Yolonda's Genius

by Carol Fenner

  “Hey, whale!”

  Whales surfaced in Yolonda’s mind. Their big gray heads were slapped by little waves, their small eyes peering.

  Yolonda turned her face toward the voice. Danny-longlegs still had his hand cupped around his mouth, his legs splayed out in the aisle.

  Slowly Yolonda edged her way back to his seat. He sat slumped, with a smirk on his face, long legs hogging the narrow space.

  “What do you know about whales, blisterface?” asked Yolonda softly. She looked down at him. “You don’t know diddly, do you?”

  Danny shifted uneasily in his seat, but slid an angry glance up at her.

  The whales peered from their little eyes. Then they spouted up beautiful gushes of water like the fountain in Grant Park.

  Yolonda looked into Danny’s reddening face. “Whales are the most remarkable mammals in the ocean — all five oceans.”

  Danny’s lip curled, but before he could make any reply, Yolonda carefully lifted her solid right foot and brought it squarely and gently down over Danny-longlegs’s huge running shoe. She watched his face pale trader the frozen smirk as she slowly settled her weight onto his foot.

  “Whales sing to one another through hundreds of miles of water. They have a high keening sound and a low dirgelike sound.”

  “Get off my effin’ foot, you cow,” muttered Danny through his teeth. There was a giggle from behind them.

  “Right,” said Yolonda, her voice gooey with mock praise, “the female whale is called a cow. Didn’t know a farmer boy like you was so well informed.” And Yolonda leaned her weight deeper into his foot.

  He grimaced in pain and shot a glance at the bus driver.

  “The music whales make is found to be beautiful, and people make recordings of it. It is found to be powerful, and musicians create background music for it.”

  His face went blank and she knew she was mesmerizing him. She knew he didn’t want to sound stupid in front of his friends and the girls in back. She knew a struggle against her foot would look uncool.

  She increased the pressure on his toes by twisting away from him and pretending to review her homework again.

  “Get off my effin foot!” His anger had a begging sound, and Yolonda was gratified by loud giggling and snorts of laughter from the back of the bus.

  “Keep it down to a dull roar, kids,” the bus driver called good-naturedly without taking his eyes off the road.

  The whales sank, lifting their tails high above the water like a signal. Deep in the ocean, their voices sent out a high swelling cry, sharing their message of victory for a hundred miles.

  Although she was prepared to confront Danny-longlegs when the bus reached the school, he brushed past her in a hurry, heading for his room.

  Yolonda watched Andrew trudge off to his first-grade class, slipping his harmonica into his back pocket. Andrew didn’t do well in school like Yolonda. He couldn’t even read one word yet and had to attend a special reading class for slow learners. He didn’t make friends easily, but he didn’t make enemies either.

  “Oh, that was really cool.” The voice at her elbow was manlike, gruff. When she turned, Yolonda was surprised to find herself looking down into a small, pale girl’s face.

  “Hi. I’m Shirley Piper,” said the man voice. All of this Shirley person was small except for her voice and her large, pale blue eyes whirling behind the thickest glasses Yolonda had ever seen — whirling, yes, and twitching behind the thick lenses.

  “You were really something,” said the Shirley person. “What else do you do?” Then she laughed, a kind of deep, dry ha-ha-ha-hacking laugh.

  “I play the piano,” said Yolonda demurely, “mostly classical like Mozart. I get straight A’s.” She stared at the Shirley person. “I look after my kid brother. I do the laundry for our whole family. I can make cake from scratch.”

  Then Yolonda decided to lie. “I do double Dutch.” She watched Shirley’s face for traces of disbelief. None. “I can do Teddy Bear. And ‘Pepper’ — with the right rope turners, of course.”

  Shirley Piper’s eyes whirled admiringly. “That bit about the whales. I loved the narrative you gave Danny about the whales. Did you memorize it or are you a genius?”

  “No,” said Yolonda. She was surprised at the word narrative. “I didn’t really memorize that. I just knew it.” She could barely remember what she’d said to Danny-longlegs — just the image in her head of majestic whales. She checked Shirley out again. “What do you do?” she asked.

  “Oh, I don’t have all your talents,” said Shirley in her gruff voice. “I read a lot, but I barely find enough time to study. My A’s aren’t straight. More like crooked A’s. They sort of hump over the B’s and a C or two.” She ha-ha’d again. “I can’t even turn the ropes for double Dutch.”

  “Don’t feel bad,” said Yolonda, suddenly generous. “Turning the ropes correctly is an art — it’s really hard.”

  The bell rang and they both turned hurriedly toward the school.

  “You have to have good rhythm and your partner has to be in sync with you. You know, really good vibes,” hollered Yolonda after Shirley’s scurrying figure. Without looking around, the Shirley person flapped her hand in a wave.

  Well, I’ve impressed one person in this burg at least, thought Yolonda, even if she has a man voice and whirlygig eyes. Even if she is whiter than white.

  She only felt slightly guilty about her lie. She was sure that she could do “Teddy Bear” here among these countrified kids. It looked a lot slower and easier. They didn’t know diddly about double Dutch in this burg, even though they worked at it. She’d seen black girls here teaching white girls “the ropes.” She wasn’t sure black people and white people could get it together right. And no one here did it like they did back on the streets of Chicago. No one could fly in and out of the whirr-slap of ropes like the Chicago girls, who had never been her friends, who hardly ever let her turn the ropes. No one here had such quick, light feet and legs like hot motor pistons. Yolonda had to admit to herself that “Pepper” was too wildly fast anywhere for someone her size to master. That was a bigger lie.

  She’d told another sort-of lie to the Shirley person. She’d never had good enough vibes with anyone to turn the ropes in perfect rhythm. She was always criticizing her partner before they even started. “You’re too short,” or, belligerently, “You never done this before?”

  Only once had she seen rope turning done in perfect sync. In Chicago. On the playground at recess. The girls had been close in size and they moved their arms in an easy, relaxed way — turning, turning, their eyes fixed, not on each other, but sort of out of focus, listening — the way Andrew did all the time. When the recess bell had rung, the partners had laughed and slapped gently at each other with pleasure, then wound up the ropes. They had gone back into the school building with their arms slung across each other’s shoulders.

  For a while, Yolonda liked to remember that. She liked to pretend that those girls had been her friends.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Now, Andrew, we can’t play with our harmonica when we’re reading,” said Miss Gilluly. She sat next to him at the little round table. She had a kind voice. “We must put the harmonica and other toys away so we can concentrate on the task at hand.”

  Andrew looked at the bright page in front of him across which marched a regiment of black marks. He clutched the harmonica and his chin went stubborn. Then he gave up. She might take his harmonica away from him. He’d seen that happen to others before. LaToya French had been made to put her push-wind racing car on the teacher’s desk for the whole reading lesson. Stacey Goldstein’s drinking-wetting doll had wet 2-percent milk all over her workbook. She couldn’t ever bring that doll to school again.

  Andrew carefully slid the harmonica into his back pocket, the one farthest from Miss Gilluly. He looked again at the bright page with the black marks. He was supposed to tell this woman what the marks meant. They were some sort of code people used instead of talki
ng. He didn’t really care what the message was because above the marks was a picture of some boring-looking kids playing in a sandbox. He knew what they were doing and what they were saying and he knew he wouldn’t even want to play with them. They would probably get into an argument over the little red truck in the picture. There were two white kids in the picture and two colored brown. The brown ones didn’t look like him or any other blacks kids he knew. They looked like white kids colored brown. He didn’t want to play with them at all.

  “Can you tell me what the first word says, Andrew?” asked Miss Gilluly.

  Andrew hunched down and looked at his hands. His hands already missed the harmonica, and his mouth itched to play a tune. No, no, he would play on the harmonica. This is stupid, he would play on his harmonica. Then he might imitate Miss Gilluly’s voice — low and kind and floaty. Or he might simply fly away on his harmonica and leave Miss Gilluly with her mouth like an O.

  Miss Gilluly sighed and took away the book. She slipped a page to color in front of Andrew. The picture was of a puppy with its foot on a ball. Andrew could bark-bark on his harmonica, but it was in his back pocket, so he just stared at the picture. Underneath it there were a few of the black code marks.

  “Can you tell me what’s in the picture?” asked Miss Gilluly. It was so obvious what was in the picture that Andrew thought Miss Gilluly must mean that something he couldn’t see was hidden in the lines of the picture — like the puzzles on the comics page of the newspaper that Yolonda liked to do. Find the hidden faces. So Andrew looked real hard for hidden faces in the picture.

  “What do you see there, Andrew?” asked Miss Gilluly a little impatiently.

  I hate this reading, thought Andrew, and he ached for his harmonica. He couldn’t see any hidden faces so he just put his head down on the picture. I’m the hidden face, he thought, and this made him smile.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Miss Gilluly, and Andrew could tell that she was upset. “There’s nothing funny in that picture!”

  Andrew made his mind fly up and away. Bark-bark, he heard in his head. Inside his mind he bounced the ball, and the little puppy jumped in such a funny way that Andrew wanted to laugh, but he didn’t want to make Miss Gilluly madder, so he shut his eyes and he listened to the sound a ball makes bouncing, a dog makes jumping. Thumpump. Bark-bark.

  In her classroom, Yolonda took her seat near the front, where she could exert a certain amount of control. She didn’t sit in the first seat, which, she’d noticed way back in third grade, the teacher often stared over. She had requested the third seat, third row, claiming she had a peripheral-vision problem and couldn’t see the board unless she was square in front of it and not too close. But she really wanted to be in line with Mr. Johnkoski’s eyes when he stood facing the class. That way all Yolonda had to do was modestly raise her hand to get called on. And, besides the answer to Mr. Johnkoski’s questions, she almost always had an accompanying comment. Yolonda liked Mr. Johnkoski better than any teacher she’d had since first grade.

  “Who can name the vertebrates?” asked Mr. Johnkoski as the class settled down. “Yolonda?”

  Yolonda worked herself out of her seat and stood. “Animals with a backbone are called vertebrates. The five main groups of vertebrates are fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.”

  “That’s correct, Yolonda.”

  “Humans are mammals. It is believed that we humans all developed out of apes. There are some religions that don’t accept this as a fact. They don’t believe that we all came from the ape family. They say we all came from Adam and Eve, not a hairy ape.” There was some snickering. Yolonda turned in the direction of the snickers. “There are some people who resemble apes more than others.” She paused, looking about her. “They look like apes and they sound like apes.” The snickers exploded all around the room. “That’s proof enough for me.”

  She stopped and glared, folded her hands across her stomach. “Any questions?”

  There never were. Just awed silence.

  Then someone piped up, “Teacher’s pet!” from the back of the room, breaking the spell.

  Yolonda sat down.

  “Teacher’s pet elephant,” snorted someone else, which sent off a wave of snickers and giggles. Yolonda turned to study the back of the room with contempt.

  Mr. Johnkoski ignored the hilarity. “What distinguishes mammals from the other groups?” he asked. A few hands shot up. Yolonda didn’t want to think about vertebrates right now, but she raised her hand anyway. She knew Mr. J wouldn’t call on her again until map study.

  Stuffed into the third seat, third row, Yolonda slipped out her homework map with the states in different colors. She arranged her books in the order of her lessons, folded her hands, and allowed her mind to dwell on her encounter with the Shirley person.

  How come she’d never noticed her before? Her gruff voice alone was enough to make her stand out. Maybe she didn’t ordinarily talk much. If she didn’t say much, probably no one would notice her small shape or her whirlygig eyes.

  “Are you a genius?” she’d asked Yolonda.

  After school, Andrew wanted to watch the skaters on Asphalt Hill. Yolonda often left him at the skateboard park when she had errands to run or wanted to stay at school to help a teacher. The Hill, as it was called by the skateboard jocks, was a series of mounds and ramps, curves and slants, and long, smooth stretches where you could gain speed or do platform tricks.

  Andrew liked the grinding, swift sounds the boards made, mixed with the shouts and grunts and cheers of the skaters — the breathing, the yelps at a spill.

  It was better to make skateboarding music with his harmonica, but sometimes, when a boy flew through the air on his board and hung there for a long moment, Andrew longed for the sweet, clear note of his little wooden pipe. Sometimes he wished he had two mouths so that he could play both instruments at once.

  Some junior-high kids hung out along the edge of the Hill. Yolonda had pointed them out to Andrew with a warning finger. “Pushers, Andrew,” she had told him. “Don’t take any of those little death packets from them — from anyone.”

  Andrew thought that, if he had two mouths, he could play the sound of the cocaine packets — maybe low, friendly chords like the smile of the big boy back in Chicago who’d given him the white packet. Play it warm on his harmonica. Then bring out the pipe and blow a high siren screech — choke it and send it off pitch.

  He’d seen older students with unfocused eyes who looked as though they were hanging on the edge of something about to tip over. The sound of a skateboard or a cheer didn’t seem to reach them.

  There used to be a boy from his class who hung out around the junior-high kids on Asphalt Hill. One afternoon, this boy had whined in the boys’ bathroom about not being able to go to the toilet because his skin hurt so much. He wailed over and over that he couldn’t undo his pants because his skin was killing him. He kept saying over and over, “I can’t, Momma. I can’t!” He had cried out in such pain that Andrew had run back to his classroom.

  “Troy’s sick in the bathroom,” Andrew had told Mrs. Post. “His skin hurts,” he’d added, and Mrs. Post’s head had jerked erect. Andrew had watched her hurry out of the room.

  Later Andrew had seen Troy being carried down the hall by Mrs. Post and the principal. Troy was jerking and crying, “I can’t! Oh, Momma, I can’t!”

  Troy hadn’t been back to school. Mrs. Post had spent the entire afternoon discussing drugs and what had happened to Troy. She had asked the kids if they knew where Troy might have gotten the drugs. Nobody had said anything even though everybody knew about the junior-high kids who hung out around Asphalt Hill.

  Andrew couldn’t understand why anyone would want to change their eyes so that they couldn’t see and, worse yet, change their ears so that they couldn’t hear everything. And change their skin so that it hurt.

  I can’t. I can’t! Andrew played on his harmonica as he watched the pushers joking with younger kids by Asphalt
Hill. Oh, Momma. I can’t! Several kids turned around in alarm at the harmonica’s cry.

  Then Andrew played a sound like his mother calling him, calling him angrily, like the time he’d tried to cross the street by himself.

  “Andrew! Get back here this instant!” Her voice had been really more scared than angry, but insistent and powerful.

  Andrew! Get back here this instant! played Andrew. He was only mildly surprised when a second-grade boy standing with the group by the junior-high kids lifted his head, startled, shook it, then backed away from the group.

  “What’s the matter, Karl?” someone asked the boy.

  “I thought I heard somebody call me,” the boy answered with a bewildered tuck of his head.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  “Yolonda! Yoh-lon-daah! Big as a Honda!”

  The three grinning fifth-grade boys braced themselves, ready to run. Yolonda turned and made her eyes go mean. Then, wordless, she marched toward them. The trio whirled, yelping laughter, and sped across the street, pushing past the crossing guard in her red belt.

  Yolonda undid her backpack as she waited to cross. She hoisted it down and began to swing it back and forth.

  “Hurry up,” she ordered the crossing guard, a tall, skinny, blond girl. “I can’t stand here all day. Get this show on the road.”

  “I’m the crossing guard, not you, Yolonda,” squealed the guard. “I say when.”

  “When, then?” growled Yolonda, swinging her backpack like a mace.

  “Now,” said the girl shrilly. “Now you can cross.”

  Yolonda’s three tormentors had stopped running and were waiting in a doorway. When she was in the middle of the street, they chanted again, “Yolonda! Yoh-lon-daah! Big as a Honda!”