Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman Read Free Book Online Page B

truck.”
    This time, Mrs. Mutnick didn’t wait for the end of the day. She telephoned my mother, and during Juice and Cookie Time, they sat down with me again.
    I believe it was Freud who once said that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, hoping to get different results. But then, Freud never had to deal with raising a five-year-old. Out came “The Boy Who Cried Wolf” again, and again we had the discussion roughly entitled “Why It Is Bad to Lie.”
    Somewhere along the line, my mother had the insight that I was lying not to be difficult, but to be special. And since appealing to my sense of morality was obviously a lost cause, she decided to appeal to my vanity instead.
    When we got home from school, she said, “Why don’t we try to come up with the most interesting
true
thing for you to share? That way, you can show everybody at school how smart you are.”
    Then we looked at the maracas I had originally planned to bring in. They’d been crafted from coconut shells with the word “Havana” painted on them in black.
    “Oh, there’s a story behind these,” said my mother. “Do you know where Havana is?”
    I shook my head.
    “It’s in Cuba, in the Caribbean Sea,” said my mother, pulling an atlas off the shelf. She showed me a picture of an island shaped like a newt. “This is where your grandparents had their honeymoon many years ago. And a lot of big things have happened in Cuba since then.”
    The next day, I trooped into kindergarten armed with my maracas. I noticed Mrs. Mutnick seemed hesitant to call on me for Show ‘n’ Tell, but when she did, I stood up and said, “Today, I’m going to tell about something true. Today I’m going to tell you about the Cuban Revolution.” Then I held up my maracas and shook them for effect.
    “Cuba is an island south of the United States. It has palm trees and beaches,” I said. “When my grandma and grandpa first got married, they went there on their honeymoon. But then, things changed in Cuba. The country had a revolution. What’s a revolution? Sometimes, my mommy says, it’s when people in a country don’t like the way the country is. Sometimes lots of people are poor, and only a few people are rich. Or sometimes—”
    I looked up and noticed that Mrs. Mutnick was looking intently at Mrs. Flores, who was staring at me with a kind of disbelieving fascination. I had never seen her look that way before. She tilted her head slightly toward the door. “Susie, do you mind waiting a minute?” Mrs. Mutnick said. “Mrs. Flores and I think Mr. Alvarado might like to hear this.”
    Mr. Alvarado was our principal. Of course, I had no way of knowing that both he and Mrs. Flores had been born in Havana. After a minute, Mrs. Flores returned to the room with Mr. Alvarado following behind her. They both squeezed down into the tiny kindergarten chairs with the rest of the class, looking no longer scary, but suddenly miniaturized and silly. Mr. Alvarado smiled at me expectantly. I looked at Mrs. Mutnick, who was beaming. I had everyone’s attention. Everybody was focused on me. Not because of my costumes, or who I was pretending to be, but because of what I had to say. It was my moment. Finally, I was a stewardess. I was a prima ballerina. I was Batgirl.
    Yet I was not destined to become any of these things.
    Perhaps I was simply a typical five-year-old, compelled to do exactly what I’d repeatedly been instructed not to do. Or perhaps, I was exhibiting the first signs of what I would, in fact, one day really grow up to be. Because my mother had told me the history of Cuba as accurately as she could. She’d pulled out our
World Book Encyclopedia
and a few old, cracked copies of
Time
magazine. She’d gone over the history with me. I’d gotten the facts, I knew the truth.
    And yet, I couldn’t help myself. The impulse to embellish, to put my own fantastical little spin on things, was simply too strong. “The Cuban Revolution was led