The Sky’s the Limit: My Journey with Maryellen

I agree with Beverly and say that I’m new here. Maryellen welcomes me to the neighborhood and asks where I’m moving from. I tell her Cedar Top, North Carolina. Maryellen sounds enchanted. She says it sounds cool and like it has mountains. She asks if it does. She doesn’t give me a chance to answer, but says that she’s always curious about places she’s never been. She asks if I’ve ever seen the ocean. I admit that North Carolina is a wide state. And I live way way west of the ocean. Maryellen says the ocean is just two blocks from the house. She asks if I want to go see it now. I shrug and say I suppose so.

I like Maryellen. She’s cheerful and curious, and I like the way she asks lots of friendly questions. Beverly says she wants to come too, and so does Tom and Mikey. Scooter tilts his head and barks, as if he wants to come as well. Maryellen rolls her eyes and says she didn’t mean everybody. Just me and her. The little kids will slow us down.

Beverly shakes her head and says that they won’t. Besides, we’re going to have to stop at Sophie’s house anyway. Beverly’s crown may be pretend, but her queenliness is real as she says to me that I’ll need to change. How come I’m wearing a snowsuit? Maryellen sees me blush awkwardly and elbows Beverly and frowns at her for being rude. Maryellen says it’s cold where I come from. She asks if I have snow in Cedar Top. Last Christmas, she took the train to Georgia to visit her grandparents and she saw snow for the first time. Isn’t snow beautiful?

I just give a mumble. Snow is beautiful, but right now, the thought of it makes me shiver. It reminds me of the disastrous ski race I left. I push the thought from my mind and carefully answer Beverly’s question. I tell her I don’t have any other clothes here. When she asks why not, Maryellen explains that I just moved here. The moving van probably hasn’t arrived yet. She says I can borrow some of her clothes. Maryellen says that she’ll show me the inside of the trailer. Beverly should ask Mom if we can go to the beach. And she asks Beverly to get one of her dresses for me to wear as well. Beverly says that she’ll go inside, but she’s going to get something of Carolyn’s. We might be the same age, but I’m much bigger than she is.

Beverly trots off and Maryellen explains that Carolyn is their older sister. She’s fifteen. Maryellen is sure that Carolyn won’t mind lending me an outfit. They have another older sister, too. Joan is nineteen and she’s married to Jerry and goes to college. Maryellen says she wants to go to college when she gets older, too. She can study art. She asks if I want to go to college as well. I tell her I do. She asks what I want to study, and I begin to say I love the stars, but Maryellen pops in and says she does as well. She loves Grace Kelly and Gary Cooper. I laugh and shake my head. I’ve seen old movies with Grace Kelly and Gary Cooper before, so I know who they are. I tell Maryellen that I like them, too, but I don’t mean movie stars. I mean the stars in the sky. Constellations.

Maryellen laughs and smacks her forehead. She understands now that I mean the kind that you have to see with a telescope. I tell her I don’t have a telescope though. She asks why I like stars so much and I say it’s because they’re pretty. They glitter. And I like the way the constellations have pictures and stories to go along with them. Like the one that’s Pegasus, the flying horse, and another is an archer with a bow and arrow. I tell Maryellen that sometimes I make up my own constellations and think of pictures and stories to go with them. Maryellen nods and says she likes to make up pictures, too. I’m very pleased. Emma never once looked at the stars with me. But Maryellen’s enthusiasm is making me feel as though my interest is interesting.

We go inside the trailer and Tom, Mikey, and Scooter follow us around. The trailer is fantastic. It’s a whole house with a kitchen and a bathroom and a bedroom and a living room as tiny and tidy as the cabin of a boat. We haven’t been there for long when Beverly comes out and says that Mom said that we can go to the beach, but Tom, Mikey, and Beverly get to go along, too. Maryellen says okay, and she lowers her voice and asks if my sister insists on doing everything that I want to as well. I tell her no. I always do whatever Emma wants to do, not the other way around. Maryellen says I’m lucky. Beverly always copies her. She told Mom once, and Mom said that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. But to Maryellen, it’s the sincerest form of annoying.

For the first time, it dawns on me that maybe Emma doesn’t want me to do everything that she does. I never thought of it like that. Does Emma feel about me the way Maryellen feels about Beverly? Maybe she’d be happier if I declared my independence. And would I be happier as well?

Beverly hands me a light cotton dress and some sandals. She says I may wear this, as if she’s doing me a royal favor. I thank her, and I tell her the dress is very pretty. I’d hate to mess it up. Maybe I can just borrow old shorts and a T-shirt in case I have to wear them for the next few days. Beverly says that I can’t wear shorts to school tomorrow. Girls aren’t allowed. I’m surprised. Maryellen says that maybe it’s different in Cedar Top. But that’s the rule here.

That’s odd. That’s so old-fashioned. I look at Maryellen’s outfit, and then Beverly’s, and I realize that their outfits are old-fashioned, too. Maryellen is wearing a cute vintage blouse, trimmed with red checks, and Beverly is wearing a dress with a sash and a full skirt that looks like the dresses my grandmother is wearing in the photos taken of her when she was a girl, growing up in the 1950s.

Suddenly, I spot a calendar on the wall in the trailer’s kitchen. It says November, 1955. And that’s when it hits me. The watch hasn’t just brought me to Florida. It’s taken me back in time more than sixty years! I stagger from the shock. Luckily, Maryellen shoos the little kids out of the trailer, saying it’s time to give me privacy to change.

Alone in the trailer, I plop down on a seat as my knees collapse beneath me. What on earth has happened? Why have I been transported back in time to this place? What do I do? Maryellen is funny and friendly. And the little kids are cute. But should I stay here? I’m sweaty with confusion and anxiety, and I think I might melt. My glasses are all fogged up. I take a deep breath. Maybe I can’t solve the mystery of why I’m here, but I can’t take a practical step. I need to change my clothes.

I peel off the hot ski team uniform. I never did like it. Ski team wasn’t my choice, it was Emma’s. She thought the sleek bodysuit would make us feel as intense and serious as we should be while skiing. Now, the idea of skiing makes me feel humiliated and confused. How could Emma say such an awful thing about me? How could she even think that I would cheat in a race? It’s true that sharing a bedroom has made us more tense. Emma seems to hate everything I’ve moved into our room, especially the glow-in-the-dark stars I put up on the ceiling. But it’s not like Emma to be mean. She must really believe that I did cheat, which makes me feel even worse.

As I remove the uniform, I feel as if I’m shedding an unwanted skin along with Emma’s terrible accusation. I roll the uniform up into a ball as small as I can make it. I wish I could kick it into outer space, but instead, I shove it into a closet in the trailer, shut the door, and turn my back on it. I open the door to the trailer and step onto the balmy, sunny place that the watch has sent me to, feeling light and free.

Maryellen says I look so much more comfortable now. Beverly says that I looked like a boiled hotdog before. I laugh and say that I felt like a boiled hotdog, too. But now I feel great. We should go to the beach.