The Tower

by Lynn Moon

  “You mean like a rag-head?” Antwan laughed and glanced at his friends, who also laughed.

  “Yes, Antwan, like a rag-head,” Dr. Robinson said, repeating his exact words, which shocked me. “You must be referring to someone from the Middle East?” she asked, tilting her head to one side.

  “They’re stupid,” Darrien added.

  “And how do you know they’re stupid?” she asked.

  “Because, they can’t talk.” Antwan’s voice kept getting louder and louder. When frustrated, his cheeks burned a bright red. “That’s how.”

  In other classes, his attitude sent him to detention. Dr. Robinson didn’t believe in sending students to the office. She preferred we participated, even if it meant saying something we believed others would laugh at. It amazed me how much she’d put up with.

  “I’ll bet if you tried to say something in their language, you’d sound pretty dumb yourself.” Dr. Robinson’s arms folded across her chest. “Don’t you think so, Antwan?”

  “I wouldn’t try to speak in their language,” Antwan said, as his voice got even louder. His wide eyes delivered the most evil stare.

  Antwan was a light brown boy with short black hair. A little on the heavy side, he tended to be laid-back and not as outspoken as the others were. I bet if we were back in New York, we’d probably become friends. Everyone seemed different there, more friendly and accepting of others. Antwan’s thoughts about other people tended to fall a little on the prejudice side. As if he felt he was better than everyone else. His mother was a surgeon. I wasn’t sure what his father did. But when one of them would pick him up, his whole attitude seemed to change. He became polite and even talked differently.

  “You would if you were living in their country,” she added.

  “I wouldn’t live in their country.” Antwan coughed, before adding, “They’re all terrorists.”

  “They are not all terrorists. That’s like saying all white people are racists, or all black people are lazy or—”

  “Are you calling me lazy?” A boy with very dark skin and a shaved head hollered out from the back, jumping to his feet. I never could remember his name. He acted so tough and mean all the time. With all his cussing and swearing, I never heard him say a nice word about anyone.

  “Sit down, Michael.” Dr. Robinson never raised her voice in class. Her stare toward him was just as strong as his toward her. “Of course I’m not calling you lazy. I’m talking rhetorically.”

  Michael mumbled something. She either didn’t hear or didn’t care, because she ignored him.

  “What about you, Pete? How do you feel about people who speak choppy English?”

  I glanced around before answering. Michael gave me his smirky you’re so stupid smile. The one where he scrunches up his face and tries to grin. The others just ignored me, centering their focus on their cell phones. I shook my head. As if it wasn’t obvious what they were doing.

  “We have many foreigners in New York.” Speaking out in class wasn’t a smart thing to do at Davis Academy. However, my grade depended on it. “I had to pay close attention to understand ‘em. But …”

  “But what?” Dr. Robinson’s soft eyes always made me feel safe. I could say anything to her and she wouldn’t make fun of me.

  “Well, if you think about it, no one ever speaks proper English.”

  “Explain, Pete.” At least two of my instructors called me by my real name, Dr. Robinson and Joe, and I respected them for that.

  I considered my options. Answering a teacher meant a good grade. It also meant clashes with other students. If I did answer her, I’d have to choose my words carefully.

  “Go on, Pete.” Dr. Robinson acted as if she really wanted to hear what I had to say.

  Again, I glanced around the room. Since all the boys were busy playing with their phones, I figured it might be okay to answer just this one question.

  “Instead of saying, how do you do, which is considered proper English, we say hi. Saying hi isn’t proper, is it?”

  “What would you know about proper?” Michael’s voice echoed through the room.

  Immediately, my stomach tightened. Knowing nothing good ever came from this boy, I lowered my eyes to my lap.

  “Michael, if you’d like to participate in this conversation, please be polite and come forward. Yelling from the back of the room is not joining in. It’s called yelling from the back of the room.”

  “You saying I’m not polite now,” he screamed out.

  “Michael, one more outburst like that and I’ll personally send you to Dr. Wiltshire’s office.”

  Michael plopped back down on the yellow couch so hard the springs squawked as his over-sized body rammed against the bright fabric. Dr. Robinson shook her head and sighed.

  “Thank you, Pete, for that interesting observation and, yes, you are correct. People tend to speak in short, choppy sentences in all languages.” She glared over at Antwan. An odd moaning seemed to be escaping from his lips. “Here, in the states, we tend to have a false sense of superiority. We tend to believe that our language outshines all others. In reality, our English falls quite short. Several languages have words where there are no English translation.”

  “Yeah right, blah blah blah,” Antwan whispered, but we could still hear him.

  “Yes, Antwan, blah blah blah. For example, the Germans have the word Zeitgeist. We have no English translation that comes even close. Zeitgeist means, I’m going to do something to you. Whatever I do will harm you in some way. I’m going to do it right in front of you. You won’t see it coming. You won’t even know what’s happening. You’ll figure it out later, of course. Only after you’ve been harmed, and I don’t mean harmed, as if I’m hitting you. I mean harmed as in financial matters or in other ways.”

  “Doesn’t the word occult come close to that?” I asked, remembering a conversation I once had with my mother.

  I’d always thought occult was something quite opposite from God. Then Mom showed me in the dictionary that it meant to hide something from others by covering it up.

  “Yes, Pete, you’re close. However, the word Zeitgeist goes much deeper than that.” She looked impressed with my comment.

  I smiled.

  “How stupid can you get?” Michael yelled. “Everyone knows that occult means the devil.”

  “As usual Michael, you are wrong.” Dr. Robinson didn’t smile at him this time. “The true definition of occult is just as Pete said. To cover up. Such as a secret society. They’re called an occult. Because they keep secrets.”

  “That’s bull,” Michael pointed his finger directly at me. “The bitch lies.”

  “That does it, Michael,” Dr. Robinson walked to the intercom. “Stella, I’m sending Michael down. I will not tolerate profanity in my classroom.”

  “Send him on down,” came the soft Southern reply.

  “Bull isn’t profanity,” he said, staring at me.

  “Go!” Dr. Robinson held the door open for him.

  I shuddered. Her sending Michael to the office only meant more trouble for me. Now, Michael will believe that his troubles were my fault.

  Our class conversation continued a little longer until the bell chimed through the room. Only I participated in the discussion. The boys paid more attention to their cell phones.

  “Tomorrow leave your phones in your lockers, please,” Dr. Robinson stated, as the boys filed out one-by-one. “Otherwise, they’re mine until the summer.”

  As always, I left last.

  “Thank you, Pete. You always make this class interesting.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said, lingering to create as much space between the boys and me as possible.

  “Those boys are just too much,” she said, shaking her head. “They try so hard to be rough and tough. I always laugh when their parents come to pick them up. Their whole attitude changes. Even the way they talk.”

  Nodding, I wished I could agree that it was all an act. But all I experienced were kids who acted a
s if they hated me, and I didn’t know why. Luckily, nothing bad happened for the rest of the day. As always, Joe greeted me with his friendly smile. I loved my equestrian class for two reasons. First, Joe was the instructor and second, it meant my torture would soon be over. After that class, I would meet Charles and his wonderful car in the parking lot.

  Although I tolerated Christina during English and equestrian, two other girls, Kera and Jessie, gave me even more grief. Kera and Jessie always seemed to be flaunting their long blonde hair and manicured fingernails. Their skin shined so brightly in the sunlight they reminded me of porcelain dolls. They constantly complained about something. Either the sun was too hot, or the classrooms were too cold. They hung around with a larger group of girls who acted as if they ruled our school. I didn’t like them, and avoided them at all cost.

  These were the same two girls who told me my blood was tainted. It was a warm afternoon on a Tuesday, and I was putting away my saddle. Kera walked over to me and smiled.

  “Hi,” I said, wanting to know what she was up to now.

  “We can’t be friends,” she whispered.

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Hey Jessie, Pete wants to know why we can’t be friends with her.”

  Jessie placed her reins over her saddle and walked over to where we were standing. For some reason, I tightened my hold on my saddle. It felt safer just touching it, as if the leather was somehow grounding me, protecting me.

  “Because you’re tainted,” Jessie said. As she folded her arms across her chest, she glanced over at Kera.

  “Tainted?” I asked.

  “Yeah, with nigger juice,” Kera said.

  “From your dad,” Jessie added.

  Then they both flicked their long blonde hair with their hand and walked out of the stable, leaving me alone with my thoughts. My heart had stopped. Never had anyone ever said anything that terrible to me before. I wasn’t sure what it meant, exactly, but I knew it wasn’t a compliment. I’d never heard such a word; nigger. So one afternoon on the ride home, I asked Charles about it.

  “Who said that word to you?” His eyes darkened as a frown exploded across his face. With a long and tired sigh, he tried to explain. “It’s a nasty word for a black person. Nigrum is Latin for black. Over time, the pronunciation changed to what we now consider a slanderous insult. I’m surprised you’ve never heard it on TV or in a movie.”

  “I wasn’t allowed to watch a lot of TV when I lived with my mom,” I explained.

  “I see,” Charles said, glancing over at me. “But who said this to you?”

  “I don’t know their names. Just some girls.”

  Of course I knew their names. I just didn’t need any more trouble than I already had. I dodged those girls whenever possible, and I definitely didn’t need to confront them. If I thought they were a threat before, Charles made it quite clear through his eyes that they were definitely a threat now. The anger plastered all over his face reinforced how careful I had to be when dealing with the kids at my new school.

  Between Christina and her black friends, and the two porcelain dolls and their white friends, my time at DA meant no friends left over for me. Attending this school equated to pure torture. Not a day passed when Christina didn’t have something nasty to say to me. Not a day passed when the two porcelain dolls didn’t assign one of their cronies to bump or trip me. My schoolbooks, plastered with their scribbles and pictures of profanity, disgusted me. Exactly when these demons were able to accomplish their writing tricks, I had no idea. My school locker, now decorated with someone’s colored markers, made me even sicker. Every morning, I cringed finding new nasty words or nasty stick figures. They never failed to surprise me. Walking the school halls, I’d hear my name whispered behind my back. I always expected a giggle or two at my expense. When the girls hung around in groups, I flew into panic mode. No one needed to say they were planning something against me. I just knew that they were.

  CHAPTER 13

  THE SADDLE

  EACH STUDENT WAS REQUIRED to own a saddle for the equestrian class. I complained so much about the price that Grandmother tortured me more by buying me two when we visited the horse and tackle shop. Mom and Hank would never have had enough money to buy such expensive things.

  “The western saddle is for riding at home and the English saddle is for school,” she argued.

  I could tell she wasn’t happy with me. I wasn’t sure why. I wasn’t used to someone spending so much money on me. To her, the cost of several thousand dollars per saddle was nothing. To me, it was a fortune. Already knowing that my father didn’t love me, the last thing I wanted was to become a financial burden to him, too.

  But oh, how I adored my western saddle the most. Dark brown leather decorated with intricate autumn-red engravings filled me with a continuous longing to sit on it. Golden ornaments braided between long leather strands adorned each side. My pride of owning such a thing almost consumed me. Why I loved it so much I never understood. Between the wonderful aroma of fresh leather, or the rough texture, or the way it creaked when I used it, I was captivated. Everything about it fascinated me to the point of obsession. At school, I used an English saddle. Nothing pretty, just a dull, plain black. An English saddle was smooth without any pattern or texture. That was why I loved my western saddle more.

  The man at the tackle shop personally fitted me for each. I never knew so much effort or money went into the making and purchasing of a saddle. When I heard my father telling my grandmother to have me fitted, I thought he had lost his mind. However, at the tackle shop the man measured the length of my legs, and took down my weight. Then he had me sit in several saddles to understand the difference. After checking me out, he asked my grandmother for the measurements of my horse. When she told him I had two, one at home and one at school, his eyebrows raised.

  The man took the pictures and measurements of each horse from my grandmother then wrote up the estimates. She simply looked around the room before signing her name on each. Glancing over her shoulder, I almost died when I saw the bill.

  Before class, we changed into our riding outfits and geared our horses. At my old school, we barely made it to our next class before the bell rang. At this school, we enjoyed twenty minutes between lectures. The extra time allowed us to prepare for our instructors, although it made the school day a little longer.

  My saddle sat way in the back of the school’s tackle room. Joe assigned each of us a personal space to hang our gear, saddle, and other items. With over thirty students in this class, the narrow, hot shed didn’t allow much room to move around. Therefore, we simply ran in, grabbed our stuff, and ran back out.

  Flipping my tackle over my shoulder, I pulled my saddle from the wooden stand. It weighed almost as much as I did. Leaning back for balance, I wobbled over to my assigned horse. I knew something wasn’t right. Immediately, snickering and laughter filled my ears. Rolling my eyes, I tried to ignore them and concentrate on Skittles, a light brown quarter horse. I heaved my black saddle onto the fence. Joe always kept a stack of clean blankets outside for us to use. So I didn’t have far to walk. Straightening a pink one evenly along her back, I smiled as Skittles’ head turned toward me.

  “Hey, girl.” I rubbed her neck and kissed her cheek.

  Skittles snorted. Spending time with horses seemed to pull the gloominess right out of me. I laughed as I caressed her face. No matter how bad my days seemed, working with a horse always made things better. As soon as I turned to pull my saddle from the fence, I saw it. My heart stopped. I couldn’t breathe. Everything blurred and the ground spun around me. I grabbed Skittles for support. My mind froze as my eyes traced over the horrible, ugly words.

  Fear stung my body harder than a million volts of electricity. My grandmother would kill me for sure this time. Maybe if I stared long enough, the ugly words would somehow disappear. I stood there a while before Joe said something, pulling me from my nightmare.

  “Pete? Everything okay?”

 
; “No.” I couldn’t hold back my tears. “She’s going to kill me, Joe.”

  “Pete, what’s that on your saddle?” Joe’s face shrunk into a massive frown as he walked toward me. “What the …”

  Someone had printed the words Nigger Juice Girl on both sides of my brand-new and expensive English saddle. Bright red words now decorated the plain black leather. Someone ruined it with thick red nail polish.

  “Joe,” I screamed. “What do I do? My grandmother paid a lot of money for this and just look at it. It’s ruined.”

  “Who did this?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. It was like this when I got here.”

  Joe rubbed his fingers across the painted words. “Dry … it’s been awhile.” His eyes closed as he pulled his cell phone from his pocket. “Dr. Wiltshire. I need you in the stables, ma’am. We have a problem.”

  CHAPTER 14

  SLEEPLESSNESS

  IT WAS LATE. EVERYONE was sleeping peacefully, everyone except for me. I couldn’t stop thinking about those nasty words on my ruined saddle. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see were those bright red words. To make matters worse, my grandmother didn’t seem upset at all. She simply told the school administrator she’d order me a new one. Dr. Wiltshire had called to ensure us that they would review the security tapes. Joe snickered when we told him about it. “Those darn kids,” he had said to my grandmother. “They know exactly how to avoid the cameras.”

  Since my mind refused to sleep, I jumped from the bed. I wasn’t sure if it was Saddlebag or something else calling to me. I had to get out of that house. Wearing only sweatpants and a sweatshirt, I grabbed my small backpack and escaped out the backdoor. Running across the pitch-black yard probably wasn’t a smart thing to do. No moonlight tonight. I didn’t care.

  Trying to maneuver around grandmother’s prized rose gardens in the dark wasn’t easy. As several sharp spikes dug into my face and hands, I screamed. I forgot all about the large Cherokee rose planted near the back gate. My sweatpants, held tight by the large thorns, yanked me to the ground. Without thinking, I flailed out my arms, trying to break my fall. I knew I was in trouble before I hit the dirt. Throbbing pain sizzled up my arms and down my spine. Lying on top of the now crushed bush, I feared the worse. Moving only pushed the thorns deeper into my skin.