“Let’s let my tutoring you be our little secret,” she commented. Paul was only too happy to comply. He wanted no one to know that Allison was his tutor. In just a matter of time, with the help from Allison, Paul managed to do better in both subjects, gradually rising near the top of his class to the surprise of his teachers.
For the Dawkins’ children, it was not always work and study. Weekends usually found Paul, if not doing a remedial study with Allison, was off hunting; Charlie, looked for new areas to do his bird watching. With the girls using the time to bond as sisters tend to do. Sometimes, out of boredom, the sisters took up housecleaning—to the complete amazement of Peggy.
Allison, bright and tall for her young age was always considered by her siblings as an equal. though they were older. There were times, without script, when one or more of the girls let it slip they were having some type of personal problems at school or just simply felt they did not belong to any social group. Confessing to her sisters, Pauline opened up.
“I’m having a terrible time fitting in with my classmates,” she explained. “I’m considered as a poor, unattractive loser, with none of them wanting to have anything to do with me. You don’t have to feel that type of rejection for very long before you begin to think it is true. It’s very easy to convince yourself they are right – I am not pretty.”
Which was simply not true. Rebekah and Allison immediately jumped into her defense—pointing out to Pauline her positive traits. “You are very bright, pretty, and funny. And much more attractive than most girls in your school,” said Rebeka, with Allison agreeing, “You just need something to boost your self-esteem.”
Thus, began a project the sisters crafted: “Make Pauline completely over into a Different Person.” The first conclusion reached by the sisters: “Your clothes are all wrong, they are not stylish enough for a young lady of your breeding and upbringing,” her sisters openly declared in unison. “After we update your wardrobe, we need to spruce up your appearance—wash and style your hair--apply some type of makeup.” Makeup was the catalyst that almost sunk the project. With a nonexistent budget for accessories, with the family struggling to put food on the table, beauty products were just not in the cards. A plan to obtain needed cosmetics was initiated by Pauline. She had an idea—it was just a matter of successfully implementing it.
Every afternoon, after class, Pauline volunteered to sweep, mop, and keep clean the small store where Dr. Flanders, a local pharmacist, ran his drugstore business. “I’m doing it as part of my civics class,” she explained to Dr. Flanders. “Serving my community by doing neighborhood projects without receiving any type of compensation.”
Dr. Flanders felt guilty for a couple of reasons. First, he was not allowed to pay Pauline for her services because she was underage. And by law, could not work for wages. Secondly, she was clear on the point that she was doing it as part of her civic duty, a way to earn points in her civics class.
Pauline, with a symbolic hook placed solidly in the pharmacist’s psychic, only needed to reel him in for her mission to be a success. Speaking up, Pauline said, “Dr. Flanders would you mind giving me a selection of the free cosmetic samples the drugstore receives each month from the pharmaceutical salespeople?”
Without hesitation, the pharmacist gladly consented to her request. Some of the free cosmetics were a bit mature for young ladies so the girls ended up giving those to their mother, Peggy. But what they did use transferred Pauline into a surprising beauty!
“Now, we need to do something about your clothes,” which they all agreed.
The girls, armed with sharp scissors and needle and thread, the alterations got underway. The amateur tailors redesigned all of Pauline’s clothes. Producing a design Christian Dior would be proud of.
Rebeka spoke up: “I think Pauline is not the only sister who needs a tune-up.” With that sage comment coming from Rebekah, the girls began by making changes to their own hairstyles and clothes. From that moment on, the Dawkins girls proudly walked the hallways of their school with their heads held high.
Walking home from school one beautiful afternoon, Allison couldn’t help but notice that Rebekah, recently promoted to the fourth grade, one grade ahead of Allison was crying. “Why are you crying?” asked Allison.
Rebeka broke down and confessed: “Agnes, one of the high school freshmen girls, consistently taunts and bullies me and my friends. All the clothes and makeup improvements in the world will not change the fact that we are still poor. That is what the stupid bitch, constantly criticizes me and my friends about. As if there was something I could do about it. It’s a small school, so avoiding her and her friends is hardly an option.”
Like most bullies, Agnes functioned better in her bully role when surrounded by her stuffy girlfriends –--an audience of her peers needed to validate her bad behavior. And like most bullies, Agnes could not function in her role as a bully without an audience. For Agnes, her audience was her rich, spoiled girlfriends, girls from among the richest farmers in the area.
Rebeka continued, “Usually, Agnes waits until there are a lot of people around to witness her spiteful behavior before she begins to taunt and make fun of the way I, and people like me, dress, calling me and my friends white trash.” Listening to Rebekah’s sad story upset Allison deeply.
The next day, vowing to make an example of Agnes, Allison hung around so she could be a witness to this socially unacceptable behavior of Agnes. Right on schedule the pact of bully-snots with their usual entourage of on-lookers, cornered Rebeckah and started right in with their usual attacks, specifically mocking Rebeka:
“Oh, look what we have here. One of those poor Dawkins girls, riding around in a mule and wagon, spreading their horseshit around for people like us to step in. She doesn’t deserve to be around people of class like us.”
Allison, spotting Agnes as the ringleader of this group of young sociopaths, disgusted with the remarks she just heard, using Agnes as her target, began to apply her hypnotic spell. Agnes, fully under Allison’s hypnotic spell, started walking and stumbling around like an inebriated barfly, slurring her words, picking her nose, and had, what appeared to be urine, running down her bare legs.
Horrified at what they had just witnessed, not knowing it was Allison who was the one doing the unmaking of Agnes, her band of accomplices, and the usual band of gawkers, fled like they had just seen a ghost—fearful they might be the next target of what evil spirit they just witnessed attacking poor Agnes, making her act the way she did. Allison and Rebekah were laughing so hard, fearful they might wet their pants.
“Well,” remarked Allison, I don’t think you need worry about that ‘toady’ anymore.” This would not be Allison’s first use of her hypnotic powers, nor would it be her last.
9
A Tornado
It was a beautiful day with the children just returning from school when suddenly the tranquility of the day was interrupted by the sound of a loud warning signal, alerting the community of a possible tornado touchdown within the next thirty to forty minutes putting everyone in a panic—the Dawkins family, recognizing they barely had enough time to act before it was too late. First, before taking their own shelter, the livestock, and chickens, had to be rounded up and secured in the barn. Keeping the farm animals secure and safe was paramount in the event the barn roof got blown away.
Next concern: securing anything loose like watering buckets, chairs and the like that might blow around, causing damage to nearby structures in its path. After the animals were secure and shut up in the barn, the Dawkins family huddled down in the small earthen cave at the rear of the barn to wait out the passing of the tornado.
This was Allison’s first tornado experience. Tornados, for farmers, can be more dangerous and devastating than blizzards. As the wind forces of the destructive tornado passed over them, a dreadful, chilling, unimaginable eerie, howling sound was heard. Miraculously, only parts of the roof and some boards along the side of the house were blown away. Emerging from the shelter, the relieved family began the process of restoring everything blown away by the tornado. To the children’s disappointment, the school suffered little damage, with classes scheduled to resume the next day.
This was only Allison’s second experience with the vagaries of nature. Her first was the year she appeared at the Dawkins’ doorstep, cold, wet, coated with mud, and scared to death. Her first experience with extreme cold weather.
Without a doubt, planet Zorbus had had its share of turbulent weather, but Allison was too young at the time to recall any of it. All she could remember was bright and sunny days with the occasional afternoon rain. Snow was never more than just a dusting, never enough to build a snowman even if the children of Zorbus knew what a snowman was, which was doubtful.
The first morning Allison saw an accumulation of snow falling, she freaked! “What is that?!” she screamed. Her siblings just laughed.
“Allison, do you not remember it snowing last year? You just couldn’t wait to go out and play in it.”
“O. K,” she thought. “Of course, I do not remember—I was not here. But she could not say that. It was, as you should recall, a beautiful sight and fun to play all the snow games we already knew including some we made up each time it snowed.”
But just as sudden as the first snow of the year had fallen, it quickly turned into a blizzard overnight. The Dawkins children made sure all the animals were safely cared for. Allison panicked! “Where is Billy?” Billy was Allison’s favorite goat. For the moment Billy was nowhere to be found.
Ms. Dawkins, Paul, Pauline, Rebekah, and Charlie all explained to Allison that despite our very best efforts, sometimes farm animals get lost. And, unfortunately, in these heavy banks of snow, animals like Billy get disoriented, unable to find their way back home, ending up starving or freezing to death. That was not a satisfactory answer to Allison.
“We must try!” she wailed. With no one willing to go out, afraid of getting lost, putting their lives at risk to save a farm animal. If it was a human loss, the response from the family members would have been different.
Determined she was not going to lose Billy, Allison took off, heading right into one of the highest drifts of snow, with all the family behind her yelling: “Come back, Allison! It’s hardly worth endangering your own life for just one small goat. We have only one of you and lots of goats, losing just one goat is not the end of the world, you know.”
But Allison wasn’t having it. Refusing to let the harshness of the weather discourage her, soldiered on. Allison’s physical condition and stamina were, to her credit, superior to earthlings. Citizens of planet Zorbus absorbed energy at a much faster rate. The absorbed pent-up energy, at times, gets so high, that Zorbians must go somewhere to release the excess energy to the elements: usually by exhaling at a tremendous velocity, occasionally knocking down objects around them. Such arcane behavior is not restricted to Zorbians. Take the case of Oscar, the main character in Gunter Grass’s internationally acclaimed novel, The Tin Drum. Oscar had at birth, the unusual ability to shout at such force, with glass articles, like streetlamps, clocks, and wine glasses shattering just from the exhaling of his shrill, loud voice.
This is exactly what Allison did: when it seemed, she could go no further under her normal power. Exhaling and blowing out with all her might, yards of snow were cast aside, clearing a path where she saw Billy. Huddled down near some bushes, close to death. Grabbing up Billy, she rushed back to the house to the jubilation of the entire family.
10
10: A Trip to DC
