by Jane Kurtz
Dakar tried to squeeze something out of her mouth, but nothing came. “Come to my house this afternoon and tell me everything,” she wanted to say to Melanie. Or, “Let’s have another sleep-over at your house. I know a lot of other stories.”
But she couldn’t. How long would it be before Melanie found out that both Mom and Dad were gone? And Melanie’s mom was just the type to think she and Jakarta needed foster care.
Okay, Dakar thought as she walked on. A mongo important thing, Melanie’s cousin had said. What if Mom knew how well Jakarta was doing? Would she come home to help cheer Jakarta to victory? If Mom wouldn’t come home for that, what was the chance she would ever come home at all?
No. Stop. Don’t think that way. Dakar concentrated fiercely in the rest of her morning classes, as though she had built a box in her brain and could keep that thought inside. But at lunchtime, as she started toward the cafeteria, feeling hungry and a little shy about the way the whole middle school seemed to be buzzing with talk about the game, she couldn’t keep the thought out of her head anymore. Mom and Dad were getting a divorce. Mom was never coming back.
“Are you that Tarzan girl’s sister?” a boy asked her. Dakar made a face at him. For a moment she wanted to stand up on the table and shout, “Yes, she’s my sister, and her name is Jakarta.” Another part of her wanted to hide under the table until lunch was over. She put her head down as she pushed the tray along its grooves. Don’t think. Don’t think.
“Africa child.”
Dakar jerked her head up.
“Africa child, aren’t you going to say hello?”
“Why—why are you here?” Dakar asked.
The cook gave her hips a self-satisfied pat. “You think Pharo would let me stay away with winter coming on? And miss this team he’s been talking about? No, I was sitting in the sun, having such talks with my baby sister, but Pharo wouldn’t leave me alone. He kept sending me postcards. ‘You have to come home,’ he kept writing. So here I am.”
Dakar glanced behind her. She was holding up other people in line. How embarrassing. She rushed over to put her tray on the milk cart and trotted back to the kitchen. “Why did you decide to go, after all?”
“Got a call that my baby sister was sick,” the cook said. “And I got to thinking about how you said that God was candlelight. And what about God showing up in the Bible as a dove? Birds fly, I thought. And that little Africa child flies. Aren’t you ashamed to not be as brave as a child? Maybe there’s a time to be anchored down and a time to fly.”
The cook thought she was brave? Dakar shook her head. Not even biting on her thumb could keep away the tears in the corner of her eyes. “Why didn’t you say good-bye?” she whispered.
The cook clicked her tongue softly. “Africa child, you’ve been all curled tight around your feelings, hiding them away,” she said. “I can see you’re starting to uncurl a little bit. That’s good. Life is already a dry and weary land without hiding your true self away from the people who care about you.”
Okay, she had been curled tight, Dakar thought, hunched over her tray at one of the back tables. Just like a water baby. But what happened if you uncurled? Your insides were all bare and unprotected. Those bare insides helped you be close to other people, but then what happened to the people you cared about? Hoodies got them. Or you had to leave them behind.
For the rest of the day she imagined herself tucked inside a turtle shell, a nice, strong, safe shell. The only time she poked her head out was when Mr. Johnson asked her a question in math class. As Dakar opened her mouth to answer, Melanie turned around, and for the second time that day they were suddenly looking right at each other.
Had she made it up, Dakar wondered later, or did Melanie sign, “Are you okay?”
SIXTEEN
The snow had stopped by the time Dakar stood by the bus and watched the basketball team load its gear. She hugged Jakarta, not caring who saw. “Make a thousand points,” she whispered.
Jakarta laughed. “Okay. Don’t worry about shoveling snow or anything. It’s not like we have a car to get out of our driveway.”
When Dakar got home, the wind was starting. Even after she was inside, she could hear it slithering around the house, moaning at the cracks. She set to work cleaning everything she could think of, liking the solid feel of her hands in soapy water. In Africa they always had house workers. Everyone did—not just the ferenji, mzungu, khawaaga but middle-class African families, too. So she didn’t really know much about cleaning, but it was kind of fun, and it made the time pass.
She ate cold cereal for supper, reading in between bites. Too bad Mom and Dad thought television was mind rot. Mostly she didn’t miss having one, but tonight she could use the sound of another voice.
When she got to the end of the chapter she was on, she checked her watch. Jakarta would be warming up now. “Loose as a goose,” she whispered, concentrating on Jakarta’s arms, her legs, her arms. It was Jakarta’s mind that had to stay the most loose. Dakar had seen Jen and Beth get nervous, once they finally got sent in, and miss shots they always made in practice.
At seven-thirty she went to the front door and poked her head outside. The game would be starting. Dakar concentrated on that moment when everything was possible, the two centers crouched, all the focus and energy sucked into the whirlpool created when the ref bent down to toss the ball in the air. “Go, Jakarta,” she shouted. The air was fuzzy with snow.
“See, I’m fine,” she said out loud. She shut the door and locked it. And for a long time she was. She didn’t want to go upstairs without Jakarta, so she made a nest on the downstairs couch and curled up there with her books. It was only later, later when the wind just wouldn’t stop howling and seemed to have grown scratching fingers, that she got scared. What if an escaped convict had gotten away from the nearest prison (wherever that was) and was scratching at the door, working his way inside? What if a snake was crawling up the shower drain? What if …
She dashed upstairs for supplies—two blankets, her pillow, books, and candles—and rushed back down slip-sliding her hand along the banister so she wouldn’t tumble. In the living room she put her pillow over her head and tried to think. Melanie’s cousin had said Jakarta was about to set a record. Even though she’d joined the team late, she was about to make more points than any girl in the whole, entire school, ever.
Jakarta would surely stay around then, especially if Mom and Dad were here to cheer her on and tell her how great she was doing. Don’t give up. Don’t give up, O ye of little faith. But what to do? She dug in the bookshelves until she found a book of Psalms. She closed her eyes, opened the book, and pointed her finger without looking. Psalm 137. “By the rivers of Babylon—there we sat down and there we wept when we remembered Zion. On the willows there we hung up our harps. For how could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” Dad must feel that way living in Cottonwood—even if Dakar had never seen a moth that had a harp to hang up.
“Foo,” she told the psalm. But it was zero help in figuring out what to do. She felt foolish. In boarding school one of Dakar’s roommates said she’d heard of someone who tried this and put his finger on “Judas went out and hanged himself.” He shut the Bible, opened it again, and put his finger on “Go thou and do likewise.”
She lit a candle. “Trust the universe,” she chanted. “The universe is goodness all around you.” Was that the same thing as saying, “The earth and the firmament are full of the glory of God”? People were always trying to find the words to wrap around the mysteries. “Trust the universe,” she said again. She hated the sound of her out-loud voice in the empty living room. And the candle made scary shadows. She blew it out.
When the phone suddenly rang, her stomach lurched. Mom! A half second later she realized this was her chance. Pharo had told his mom, “You have to come home.” It might be selfish, but she could do that, too. Who made Jakarta boss of how everything should be? Yes! she thought as she ran to pick it up.
“Dakar?” It was Dad’s
voice, faraway and faint. “How’s it going?”
She wanted to say, “I’m scared. Really scared,” but how could you say that to someone who would say, “It is a poor life in which there is no fear”? Had the kitchen door just moved? She watched it carefully. No. Must be the light in here.
“Dakar?”
“I’m okay,” she said. “What are you doing?”
“We’re staying in a house for the weekend, so I’m finally near a phone. The camps are bad. People are desperate for blankets. We’ve heard aid is getting to Guatemala City, but it’s not reaching the camps, so two of us are off tomorrow to find out what we can about that.”
Dakar felt a sudden tenderness curling up her throat. Dad always could be counted on to leap to the defense of anything that couldn’t fight for itself.
She listened to him talk about the camps, and suddenly he said, “How are my resourceful girls? Is your mom back yet?”
“Please come home,” she wanted to say. “I don’t feel resourceful anymore.” She said, “We’re doing okay. Do you think most of the people you’re trying to help will end up okay?”
After she hung up, she frowned at the telephone. Stupid universe—made the wrong one call. Well. She checked the clock. Jakarta would be home soon. It was already ten and the game should be over.
Something outside clunked against the side of the house, and Dakar inched to the window and tried to see out, her heart pounding like a loud, annoying song. All she could see was snow. Then the phone rang again.
This time it was Jakarta calling to say that the bus was stuck. “One of my teammates let me use her cell phone. Coach says there’s probably whiteout conditions wherever there are open fields between here and Cottonwood.” The phone crackled for a moment. “He says it might be a dangerous, slow-going trip. Don’t wait up.”
“D-dangerous?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Jakarta said impatiently. “Hang on a second.” The phone went silent, and then Jakarta’s voice came back on. “See. Coach just said we’re not even going to try to drive home tonight. Lock all the doors and hop in bed, okay? I have a whole team to help figure out where we’re going to sleep.”
Dakar made herself a cup of cocoa as if filling up her stomach would help fill up the empty hole inside. Back in the living room she curled up with her cocoa and tried to read again. This time her mind kept buzzing every time she turned a page. What were those clunking sounds?
She dragged two chairs into the living room and managed to drape her blanket so that it made a tent. There. Now she didn’t have to look at the whole big living room. “I’m fine,” she whispered. And Jakarta, who had a whole team to help her figure things out, would definitely be fine. She snaked her arm out of the tent, grabbed her lists and thoughts book, and wrote, “I wish I had a team.”
1. Mom and Dad would be on my team.
2. The problem is that Dad is in Guatemala and Mom is on some North Dakota farm.
3. You live in the U.S. now, Dakar. Have you ever heard of such a thing as long-distance calls?
4. I’ve never made a long-distance call before.
5. That is so stupid. You are in sixth grade. Sixth graders know how to make long-distance calls.
6. But I don’t.
7. Anyway, Aunt Lily doesn’t have a phone.
She snaked her arm out, again, and reached around for her pillow. There. She was an elephant, rooting around for everything she needed, using the delicate tip of her trunk to feel things out. “Did you know an elephant’s trunk has 150,000 muscles?” she wrote in her book.
With the second blanket wrapped around her and her head on the pillow, she closed her eyes and chanted softly to herself. “The universe is goodness all around me. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.” Think of something pleasant, some time when the four of them were together. She was back in Kenya sitting with Dad at their favorite camping place at Lake Naivasha. Perfect. She even had the tent.
Dad’s arm was around her shoulders, and he was pointing to an impala that stared for a moment and then pronked away, making both of them laugh. That afternoon they’d all gone hiking in the lower gorge. It was a supaloaf time until she started to read the guide they’d picked up at the gate. “If you cross to the far side of the dam,” it said, “beware! The deep pool at the head of the spring is guarded at times by a large black cobra!”
Then they were deep in the gorge, walking between walls so high that sometimes they could hardly see the sky. Jakarta was studying trails of eggs streaming out from the frogs they could see everywhere in the stream. Mom was pointing out a tall, glossy acacia tree she wanted to come back and paint. No one would pay attention when Dakar showed them the place in the guide that said, “You need to keep an eye on the weather. When there is a torrential downpour in the hills and cliffs above, the water starts racing from here for ten kilometres down the Njorowa Gorge, sweeping all vegetation, gravel, and even huge boulders before it.”
“Look,” she’d told them. “Look at the clouds.” But they wouldn’t look. Sure enough, they’d barely climbed up the last steps out of the gorge when the first fat raindrops had pelted them. Why didn’t anyone care about keeping this family all safe except for her? No wonder she had to worry.
Suddenly she was sick of it. She put her head on the pillow, tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes. No more quests. Enough.
After what seemed like hours and hours she had finally drifted off to sleep when a crash knocked her half awake. In her drowsiness she was sure she and Dad were on a camping trip, cautiously slipping from bush to bush, following the hippo trail. Dad pointed silently to the elephants about a hundred feet ahead, browsing in the trees. Every muscle in Dakar’s body felt tense.
One of the elephants raised his head, ears fanned. He poked his trunk in the air and looked straight at Dakar. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the trackers lift their rifles to Position One.
Dad was touching her arm. She unfroze and stepped behind a tracker. Slowly they all started walking backward. The elephant trumpeted, an air-shivering sound. He took several steps forward, pawing the ground. He took another step.
Dakar couldn’t breathe.
Then, in deadly silence, the elephant charged. Dakar was running, running backward. All she could think about was that she was going to trip. The elephant would be on them in perhaps six seconds when one of the trackers suddenly stopped, dropped to one knee, and fired over the elephant’s head. Pop, pop, pop, pop.
Dakar screamed and opened her eyes. Wait. She was in North Dakota. But what was that crash? Cautiously she poked her head out of the tent. Even with the light on, the living room corners were silver, whispering shadows. The insides of Dakar’s eyelids felt as if someone had just scrubbed them with a rough washcloth.
No! Dakar pulled her head back and started to pound the pillow with all her strength. Nooooo. She was just a kid. Maybe everybody did need for her not to need them, but it was just too, too much. She grabbed the pen and started to scribble.
1. I’m TIRED of being brave and resourceful.
2. I’m tired of having Donbirra eyes and hiding what I’m thinking from everybody.
3. I’m don’t WANT to be the hero of my own life anymore, no matter what Dad says.
4. I’m tired of being a princess and having to do impossible tasks. It is too HARD to keep the faith.
5. I want a T E A M. Team.
6. I give up. I give up. I GIVE UP.
SEVENTEEN
She woke up the next morning with the light still on and her fingers curled around the pen. Her eyes went right to the list. Don’t think. Don’t think. She crawled out of her tent and put on her coat and gloves.
Outside, she could see what the clunking and crashing had been all about. Branches. The snow must have been too heavy for them. She’d never seen a world turn white this way. She stomped down the sidewalk, amazed at the clear footprints her shoes left in the snow.
At Melanie’s house long icicles hung f
rom the eaves. Cool, Dakar thought, and laughed grimly at her own joke. She knocked on one of them with her glove, then shook it. It came off in her hand. She reached out and tapped it lightly on Melanie’s window.
The curtains wiggled. Dakar couldn’t see the expression on Melanie’s face. At least she didn’t see any purple on her hair yet. She held her breath. The face disappeared. A few seconds later the door opened.
“Melanie,” Dakar said quickly. It was so weird the way her breath really did puff out when she talked. “I don’t deserve for you to be my friend again because I know I was mean and rude. I’m only asking your help for one thing that I’m sure would help the Lady Wildcats out. One thing. A hard thing for me that would be easy for you, but by the way, you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
Please, she thought. Please be interested in helping the Lady Wildcats to victory.
“And here.” Dakar held out the icicle. “This is the sword of truth that you can impale me with if I’m not telling the total and absolute truth, and I’m not going to stop even one time.”
“Kid-hey!” Melanie said, reaching for the icicle. “Get in here.” Her eyes were zingy with excitement. “You mean, you’re having a real, true secret adventure and you even thought about not asking me?”
“Actually,” Dakar said, “I think it would work better if you came to my house.”
On the way, light-headed with relief, she explained everything.
“Wow,” Melanie said. “All right … it’s coming to me. I can see this calls for an adventuresome secret plan. How big is this town where your aunt Lily lives?”
Inside the house Melanie grabbed the cordless telephone and a phone book. “In there,” she said, waving at the tent.
“It’s a good place to scheme,” Dakar agreed. She felt like kissing Melanie’s hand.
“First, we need to make sure it’s the same area code.”
Dakar looked over Melanie’s shoulder. Next time she would know about area codes.