Daily Book Excerpt: YA books:
Next book on the shelf is The Long Secret
The intricacies of the plot are not as clear to me with this one as with Harriet – I can’t remember – Beth Ellen is staying with her grandmother, I know that – and her mother is … off gallivanting with a new man in Europe or something? Beth Ellen is kind of a sad character. Not loved by her parents. Dumped off with the grandmother.
Oh, and the whole menstruation topic is HUGE with Beth Ellen and Harriet (oh, and good old crazy Janie comes into the book as well) – since they are 12, and Beth Ellen starts menstruating that summer. Harriet cracks me UP. She’s such a little temperamental tyrant.
Here’s an excerpt. Beth Ellen has just gotten her period for the first time – Harriet is cranky because she hasn’t gotten it (not that she wants to menstruate – but she hates being left behind) – Beth Ellen’s mother is not in the picture so she has no one to go to for advice except her Grandmother – so Beth Ellen and Harriet talk to Janie, the crazy scientist girl from their class, to see if she knows what this whole period thing is about.
From The Long Secret
The next day was Saturday and Beth Ellen went to Harriet’s house for the day. When she came into the bedroom, Harriet and Janie were discussing the situation.
“I’ve been working on a cure for this thing ever since it happened to me,” Janie said, frowning and looking very serious, even though she was lying upside down on the bed in a bathing suit with her feet straight up against the wall.
“What kind of cure?” asked Harriet, after she had said Hello to Beth Ellen.
“I just want to end it, that’s all,” said Janie in a furious way.
“But … doesn’t it have something to do with babies?” asked Harriet.
“How would you know, Harriet Welsch? You haven’t even done it,” snarled Janie, swinging her legs down to the floor and sitting up. “You wouldn’t know a Fallopian tube if you fell over one.”
Chagrined, Harriet pointed to Beth Ellen. “She’s done it, yesterday. She told me.”
Beth Ellen turned bright red, looked at the floor, and wanted to die. They both stared at her.
Janie finally spoke, and said softly, “What’s there to think about? It’s a nuisance, that’s all, and frankly, I think should be done away with.”
Beth Ellen kept looking at the floor.
“What’s it feel like?” asked Harriet.
“Yuuuuuchk,” said Janie. “It has absolutely nothing to recommend it.” She looked at Beth Ellen as she continued, “You don’t feel like working or playing or anything but just lying around and looking at the ceiling, right? Icky. Right, Mouse?”
Beth Ellen nodded but still couldn’t look up for some reason.
Janie looked at her a minute, then said, “It happens to everybody, though, every woman in the world, even Madame Curie. It’s very normal. And I guess, since it means you’re grown up and can have babies, that it’s a good thing. I, for one, just don’t happen to want babies. I also have a sneaking suspicion that there’re too many babies in the world already. So I’m working on this cure for people that don’t want babies, so they won’t have to do this.”
Beth Ellen looked up at Janie and asked tentatively, “Do those rocks hurt you too?”
“Rocks?” Janie yelled.
“Those rocks inside that come down,” said Beth Ellen timidly.
“WHAT?” screamed Harriet. “Oh, well, if they think I’m gonna do anything like that, they’re crazy.”
“There aren’t any rocks. Who told you that?” Janie was so mad she stood up. “Who told you there were rocks? There aren’t any rocks. I’ll kill ’em. Who told you that about any rocks?”
Beth Ellen looked scared. “My grandmother,” she said faintly. “Isn’t that right? Aren’t there little rocks that come down and make you bleed and hurt you?”
“Right? It couldn’t be more wrong.” Janie stood over her. “There aren’t any rocks. You got that? There aren’t any rocks at all!”
“WOW!” said Harriet. “ROCKS!”
“Now, wait a minute,” said Janie, holding up her hand like a lecturer, “let’s get something straight here before you two get terrified.”
They both looked up at her. Beth Ellen was frightened and confused. Harriet was angry and confused.
“Now, you must understand,” said Janie, looking very earnest, “that the generation that Beth Ellen’s grandmother is was very Victorian. They never talked about things like this, and her grandmother thought that telling her this was better than telling her the truth.”
“What’s the truth?” said Harriet avidly.
Beth Ellen didn’t care about the truth. The rocks were bad enough to think about. What could the truth be?
“That just goes to show you,” said Janie, looking like a stuffy teacher, “that people should learn to live with fact! It’s never as bad as the fantasies they make up.”
“Oh, Janie, get on with it,” said Harriet. “What is the truth?”
“Aw, what a question,” said Janie.
“JANIE!” said Harriet in disgust. Janie could be very corny and exasperating when she turned philosophical.
“Okay, okay,” said Janie as though they were too dumb to appreciate her, “it’s very simple. I’ll explain it.” She sat down as though it would take a long time.
“Now, you know the baby grows inside a woman, in her womb, in the uterus?”
They nodded.
“Well. What do you think it lives on when it’s growing?”
They both looked blank.
“The lining, dopes!” she yelled at them.
They blinked.
“So, it’s very simple. If you have a baby started in there, the baby lives on the lining: but if you don’t have a baby, like we don’t, then the body very sensibly disposes of the lining that it’s made for the baby. It just comes out.”
“Falls right out of you?” screamed Harriet.
Oh, thought Beth Ellen, why me?
“No, no, no. You always exaggerate, Harriet. You would make a terrible scientist. You must be precise. It doesn’t fall out like you say; it comes out a tiny bit at a time over a period of from, well, say four to six days, depending on the woman. It’s very little at a time, and it doesn’t hurt or anything. You just feel tired.”
“I hurt,” said Beth Ellen.
“Well …” said Janie, “sometimes there’s a little pain, but it really isn’t much. I just, frankly, don’t care for it,” she said as though she’d been asked if she liked a certain book.
“Well,” said Harriet.
“Another thing I don’t like is people making up these silly stories about it, like those rocks. Why can’t people just take life as it is?”
Beth Ellen thought of her grandmother taking life as it is. She couldn’t imagine her grandmother talking to her about babies, linings, Fallopian tubes, and so forth. She felt a little sorry for her grandmother. She supposed that she had been trying to make it nicer for her, but it had been wrong because the rock story had scared her.
“The thing is,” said Harriet, “does your grandmother really believe there are rocks? Maybe we should tell her.”
“Of course she doesn’t,” said Beth Ellen, “and you won’t tell her anything.”
“That’s silly,” said Janie to Harriet. “You don’t take into account how different each generation is.”
“Well!” said Harriet, considerably miffed. “Instead of just lying there talking, why don’t you make a cure?”
“I’m going to cure this one way or the other if it’s the last thing I do.” Janie looked determinedly out the window as though there were a cure sitting in the backyard.
“I just can’t wait to not do this,” said Harriet.
“Well,” said Janie, “you might as well, since everyone else is. You’d feel pretty silly if you didn’t. Besides, you get to skip gym when you have it.”
“Yeah?” said Harriet and Beth Ellen in unison. They both hated gym.
“Yeah,” said Janie with one of her fiercest smiles.
“Well!” said Harriet.
That, thought Beth Ellen, is a decided advantage.
Well, I’m sure glad this is one book that my sister didn’t pass THIS one on to me; there are certain things that a 10 year old boy ain’t ready for…
Well, here’s one ten year old boy who was ready for this book. I was so glad to learn in 1974 that there was another Harriet book that I blew through it without even having time to be embarassed. (Red, you and I have discussed Harriet before, I think – maybe at Dr. Frank’s.)
I don’t think even I was ready to read about rocks falling through Fallopian tubes!!
Paul – did you read Sport?? I’m assuming yes – and forgive me if you already told me.
I LOVE HARRIET.
I would love to see what kind of woman she turned out to be. I think about it sometimes. I could see her being a real bra-burner. A real pain in the ass. Or I could see her working for the CIA.
I haven’t read “Sport,” although I’d like to get it for my own 10 year old son, who (warily) liked “Harriet” (I say “warily,” because it wasn’t one of the Rings Trilogy or C.S. Lewis). Is it as good as Harriet and The Long Secret?
Funny, I didn’t mind reading about rocks and fallopian tubes when I was 10 — but I would feel really weird giving the book to my 10 year old boy. Odd how that works.
Paul – that is funny about hesitating to give it to your son – hahaha I so get that!!
Sport is wonderful. My brother loved it – and so did I.
Sport always struck me as a semi-tragic character – with that loser father (can’t remember the details – I think the father was a “great writer” – but what that really meant was he as an alcoholic) – and the mother was nowhere to be found … Sport was old before his years.
Not a fallopian tube in sight – I think it’s a safe gift to give. :)
Didn’t Sport’s dad eventually sell a book or something in “Harriet?” And then he told Sport that he was going to take him out for a steak dinner to celebrate, and that he should take his little friend along — which was Harriet, who was only there trying to make her amends to Sport after having her journal discovered. I remember Sport emphatically saying she didn’t want to join them, and I acutely recall the sense of isolation that Harriet felt. . . .
Amazing. It’s been 25 or 30 years since I read that book (other than hearing my kids’ tapes), and whether I get every detail right or not, the emotional clarity attached to my memory of the book is remarkable. Fitzhugh must have been a great writer, since I can’t even clearly recollect whether I shut my computer off when I left my office tonight.
i remember being 9 years old.. that would make it 1977.. i driving with my mother to visit my great aunt & uncle. i’d brought The Long Secret along for the ride. we were somewhere just outside of their small Texas town when i decided to tell my mother i knew all about this period business. when i uttered the words “fallopian tubes,” the tires left the road and we skidded to the shoulder. my mother looked at me with eyes wide and said “where ever did you hear about that?!” i told her everything i’d learned. she lit a cigarette, restarted the car, took a long deep drag on the cigarette and shook her head saying “just don’t tell your grandmother or irene.” right then i knew i was on to something big. re-reading those lines brought it all back just like it was yesterday.