Leland stuck around after that. He’d sometimes sleep on the orange flowered sofa downstairs. When he didn’t spend the night at the house, he would come home in the morning with his shirts half-buttoned and with an appetite that made it seem as though he could eat all the deer in the woods by himself. The army had only granted him a short leave, but he was out much longer. It was the first days of August when the military police showed up with their armbands on to take him back. They escorted him to their vehicle while our neighbors watched from their yards.
“Ain’t a respectable one among ’em,” their voices merged. “I hope they can learn somethin’ of our town’s morals.”
Maybe they thought the best place we would learn those so-called morals was in their school. That year Fraya was going to be a junior in high school. Flossie was entering fifth grade. I hadn’t been enrolled in school the previous year when I was six.
“I don’t wanna leave Daddy,” I had said.
Now in Breathed and seven years old, I’d be entering the first grade.
On the first day, I waited with my sisters for the bus. A shiny red car passed. Pressed against the back window was the face of the golden-haired girl from across the lane. I told Fraya and Flossie that the girl’s name was Ruthis.
“Little Miss Ruthis.” Flossie used the toes of her saddle shoe to kick the loose gravel.
“Betty, are you nervous?” Fraya asked, watching me pass one of Dad’s ginseng beads back and forth in my hands.
“Why do I have to go to school?” I shrugged. “I know everything already.”
“Betty.” Flossie turned to me. “You know we can’t hang around each other at school, right?”
“Flossie.” Fraya elbowed her. “Stop it.”
“I mean, at home it’s fine, of course.” Flossie ignored Fraya. “But at school, we can’t be seen together.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? I mean, look at you. You’re not gonna be the coolest kid in class, Betty. I can’t let you drag me down with you.”
“I don’t wanna be seen with you.” I threw the bead at her.
“Good.” She ground the bead into the dirt with her heel. “We’re in agreement.”
“I hate you,” I told her. “I’m gonna smash a toad and tell God you did it.”
“Shut up,” she said. “You’re just angry because you’re not gonna make any friends.”
“She doesn’t mean it, Betty.” Fraya reached out to me but I backed away.
“I’m gonna walk to school,” I said. “Don’t wanna be seen with ugly Flossie on the bus.”
I took off running into the woods, while my sisters got on the bus. Instead of heading to school, I took the path back home.
When I got there, Dad was standing in front of the garage handing a jar of dark liquid to a woman I recognized from a few houses down. Up against Dad’s leg was Lint. He had his thumb in his mouth and was listening to Dad tell the woman that what was in the jar was a decoction.
“It’s different barks I boiled,” he explained. “You ever hear of Gleditsia triacanthos? Clethra acuminata?”
The woman shook her head.
“It’s honey locust and pepperbush,” I said quietly to myself as I hunched below the bushes.
“It’s honey locust and pepperbush,” Dad told her. “It’ll be good for your cough.”
“How’s it taste?” the woman asked.
“Don’t matter how it tastes to you,” Dad said. “It’ll matter how it tastes to the serpent. That’s why you got a cough. You got a serpent right there,” he said, tapping her throat. “And to the serpent, that drink will taste mighty good. So good, in fact, the serpent will wanna slither right on out of you. If you feel that happenin’, head to the river and let the vomit come. The water will weaken the anger of the cough and cool the heat of the serpent.”
“I heard from others you might say somethin’ strange like that,” she said.
“I find a dose of storytelling helps with the remedy,” he replied.
As the woman left, I snuck into the barn and climbed up to the loft. I took the notepad and pencil out of my skirt pocket and started to write. Seconds later, I heard Lint ask Dad why the handprints on the barn were moving.
“They’re not, son,” Dad said as their voices came into the barn.
“Are t-t-too,” Lint said as he took a rock out of his pocket. He threw it toward the barn, striking it before running back to the house, where Trustin was drawing on the front porch.
“Betty?” Dad called up to me. “I know you’re in here. I saw you crossin’ the yard.”
“No, you didn’t,” I said, scooting back. “I’m not here.”
The loft ladder shifted under his weight as he started to climb it.
“Why ain’tcha in school?” he asked.
“I don’t wanna go.” I hissed like a cornered snake. “What if they make me breathe the last breath of a dyin’ man.”
“They ain’t gonna do that, Betty.”
“How you know?”
“Because I won’t let ’em.”
He was at the top of the ladder by then and was holding his hand out.
“C’mon, now,” he said. “You can’t hide in barn lofts, Little Indian. You’ll never get educated. If you don’t get educated, folks will have good reason to call you dumb as dishwater. You wanna be called dumb as dishwater?”
I shook my head.
“Then c’mon,” he said. “I’ll take ya there.”
He talked about all the fun I was going to have at school as I climbed down the ladder.
“If it’s so darn fun, how come you don’t go?” I asked, jumping off the last rung to the ground.
“I went when I was a kid, but I had to stop at the third grade to work the fields and put food on the table. You know how lucky you are to be able to go to school? No one in our family has ever graduated. Fraya will be the first. Flossie will follow her. Then you and the boys. Don’t turn your back on that opportunity, Little Indian.” He wrapped his arm around me as we walked out of the barn. “You’ll make so many friends.”
“No I won’t. They’ll ask me why I look different. Folks always do.”
“You tell ’em what we always tell ’em. You’re—”
“Cherokee. I know.” I looked down as we walked to the car. “I just don’t wanna go.”
“If you don’t go,” he said, “you won’t be able to find the Fantastical Eye of Old.”
“What Fantastical Eye of Old?” I asked.
“The one a Cherokee elder carved out a long time ago for children who had to go to school. This elder wanted to make an eye that had never been created before. One with five pupils and an iris that belongs to the river. Always movin’, always a surprise beneath the surface. But only kids like you will be able to see it.”
“Kids like me?” I asked.
“Cherokee,” he said.
“What’s so special about this eye anyway?”
“When you stare into it, you’ll see everything you miss from home.”
“Everything?” I looked up at him. “Even you?”
“Everything. Even me.”
Imagining the eye, I skipped ahead of him and got into the Rambler. Dad would later swear I had a smile on my face the whole drive, but the closer we got to the school, the more nervous I became.
After my father parked by a stand of trees, I climbed out of the car, expecting him to drive off. Instead he got out with me.
“I can go by myself,” I said.
“Oh, I know what you’ll do,” he replied. “You’ll find another barn loft or a cave in the hills to hide out in.”
“A cave.” I muttered. “Now why didn’t I think of that?”
Dad opened the door and we stepped inside the school. Unlike the beige brick exterio
r, it was all dark wood on the interior, causing the white porcelain light fixtures to stand out. The hallway was empty. Taped outside each closed door was a sign identifying the teacher and grade.
“Ah, here we are,” Dad said, having found the First Grade sign.
He lightly knocked on the door but didn’t give anyone inside the chance to open it before he did. The door was at the rear of the room. Everyone turned to stare at us. Some of the kids started laughing as they looked at my father. I studied him, trying to see what they might think was funny about him.
“May I help you?” the teacher asked.
“My little girl here is ready for her first day of class.” Dad nudged me forward. “She’s really excited, though she won’t say it. She brushed her hair and everything.”
The kids started to whisper amongst themselves.
“Look at all you youngins.” Dad spoke to the class as he reached into his pocket, pulling out a peppermint.
He broke the candy with his fist against a desktop, each pound causing us to jump.
“A taste for each of ya,” he told them, breaking the candy into enough pieces that he then passed around. Some of the bits were no more than shards.
“Class.” The teacher clapped her hands. “Don’t eat that candy.”
“Just candy,” Dad told her.
“I’m sure it is.” She started collecting the pieces.
“I’m fine now, Dad.” I tried to push him out of the room. “You can go.”
“I’ll find ya a good seat,” he said, turning his hands into a telescope and looking out across the classroom. The class was small, yet he pretended he was searching a hundred acres.
“Dad.” I tugged on his arm. “Right there is one.”
I pointed toward the empty desk by the open windows. He lifted me up like he would Lint and carried me to the seat. I stared at the teacher the whole way. She was younger than I thought she’d be. I had imagined a gray bun, loafers with smashed heels, and a brooch at the collar of her blouse the way Flossie always described her teachers. But mine didn’t look much older than Fraya. She wore heels and, instead of a brooch, had the collar of her polka-dot dress open.
“I can walk by myself, Dad.” I wiggled out of his arms and immediately sat at the desk, trying to hide behind it. “All right, Dad. Go home now.”
He told the teacher he’d like to speak to her. She touched the curl of strawberry blonde hair by her temple before joining my father in the hall.
The boy in the seat in front of me turned around to face me. He had stiff brown hair and close-set eyes.
“What’s your name?” he asked.
“Betty.”
He made a face.
“You talk funny,” he said.
“You talk funnier,” I told him.
“You look funny, too,” he said. “So does your old man.”
“You’re the one who looks funny.” I frowned. “And my dad ain’t an old man. He’s Dad.”
The boy smacked his lips as he studied me.
“I’ve never seen one of you outside a picture,” he said.
“There’s lots of girls in the class.” I pointed them out. “There. There. There—” My finger landed on Ruthis. She was staring at me.
“Heck, I know there’s girls in the class.” The boy turned all the way around to rest his arms on my desktop and face me. “I’m sayin’ I’ve never seen a colored before.”
“And I’ve never seen a butt for a face before but if you don’t turn around right now, I’m gonna take my daddy’s pocketknife and cut you up into tiny pieces to mail to your ugly momma in a heart-shaped box. She’ll have to write letters to all the family tellin’ ’em what became of you and she’ll weep and weep until they have to put her down like a rabid dog.”
“Child.” The teacher’s voice caused me to jump.
The boy giggled as he turned back around.
“Child,” she said again, “we do not speak in such a way here.”
I raised my eyes to see the scowl on her small face.
“What’d my daddy say to you?” I asked.
“You will address me as ma’am.”
“Well, what’d my daddy say to you, ma’am?”
“He said that you’re Betty Carpenter and you’re sneaky.”
“He wouldn’t say that.”
“Oh, yes he did.” She picked up her yardstick from off her desk and smacked it against her palm. “He said you’re sneaky and that I should keep an eye on you or else you’d sneak away.” She ran two fingers through the air like they were legs. “You people are prone to bein’ shifty, though, ain’tcha?”
She came over and swiped her finger on my bare arm. She looked at her finger as if expecting something to have come off.
“Why’s her skin so dark, ma’am?” a girl at the far end of the class asked.
“Because she greases it,” the teacher replied.
“I do not,” I said.
“Yes, you do.” The teacher stood over me. “You grease it and sit all day lazy in the sun, doin’ nothin’ but gettin’ lazier and lazier and darker and darker.”
“I don’t grease my skin.”
“You lie.” She brought her yardstick down on the backs of my hands. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes, but I would not let her see me cry.
“I’m gonna tell my daddy on you for hittin’ me,” I told her.
“If you do, I’ll have your daddy dragged in here and he’ll get beat, too.”
“Will not.”
“Oh, no? Test me, child, and see what happens.”
She tapped the yardstick against her palm as she started explaining the difference between the jeans of twilled cotton denim and the roped genes of inheritance.
“Do you know what miscegenation is?” She pronounced the big word like it was a sin.
I shook my head.
“It means,” she said, “that your father’s genes and your mother’s genes comin’ together is unnatural. It’s like stirrin’ splinters in milk and sellin’ it to the public. Would you wanna drink a jug of milk that had splinters in it, Betty?”
No, Mrs. Arrow.
“It’d be utterly unpleasant. Don’t you agree, Betty?”
Yes, Mrs. Sword.
“And you must further agree, my little squaw, that you and your siblings are the splinters in our fresh, creamy, deliciously safe milk.”
Yes, Mrs. Knife-in-my-gut.
I covered my face with my hands. When recess came, I was relieved to get outside and away from my classmates. While they swung on swings or spun on the merry-go-round, I walked out into the tall grass by the side of the building. It was the one place there at the school that reminded me of home.
“She is so weird.”
I turned to the voice and saw a group of kids standing by the monkey bars. They were all staring at me. Ruthis was amongst them.
“Ain’tcha gonna swing on the bars?” one of the boys asked me. “They named after you. Monkey, monkey, monkey.”
I looked at Ruthis, wondering if she remembered the red ball we’d once shared back and forth. I was about to ask her, but two girls started whispering in her ear.
“Do it,” they said, nudging Ruthis forward.
“I can’t.” She turned around to them.
I knelt and said to the grass, “I don’t wanna be friends with them anyways. I’d rather be friends with you.” I ran my hands over the tall blades.
I was about to tell the grass how pretty it was when I saw an eye freshly carved into one of the trees by the spot Dad had parked the car earlier.
“The Fantastical Eye of Old.” I ran to it.
The carving reminded me of the eyes Dad made for his wooden creatures, but I let myself believe that particular eye was not the work of his pocketknife. As I leaned i
n to stare into each of the eye’s five pupils, I was shoved from behind. Falling, I reached out, but found no one to help me. My chest bounced against the ground. Even before I could lift my face, my skirt was flipped up while two kids held my arms.
“Stop,” I said, screaming as my panties were pulled down to the backs of my knees.
“She ain’t got one.” I heard a voice.
The two holding my arms let me go. I quickly pulled up my panties and turned around to see it had been Ruthis who had pulled them down.
“She don’t have one at all.” Another voice came from behind her.
“Don’t have what?” I quickly stood. My tears felt like fire on my cheeks.
“A tail.” Ruthis looked away. “They dared me to do it.”
“Why’d you think I had a tail?” I asked, gripping my skirt in case it was to happen again. “I ain’t no cat or dog.”
“People like you got tails,” a boy said.
“Everyone says so,” another one added.
“You stupids,” I said. “I ain’t got no tail.”
The recess teacher blew her whistle and started calling everyone back inside. The group disbanded. Ruthis was the last to go, leaving me alone. I turned to look at the carved eye.
“You see what they did to me?” I screamed at it because I had to scream at something. “You didn’t even do nothin’.”
I picked up a rock and threw it, striking the eye in its five pupils. With nothing more to give, I walked back inside the school, keeping my hands on my skirt the whole way out of fear it would all happen again.
Even though not one of my classmates had seen a tail, by the time we got to our desks, everyone was whispering about what it had looked like.
“It had thick black hair and was as long as my thumb,” one girl said.
I laid my head on top of my desk the rest of the school day. When the final bell rang, I ran past the buses. I saw Flossie talking to a group of girls who seemed to already be her best friends. Fraya was walking through the group of first graders. I knew she was searching for me.
I darted as quick as I could into the woods to get home. When I got there, Dad was building shelves against the back wall.
“You made me go to that horrible place,” I said to him.
Betty Page 8