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Book Excerpt from Don't Look Down!

Don't Look Down! By Libby Lazewnik Libby Lazewnik, favorite Jewish kids' author, takes Jewish children on a thrilling ride with her latest kids' book: 25 action-packed stories with colorful characters & timeless lessons. A roller-coaster ride of reading fun! Buy Don't Look Down! at a special online price at www.targum.com

Reading Between the Lines

Dear Ma and Ta,

Surprised to be getting a letter from me so soon? The truth is, they’re forcing us all to write to our parents today. They make us write home practically every other day! Not that I don’t want to be in touch with you...but who wants to feel like they’re under pressure to write even if they’re not in the mood? Is this a prison camp, or what?

Actually, sometimes it feels like a prison camp! There are rules for everything. We’re forced to wake up at the crack of dawn...clean up our bunk for hours...play outside even when it’s pouring rain... And you’d think we’d at least have a great pool to make up for all of this. But the pool’s been out of commission for ages! I hardly even got to dip my toe inside all week! What kind of camp is this, anyway?

I can’t believe I’m stuck in this place for an entire summer. Don’t feel bad, Ma and Ta - I’m sure you didn’t know what it was like when you decided to send me here. I guess I’ll survive... somehow.

Best regards to everyone.

Love,
Mashi
.....

Dear Ma and Ta,

Things have not gotten much better since my last letter to you. The bunk is infested with mosquitoes and other flying insects - ugh! My bed feels like a torturing device from the Middle Ages. And our whole bunkhouse is falling apart. How old is this place, anyway?

As you may be able to tell, I’m really having a miserable time. For hardly any reason at all, the head counselor docked me from night activity last night! How unfair is that? I wish I were back at the bungalow with you and the others. At least there, I could have a little fun...

Only six more weeks to go...(sigh).

Best regards to all.

Love,
Mashi
.....

“Have you read this letter?” Mrs. Bloom asked her husband at dinner two nights later. She passed Mashi’s latest letter from camp across the table to him.

He scanned it, frowning. “Reading between the lines,” he said when he was done, “I’d say she doesn’t want to be there.”

“And we thought she’d have the time of her life! How could we have been so mistaken?”

“The place comes highly recommended.”

“So highly recommended,” Mrs. Bloom agreed, “that we didn’t even bother going up to see it for ourselves!”

He looked at her. “Well, we can always rectify that. I have to leave back to the city in the morning - but we can drive over to camp this coming Sunday. What do you think?”

“I think that’s a wonderful idea! I’d like to see the place for myself - and have a talk with the head counselor about some of the things Mashi’s been complaining about in her letters.”

“You’ll soon get your chance to do both,” Mr. Bloom promised.

He was as good as his word. The following Sunday, they left their younger children in the charge of their neighbors and friends in the bungalow colony, and drove off to Mashi’s camp.

They didn’t tell Mashi they were coming. They had decided to look around a little first, to form their own judgment. After all, they knew their daughter. They knew how prone she was to... exaggeration. She would never knowingly lie to them - but if she felt that something was a certain way, then, in her mind, that’s the way it was! That was why her parents wanted to see the situation for themselves.

“Why, the grounds look very nice!” Mrs. Bloom exclaimed as they drove inside and found a place to park. “From Mashi’s letter, I got the impression that it was a real dump!”

Her husband agreed with her. The bunkhouses had been freshly painted and the grass was neatly trimmed. Well-marked paths led from place to place and tall, luxuriant trees cast a pleasant shade here and there. In the distance, they could hear the delighted screams and splashes of girls having a ball in the pool. The Blooms exchanged a glance. No trouble with the pool today, obviously.

“Let’s see if we can track down the head counselor,” Mr. Bloom suggested.

They found her in the main office, discussing details of a trip that the camp was due to take in a couple of days’ time. She looked up at their entrance. When they introduced themselves, she looked surprised. “Mashi’s parents? Is there anything wrong?”

“We’re not sure,” Mr. Bloom said slowly. From his pocket he drew out the first of his daughter’s two letters. “May we ask you a few questions?”

“Certainly.” Settling her visitors into a pair of chairs facing her desk, the head counselor took down her own seat.

“Let’s go in order,” Mr. Bloom said. “First complaint: Mashi says the campers are forced to write letters home ‘practically every other day.’”

“Once a week,” the head counselor said flatly.

“Hm. Well, she says they’re woken up at the ‘crack of dawn.’ ”

“Nonsense. The girls are woken at seven thirty - well after sunrise - and have half an hour to get ready for their day.”

“I see. Next - how many hours a day do the girls have to work cleaning up their bunks?”

“Hours? Cleanup lasts thirty minutes.”

“And the pool? How long was that ‘out of commission’?”

“Exactly one day. We had some trouble with the filter. The girls have been enjoying the pool all the rest of the time since then.”

“Hmm... What about this? She writes that they had to play outside in the pouring rain.”

The head counselor looked puzzled. Then her face cleared. “Oh, I know what she must be referring to! During first activity one day, it started drizzling. The counselors kept their bunks where they were while they waited to see if it would turn into anything more serious. It didn’t. Five minutes later, the drizzle had gone and the sun was shining again. Pouring rain?” She snorted.

The Blooms exchanged another glance, this one filled with meaning. “I almost hesitate to trouble you with the things Mashi wrote in her second letter,” Mr. Bloom said, unfolding it. “But we may as well finish what we’ve started. May I?”

Grimly, the head counselor nodded.

“Okay. Just how ‘infested’ with flying insects are the bunks?”

“There are screens on all the windows. We remind the girls repeatedly to close the door of their bunk when they go in or out. Obviously, your daughter’s bunk has not been paying attention.”

“And this comment about her bunkhouse, er, ‘falling apart’?

“I believe a shingle or two fell off the roof of Mashi’s bunk in a recent storm. We had them replaced the next day, and no damage was done to the interior.” The head counselor paused. “Don’t you think your daughter has a tendency to, er, overdramatize things a bit?”

“More than just ‘a bit,’ ” Mr. Bloom said, with a grim nod of his own.

“There’s one more thing,” his wife ventured. “Mashi writes that you docked her from night activity for...” She consulted the letter.

“ ‘...hardly any reason at all.’” She stopped, and looked inquiringly at the head counselor. “We have a rule here in camp,” the head counselor said. “If a camper comes late to an activity three times in a row, she’s docked from night activity. This is an effective way to make sure the girls are where they’re supposed to be over the course of the day. Usually, a single docking of this kind ensures that the camper is never late again.” She leveled a gaze at Mashi’s mother. “Your daughter has been consistently late to activities. I had to obey the camp’s rule and teach her the advantages of being on time — both for her own good, and for the whole camp’s. Don’t you see that?” Both of Mashi’s parents saw that. They also saw a lot of other things. Things that neither of them much liked...

As they walked around the camp grounds after their meeting with the head counselor, the Blooms talked over what they decided was a serious situation. “Mashi’s tendency to exaggerate has begun to border on outright...fantasy,” Mrs. Bloom said worriedly. Her husband had another word for it. “I’d call it lying,” he said. “She doesn’t mean to lie -”

“No. But she does mean to gain sympathy with her descriptions of how awful things are. Descriptions that, when you get right down to them, are simply not true. Or, at the very least, extremely misleading.”

“So, what do we do?” Mrs. Bloom wondered aloud.

He stopped walking. “Let’s take Mashi at her word. She says she’s miserable and that nothing in camp is good. She says she wishes she were back in the bungalow with us. Well, let’s give her what she says she wants!”

It took him a few minutes to persuade his wife that his plan was the only one that would teach Mashi the lesson she needed desperately to learn. It took no time at all to enlist the cooperation of the head counselor, who was seething at the way Mashi had misrepresented things in camp.

Mashi got the surprise of her life when, laughing and running on her way back from the pool, she nearly collided with her own parents at her bunkhouse door.

“We’ve come to get you, Mashi,” her father said. “We couldn’t leave you in a place like this another day.”

“Wh-what...?” Mashi’s eyes grew wide as saucers.

“Come on,” her mother said briskly. “We’ll help you pack.”

.....

Dear Diary,

Now that I don’t have to write home to my parents anymore, I guess I have more time to write in here. You’ll never believe what happened. I’m not in camp anymore!

I’m still in shock..

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