Strange Questions
“We’re supposed to be finding out things on this tour,” complained Judy
as they stopped to look in on another studio, “but I keep thinking about
my hair. I’m like you, Clarissa. I want to rush right out and buy a
bottle of that golden hair wash. But why? I’d never use it.”
“Maybe you want to buy it for Irene,” Flo suggested.
“I don’t really. That’s just it. I don’t want to buy it at all, and yet
I feel compelled to try it. Why?”
“I know why I want to,” Clarissa insisted. “If I had beautiful golden
hair I might not go home at all. I might stay here and get a job doing
commercials. See that girl on the floor now? I could do what she’s
doing. I could demonstrate a magic cleaner as well as she can. I did
plenty of cleaning and scrubbing at home, and I didn’t have any little
fairy to help me, either. Look, girls! See that little fairy dancing
around the sink. It isn’t there, but you can see it on the monitor. How
do they make it look like that?”
The guide explained it. A cartoon film was placed in a camera she called
a balopticon so that the fairy appeared to be helping the girl clean the
sink, dancing about in the powder and waving her magic wand. Little
specks of stardust seemed to fly from the end of it until the whole
kitchen was spotless.
“Interesting, isn’t it?” she finished.
Some of the people found it so. Questions were asked about the
properties set up to make the studio look like a kitchen. The floor was
a design of squares painted on with water colors. It would be washed
away when the set was changed.
Others were beginning to act bored. Judy noticed several women stopping
to take mirrors out of their purses and look at themselves critically.
One of them asked, “Will we need stage makeup? I’ve heard the stars use
plenty of it.”
“Not at all,” replied the guide. “We will appear as we are.”
“Oh dear!” wailed Clarissa. “I look terrible. My hair is dull. My hair
is drab—”
“Turn her off, somebody!” Pauline interrupted. “We’ve heard that record
before.”
“She has my head spinning like a record,” declared Judy. “I hope I
remember some of the things we’ve learned on this tour. A balopticon is
one kind of camera and a dolly is another—”
“It isn’t the camera. It’s the truck that’s called a dolly,” Pauline
corrected her. “You see, it takes two men to work it. That’s the camera
man up there on the funny little seat.”
“Why is he wearing earphones? Did the guide say?”
“She did say something about the men on the studio floor hearing
directions from the control room. It is complicated,” put in Flo. “You
can’t be expected to remember most of it.”
“Well, anyway, I know that big fishing-line thing is the mike boom. If I
remember that much, Irene won’t think I’m too ignorant,” Judy concluded.
“I wonder how they keep all that equipment from showing on a live TV
show.”
The guide took time to explain it, telling them how accurately the
cameras had to be focused so that the mike boom which dangled its
microphone right over the heads of the performers was always just out of
the picture.
“It does look like a fishing line, doesn’t it?” she agreed. “Are there
any more questions before we go up to the sound room?”
Clarissa started to ask something and then changed her mind, saying, “It
doesn’t matter.”
The guide gave a little performance of her own to demonstrate the sound
effects. Rain was rice falling on waxed paper. Fire was the crackle of
cellophane. There were blocks of wood for marching soldiers and other
sounds equally amazing.
“And now,” she announced, emerging from the glassed-in sound room, “we
are ready to see ourselves on television.”
A little ripple of anticipation went down the line that now followed the
uniformed guide to another studio containing a pedestal camera and a
television set.
“It’s a closed circuit,” she explained. “Your friends at home won’t see
you, but you will see yourselves and each other. You will each have a
chance to say a few words—”
“What will we say?” Clarissa inquired.
“I’ll ask you questions. You just answer them. Most of you are from out
of town, I presume. People taking these tours usually are. You, sir?”
She spoke to a tall gentleman with a thick mustache. “Step up here
before the camera and tell us a little about yourself. Can you see
yourself on the screen?”
He smiled, showing white teeth that looked even whiter as his face was
framed in the TV set.
“I see. I look good. I am here from Rio de Janeiro on business.”
The man talked about his business which was manufacturing plastic caps.
It was hard to understand him because of his accent. The others taking
the tour waited their turns, standing along a wall at the side of the
room. As the line moved up, Clarissa became more and more nervous.
“I may not show,” she kept insisting.
“Of course you’ll show,” Judy reassured her. “You see how clear the
picture is. Everybody else shows.”
[Illustration: As the line moved up, Clarissa became more and more
nervous]
“I didn’t show in the mirror.”
Pauline turned to her in surprise.
“Weren’t you joking when you said that?” she asked.
“I was never more serious in my life,” replied Clarissa. “It’s the
truth. Once I really did look in a mirror, and there was no reflection.
I’ve been afraid of—of something ever since it happened. My brother
noticed it first and said, ‘Clar, you don’t show!’ He always calls me
Clar. It rhymes with jar the way he says it. I thought he was teasing
me, but then I looked, and sure enough, my face didn’t show at all.”
“Was the mirror broken?” asked Flo.
“No, it wasn’t broken. I’m sure, because I noticed my brother looking in
it afterwards, and his reflection was as plain as anything. My younger
sisters looked, too. They saw themselves all right. There are six of us,
including Mother and Daddy,” Clarissa explained. “It was Mother’s
mirror. She still uses it. I was the only one who didn’t show. Mother
laughed and said I must be a changeling, but I didn’t think it was
funny. It still scares me. How could a thing like that happen?”
“There must be an explanation for it,” Judy replied. Here was another
mystery for her to solve. But, instead of concentrating on it, her
thoughts kept returning to her hair. Would it look dull and drab on
television?
The brown-haired man Pauline and Flo thought they knew stepped up before
the camera and announced that he was from Hollywood.
“No wonder he didn’t recognize me!” Flo exclaimed. “He isn’t the young
man who works in our office and yet he does look like him. Maybe he has
a twin brother.”
“Or a double. Lots of people have doubles—”
“No, Judy, only a few people have them,” Pauline objected, and Judy had
to agree with her. One of the wonderful things about people, she
thought, was that no two of them were exactly alike. Even identical
twins could be told apart by their fingerprints, and usually there were
other important differences. Judy found herself watching for individual
characteristics as, one by one, the people stepped before the camera. A
photograph of skyscrapers on the backdrop behind them made it appear to
be a sidewalk interview.
“Are you from out of town?” was the question most frequently asked by
the guide.
Most of them were. Some came from as far away as Brazil or Switzerland.
Two were from Texas, and two said they were from the state of
Washington. When Judy replied that she lived in Pennsylvania she felt as
if she were practically at home.
“Your hair looked lighter on TV,” Flo told her when she stepped back in
line.
“Did it?” asked Judy. “I kept worrying for fear it would look dark. I
don’t know why. Dark hair is pretty. I like the color of yours.”
“I don’t. It’s drab—”
“Please,” Judy stopped her. “You’re next, Clarissa. What’s the matter?
Are you afraid to go up?”
“Yes,” Clarissa admitted, suddenly all a-tremble. “I’m afraid—”
“Come on. Take a good look at yourself,” advised Pauline, giving her a
little push.
“All right. I’ll do it.”
Unwilling and still trembling, Clarissa stepped up before the camera.
She stood in the exact spot where Judy had been standing. The guide
began to ask questions.
“You’re from West Virginia, aren’t you? What town? Look into the camera
and tell me—”
A long drawn-out wail from Clarissa interrupted her.
“I am looking,” she cried, “but I don’t see anything! What’s the matter
with me? Why don’t I show?”