A moment later, he was gone. The trees were smaller now, and the roads looked like strips of paper. We were sailing over an old quarry and a river and lots and lots of forest.
I turned to Judy. “Isn’t this amazing?”
Judy was staring directly ahead, her face pale and her lips green.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Don’t talk to me!” Judy snapped.
I glanced over at David and Mother. Mother had one hand on her forehead and was leaning against the seat in front of her. David tried to smile.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Just a little sick,” said David.
I felt great. We were flying over a highway now, racing the cars that looked like toys on the road below. Everything went white, and it took me a moment to realize we had flown into a cloud. The cloud looked so solid, I’d have sworn I could jump on it like a feather bed, and yet the plane cut through it as easily as a hot knife in butter. After a moment, I could see the green ground below again, playing peekaboo with me through holes in the clouds.
The woman in the navy uniform came by. “Would you like anything to drink?”
Judy shook her head.
She turned to me. “Coke or coffee?”
“Coke, please,” I said firmly, just like a grown-up. Then I realized. I had spoken to a stranger. And I hadn’t even counted prime numbers first.
The stewardess handed me a small glass bottle, exactly like the one I had been unable to drink at the airport a few minutes before. I was suddenly starving, and wished I had saved my candy bar instead of offering it to my brother. As if she had read my mind, she handed me a package of peanuts. “First time in a plane?” she asked.
I nodded. “For all of us.” The words were bubbling out now, fizzing like a shook-up soda. “It was a Christmas gift from Daddy.”
The stewardess smiled at me. “How nice of him!”
I glanced over at Judy. She still had her eyes closed.
“Don’t worry about your sister,” said the stewardess. “Some people get motion sickness. I’ll get you a bag in case she needs to be ill.”
I nodded again.
“How about you, sweetie? Are you feeling okay?”
“Great,” I said, popping a handful of peanuts into my mouth.
“An iron stomach.” She laughed. “Maybe someday you’ll grow up to be a stewardess like me.” Then she turned away to take care of Mother and David.
A stewardess like her. In a fancy blue uniform and flying in a plane like this every day. It sounded like a dream. I stared out the window and watched the clouds and the crops, planted in neat square rows, and I tried to remember every detail so I could tell Liz all about it.
Too soon, the stewardess came back, making sure we had our seat belts fastened because it was time to land. My eyes grew dry as I stared out the window, refusing to blink, refusing to miss a single second of watching the trees and roads and cars and houses slowly grow larger and larger.
There was a bump when we landed, and I heard Mother cry out, but truthfully, it wasn’t any worse than going over a pothole in the car. On the ground, I could feel how fast we were going. The brakes screeched and we slowly came to a stop.
“Thank God!” said Judy. She had the bag the stewardess had given her clutched in one hand.
“Amen,” said Mother.
I thanked God that neither one of them had actually thrown up.
We got out of our seats and followed the rest of the people to the front of the plane. The door to the cockpit was open, and there were two men in uniform inside, with hundreds of buttons and wires behind them. They stood, greeting each of the passengers as they exited.
“Hello, there,” the older man said to me. “Did you enjoy the flight?”
I grinned, too overwhelmed to say anything.
“You don’t even need to ask, Bill,” said the younger man. “Look at the way her eyes are shining.”
As soon as we got home, I called Liz. I told her all about the plane ride. Must have talked for ten minutes straight. “Turns out I have an iron stomach,” I finished. “And I didn’t even know.”
“Wow,” said Liz. “Wish I could have been there.”
“Me too.” I smiled. “You know what?”
“What?”
“I was really scared of flying, and it turned out okay. No, not okay. Great.” For the first time, I was thinking out loud. And it was fun. “I think it might be time to try some other things I’m afraid of.”
“Like what?” asked Liz.
I wasn’t sure. I opened my mouth and just trusted that something would come out. “Talking,” I said. “I think I’m going to try talking. Not just to you and Judy and the people on my list, but to everyone.”
“Good for you, Marlee,” said Liz, and she sounded proud.
“And if I change, maybe other things will change too. Maybe Sally will be nicer. Maybe Mother and I will find more in common. Maybe the schools will reopen!”
“Maybe,” said Liz, laughing, and then it was time to hang up.
I wasn’t really serious. I knew my talking wouldn’t change all that. But as I drifted off to sleep, I thought about what Daddy had said when we were talking in the car. He’d said that things could be different in Little Rock, if only the right people could find their voice.
I wanted to be one of those people.
33
NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS
The first day of school after winter break, I woke up early. Pretty Boy chirped at me from his cage. “Yes,” I said, pulling on my new pink sweater. “It is a beautiful day.”
Mr. Harding asked for the answer to number fourteen, and no one spoke up, so I raised my hand. It was the first time I’d volunteered an answer, and he grinned just like David as he called on me. I got it right, of course—6,049 divided by 23 is 263. The other kids stared, and their eyes on me made my skin crawl, but then Mr. Harding called on someone else and the itchy feeling was gone.
At lunchtime I asked Mr. Harding if we could work on algebra every other day, so I could still see the other kids too. He nodded. “You know, Marlee, engineers work in groups. I think that’s a great idea.”
So for the first time in a long time, I walked back to the cafeteria. I stood in front of the closed doors and concentrated, imagining myself a princess, making a grand entrance at a ball. I counted 13, 17, 19, 23, pushed open the doors and went inside.
No one even looked up. JT was at a far table, talking with his friends. Little Jimmy sat alone, and Nora and Sally were at our old table. I silently counted my steps as I walked over to them. “Hi,” I said. It came out a lot louder and shriller than I intended, but when Sally looked up, she smiled.
“Marlee,” she said. “You’re back!”
Nora pulled out a chair for me. “You all done with the math stuff?”
“Not all done,” I said, sitting down. “But the rest can wait until tomorrow.” This was easier than I thought.
“Doing math for fun.” Sally laughed. “Marlee, you’re such a square.”
Or not so easy after all. I couldn’t believe Sally was starting again with the insults, and I hadn’t even been there five minutes. I touched the feather in my pocket. This time, I wasn’t going to let it go. “I do think math is fun,” I said. “But don’t call me a square.”
Sally rolled her eyes. “I was just teasing. Don’t be so sensitive.”
“It’s mean,” I said. “And I don’t like it.”
Sally looked at Nora, as if to say, Can you believe her?
Nora shrugged. “She’s right. Sometimes you are kind of mean.”
Sally opened and closed her mouth several times. I could almost see the words floating through her head as she struggled to find something to say. Finally, she just sh
rugged. “Sorry,” she said.
Nora gave a nervous giggle. Sally had never apologized before.
I shrugged too. “I am probably a little square,” I said, and we all laughed.
Nora started talking about winter break. It felt good to sit back and eat my cheese sandwich and listen to her complain about little sisters and socks for presents and all sorts of normal things. Then I remembered I didn’t have to just sit back and listen. I could say something too. I could tell them about the airplane ride.
I was trying to find the right moment to speak up, when JT walked over to our table. “Hi, Marlee,” he said, real friendly. “I need a favor.”
I gave him a look. It was supposed to mean go away and leave me alone, but apparently he thought it meant please go on, because he kept talking.
“Mr. Harding said I was missing a couple of assignments.” He put a piece of paper down on top of my sandwich. “They’re listed there. You can give them to me tomorrow in homeroom.”
I was beginning to think JT was like the nasty phone calls—scary, but all hot air. And there was only one way to find out if I was right.
“No,” I said.
“What?”
“I’m not doing your homework anymore.”
I braced myself for his anger. The shock. The threats. The drama of the shy little quiet girl saying no to the big strong football player. But JT didn’t look surprised. He didn’t even look irritated. He seemed kind of amused. In fact, he was grinning at me. “I always knew you were a pretty girl, Marlee, but you’re even cuter when you’re angry.”
“I’m not angry.” Of course I was angry. I’d been doing his homework all year!
He shrugged. “It’s no problem. I’ll just find someone else to do the work for me.”
“You can’t do that,” I said. “It’s cheating!”
JT laughed.
Of course, it had been cheating when I’d done it too, but I preferred not to dwell on that fact.
“I like your pink sweater!” JT called out as he walked off.
I wasn’t sure if I was proud of myself for finally standing up to him, or embarrassed it had taken me so long to do so.
The next Tuesday at the rock crusher I was planning on telling Liz all about standing up to Sally and JT. But as soon as I got there, Liz started talking. “You know Curtis, right? Betty Jean’s son.”
“Yes.”
Liz blushed, which made me even more curious to know what was going on. “He’s in youth group with me at church and in ninth grade at Dunbar, but he’d never spoken to me. Then today he saw me writing in my journal, and he came over to see what I was doing. We started talking, and we realized we both know you.”
“That’s great.” Actually, I was worried. What if she dumped me for him like Judy had done with Robert Laurence? I wanted her to stop exploding when she was teased, not get a boyfriend! But I couldn’t say that, so I just asked, “You didn’t tell him we were still friends, did you?”
“No,” said Liz. “But I think he guessed.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I think Little Jimmy guessed too. He says hi.”
“Hi.” Liz looked pleased. “You tell him hi right back.”
“How long can we keep this up?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” said Liz. “But I hope for a really long time.”
I hoped so too.
34
MAIL, MEASLES AND MORE
My thirteenth birthday was January 27, 1959. Daddy gave me a pink purse, Granny sent me ten dollars, David gave me a new satchel for school, Judy sent a card (Happy Birthday, Little Sis! Hope you have a great day. Send me a piece of cake!) and Mother gave me a silver letter opener. “I noticed you’re getting more mail,” she said. I guess she meant the WEC flyers and the letters from Judy, though those were usually postcards. Still, it was a nice gesture.
“Look,” Mother pointed out, “I had your name engraved.”
Sure enough, Marlene Nisbett was written on the blade. I didn’t have a middle name. David had one. Judy had one. By the time I came along, I guess my parents were both too busy to pick one out.
“Did I ever tell you I named you after Marlene Dietrich?” Mother asked.
No, she hadn’t.
“She was my favorite movie star. So glamorous. Even as a baby, I knew you were someone special.”
Suddenly, having no middle initial didn’t seem quite so bad. I ran my finger over the engraved letters and slipped the letter opener into my new purse along with the black feather from Liz.
While my talking experiment was going well with Sally and the other kids at school, I still couldn’t figure out how to speak to Mother. The problem was, we hadn’t had a conversation in so long, it seemed like we didn’t have anything to say. So we didn’t talk, and by not talking, we made it even worse.
It was like a repeating decimal. You can divide 10 by 3 for as long as you want, but all you’re going to get is 3.33333 with ever more 3s after it. There had to be some way to finish the problem. Daddy and I talked after dinner while we did the dishes, and once I caught Mother watching us, envious, as if she were trying to figure out the easy flow of conversation she and I could never catch.
The next day, I didn’t feel quite right. I dragged myself through school, determined to show off my new stuff (Nora liked the letter opener, Sally liked the money), but when I got home, Betty Jean took one look at me and ordered me up to bed. I didn’t complain. Not even when she brought me a bowl of chicken soup and ordered me to open my mouth.
Betty Jean pulled my lower lip gently and looked at my gums. “Yup, white dots. Girl, you got the measles.”
She was right. The next morning, I had a fever, cough and fine red spots all over my body. All I wanted to do was sleep.
Everyone else had had the measles, of course. Mother and Daddy and Betty Jean a long time ago, and Judy and David a year or two before I was born. But I had a bad case—my eyes turned red, and I had to lie in the dark in my room hour after hour.
Miss Winthrop stopped by one afternoon, a few of her blond curls escaping from the scarf she’d tied over her head. “Thought you could use some company,” she said. “Nothing worse than sitting in the dark alone. I brought some WEC flyers for us to fold to keep our hands busy.”
I felt well enough to sit up and help her for a while. Betty Jean brought up the radio from the kitchen, and it felt like a little party, until we heard the news. February 3, 1959. There was a small plane crash in Clear Lake, Iowa. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J. P. Richardson, a.k.a. the Big Bopper, were all aboard. There were no survivors.
Miss Winthrop gave a little gasp, and I thought she was going to cry. We didn’t fold anymore, just listened to the radio play “La Bamba” and “Chantilly Lace” and “Peggy Sue” over and over again.
When Miss Winthrop left, my fever got higher and higher. In the evening, Mother called Dr. Agar, our family doctor. He brought his black bag and pulled out his stethoscope. It was cool on my back. He gave me a lollipop, like I was a baby. I was too tired to lick it, so I put it on my dresser as he turned to talk to my mother.
“There’s isn’t much I can do for her,” he said. “Measles has to run its course. Just try to keep her comfortable.”
That night I dreamed of flying and plane crashes and Judy stealing my lollipop. In the morning, I woke up more tired than when I went to sleep. But I was thirsty, and no one came when I rang the little bell Betty Jean had put next to my bed, so I pulled on my robe and crept down the hall.
Daddy had already gone to work, but Mother was sitting at the table, the paper open in front of her.
“Mother?”
She jumped and sat up quick, like she was a burglar and I’d caught her stealing.
“Marlee, you should be in bed.”
“I’m thirsty.”
“I’ll pour you a glass of tea.”
I sat down at the table, tired by my walk down the hall. Mother went to the fridge. There was a big article in the newspaper about the plane crash and Buddy Holly. Underneath it was another smaller article: Closed Schools in Virginia Reopen; School Crisis in Little Rock Drags On.
Mother handed me a glass of tea and followed my gaze.
“Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve been proud to live in Little Rock. Proud to be from the South. But this . . . it’s been going on too long.”
I held my breath.
“Frankly, I don’t care who she goes to school with anymore. I just want Judy to come home.”
Me too. “We should do something about it,” I said finally.
“What can we do?”
I went back to my room and brought out the box of flyers Miss Winthrop and I had been folding. I handed one to Mother. It said:
Saying what you think is as important as thinking it!
Speak out for public schools!
I sat down and started folding, and after a moment, so did Mother. We didn’t say a word, but I couldn’t help thinking maybe this was it. Maybe this was the way Mother and I would finally connect. Working on a project together had turned Liz and me into friends. Maybe it would work with Mother too.
35
MOTHER GETS INVOLVED
I was home sick for most of February. Liz called once or twice a week, pretending to be “Lisa, from math class.” On Valentine’s Day, Little Jimmy showed up on our front porch, with his skinny legs and his old bike. I was in my old pink bathrobe when I opened the door, which was kind of embarrassing, but Little Jimmy smiled at me like I was wearing a ball gown.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hi.”
“I brought you your school assignments.” He handed me a page, torn out of his notebook, that listed all my work.
The Lions of Little Rock Page 14