  “No, honoured sir,” said the boy, “I have never heard it before.”

  “Shame be to this temple and its priests, then!” said the old man. “When the young nobleman came near the entrance of the cave, he left the maiden with the horses in this grove of trees, while he went up to face the monster in its lair. Signs enough and to spare he found of its presence, but the dragon had retreated to the depths of its cave. No taunts could induce it to come forth, for it knew that in this boy’s hand lay its appointed death.

  “Now dragons are very fond of music, and when the girl heard her beloved in vain summoning the creature to battle, she remembered a flute she had brought with her to solace her companion on the way. So, drawing this from its case, she placed it to her lips. Although her heart was nearly bursting with terror she played on it so beautifully that the dragon forgot its forebodings and came out of the cavern to hear, and so fell before the young warrior’s sword.