“It’s not my head. It’s my neck,” Hallelujah said tersely. “I didn’t have a concussion. I had whiplash from turning my head too quickly. Stupid rock almost hit me in the eye. And yes, my neck is better. But I’m not.”
I glanced around. “Where are Edward and Lucinda?”
Hallelujah shrugged. “Not here, I guess.”
“Hmm. Dorothy and Barbara didn’t come today either.”
Hallelujah’s shoulders drooped. “I feel like a failure. And a fool. Here I am bragging about Dr. Howard and how he moved the folks in Montgomery to take a stand. Now he’s running away like everyone else, like our little NYC,” he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
“I’m here.”
Hallelujah squinted at me. “Yeah. I’m surprised Miss Sweet let you out of the house.”
“She gave me enough licks from that strap of hers. Guess she figured that lashing oughta last me for a while.”
Hallelujah dropped his face in his palms. “I can’t believe I got you into all this trouble for nothing.” He moaned into his hands and said, “I was making fun of Shorty Cooper for wanting to shoot at white folks’ houses, but I bet he’s laughing at me now.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “He said he was proud of you.”
Hallelujah glanced up. “He did?”
I nodded. “He said that what we did took a lot of guts. He even begged me not to do it. He was worried I might get killed.”
Hallelujah exhaled an exasperated sigh. “I shouldn’t have been so puffed up with pride,” he said. “You were right. I was classing myself. I judged Shorty without bothering to get to know him.”
Hallelujah really looked like he might cry now. “I did the same thing,” I said quickly. “I judged him too. So stop beating yourself up about it.”
“I just can’t believe so much is happening right now,” he said, shaking his head. “Folks are getting killed. And I feel like we can’t do anything about it. Maybe that’s why Dr. Howard is leaving. Maybe the boycott isn’t enough. Maybe he doesn’t think it will change anything.”
“Or . . . maybe he’s going to Montgomery. You know, to help with the bus boycott.”
Hallelujah shook his head. “Nope. Either Chicago or California. The word is that he’s been spending a lot of time out there already.”
“California? That’s where Shorty’s mama is.”
Ignoring my comment, Hallelujah threw up his hands. “Why are we even doing this? What’s the point? We’re getting hit by rocks. People are getting shot. And fighters like Dr. Howard are packing up and leaving. Maybe that’s what we all should do—just pack our bags and leave.”
I shook my head. “You don’t mean that.”
Hallelujah nodded. “I do.”
“But even you said that we all can’t leave. Somebody has to stay and fight for those who really can’t leave.”
“Then maybe we should find a way for all the Negroes to leave the South,” Hallelujah said, his face set in a tight frown.
“You don’t mean that either,” I said. “Besides, I don’t want to leave. As crazy as that sounds. I feel like I have a right to live here, just like any white person.”
Hallelujah groaned.
I kept trying. “Don’t you like hearing the birds singing in the trees at dawn?”
“Birds are everywhere,” he answered.
“I bet whippoorwills aren’t. Don’t you enjoy hearing them sing in the evenings?”
Hallelujah rolled his eyes. “They’re noisy.”
“But isn’t the evening hoot of an owl peaceful?”
“Nope.”
I sighed. “Would you really want to live in the city with all those tall buildings and a bunch of concrete everywhere?”
Hallelujah answered crisply, “There’re some spacious places in the North, too. Every inch isn’t covered with tall buildings and concrete.”
“What about the nighttime? Don’t you like being able to go outside, stare up at the darkness, and see a sky full of stars?”
Hallelujah shrugged. “Stars are everywhere too. I can see them in Ohio just like I can see them in Mississippi.”
I threw up my hands. “I give up, Hallelujah Jenkins. Go ahead, run up north. Desert the people who need you. Desert them like your hero Dr. Howard is doing.” I gestured toward the lunchroom window. “Go ahead. Leave.”
“I wish I could feel the way you do. But I don’t right now.”
“I can’t believe I’m talking to the bravest boy I know, and you want to quit because somebody else has.”
“You don’t understand. I put so much faith in Dr. Howard. He was my hero.”
“Your daddy is always preaching about not putting our faith in man, not even him.”
With a sigh, Hallelujah said, “Because man will let you down.”
“So put your trust in?”
“God,” said Hallelujah. “And God alone.”
“Man can help us, but?”
With a slight smile and a tiny sigh, Hallelujah said, “Man can’t save us.”
I nodded. “Now you better get some food. Lunch’ll be over before you know it.”
He nodded toward my lunch sack. “I think we should both try to eat. No point in starving just because Dr. Coward is running away from the fight.”
I grabbed my biscuit from my lunch sack. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” I said.
“And I’m glad we’re all safe. At least it was only a rock that came at me and not a bullet.” Hallelujah paused, then winced. “And at least it hit me and not one of you. Edward was right behind me. It could’ve hit him.”
“It was terrible, regardless,” I said.
“But Edward’s mama and daddy might not have been able to take him to the hospital if he had gotten hurt,” Hallelujah said. He stared down at the table and was quiet for a moment. When he finally looked up, he had tears in his eyes. “It was bad enough I got everyone in trouble. I could never forgive myself if someone had gotten hurt.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Thursday, December 15
BECAUSE I WAS ALWAYS SO TIRED BY DAY’S END, I rarely had trouble falling asleep. But this night I tossed and turned, unable to block the turmoil of life’s events from my head.
Dorothy and Barbara returned to school that day, but they had avoided me. At lunchtime they returned to their usual spot. The others did the same. It looked like NYC had become the new MIA. We were officially missing in action.
And according to Hallelujah, so was Dr. Howard. Several newspapers reported that he had, indeed, left Mississippi. Sold eight hundred acres of his land. His house too. And was gone, just like that. To California.
“They will take me out in a wooden box,” he had said. Yet, he was leaving because he didn’t want to get killed.
If someone as important to the movement as Dr. Howard could leave, then who was I to stay? We were such chickens in Stillwater that one rock had caused us to run.
I was glad I hadn’t ripped Aunt Belle’s letter to pieces. I had pulled it from beneath my mattress—my hiding spot—several times over the last few days to read it. Well, one sentence of it anyway: Remember, the door is still open. Anytime you are ready, you can walk right through it.
I wanted other people to fight. I wanted Dr. Howard to risk his life. I wanted people like Rosa Parks—even that preacher, Martin Luther King—to take risks for me. I wanted people like Reverend Jenkins and my seventh grade teacher, Miss Johnson, to boldly speak of change and progression for the Negro in their classrooms. I wanted Miss Bertha to run a store and be hated by white folks for doing so. But there I was, thinking about leaving again.
When I flipped over for what was probably the twentieth time in one hour, Queen stirred and sat up in her bed. “You still woke?” she asked.
“Mm-hmm,” I said, rolling onto my back.
“You been to sleep at all?”
I propped my pillow against the wall and sat up in bed. “Nope. Been woke since I got in the b
ed.”
“Me too,” Queen said.
Her voice sounded unusually sad.
“The baby keeping you awake?” I asked.
“This baby and everything else. I ain’t slept in days.”
“You in pain?”
“Not my body,” Queen answered. “But my heart feel like somebody done tore it to pieces.”
“You still thinking about Jimmy Robinson?”
A choked sob cut through the darkness.
“Queen?”
Only broken sobs answered me.
I eased off my bed, careful not to make too much noise with my squeaking mattress and springs. I slid beside Queen and placed my arm around her shaking shoulders.
“Shh,” I said. “You don’t wanna wake Ma Pearl.”
“I don’t care,” Queen said. “She ain’t go’n do nothin’ but fuss anyway. That’s all she do all day. Fuss at me and Aunt Ruthie and these chi’ren. You lucky you get to go to school and don’t have to hear her grumblin’ and complainin’ all day.”
“That why you crying?”
“A lil’ bit,” Queen said, her crying calming down to sniffles.
“What’s the rest? You crying because Jimmy don’t come see you anymore?”
“I ain’t stud’n him!” Queen hissed.
“Then what is it?”
“I don’t want my baby—”
Fresh sobs broke her words. She snatched up her sheets and cried into them.
“Me and Aunt Ruthie will help you take care of the baby,” I said.
Queen shook her head from side to side. “Nah. That wadn’t what I was saying.” She sniffed. “I don’t want my baby growin’ up in this house. I wanna leave.”
“Maybe Aunt Belle could come get you.”
“She don’t want nobody but you,” Queen said with a hint of anger in her tone. “She ain’t go’n take no knocked-up girl like me to the city and shame her. She want somebody smart like you. Somebody she can show off to her city friends. Somebody to brag about.”
I pulled back from her. “Me? Why would she brag about me?”
“You smart and you got sense ’nuff to stay outta trouble.”
Even though she was complimenting me, there was still a bit of anger in her voice.
“And you did that thing Saturday,” she said. “You went to town with Hallelujah and marched with them signs. That’s something Baby Susta would do. She would be proud of you. Ain’t nobody proud of me.”
I didn’t know how to answer Queen. I was happy that she felt that way about me but sad that she felt that way about herself.
“Maybe you should write Aunt Belle,” I said. “Ask her if you could come to Saint Louis. You won’t know how she feels about you unless you ask. She might be proud of me, but it seemed like she liked you more. She brought you prettier clothes.”
“Them just clothes. They don’t mean nothin’. You the one she brags about.”
I couldn’t believe the next words that came out of my mouth. “She wrote me and said I could still go to Saint Louis if I wanted to. But I don’t want to. Maybe she’ll let you come in my place. Maybe after you have the baby. Maybe you could leave the baby with Aunt Clara Jean.”
“I wouldn’t leave my baby here. My baby goin’ wherever I go. I wouldn’t ever do my baby like my mama did me.”
I immediately felt bad for even suggesting such a thing. I knew that pain of being left behind. Just like Queen. Just like Fred Lee. Just like Shorty.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I wasn’t thinking.”
“I know,” Queen answered. “You was just thinking about what might be the best for me. A way for me to start a new life.”
“I guess so,” I said, shrugging.
Queen rubbed her stomach. “This baby is part of my new life, wherever that might be.” She sighed and scooted back down under her covers. “I need to try to get some sleep. You too. You still got school to go to.”
I trudged back to my own bed and sank under my covers. I was wide awake, not sure whether sleep would come to me at all. Despite the differences Queen and I had had in the past, I truly felt sorry for her. Sorry for her yet proud of her at the same time. Even if she cared for no one else, she cared for her child who would soon be born. She cared enough that she wouldn’t leave him—or her—behind and start a new life without him.
When I flipped to my side, trying to get comfortable, Queen stirred again. “Rose?” she called.
I sat up. “Yes?”
“Would you write her for me?”
“Aunt Belle?”
“Yeah,” Queen said, her voice sounding really sad. “Would you write her and ask her if she would take me and my baby in?”
Without a second thought, I answered, “Yes.”
Chapter Thirty
Tuesday, December 20
DESPITE MY OFTEN BLEAK CIRCUMSTANCES, the week of Christmas was normally a happy time for me. The house was always filled with the scent of baking cakes and the sounds of Christmas carols coming through the static of Ma Pearl’s radio. But the Christmas of 1955 was different. For one, Aunt Ruthie was there, and her cake business was thriving. Of course, that created a problem for Ma Pearl because the kitchen was where she spent most of her time during that week.
Aunt Ruthie had seven cakes to bake before Christmas Eve, and Ma Pearl was not allowing her to use her kitchen. It was early morning, only minutes after Slick Charlie had awakened us with a crow. School was out for the winter break, so I sat on the porch with Aunt Ruthie—despite the chill—and pondered how she would get cakes baked without a kitchen.
Quilts warmed the outside of our bodies while hot coffee warmed the inside. The sounds of slinging pots and pans traveled from the kitchen to the front porch, reminding us that Ma Pearl was now in command—her cakes would get baked, while Aunt Ruthie’s would not.
I took a careful sip of coffee but still burned my lip. “I bet Mrs. Robinson would have let Ma Pearl use her kitchen if she’d asked.”
Aunt Ruthie grunted. “That white woman don’t love her that much. She ain’t lettin’ her cook her own food over there.” She shook her head. “She can cook all the cakes she want for them, but I ain’t never heard of a white woman lettin’ a colored woman use her kitchen to cook for her own family.”
“Can you make the cakes at Miss Bertha’s house?”
Aunt Ruthie, sipping her coffee, shook her head. “How I’m s’posed to git to Bertha’s? I cain’t even git my own chi’ren to town to go to school.”
“Have you asked her?”
“Course I ain’t.”
“Maybe she’ll take you.”
Aunt Ruthie shrugged. “Too late now. How I’m s’posed to git in touch with her? We ain’t got no telephone. When she dropped off the supplies and the orders, I didn’t know Mama wadn’t go’n let me use the kitchen. Now I’m jest stuck.” She shook her head. “I got all these orders. All these peoples want me to make cakes for them for Christmas, and I don’t have no kitchen to work in.”
The Robinsons had a telephone. Papa had asked to use it occasionally when he needed to get in touch with Reverend Jenkins. Other than that, none of us had ever asked to use their telephone.
Aunt Ruthie glared at me from the corner of her eye. “No,” she said sternly. “I ain’t astin’ Miz Robinson to use her telephone.” She took a sip of coffee. “Besides, Papa says don’t ast the white folks for nothin’ ’less it’s a emergency.”
“This is an emergency, Aunt Ruthie! You’ve got seven cakes to bake and no way to bake them. You need to call Miss Bertha so she can pick you up and take you to her house.”
Aunt Ruthie only shook her head.
“Then how about Uncle Ollie,” I suggested. “Maybe he could give you a ride to town.”
“Girl, what I’m s’posed to do? Show up at Bertha’s sto’ and ast to go to her house and use her kitchen?”
After we both giggled for a moment, Aunt Ruthie sighed and stared in the direction of the Robinsons’ house. “
I guess I could walk on over there at a decent time after the sun all the way up and ast to use the telephone.” She shrugged. “Cain’t hurt nothin’. All Miz Robinson can do is say, ‘Yes, c’mon in,’ or ‘No, and don’t never come over here both’rin’ me again.’”
We both laughed again before taking sips of coffee.
Aunt Ruthie nodded. “I’ll jest call Bertha and let her know thangs ain’t goin’ too good here and see if I can come to her house. Thank I’ll jest git Ollie to take me ’stead of Bertha havin’ to come out here and git me.”
“Good for you, Aunt Ruthie,” I said. “And you know me and Queen and Fred Lee will watch the children while you’re gone.”
And with that, she smiled at me and said, “Now what ’bout you?”
“What about me?” I asked.
“Oh, Rose,” she said, holding her hand over her heart and shaking her head, “why you stay, baby? How come you didn’t let Belle come back for you?”
Aunt Ruthie’s words hit me like a surprise summer storm. I didn’t know what to say, so I simply shrugged and said, “I didn’t want to go to Saint Louis. I wanted to stay here. With my family.”
“Belle family,” Aunt Ruthie answered. “Aunt Isabelle too. And might as well say that ol’ talk-too-much Monty is family since they ’bout to be married soon.”
When I didn’t say anything, Aunt Ruthie said, “Rose, you could have a good life.”
“I—” I stopped. I couldn’t even force the lie out of my mouth. I didn’t have a good life. I had a miserable life. I had no mama. I had no daddy. I had a grandma who one minute acted as if she despised my very skin, then in the next minute acted as if she didn’t want to see any harm come to me because I was her own flesh and blood. Then there was Papa. He cared. He loved me more than anyone else did. Yet . . . I couldn’t bring myself to think the thought.
“You so smart,” Aunt Ruthie continued. “You could go to a good school.”
“I go to a good school,” I said. “We might have old stuff, but we have good teachers. Reverend Jenkins and Miss Johnson are very good teachers.”
Aunt Ruthie nodded. “That may be so. But what ’bout some o’ the others?”
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