Storytime Tapestry Newsletter

The newsletter devoted to spreading love and cultural awareness throughout the world.

Special Treat – Tanja Cilia

September 18, 2007

A Bitter-Sweet Story: Welcome to Michigan

Tanja Cilia

Ruth, Naomi and Esther were triplets.  But in their pretend games, they called themselves April, May and June.

Their favourite game was pretending that the farm on which they lived with their parents was their very own. This was something that they could not wait to do, because they enjoyed living on a farm so much!

The girls had a brother called Jonathan, and they lived on a sprawling farm in Munster, Lake Country, Indiana, a few kilometres away from their granny’s house in Cypress Avenue.

They went to Fall Creek Elementary School; but these were the Easter Holidays and they intended to make the most of them.  The girls had already done their chores for the day; they had picked the apples and sorted the blueberries and cranberries and strawberries into punnets. They had fed the clucking chickens and curried the two ponies that grazed in the bottom paddock.

Now they were free to do whatever they liked.  So they gathered some blotting paper and made their way towards Ridge Road, which is just where the shore of Lake Michigan used to be in the past – in fact, that is why Munster is known as “The Town Along the Ridge”.

They were going to meet up with their friends as they had agreed, just in front of the Munster General Store.    A part of their Easter Assignment was to gather leaves and other plant material, and preserve them.  An exhibition was going to be held, and the triplets intended their class to win, and so they even took a packed lunch – fresh fruit from   their farm, mostly, just in case they needed to stay longer than they planned.

At the rendezvous, they got a surprise.  There was a new girl with Alyson; it was her cousin Simonne, from Malta, who had come over for a visit. Alyson’s father and Simonne’s mother were siblings. 

Now Simonne was a very sweet, obedient girl – but she was somewhat hard-headed.  The girls explained that whenever they went anywhere, they followed the “Buddy System”, which meant that they paired off, and each one of the two children kept the other in sight, all the time.

Simonne thought this was a silly idea, because, she said, each child was grown up enough to look after herself.  They reminded her that the village where she lived was a very tiny place, and it was almost impossible to get into trouble, or to get lost, there, because everyone knew everybody else.  She smiled, and agreed.

So off they went, and since she was an ‘extra’ girl, she was invited by Naomi, and Sylvana (whose ancestors included both Potawatomi Native Americans and one of the sons of the Dutchman Jacob Munster!), to be in their twosome.

They were very careful to select only one leaf, or one seed pod, or one twiglet, from any of the trees they touched.  Simonne was impressed at how carefully each girl labelled the specimens collected there and then, rather than placing them in a bag with a roughly-written note, as she surely would have done herself.

At one point, she shouted excitedly “Oh look! An almond tree!  We have them in Malta!”  Naomi patiently explained that it was a wild, bitter almond tree, which had grown there seemingly by accident – in fact it was the only one of its kind in the woods.  But Simonne would not listen. “I am sure it’s the same, we have one in the schoolyard, near the olive trees we planted on Arbour Day!”

And while Sylvana and Naomi were busy collecting more specimens and writing the details out in beautiful script… Simonne helped herself to a handful of almonds and squirreled them away in her pocket.

They stopped for a picnic lunch, with everybody sharing whatever they had; it was a lovely time, but Simonne knew that she had done something that was not right, and did not enjoy herself as much as she could have. They did some more collecting, and then it was time to go home.

The girls collected every single scarp of paper and fruit peel, for the compost heap.  They made their way home, tired and happy.  Alyson’s mother asked Simonne whether she had enjoyed her morning, and Simonne smiled and said that she had – and said she was off to read a little before lunch.

When Aunty Em called them down, Simonne appeared a little off colour.  The girls asked her whether she was feeling ill, and she denied this; she said she was not used to walking so much in one morning.

As soon as she smelled the food, however, she stood up so fast that her chair fell backwards, and she ran to the bathroom.  Naomi suddenly realised what had happened.  She told everyone that Simonne had expressed interest in the almond tree, and that she had probably eaten some of the nuts, although they had told her they would give her stomach cramps.

Aunty Em went to the bathroom and knocked gently on the door.  She tenderly felt Simonne's forehead – the girl was running a temperature, for sure.  Simonne admitted, shamefacedly, that she had eaten the almonds, because she thought they were just like the ones at home. She had thought the girls were feeding her a line when they told her the nuts would make her sick.

When the doctor came, he said that Simonne must drink plenty of water laced with honey and lemon, to get the poisons from the almonds out of her system as soon as possible.  He said it was a good thing she had been sick, because that undid most of the damage.

“Oh, why didn’t I listen to you and Sylvana?” Simonne asked Naomi the next morning, when she was feeling much, much better.  “From today onwards, I will always take the advice of those who wish me well!”

Tanja Cilia

tanjachilja@hotmail.com