Katani's Jamaican Holiday

by Annie Bryant

  As we sped away, I heard Ol’ Madda Bird screeching, “Thief! Thief!”

  “Dear God,” I whispered a quick prayer, “please, help us out of this jam! I promise I’ll never do anything bad again. I’ll even be really, really nice to Patrice.” Patrice was my bossy older sister, so that was a big promise. I kept repeating, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” the whole time we ran. I couldn’t even begin to imagine what Grandma would say about this if she ever found out.

  Who’s There?

  When we reached the bakery, we paused to catch our breath. We had been running so fast I could barely speak. After our breathing quieted a bit, Olivia grabbed my arm and whispered, “Come on! We can’t stop. We have to get away from here in case Ol’ Madda Bird woke anyone up and they’re looking for us!” I was sore from running, afraid that Ol’ Madda Bird would somehow know it was us, and feeling really bad about scaring her. This wasn’t an adventure anymore—now it was just trouble.

  As we ran past the bakery we saw a wavering light coming from the back of the building. I heard Olivia gasp, then she pulled me deeper into the shadows. We stood quietly, hardly daring to breathe; whoever it was with the light would have to pass right by us. The light went out as the person came near. Just then a mosquito buzzed in my ear so loudly, I reacted without thinking by slapping at it.

  “Who’s there?” a woman’s voice asked. Olivia stepped out into the road and shone the light on the person. “Precious!” she exclaimed. Then Olivia must have remembered how close we were to Selvin’s house because she lowered her voice to ask, “What you doing here this time of night?”

  “What you doing on the road, this time of night?” Precious hissed back at her. She was a sassy girl.

  Olivia, of course, could not answer. They stood facing each other for a moment, then Precious said, “If you don’t tell anybody you see me, I won’t tell anybody I see you, ’cause I know you up to some badness.”

  With that, she stalked off. Olivia and I watched her disappear into the darkness, but I thought I saw her climb into a blue SUV. We heard an engine start and the sound of a car driving away. That was weird. Was she meeting with Mr. Biggs again?

  “That was a stupid thing to do, shining that light. What if it was a thief!” I yelled at Olivia.

  “I wasn’t thinking,” she replied. “What we going to do now?”

  “Olivia, I know that SUV,” I told her. “I think it belongs to Mr. Biggs. I saw him sitting in it, talking to Precious, when we were walking back from church that day.”

  “You did? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You were so worried about the necklace, I totally forgot. But now I’m sure that Precious is a spy for Mr. Biggs! I mean, why else would she be sneaking around here with him at midnight? We have to go wake up Selvin and tell him right away.”

  “You mad!” exclaimed Olivia. “You forget why we are here?” She patted her pocket, where the necklace was safely stowed. “I just hope he didn’t damage it. Let’s just hurry home.”

  “But, Olivia—”

  “Katani, if we tell Selvin, then he’ll be asking why we are sneaking around here at midnight! Maybe it wasn’t Mr. Biggs’s SUV at all. It dark out here. Just forget about it.”

  We started off again, walking fast. I was still annoyed with Olivia, but now, with the mission accomplished, anger was beginning to give way to exhaustion and worry. I just knew there was something funny going on with Precious, and I was concerned about Ol’ Madda Bird. I remembered something Grandma Ruby always said: A lie is easy to tell and hard to manage. I felt awful. What a huge mess!

  “You think Ol’ Madda Bird is going to tell anybody?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Olivia replied. “She can’t know it’s us.” “I thought you said she was a powerful witch,” I answered sarcastically.

  “But she’s blind. She couldn’t see us,” Olivia answered nervously.

  “She recognized you on the way to church,” I reminded her. “Besides, she’s really old and we may have scared her half to death. I feel terrible about that.”

  Olivia stifled a sob.

  We didn’t talk much after that. As we got closer to home I began to pray that Spotty was not waiting for us and that I wouldn’t have to hear Olivia say “Run!” again that night.

  Fortunately, Spotty wasn’t around and we crept through the window and into bed. I was so tired that I didn’t even lay out my clothes for the next day as I usually did. I could only put on my pj’s and flop into bed. I wasn’t quite sure what time of night it was, but the last time I had checked it was already past one o’clock.

  After tossing and turning for a while, I tried to put my mind at ease so I could fall asleep. Maybe Olivia was right. Maybe that wasn’t really Mr. Biggs’s SUV. Anyway, there was no way we could tell anyone about it without getting ourselves in serious trouble. My last thought was that I was glad I wasn’t going to school with Olivia that day and could run over and check on Ol’ Madda Bird in the morning.

  CHAPTER 14

  Man-Eating Goats and Inspiration

  Bright sunlight filled the room when I woke up, which meant that Olivia had already left for school. She must be so tired, I thought sympathetically. Then I thought, Serves her right for dragging us into this mess.

  I turned over, hoping that I could snooze for a little while longer. Crazy visions of flying wooden birds had kept me up all night, and I was sooo tired. All I wanted was sleep. Thankfully, there was a warm breeze wafting through the window, and I could hear the sounds of the laundry drying in the wind. It was like a TV commercial hypnotizing me back to sleep: “Relax, Katani. You’re in Jamaica. Go to sleep. Last night was just a dream. Sleep…sleep…” My eyes closed to the happy images of dolphins leaping through the air in ballerina costumes.

  Then suddenly I felt a slurpy tug at my shirt. Yuck! I rolled over toward the window and reached up to free my shirt. Groping around, my hand hit something soft and warm. And furry. My eyes flew open. Two big glassy eyes and a wet nose were looming over me. “Maaa!” it croaked.

  I tried to leap out of bed to get away from this pj-eating-creature, but it had a hold of my shirt and wouldn’t let go. I shook my shirt back and forth and grabbed my pillow and began beating the monster…the monster goat, that is. Spotty, forelegs on the window, his head actually inside the room, was making breakfast out of my pj top—my favorite pj top, in fact. He made a low growling sound again. “Ma-a-a-a.” That was it!

  I managed to yank my pj’s from Spotty’s mouth and ran screaming from the room straight for the kitchen, where I knew I would find Enid.

  “Spotty was at the window trying to eat my pj’s,” I yelled as I burst in, only to come face-to-face with Grandma Ruby, who was sitting at the kitchen table, calmly reading a newspaper.

  She looked at me over her glasses. “Good morning, Katani,” she said with a smile.

  “Grandma,” I shouted. “That old goat wants to eat me alive.” I couldn’t believe that she was just sitting there so calmly after her precious granddaughter had been attacked by a man-eating goat.

  “That Spotty too smart for a goat,” Enid exclaimed. “Him get away again last night. You know,” she continued, shaking her head, “one time that ol’ goat up and go to church! We all sitting in the pews, just as quiet as can be, when all of a sudden we hear this scratchy sound at the back. Well, we turn around, and what do you know? Spotty come walking up the aisle like him was some kind of king! Him wearing Miss Mary’s hat, too, that she lost in the wind the week before, just like it’s a big, shiny crown. I never laugh so hard in my life!”

  So that was the Spotty story that Olivia and Selvin were cracking up about! Enid chuckled and went on. “Yesterday Mr. Selvin say him would tell Fitz to come for him and fix the pen. I gwan chase him away now.” She reached for the bobo dread broom and took off like a ninja warrioress. I wouldn’t want to be that Spotty right now.

  “Good,” I harrumphed. “At least someone knows how mean and nasty that goat is.”
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  “Katani, sit down and have some Bliss. Goats don’t eat people,” Grandma said with a laugh.

  Grumbling, I sat down and poured a glass of milk and helped myself to a giant slice of Banana Bliss. I took a big bite. It was a piece of pure banana happiness. At least my stomach was going to feel okay this morning.

  “Him gone now!” Enid returned to the kitchen carrying the pile of clothes that Olivia and I had left all over the floor. They still had little bits of grass and stuff stuck to them from when we ran to get away from Ol’ Madda Bird’s house.

  I saw Grandma Ruby glance over at the pile of grubby clothes in Enid’s arms. I hoped she wouldn’t think anything about it. No such luck. She stared at me over her reading glasses and said, “Katani, if you and Olivia are up to something, I suggest you tell me now. Olivia was so tired, she could barely stumble out the door this morning.”

  What could I say? I knew she was right. It was just that I was going to have to work up to spilling the beans. This wasn’t like I had gone to the candy store without persmission or anything. This was the kind of thing parents grounded you forever for.

  After a moment she said, “Well, just remember that what gone bad a mawning, cyan come good a evening.”

  I looked at her with a bewildered expression. The patois just didn’t sound right coming from the mouth of the principal of Abigail Adams Junior High in Brookline, Massachusetts.

  “I’ve been working with Miss Gloria in the bakery. She has a saying for every situation,” Grandma explained, shrugging. “Get dressed now. After breakfast we’re going with Selvin into Kingston.”

  “Why?” I asked without enthusiasm. I wanted to lounge around today and read in the hammock. Last night’s crime caper had really zapped me into Silly Putty.

  “Because, Missy”—Grandma pointed at me as she got up to wash her dishes—“Kingston is the capital city of Jamaica, and I am not going to miss seeing the sights. Besides, Selvin and I have a little business to do.”

  Suddenly the phone rang. Enid announced that it was Olivia, for me. I rushed to grab the phone from Enid’s hands. I hoped Olivia had good news.

  “Katani,” Grandma Ruby yelled after me, “what’s gotten into you?”

  “Sorry, Enid,” I mouthed as I pressed the phone to my ear. “Hello?” I said nervously, taking the phone into the next room. I definitely didn’t want Grandma or Enid to overhear this conversation.

  “I walked right by her house,” Olivia said immediately, speaking quickly in a low voice. “She just carving away like nothing had happened. That old mangy dog growled at me, but I growled back. Him not know what to do. But, Katani, that Ol’ Madda Bird yell out, ‘Olivia, Olivia that you?’ I didn’t answer. I just kept walking. I think we’re safe.” Before I could say anything, she added, “I gotta go ’cause this is my friend’s phone—see you this afternoon.”

  “Bye!” I blurted, right before she hung up.

  I was so relieved, I did a little dance. Surely Ol’ Madda Bird would have said something to Olivia if she’d recognized her from the night before. And she didn’t seem to have been hurt or anything. Now I could breathe easy. Just maybe nobody would find out about Olivia’s and my little adventure. But then I had another thought. I needed to tell Cousin Cecil and my grandma about Precious snooping around—but how could I without getting Olivia in trouble?

  Road Trip

  When Selvin heard about Spotty at the window, he laughed so hard, he had to pull the van over. “That’s some goat,” he said. “I told that Fitz to check the latch on his pen again. We can’t figure out how that devil manages to get out. I think him need to go in the movies.”

  “I think him need to go to jail. Him one baaaad, evil goat.” Both Selvin and Grandma howled at my attempt at patois. I was annoyed. I thought my accent sounded just like Enid’s.

  Selvin went on to tell us the latest local gossip. I sort of tuned him out since, after all, I didn’t know any of the people he was talking about…until he mentioned something about “thieves trying to get into Ol’ Madda Bird’s house last night.” I spilled some of my orange juice on my jersey before I could control myself.

  “That’s just terrible,” said Grandma Ruby. “Now who would do such a thing?”

  I had to fight hard to remain calm while Selvin told the story, which, he said, was all the talk in the village.

  Suddenly I started worrying again. What if Precious let it slip she’d seen Olivia and me? We really weren’t safe at all. Fortunately, Grandma Ruby was so interested in what he was saying that I don’t think either of them noticed that my left leg was shaking so much I had to hold it down.

  “First we deliver to a new client on the coast,” Selvin said, when he had finished the tale of Ol’ Madda Bird’s night-thieves. “Then we turn inland and travel over the mountain to Kingston.”

  We had barely turned onto the main coast road when a Mr. Biggs Better Banana Bread van passed us.

  “Follow that van!” Grandma cried so loudly that Selvin stepped on the brakes and threw us against each other before he realized what she had said.

  “Man, Aunt Ruby. You nearly mek me crash!” he shouted as he started up again. It was the first time I had ever seen Selvin flustered.

  “So sorry,”’ Grandma said, “but that man better not be going where we’re going.” I wondered what had got into her. The Grandma Ruby I knew definitely didn’t go around shouting lines that sounded like they came right from spy movies.

  Selvin tried to speed up, but our van wasn’t very new and when we came to a section where they were working on the road, we were stopped to allow the oncoming lane of vehicles to pass.

  “Oh, no!” I wailed, watching the big yellow van getting smaller and smaller. “They’re getting away!”

  By the time we started off again, it was impossible to catch Mr. Biggs’s van.

  “Sorry,” said Selvin. “They gone. Why you want to follow them?”

  “Selvin. Something is very wrong here. Everytime we go to deliver Bliss, Mr. Biggs is there before us. He seems to know everything we are doing. Perhaps it’s time we had a little talk with Mr. Biggs.”

  Selvin shook his head and said quietly, “Ruby, you sure are something.”

  I sunk down in my seat. Now was the time to tell them about Precious sneaking around the bakery in the middle of the night. But I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. If I told about Precious, she’d tell about Olivia and me for sure. I didn’t want to get Olivia in trouble…and, okay, I was afraid of how disappointed my grandma would be with me. Olivia had tied me to a promise I couldn’t break, and I understood why, but it could be important to tell Grandma and Selvin what we had seen. I knew that Grandma would be terribly upset if Precious really was spying for Mr. Biggs and I knew about it and never told her! “BSG, where are you?” I whispered to myself. “I’m in trouble.”

  “What did you say, Katani?” Grandma turned around.

  “I…I was just wishing the BSG were here. They would love to see all of this.” That, at least, was not a lie.

  “What’s a BSG?” asked Selvin.

  “Katani’s best friends at home. Lovely girls, all of them,” explained Grandma.

  I sat back in my seat and imagined a big bash with Charlotte, Avery, Isabel, and Maeve on Negril Beach, a seven-mile-long beach with the whitest Jamaican sand you ever saw. I thought I might invite Nick Montoya (the nicest boy at my school) and Dillon Johnson (the freshest boy, as Grandma Ruby would say) and, of course, the twin Trentini goofballs. If I was in a good mood, I would even invite Henry Yurt, aka the Yurtmeister, president of our class and the biggest clown you ever met. But only if he didn’t tease me about being so tall. I pushed away all my nerves about last night and consoled myself with visions of Beach Party BSG.

  The road was very curvy, and driving on it made me sleepy. Next thing I knew, Grandma was poking me to wake up and look at the spectacular sights, like the winding riverbed with a ribbon of water flowing through far below the road, moss-covered hil
ls, and bamboo groves. Who knew that Jamaica had bamboo?

  “Are you feeling sick, Katani?” she asked with that suspicious look on her face again. “Why are you so sleepy?” I tried to keep my eyes open after that.

  Eventually we came off a steep hill and entered Kingston. We drove down a long road past Jamaica House, which kind of looked like the White House in Washington, D.C. I took a picture for my friend Avery. She loved government stuff.

  Finally, we stopped at a huge, old mansion called Devon House. Selvin said they had ice cream—famous ice cream. My eyes lit up. Yum! Chocolate Crunch was my favorite in the world. This whole mess with Olivia, Ol’ Madda Bird, and Precious would have to wait.

  Devon House was ginormous and old. But every room was filled with antique furniture and lovely decorations. All of a sudden, a beautiful girl walked by wearing a tropical skirt, a white tank top, and these stylin’ silvery wedge sandals. My Project Runway mind started racing. I thought how cool it would be to have models dressed in the Kgirl Jamaica-inspired fashion collection parading around Devon House for a fashion show. I pulled out my Island Inspiration Notebook and started sketching right away.

  “Katani, no school now. You are in Jamaica,” Selvin called from the doorway.

  I sighed and put my notebook away with reluctance. I could have stayed in that room all day thinking about summer dresses and pareos. That’s what they call those long skirts you wrap around yourself when you’re on the beach.

  “Come on, girl. Ice cream a-waiting,” Selvin called again.

  I followed him outside. The tropical garden was covered with palms trees and these humongous large flowering shade trees. I wished the BSG were here right now. This place was perfect for a picnic.