Ola Shakes It Up

by Joanne Hyppolite

  “So how was it?” I asked when Aeisha didn't answer me the first time. I wanted to see if she felt the same way I had all day— like we were onstage acting, with the whole school for our audience. I wanted to know if she thought the same way I did about the colors being different here. I couldn't get used to seeing so many blue-, green- or gray-eyed people, and hardly any of the girls had short hair. None of them wore braids like me. But most of all I wanted to get Aeisha's opinion on this whole gangster thing and see if it bothered her as much as it bothered me.

  Aeisha shrugged and looked out the window. She wouldn't say anything else the whole way home. She must have had a really bad day, too, 'cause she didn't even read her romance novel on the way, though I knew she had packed one that morning. She just flipped through the pages of her new books. None of the other kids on the bus said anything to us, but a few of them stared. When we got off the bus, I heard somebody say, “Bye, black girls,” and start laughing, but when I turned around, I couldn't tell who it was. Aeisha pulled me off the bus without saying anything and started walking fast to our house. I walked more slowly because, first, I wanted to see if Aeisha could even find our house, and second, I was watching Otis. He'd gotten off the bus with us and was trying to keep up with Aeisha—which wasn't easy to do with his shoelaces untied. A couple of times I thought he was going to crash on the sidewalk and break his head.

  “Who's that?” I heard Aeisha ask ahead of me.

  I turned to see what she was talking about and noticed an old lady and an old man staring at us from the windows of their house. They both had gray hair and pink, wrinkled skin, and both of them were frowning at us.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Stern,” I heard Otis say. It was the first time I'd heard him speak, and I was surprised that he didn't have a high, squeaky voice to go with his appearance. His voice sounded normal. “They watch everybody.”

  “How come?” I asked, catching up with them.

  “They're in charge of the neighborhood association,” Otis said, as if that explained everything.

  I looked back at them one more time. They didn't look very friendly.

  Aeisha found our house with no problem. She didn't even have to look at the number. When we all got to the front door, she pulled me inside and turned around to say, “Go home, Otis,” before shutting the door in his face.

  I dropped my school bag, patted Grady, who was sitting at the bottom of the stairs, and went straight to the big window in the living room to see if Otis had listened to her. Sure enough, Otis was walking away from our house slowly. When he got to the sidewalk, he turned around to look back, as if to see whether Aeisha was really gone. Then he crossed the street and walked right into the house across from us. The same one Mrs. Spunklemeyer had gone into.

  Otis was one of our neighbors.

  “Aeisha!” I shouted, turning around. I didn't see Aeisha anywhere, but her new sneakers were sitting at the bottom of the stairs. “The kid across the street who left his bike outside is Otis! Can you believe it? He's a Spunklemeyer! Aeisha!”

  “Ola, what are you screaming for?” I looked, and there was Mama sticking her head out from behind the kitchen door. Boy, was I glad to see her.

  “Aeisha's got a boyfriend and he lives right across the street. He must be one of Mrs. Spunklemeyer's kids,” I said, coming into the kitchen and giving her a tight hug. “And something's bothering Aeisha, but she won't tell what it is. When do we get out of here?” I'd given this neighborhood and this school a chance and it hadn't worked.

  Mama cocked her head to one side and rolled her eyes. “Do you ever give up?” Her hair was pulled back into a big, bushy ponytail and she was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, 'cause she'd spent the day unpacking.

  “Mama—” I was about to explain my whole day at school when I noticed who else was in the kitchen. With all this school stuff, I'd forgotten about Lillian. She was unpacking pots and pans and putting them in one of the cabinets. She had on an ugly green-and-white polka-dot dress that looked like it used to be somebody's party dress, and gray sweat socks pulled up to her knees. I wondered who'd given her all those strange clothes.

  Khatib was in the kitchen, too, perched on one of the stools, and I could tell that he was trying not to laugh every time he looked at Lillian. Then I noticed that Khatib had a big plate of rice and peas sitting right in front of him.

  “Hey, Ola,” Khatib said in between mouthfuls.

  I walked over to look at his food and sniffed. It smelled a lot like Mrs. Gransby's food. “Where'd you get that?”

  “Lillian made it,” Mama said, smiling at Lillian.

  I looked over at Lillian and saw that she was opening and closing one cabinet door. She did it several times, like she was trying to figure out how it worked. Then she stuck her head inside the cabinet to look at the latch. Weird. I thought it was kind of unfair that she got to spend the whole day with Mama by herself while I had to go to school. But on the other hand, if she could make rice and peas like Mrs. Gransby, then maybe she was worth keeping. I walked over to stand by her and said, “Hi, Lillian,” in a really loud voice.

  Lillian looked down, surprised, and I got my first look at her eyes. They were cat-shaped and a dark molasses color. They were beautiful, but they also were very sad.

  I turned away and walked back to Mama. I needed another hug but I didn't want to look like a baby in front of Khatib. Mama was reading something on a piece of paper and not paying any attention to me.

  “What's that?” I asked, leaning against her.

  “It's the rules for the development. Mr. Stern from the neighborhood association dropped them off.” Mama was frowning deeply. I wasn't surprised. Anything Mr. and Mrs. Stern dropped off couldn't be good. I leaned in to look at the paper, too, and my mouth dropped open. The list was a page long and had fifteen rules typed out in bold black letters. Right at the top was the one I already knew, about not hanging your clothes out in the yard, but there were a bunch of crazy rules, too, like not having visitors after 10 P.M., not having parties without informing the neighborhood association, and no playing outside except in the backyard. The worst one was the curfew for kids. No kids under sixteen could be outside after dark. There was also a whole bunch of recommendations on how often to cut your grass and what kind of flowers to plant in the spring.

  I sniffed. “We have to follow all these rules?”

  “It's for the good of the neighborhood. Keep it a safe place.” Mama sighed. “It won't kill us to follow a few rules.”

  “So we can't play in the street and I can't go outside after seven o'clock?” I asked. Mama and Dad wouldn't let me go out after dark anyway, but that was a family rule, not a neighborhood rule. Whose business was it if Mama and Dad did let me stay out late or we hung a clothesline in our own backyard or we wanted to plant purple petunias instead of dogwoods?

  Mama put the paper away and got up to take a plate out of one of the cabinets. “How was school?”

  I climbed up on the stool opposite Khatib. I'd almost forgotten about how awful school had been. I started complaining right away. “They stuck me with Anna Banana and the ding-dong girls and nobody except this girl River talked to me.”

  “That's nothing. They're making me take a modern-dance class,” Khatib muttered between mouthfuls of rice. “For PE. I have to wear tights.”

  I dug into the plate of rice and peas that Mama placed in front of me. “That's nothing. Everybody stared at me in homeroom, and the ding-dong girls acted like they were scared of me.”

  “That's nothin'.” Khatib put his fork down. “After my try-out I heard one of the guys on the team say that I would make the team 'cause I'm black.”

  “Small potatoes,” I said. “Some boy at school called us ‘stupid new kids,’ and then some other boy on the school bus said, ‘Bye, black girls,’ when we got off the bus. And this girl River said everyone thinks we came here because our old neighborhood was too dangerous. The whole school probably thinks we're gangsters.”

  Mam
a sat down on the stool next to me. She was frowning. “Are the two of you okay?”

  Khatib and I looked at each other carefully. I was okay, I guessed. It didn't so much hurt me what people at school thought about me, but it did bother me a lot. I could tell Khatib felt the same way.

  “Because you know that all that comes from just plain ignorance.” Mama put her hands on my shoulders and squeezed gently. “When people get to know you for who you are, those perceptions will die down.”

  “What if they don't?” Khatib asked quietly.

  “Then we'll deal with it.” Mama nodded. She said it just as quietly as Khatib, but I knew that Mama's kind of quietness meant business. I started to feel a little better.

  “Did anything good happen to you two today?” Mama picked up the list of rules and started frowning again.

  Khatib and I looked at each other.

  “I made the team.” Khatib shrugged.

  “The school has a swimming pool.” I shrugged, too.

  Both of us were quiet after that. Lillian had finished unpacking one of the boxes and went to the other side of the kitchen to get another one. She picked it up like it weighed nothing and carried it back.

  Then I heard Mama sigh and say, “Well, it's a start.”

  But the start of what? So far it had been a horrible day, and worrying about what everybody thought about me at school had left me feeling restless. Watching Mama read the rules, I started to get an idea. Mama wasn't the only one around here who could take care of business.

  t four o'clock in the morning it was pretty dark outside.

  I looked around our huge backyard and shivered. It was freezing. The wind was making a soft rustling sound as it blew through the trees, and my sneakers made a squishing noise as I walked across the wet grass. It was kind of scary out here in the dark. All the lights in the house were off, and the little bit of moon that was out made everything look shadowy. I was breaking two of the neighborhood rules by being out here, but I was gonna show this neighborhood that the Bensons didn't have to follow anybody's rules but their own. For now, this house was our house and what we did in it or around it was our own business.

  I reached down to pat Grady, glad that I had thought to bring him along. It made me feel better that I wasn't out here all alone. I had given Grady careful instructions to let me know if he smelled anyone or anything.

  I moved toward the right side of the yard, close to the fence, which went all the way around the yard. Grady followed behind me. He sat down and watched while I pulled my old super-deluxe long jump rope and a black T-shirt out from under my jacket and tossed them on the grass. Grady stood up and went to sniff them, then looked at me with his ears perked. I could tell he wanted to know what was going on.

  “I'm gonna hang up our new clothesline, Grady,” I whispered. I wasn't sure why I was whispering, but it seemed appropriate.

  Grady smiled. Or at least he looked like he was smiling. He stuck out his tongue and panted. I patted his head, but I couldn't feel his soft fur through my thick mittens.

  I picked up one end of the jump rope and turned toward the huge maple tree that stood next to the tall brown fence. I had to hang the clothesline high enough so that the neighbors would see it, which wasn't going to be easy since the fence was way taller than me.

  I started to climb up the tree slowly, thinking about what a good thing it was that I was the best jungle gym climber to come out of Roxbury. I had never really climbed a tree before, but it couldn't be much different. In the dark, it was hard finding spaces big enough to put my foot on, but I managed to feel around until I did. Below me I could hear Grady making soft whimpers. He was probably scared that I was going to fall down and break my neck, but he didn't know that, being the best jungle gym climber, I knew exactly how to fall so that I wouldn't get hurt.

  Grady let out a yelp, and I looked down. He really was worried about me.

  “I'm okay, Grady,” I whispered loudly He was going to wake somebody up and blow my whole plan.

  As soon as I'd climbed high enough so I could see over the fence, I looked around for a big branch to tie one end of the jump rope to. I was surprised to see that there were some icicles on some of the branches. It was colder than I thought. Finally I found a big branch, and I swung one end of the jump rope around and knotted it. Now all I had to do was tie the other end to the fence a little ways over.

  Grady growled.

  Uh-oh.

  I looked down, hoping it wasn't Mama or Dad.

  “Well, hello there, young lady.”

  I froze, hugging the tree. The voice came out of nowhere.

  “Now, now, don't take fright and crack your head fallin' outta that tree.”

  Slowly I turned my head. There was an old man looking up at me from the corner of the neighbor's yard. He had long straight white hair that reached his shoulders, and a baseball hat on his head. It was so dark I couldn't see the rest of his face.

  “Haven't had us a tree-climbing accident since last summer. Believe it was young Rosemary fell outta that tree in the town center.” The old man kept talking and looking up at me. “Cracked her head good enough for four stitches. Rosemary Atkinson. Family's been around here since the Civil War.”

  Great. Another person with a history lesson about Wal-cott. I looked carefully at the old man and saw that he was wearing nothing but his bathrobe, pajamas and bedroom slippers. He was gonna freeze.

  “Mister, what are you doing out here?” I asked curiously. He was the first person I'd met in this neighborhood besides Otis.

  “Nightwatching.” The old man shook his head. “Always nightwatch this time of year.”

  “What are you watching?” I asked. Was he senile? Mr. Roland from our old neighborhood is senile. He still thinks he's a general in the army during World War II. He calls all of the neighborhood kids “private” and is always ordering everyone off the street because of incoming bombs.

  But the old man looked at me like I was the one that was crazy. “I'm watching the night. Believe I said that already.”

  “You're our neighbor?” I asked. This neighborhood was getting weirder by the second. First Mrs. Spunklemeyer and Otis. Now this old man. They should rename this place WALCOTT CORNERS: WHERE THE STRANGE AND THE SENILE RESIDE.

  “Moses Elijah.” The old man bobbed his head. “And you would be … ?”

  “Just Ola.”

  The old man stepped back a couple of feet and whistled. “Lotta ice on that tree, Just Ola.”

  “No —it's just Ola. Not Just Ola.”

  “Believe that's what I said.” The old man was looking at me like I was crazy again. “Mind if I ask you what you're doing climbing trees before sunlight?”

  “I'm hanging a clothesline.” I didn't bother to make up anything or explain why. Even if Mr. Elijah did tell someone about the clothesline, that was exactly what I wanted.

  “Right smart idea,” he mumbled. “Time was when every family in Walcott had a proper clothesline in the yard. Never did see one hanging from a tree, though.”

  “It's a special clothesline.” I checked Grady and saw that he was sitting by the tree, still whimpering. “Grady's worried about me. I gotta go, Mr. Elijah.”

  “Well, Just Ola, I'll wait and see that you get down outta that tree all right, and then I'll be gettin' back to my night-watching.” Mr. Elijah bobbed his head again.

  I didn't bother to correct him about my name. I knew that senile people believe what they want. We never could convince Mr. Roland that we were kids instead of soldiers. I smiled as I looked for a place to put my foot. It had been Margarita's idea to turn the whole thing into a game. Every time Mr. Roland told us about an incoming bomb, all of us would start running like crazy. Some of us would fall and pretend we were wounded. When Mr. Roland said it was safe, he would order us to go back in and help the wounded back to camp. I stuck my foot into a hole in the middle of the tree and moved down a little. Thinking about Margarita made me remember my phone call to her that after
noon. She'd told me the “Martians” had moved into our house already but not to worry, 'cause she and Karen were looking for a bigger house right in Roxbury for us to move into, since we had a dog and Lillian now.

  “Now, pay attention to what you're doing, Just Ola,” I heard Mr. Elijah call.

  “Don't worry, Mr. Elijah,” I called back. I wasn't too far from the bottom now. “I'm the best jungle gym climber to come —”

  The next thing I knew, I was pressed facedown in the cold, wet grass with Grady running around me in circles and barking like crazy.

  “I was doing my usual nightwatching,” Mr. Elijah chuckled, lifting his mug of hot chocolate and sipping from it, “when I thought I saw a bear cub climbing up that big old maple tree in your yard.”

  Mama and Dad were both frowning deeply as Mr. Elijah talked. I picked up the hand mirror and looked at my face again. Mama had brought it down for me and ordered me to look what I'd done to myself.

  “Haven't seen a bear in Walcott proper since that circus accident in 1973, when all them animals ran loose around the town.” Mr. Elijah's face creased into a smile.

  I stared at my left cheek, which was all swollen up, and the long red scratch on the top of my forehead. At least it was only my face. The big winter coat, gloves and boots had protected the rest of me. Climbing trees and climbing jungle gyms were two whole different things.

  “As I got up closer to the tree there, I realized it wasn't a bear at all. It was a Just Ola!”

  While Mr. Elijah cracked up, I considered reminding Mama and Dad that they were breaking the neighborhood rule about no late-night visitors. Then I decided that the less I said, the better off I'd be. Mama and Dad were both giving me looks to kill. Mama had already spread ointment on my face and checked all my limbs to see that I hadn't broken anything. Once she and Dad realized that I was okay, they had started getting mad.

  “Just what in the world were you doing?” Mama exploded.

  “My jump rope got stuck in the tree,” I explained quickly. I'd had plenty of time to think of something while Mr. Elijah told his story. I knew that if I told Mama that I was doing this all for her, she wouldn't believe me.