It Sure Seems Like It to Me

Leslie is standing at her locker after class, grumbling to herself about the teacher she calls Mr. Gutwrench, when her cousin Lucy comes down the hall calling her name. Leslie insists Lucy screamed in her ear, and when Lucy says she did no such thing, Leslie shrugs it off with the words she uses for almost everything: well, it sure seemed like it to me.

The teacher's real name is Mr. Garrison, but Leslie has decided Gutwrench suits him better. She tells Lucy he is the meanest man alive. He has piled on homework in only the second week of school. He embarrassed her in front of the whole class. He made her write "I will make better use of my time" about a jillion times. And today, she says, he barked at her about the exports of Tanzania, could not even get her name right, assigned the entire class a book report on the first four hundred pages of War and Peace on top of their advanced calculus, and then failed her in a spelling bee after she spelled the word correctly. Lucy listens with growing doubt. Advanced calculus? Well, Leslie admits, that is what it seems like.

Then Leslie bumps into Mr. Garrison in the hallway, and the man who bends down to gather up her spilled books turns out to be cheerful, apologetic, and kind. He is surprised she is hauling War and Peace home - the book was only a suggestion, and he never meant for her to actually read it. He tells her not to worry about the math, because fractions can be tricky and he plans to go over them slowly until everyone understands. Lucy watches the whole thing. That was Mr. Gutwrench? Leslie can only say that he sure seems that way sometimes.

Lucy invites her cousin to Whit's End, but Leslie is on restriction, and the reason is a story of its own. Last Saturday, in the rain, she borrowed her mother's new umbrella without permission, because the old one was rusty and ugly and she wanted to try the new one out. And then she gave it away. To a cowboy. A cowboy in a big hat and baggy pants and boots with shiny silver spurs, who rode up in a purple hook and ladder fire engine. Lucy has heard enough. She tells Leslie she exaggerates everything, that she makes the boy who cried wolf look like a saint, and that she should simply admit she lost the umbrella. Leslie storms off, wounded, telling her cousin to remember she called her a liar the next time Leslie says she is her favorite cousin.

At Whit's End, Lucy pours out the whole afternoon to Mr. Whittaker over a root beer. He remembers Leslie coming in a couple of Saturdays back with her own wild tale about the same teacher. Whit gently suggests Lucy try to accept that her cousin is simply different, and to think of her as a blessing rather than a bother, since a lot of people would love to have an imagination like Leslie's. Lucy admits she may have been hard on her, though she hopes Leslie has learned her lesson.

She has not, quite. Leslie sweeps in announcing she has been vindicated, and that she has just spoken to the cowboy. His name is Jerry Haberman, and he plays a cowboy in the new musical melodrama at the Fun City Amusement Park. Whit remembers reading about that show in the newspaper. Piece by piece, the impossible story holds together: lightning struck the generator that runs the Ferris wheel, stranding riders at the top, so Jerry was sent for the hook and ladder truck to bring them down like a giant elevator. The truck looked purple because it had just been given a coat of maroon primer, and Whit recalls the fire chief mentioning a repainting. Nobody in the crowd had an umbrella when the rain started, so Jerry hopped down and asked Leslie for hers. Every strange detail is true.

To prove it, Leslie has brought Jerry Haberman himself, spurs and all, with the umbrella in hand. Lucy apologizes, and Leslie accepts. But the cowboy keeps mentioning how sorry he is that anyone would think of disowning Leslie over this, and Whit finally asks where that idea came from. Leslie, of course. She told Jerry she would be kicked out of her family if he did not come down and vouch for her. Jerry took time off work for an emergency that never existed, and he leaves promising that the next time he sees Leslie on the street with an umbrella, he will have the driver turn the hose on her. Lucy, disgusted, takes her root beer upstairs.

Leslie protests that she had to prove she was right, and that maybe now people will believe her. Whit is not so sure. She proved her innocence by exaggerating, he points out, when she could have told the truth. Leslie answers that she did tell Lucy the truth, and Lucy did not believe her. Whit agrees that it hurts when people do not believe you, and then asks whether she has ever wondered why she lands in trouble so often. People judge one another largely by what they say, he explains, and a good part of a reputation is built out of words. Leslie has built hers on exaggeration - getting into trouble and then spinning a wild tale to get out of it - so when something genuinely strange happens, as it did last Saturday, no one has any reason to believe her. Exaggerating a story can be funny, Whit says, but there is a fine line between exaggeration and outright lying, and what she told Mr. Haberman stepped well over it. Trust is fragile. Once it is broken, it takes a long time to rebuild, and being lied to by someone you trust is the worst hurt of all.

Leslie thinks it over, then climbs the stairs to find Lucy. She tells her cousin that Whit was right, that she is sorry, that she used to think those silly stories were not hurting anyone, and that she knows now she was wrong. She promises to try very hard not to exaggerate anymore. Lucy accepts the apology and promises to try to trust her more. Then Leslie mentions the dress she borrowed last month, and adds that Lucy is not going to believe this - before bursting out that she is only kidding.