Bluish

by Virginia Hamilton

  “Daddy? Do … do kids get sick … and die, I mean, real easily?”

  “No, not at all. Kids are tougher than anybody! Dreen, she’s in school with you.” And quickly, before she could tell him how scary it all was, he changed the subject. “You haven’t told me what you want for Christmas.”

  You won’t get what I want, she wanted to say.

  “You and your sister, remember? You get one special present each.”

  “Anything?”

  “Anything within reason.”

  “Well, what does that mean?”

  Her dad laughed.

  He knows what I want. What I’ve always wanted.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The Project

  DREENIE GOT TO CLASS just after Ms. Baker emptied her briefcase and put her lunch in her desk. “Well, good morning to you, Dreanne,” Ms. Baker said, calling Dreenie by her proper name. “We’re both the first ones today. I don’t know what I would do if I didn’t see you or Tulithia near the front of the morning!” She used Tuli’s full name, also.

  Grinning, “Yes, ma’am. Morning, Ms. Baker,” Dreenie said.

  Then Ms. Baker got busy with her work. And Dreenie went to the fake tree in the corner, on the couch side of the room, just beyond the double windows. She bent low behind the tree and was careful not to knock into any of the decorations. She found the plug and put it in the wall socket. Suddenly, tiny lights blinked: on, off, on, off, on, off, red, green, and white, over and over.

  “It’s magic, Ms. Baker!” Dreenie exclaimed. Straightening up, she stood still a moment to admire their tree.

  All week students had been bringing in ornaments for it. There was a Santa Claus and her own shiny reindeer that Dreenie liked the best. Ms. Baker had brought a kinara, the candelabra with seven branches, for the Kwanzaa holiday. It was on a bookcase. There was a small menorah for Hanukkah on a corner table. Bluish had brought that in. It had nine candles and nine branches. They had books in the bookcase about each holiday, Christmas, and Ramadan, too. Somebody had been eating the candy canes that Ms. Baker put on the tree. “Oh, I don’t mind,” she said, when Dreenie told her. “It’s the magic of the holiday spirit and a new year coming!” She added a few more candy canes each day.

  Dreenie could hear students in the lower, then upper halls. She heard lockers banging open, click-slamming shut. And then the rush and busy murmurings as students found their places. The littlest kids were in the downstairs classes. There was the muffled sound of school buses crunching frozen slush in front of the school building.

  Bluish!

  Dreenie took up her book bag and leaned in on the side of the couch. She sat there, in her place, as the building rang with sounds, echoing noise. She closed her eyes a moment. She could hear that some first-and second-grade classes downstairs were having a party, first thing. She got a whiff of a warm, sweet, cookie smell, rising on the air to the top floor and this fifth-grade double room.

  My new school—not new anymore! And my class. This, my corner, Dreenie thought, looking around. Always she thought that, first thing in the morning, claiming one corner of the couch.

  She took out her yellow pad about the project they would do. They had to decide about it. She would keep notes. But she wasn’t the one to write it all down. And she waited for the room to fill, warm and cozy with all the kids she knew. She had come to feel a good part of the whole. Even though she was closest to Tuli, she had no special friend yet. But she liked all her classmates. The students went to their lockers, one by one, or two by two, and then they came in. Rid of their coats. Cheeks flushed in a rosy glow.

  Two weeks had passed since Dreenie had told her mom about Bluish.

  If Bluish came today, she might stay for the whole day because of the project. A few times her mom had come for her when she’d had a doctor’s appointment. One time, on the spur of the moment, Dreenie had asked Ms. Baker to let her and Tuli see that Bluish got to the first floor, and she’d let them.

  So yesterday, when Mrs. Winburn came and waited downstairs, Dreenie and Tuli got on the elevator after Bluish. They made sure the door stayed open until her chair wheels were inside. They hung back on each side of her. She had her puppy with her, and they petted its head.

  “Lucky, you get to ride, too,” Dreenie had said, smiling. Looking down at the floor. Pretending she and Tuli were on the early shift for lunch. And not there just to watch out for Bluish.

  Well, they didn’t need to pretend. Bluish knew from the start. She’d looked up at them, in the half-minute it took to go down. Dreenie couldn’t say what the look was exactly. But she’d come to know the many different ways Bluish had of looking at you. Sad looks, afraid looks, and watchful ones. One of her mean looks could just cut into you.

  But yesterday, Bluish had looked pleased to have Dreenie and Tuli there. They’d reached the ground floor with Bluish. It was Dreenie’s turn to take hold of her chair and push it off the elevator. One time, Bluish had said, “I can do it.” Tuli had said the same thing. But Tuli would jerk the chair and scare Bluish. Sometimes, when Bluish was frightened, Lucky would bark. Rrrr-rrrr-rrr! it sounded like.

  “You tell me when you want one of us to push you,” Dreenie had told Bluish. Over a couple of weeks, there grew this way of talking and doing things between them. It blossomed and spread all over the classroom.

  It was as if Dreenie knew how to act toward Bluish. Never too close, never too far away. Never to put on being friendly, but always be yourself.

  “Hola, girlfren’!” It was Tuli, up right in her face.

  Dreenie jumped, startled, she’d been thinking so hard. “Tuli,” she said evenly.

  Tuli plopped down beside her on the couch. Kids were taking their places. They knew what to do. Ms. Baker and the college intern, Max McKee, had prepared them. They were to get started on special interest projects. In some way, they were to present something unique about their city.

  Max had helped them form into groups, four or five of them in a group. Dreenie, Tuli, and Paula, who came by bus, but she was allowed to take the subway sometimes. And Natalie.

  Bluish! Dreenie had asked for her when none of the other groups had. Today they would spend time discussing their projects. They had more than a week to research, collect data, write, and present. Ms. Baker said each one of them had an equal share in what they decided to do. “You’ll need to cooperate with one another,” Ms. Baker told them, once the class had settled in. “You’ll have to figure it all out, and agree about it. It would help if you would write down the agreement, just a few sentences. I’d like to see it.”

  Dreenie and Paula had the privilege of leaving the school grounds to walk over to Broadway. It was on file in the office that they could have lunch outside at one of three places approved by the school. Paula had thought up the project. Since they all knew Broadway, they would photograph some of what they saw every day. That would be their data. Dreenie wished she’d thought of it. All of them were eager to have it work.

  Bluish came in, always last when she came at all. Almost always the first to leave. Rolling in her chair right up to the couch. They all said hi to her. She had her puppy, Lucky, in her lap. He was wearing a little knit dog coat that matched Bluish’s hat.

  “So cute!” Tuli exclaimed.

  Bluish took Lucky’s coat off, but she didn’t remove her hat. It was a chartreuse-green and blue-and-red skull hat that pulled down over her ears. Dreenie thought the combination of colors made Bluish look paler, bluer.

  They talked about how cold it was.

  “Wish summer would hurry up,” Dreenie said. She smiled at Bluish. Reached over and petted Lucky.

  Bluish watched.

  Then they got down to work. First, they agreed that Paula should write down everything on her yellow pad because she had the best handwriting.

  “Okay, I’m ready to write the agreement,” Paula said, tossing her long, black hair. “What’s it to be?”

  “Let’s talk about who’s good at what,” Bluis
h said.

  “Yeah!” Dreenie said. “Tuli’s good at seeing everything on the street, and she can tell Paula a lot of things to write down.”

  “I know everything between here and 113th Street,” Tuli told them. “I kid you non!”

  “Knows everything and everybody. I’ve seen her,” Dreenie said, matter-of-factly.

  “Who could miss her?” Paula said dryly, writing it down. “Okay. Then what will you do?” she asked Dreenie.

  “I can take the pictures. I’ve used my dad’s camera before. It’s a good one.”

  She was about to ask Paula to be her backup when Bluish said, “I can help you.”

  “Really?” Dreenie asked.

  “I’m allowed to go outside,” she said in her squeaky voice. It seemed to come from deep inside of her. “Just so long as there’s somebody responsible with me.”

  Surprised, they couldn’t help staring at her. Pale little thing in a wheelchair, Dreenie thought. Well, why not?

  “We’ll have to take turns pushing you, then,” Paula said. “I don’t think I’ll be any good at that.” She fidgeted, looking away as Bluish smirked at her.

  “It’s not anything hard to do,” Dreenie said. They fell silent a moment, surrounded by the noise of other students talking, asking Ms. Baker and Max questions.

  “We need to figure out how it should happen from point to point,” Bluish said. Her bony hands roamed over Lucky’s sleek fur. Her voice seemed larger as each day they grew more used to the sound of it.

  Dreenie, Bluish, and Paula were quick to understand the process. Quick to realize that they had to show Tuli. “Here’s what we’re doing, Tuli. You remember?” Dreenie asked.

  “I forget.”

  “We’re going to go out of school maybe on Wednesday and look around. We’ll all go together and take some pictures, too.”

  “So what’s the agreement?” Paula asked. “What am I writing down to show Ms. Baker?”

  “Let’s just write, ‘Ours is a street project,’” Bluish said. “‘There will be photographs and word descriptions of Broadway on a poster board mounting.’”

  “Hey, that’s really good!” Paula said. “I’ll write it, okay? Agree, everybody!” They all agreed.

  “Sign it with all our names,” Dreenie said.

  “Put mine first,” Tuli said.

  “Tuli, let’s do it alphabetically,” Dreenie said. “D, first. Then N, for Natalie. Then Paula, then Tuli.”

  “Putting me last,” Tuli said. “Thank you very much, my homey!”

  “Well, somebody has to be last,” Paula said. “That’s nothing.”

  “Somebody has to be first and second,” Bluish said, with a faint smile. “I’ve never been first at anything!” She managed a short, squeaky laugh. They grinned, and then they laughed.

  After they’d made a general plan, they could choose the size of the poster board and where they would put it. “We’ll take lots of pictures,” Dreenie said. “Won’t we, Bluish?”

  Bluish frowned. “My mom doesn’t like kids calling me that. But you can. It depends on the spelling.”

  Dreenie didn’t understand. “Sorry! Natalie, then.” She felt embarrassed.

  “Forget it,” Bluish said.

  It hadn’t taken them long to plan their project. Max read their agreement and gave it an okay.

  Afterward, Bluish wheeled up to one of the big tables, with Lucky on the floor beside her. He looked up at her eagerly and jumped around whenever a kid got up. But he didn’t stray far from Bluish’s side. She gave him tidbits. And he had a little bone he chewed on.

  Bluish cut paper and made a sign. Rolled over to the decorated tree and taped the sign to one of the branches. It read Hanukkah Bush in black marker. Ms. Baker watched Bluish but made no comment. Kids like Dreenie, who saw Bluish go up to the tree, didn’t say anything, either.

  Bluish made a second sign. She wound string around two paper clips. She clipped them to the sign and put the sign around her neck. The letters were squiggly, not as bold as on the other sign. I was born human. I’m named Natalie. Underneath that were tiny printed words: But you, can call me Blueish.

  Dreenie braced herself when Bluish came toward her. Bluish struggled now to turn the wheels. “That’s what you mean, right?” Panting, she said to Dreenie, “‘Cause of my coloring.” She pointed to the sign’s tiny letters.

  “I’d take the e out,” Dreenie said. “It’s Bluish, without the e.”

  “Oh, okay,” Bluish said. “You fix it.”

  Dreenie got a marker and crossed out the e. “There. B-l-u-i-s-h.”

  “Okay.” Said barely above a whisper.

  We’ve gotten used to her—sort of, Dreenie was thinking. Each day with her around is different. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. What a freaky kid! You can tell she’s been sick bad, maybe a long time. And you can’t help feeling sorry for her.

  Still, Bluish was like nothing Dreenie had ever seen. When she got an upset stomach, as she sometimes did, Dreenie didn’t want to be around her. Every kid got anxious when it happened. Some kids said there was an odor around her and her chair—like medicine. One time, a kid said, “Hey, girl, you smell like the clinic.”

  And Bluish said right back, “Airhead! Your pea-brain’s crawling out the door!” The kid—it had been Kevin Smith—didn’t know what to make of her. Most kids didn’t. She always had something peculiar to say back when a kid was nosy or dumb-acting.

  About a half-hour before lunch, Tuli had gotten bored and was chica-chica-ing up and down the room. She stopped by Bluish, who was reading a book from the bookcase. “What’s them things you got there in your lap next to the doggie?” she asked.

  Bluish answered, “You want one?”

  “One what?”

  “They’re fitted hats to come down low on your head,” Bluish said. “It’s what I wear.”

  “Why?” Tuli asked.

  “‘Cause, that’s why.” Bluish sounded hoarse. She had talked more today than usual, Dreenie realized.

  Bluish handed Tuli a hat out of a small plastic bag.

  “Oooh!” Tuli said, and she put it on. The hat was knitted in blue and gold, with a purple background. “I got too much hair!”

  “No, you don’t,” Bluish told her. Her little voice squeaked almost to losing it.

  She took another hat from the plastic bag and held it out to Dreenie.

  “Really? I get to wear it?” Dreenie asked.

  “I made it for you. You can have it.”

  Dreenie couldn’t believe it. “That’s so nice!” she said. “Thank you!”

  They were talking quietly, not to cause too much attention. But other kids saw and came over and hung around like they wanted a hat, too. Until Max asked if they had finished their work.

  Bluish watched in the frowning way she had as Dreenie tried on her hat. Dreenie thought it was beautiful, the prettiest one of all. It had a gold background. It had a red stripe and a spring-green one. “It looks like Christmas!” Dreenie said. She stuffed her hair under and pulled the hat low over her ears.

  Bluish nodded okay.

  There was a mirror on the closet door. Dreenie and Tuli looked at themselves.

  “I got too much hair,” Tuli said. “It don’t look right on me.” But she was admiring herself.

  “You don’t have to put all that hair under it,” Dreenie told her. “Just let it out. Bluish wants us to wear them,” she whispered.

  “Okay, I get it,” Tuli whispered back. “But it don’t look right on me!”

  In the mirror, Bluish was there with them. She’d come up from behind. Dreenie laughed; she hadn’t expected to see her. Dreenie and Tuli stood still, looking at themselves, at the hats, and Bluish in her hat.

  “We look way cool!” Bluish murmured.

  Tuli pulled her hair down from under the hat. Her curls sprang around, as if they had a life of their own. “I am the baddest, I kid you non!” Tuli said.

  She is the silliest, no doubt about it, Dreenie thoug
ht. It was then that she realized Bluish was standing, the same as they were. “Bluish!” Dreenie exclaimed.

  Something bright and alive suddenly drained from Bluish’s eyes. She turned away. That quickly, her mood had changed.

  She took a paperback off the bookshelf; a minute later, she shakily put it back. She was hobbling now, as if her legs wouldn’t hold her up. She went over to study the big dictionary, which was always in place at the end of one of the tables. When she got up five minutes later, it took her a long time. She made her way to her chair, holding onto things. There she rested, with Lucky in her lap. Turned in the chair, looking for Ms. Baker.

  There were strings of saliva hanging out of her mouth. Ms. Baker saw her. Came to her. “Call my mom,” Bluish whispered. “Please.”

  Ms. Baker gave her tissues for her mouth. Then she said something to Max, and he left the room. Bluish closed her eyes, held the tissues to her lips.

  “Go about your business,” Ms. Baker told them.

  Then Bluish fell asleep. The class made more noise shushing one another than if they’d just stayed quiet. That was what Ms. Baker told them.

  Max came back and wheeled Bluish away.

  JOURNAL

  Bluish: What Bluish Had To Say

  A FEW DAYS LATER.

  See, Bluish musta told Ms. Baker.

  “Class. Natalie has something to tell you,” Ms. Baker said. And Bluish said, “Now don’t get me wrong. But me and my mom made some hats. See, I had to stay in bed when I got real sick way before? And then I found out I could do things with my hands.” Bluish all the time has to stop, take a breath. “So since I’ve been home, we finished making knit hats for everybody here. My mom helped me.”

  Can you believe it? Every kid smiled at her. And walked up to her, to give her five. You move your hand slow at Bluish. You don’t jerk fast, because she can’t get out of the way and you might hurt her.

  Kids gave her a low five fingers. Kids said, “You didn’t have to. That’s a lot of work. I didn’t bring anything for you.” And Bluish said, “I already did it. I don’t want anything!”

  And each kid got one. Bluish said, “Here Jody,” to Ms. Baker. A lot of kids call the teachers by their first names. In my other school where I went, we didn’t. So I call her Ms. Baker.