Dedication
For Earline, Dorothy, Sherri, and Derryl,
and all the women who struggled so I could soar
Epigraph
To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars
is the very bottom of hardships.
—W.E.B. DU BOIS
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Epigraph
Livingstone
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Riverside
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
The Gutter
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
A Note from the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Praise
Copyright
About the Publisher
WHEN I DREW PICTURES OF MOTHER AND ME, I USED PEACH for her and Chestnut for myself. “Why is your skin named after something soft and sweet and mine is something hard and bitter?” “Because you are so much tougher,” she said. I thought that was a very good answer. And maybe it’s true. But I am forced to be tough. It takes a particular kind of strength to exist in a world where you are not wanted that doesn’t feel like strength at all. Like giving up or giving in would be easier, smarter even. Maybe that is my chestnut, my toughness. The fact that I am still here.
Livingstone
1
THE DRIVER LOOKS IN MY DIRECTION, FULL OF WORRY. Her lips are red, glossy and pouted, and there’s a crease in her forehead, like she’s the one with problems, not me. I stare out the window wishing I could go back and put my old life back together, which is impossible, I know. So here I am instead. Hours away from the only home I’ve ever known and driving up a long gravel road through a tunnel of trees with branches that reach down like fingers, hungry for touch.
“This is Livingstone Academy,” Miss Femia says, as we pull up to a grand white house with black shutters and a door that’s green like a swamp.
The car slows to a stop under a droopy willow, and I step out in what feels like a whole different world. I take one deep breath and close my eyes, and when I open them again, Miss Femia is standing in front of me with her tight bun and waxy mouth.
She takes my hands in hers, rubbing my scar with her thumb—the hideous X on the back of my right hand that’s ugly and raw. She sighs, and I wonder if it’s sadness in her eyes, because it’s hard to tell with Mainlanders. Pity looks very much the same.
“I know this wasn’t the plan,” she says. “But let’s make the most of it, hey?”
Her voice is high and hopeful, and I hate the way it sounds, like forgetting the life I had is my best option. Like that’s even possible.
“I really think you might like it here. I think your mother would have really liked this place,” she says.
I want to tell her that what Mother would probably like is to be living instead of dead, to be back home with me instead of wherever it is she is now. But Miss Femia doesn’t have children, and people without children always share silly bits of wisdom, like it will all go to waste if they don’t.
“Yes, let’s make the most of it,” I say, turning up the corners of my mouth as high as I can manage. Which isn’t much.
“You can do this, Elimina,” she says, wrapping her fingers around the doorknob, holding the swamp-colored door with her back. “You can find happiness here.”
But happiness isn’t something a kid like me can afford to hold out for.
THE MAIN ENTRANCE of Livingstone Academy is large and impressive with tall columns and a wide, carpeted stairwell that curves like a bow. Framed pictures of open landscapes and wide fields hang on brightly lit walls.
At least it’s not the Gutter, I try to tell myself as I turn and take it all in.
“Miss Femia,” a man says, emerging from a hallway in a sharp tan suit, followed by a girl in a gray dress with a crisp white shirt underneath.
The tall man with slick brown hair takes large steps across the room to greet us, kissing Miss Femia on the cheek and smiling down at me after. I stare back with wide eyes because, other than Mother, no Mainlander has ever looked at me this way. Like they’re actually pleased that I’ve arrived.
“Elimina, it’s a tremendous honor to have you here at Livingstone Academy. I’m Headmaster Samuel J. Gregors. But Mr. Gregors will do just fine.”
He smiles and pauses for a moment, raising his chin in a way that makes me wonder if I’m expected to curtsy or applaud.
“While the circumstances that brought you here are less than ideal, I believe that Livingstone is exactly where you need to be,” he says. “Elimina, I sincerely believe that here in our tidy little academy, you’ll find a home that propels you into an excellent future.”
He looks down at the girl in the gray dress whose hair is pulled into two round ponytails. Her skin is like mine, the color of oak trees and coconuts, as Mother would say whenever she rubbed lotion onto my skin that smelled like a spring rain.
“This is Josephine. She’s one of our best students,” he says, nodding in Josephine’s direction as she takes a step forward, so we’re close enough to touch.
Josephine tilts her head, taking in my shaved head and raising one eyebrow.
Mother started shaving my head when I was five years old because I had curls that refused to submit to her—hair that grew out instead of down. “It’s impossible to deal with. There’s just nothing else I can do,” she said, lifting me onto a tall stool, where a pair of scissors lay resting on the countertop. She cut one messy ponytail, and when I gasped, she cut the other quickly before grabbing a razor to take the rest. When she was done, when tiny black curls were scattered around her like feathers, she held my face between her hands, tilting me this way and that, marveling at the richness of my skin, held in her moon-colored palms. She smiled, like she was proud of the result—the smoothness, the even shape, how clean I looked. “Perfect,” she said. “You look perfect, Elimina. A beautiful, ebony goddess.”
Her eyes were wet, but no tears fell. And I believed every word she said. You are perfect. Beautiful. A goddess. But when I looked in the mirror, I saw someone I didn’t recognize. I saw a head that was naked and shorn like a bird born too soon, one that would never grow up and fly. And I knew that she had lied.
“You made me ugly,” I yelled, and when I said those words again, shrill and loud, she called me vain and selfish.
“Elimina?” Miss Femia says, placing one hand on my shoulder. “Mr. Gregors just asked you a question, dear.”
I look up, my heart racing wildly, like I’ve just been caught doing wrong. “I’m sorry, sir. I—”
“Never you mind. It
was a very long drive,” he says, waving one hand in my direction like it doesn’t matter at all. “Josephine will take care of you today, and I’ll meet with you tomorrow after breakfast. After you’ve had some rest.”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”
“Don’t be sorry. And don’t be late,” he says, pointing in my direction. “It’s a basic tenet of the work we do here to always be on time. I consider tardiness a sign of disrespect. Let’s not get off to a bad start.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Josephine, show her around, and do it proper,” he says. “No shortcuts. Leave nothing out. Get her a uniform and be sure to take her to Nurse Gretchen. I want her ready to go when I meet her tomorrow. I’ll have Violet inform Miss Darling that you’ll be away for the duration of the day.”
“Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Josephine says, nodding her head.
Miss Femia moves closer, placing her hands on my shoulders and opening her red mouth, like she’s going to say something, but when she looks back at Mr. Gregors and Josephine, she presses her lips back together like now is not the right time.
“Miss Femia?” I say, hoping she’ll reconsider and say what’s on her mind.
“It’s not important,” she says. “You’ve got enough to worry about right now, Elimina. Go on with Josephine. Get settled in. I’ll swing by another time.”
She wraps her arms around me, and I don’t squeeze back or cry, but when Miss Femia whispers in my ear, “You’ll be fine,” I feel a stick in my throat that hurts so bad it makes it hard to swallow, like a knife cutting from the inside. “I’ll see you soon,” she says.
But somehow, I know this is a lie.
JOSEPHINE LEADS ME down a long hall with high, curved ceilings, our footsteps clicking against the floors. When she reaches the tall set of doors at the end of the hallway, she places her palms on the brass panels and turns toward me, the Xs on both of her hands standing tall. For a moment, I’m not sure I’m breathing at all.
“You ready?” she says.
But I don’t answer. I just stare and follow her slowly through the doors, feeling somewhere deep in my gut that this is all wrong. I should turn and run.
The dining hall is filled with long tables and wood chairs. It reeks of fried meat and steamed vegetables, and when we enter the room, students in matching gray uniforms turn and stare. But I just look down at all of the hands that look just like Josephine’s—two scars instead of one, like mine.
I stop, and when Josephine turns to me, I whisper the only words I can manage, my throat still thick and tight: “I don’t belong here. You’re all . . . I’m not . . . I’m not a Gutter child,” I say.
But Josephine just hands me a tray and shakes her head, like I’ve got a lot to learn.
2
TREES WITH WIDE GREEN TOPS AND THICK, RUGGED trunks line the campus as dirt paths curve and swirl between buildings surrounded by colorful flowers.
“You alright?” Josephine says.
Two girls in white aprons stroll by, staring and pushing a cart packed with cleaning supplies.
“You hardly said anything over lunch. You’ve hardly said anything at all,” she says.
“I’m alright,” I say, trying to smile. But I keep thinking about Capedown and Mother and what lies ahead for me now.
“You should consider yourself lucky. Other academies are not as nice as this,” she says. “Trust me, it could be much worse. You’re lucky they sent you here, Elimina.”
I want to tell her that I’ve never felt lucky, especially now. But maybe I’ve got it all wrong. I thought it was unlucky to grow up in Capedown, where no one looked like me, where my face and my X disgusted everyone. Now I’m not so sure. Maybe I was lucky then and now I’m not. Or maybe what I’ve always known somewhere deep inside is really true after all. Maybe I was born unlucky. Marked for a horrible life.
Along the path, two boys inspecting a tree stop to watch us.
“Why is everyone staring?” I say after we pass them.
“People always stare at new kids,” Josephine says. “I can’t imagine anybody’s ever met a project kid before. Someone who’s lived out there with Mainlanders, like a Mainlander. Word travels fast around here.”
Josephine stops in front of a large statue of a man hunched over a cane, his glasses angled down on the tip of his nose. A plaque under his feet reads: “Mr. Henry Livingstone—Founder of Livingstone Academy. A man dedicated to the growth and development of Gutter children pursuing greatness.”
“Have you ever seen such an ugly mug?” Josephine says, and for the first time we both smile at the same time.
The only statues in Capedown were of General Colin Covey—the Founder and Father of the Mainland, whose name appeared all over town. There was Covey Court and Covey Lane and the C1 Covey Overpass, which connected Capedown to towns all along the Sunset Coast and throughout the Mainland. Unlike Henry Livingstone, General Covey was incredibly handsome, as though his sharp jaw, broad shoulders and black wavy hair destined him to be powerful, as though he was meant to be carved in stone.
Inside schools and hospitals and every Mainland government building, there were paintings and statues of Covey, featuring his most famous words: “For the greatness of the country.”
Whenever Mother and I went on walks, Mainlanders would say these words with tense expressions, their eyes fixed on me. “For the greatness of the country,” they would say to Mother in a way that sounded more like a warning.
“For the greatness of the country,” she’d mutter under her breath—the last line from that long quotation in my history book: “Every Gutter man, woman, and child will toil and struggle, and when they succeed, when they rise above their circumstances and redeem their place on this land, we will celebrate their toil and their labor. ‘For the greatness of the country,’ we will shout.”
“Am I from the Gutter?” I remember asking Mother.
“You were born in the Gutter. But you live here, Elimina. You are as much a Mainlander as I am.”
“Then why do I have this scar?”
“Because you are my special gift. Because you are a gift to all of us.”
“Then why does everyone hate me?” I would say, and she would shrug her shoulders and hold her palms up like this was a mystery that we might never solve.
THE SINGLE PATH that stretches from the back of the Main House splits toward three buildings beyond the Henry Livingstone statue: the West Hall, where the girls sleep, the East Hall, where the boys sleep, and a large red barn known as the Fieldhouse.
Josephine takes the center path toward the red barn, where boys in black rubber boots plant flowers and turn soil with sharp spades.
“Most of the boys work in landscape and maintenance or agriculture. They spend their days down here in the fields or the Fieldhouse, sunup to sundown,” Josephine says, as we move down the path. “There are a few girls who work down here, but I wouldn’t recommend it. Frankly, you don’t look like the type.”
I stare at her, unsure of what she means or how to respond, like she’s speaking in a whole other language I don’t know.
“Mr. Gregors will ask you tomorrow, about housekeeping or kitchen work,” she says. “I’d figure out what you want to say sooner than later, or who knows where you’ll get assigned.”
In Capedown, and in all Mainland cities, kids weren’t allowed to work until they were eighteen. When they weren’t in school, they could play sports, read, join the band, dance, perform, draw. Anything but work. “Play Now,” the billboards read. Although, for as long as I could remember, Mainlanders who saw me in the grocery store or walking along the street would say something quite the opposite.
“You should put that girl to work or she’ll get ideas,” they would say to Mother.
I was never sure what kind of ideas they meant.
“Guess this is a bit of a demotion for you,” Josephine says. “Way we heard it when we were growing up is that project cases had it all. Lived like kings and queens out there.”
“Hardly,” I say as I kick a rock down the path.
“Look, I had a hard time when I came here too,” Josephine says. “But you won’t always feel bad.”
“I miss my mom,” I say with a small, shaky voice, and Josephine nods like she understands.
A tall boy with long arms steps out of the Fieldhouse, and when he sees Josephine, he smiles and heads toward us. They spread their arms wide and squeeze each other so tightly, Josephine’s feet lift high off the ground.
“This is David,” she says when he finally puts her down. “And this . . . is Elimina.”
“Nice to meet you, Elimina,” David says with a smile that’s full of crowded, crooked teeth.
Even though he can’t be more than sixteen, his face seems grown-up somehow, like he’s too old to be here, like the rest of us are just kids.
In the distance, a Mainlander in a security guard uniform makes his way toward the East Hall with a dog that’s pulling hard on its leash, barking and sniffing the ground.
“That’s Mack. I should go,” David says with a long sigh.
“Us too,” Josephine says, stepping away with a nod.
She pushes me toward the Fieldhouse, waving me ahead, and when I start down the path, I see David pull on Josephine’s arm and whisper in her ear. She smiles and he holds her face in his hands for a moment, kissing her on the cheek before he goes.
When Josephine sees me watching them, she heads toward me quickly and grabs me by the arm.
“Let’s go,” she says, squeezing so tight it hurts.
“Ow. Josephine—”
“Best to keep your eyes, ears and nose on what you need to know and not what you don’t. That’s a good rule to follow around here, Elimina,” she says. “Or this won’t be the only pain you know.”
THE FIELDHOUSE IS a labyrinth of hallways filled with gated stalls for animals and large cupboards for storing supplies. Josephine leads us through the main entryway, where some boys push wheelbarrows full of manure and others spread fresh straw.
“Jimmy, take that pile out to Will on field two,” one boy says.
“Coming through,” another shouts, carrying a long plank of wood.
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