“That’s the best blessin’ I ever hear!” Dahlia whooped, beaming at Delroy. “You know you gettin’ good at this ting? Nola, you keep that piece of grass forever, so that you can always look at it and remember your birthday blessin’. NEVER … EVER … BREAK!” She whooped again and jumped onto one of the bundles, splaying her arms wide as she lifted her head to the pink sky. “Wash me, dew angels! Shower me with your blessin’s!”
Nola would later realize that on that morning of her fifteenth birthday, one friend had exposed the emptiness of her heart, vacated by miracles; and the other had begun the task of refilling that space.
CHAPTER
18
The last day of school was always a celebration. No class work was set, everyone wore regular clothing, they were allowed to partake of chips and sodas in the classrooms and play board games and dominoes while teachers scrambled to finalise reports.
It had always been a celebration for Nola too. But that was before Slugga’s punishment. That was before she had become friends with Dahlia, and Delroy, and Merlene, and Biscuit. Now she could not celebrate the last day of school, for it meant the end to Slugga’s punishment. No more Dahlia, and Delroy, and Merlene, and Biscuit.
“You goin’ eat that, Nola?” Dahlia asked, pointing to the pile of cheese trix lying on a napkin on Nola’s desk.
Nola smiled at the question which weeks ago would have caused her annoyance. She now understood the ridiculousness of Dahlia Daley’s begging, Dahlia Daley whose house brimmed with food.
One morning, as Nola, late for school, rushed onto Calabash Street, she spotted the always tardy Dahlia Daley stopping by Mad Aggie’s shack. She’d watched as Dahlia removed a foil-wrapped package from her bag and handed it to the wizened hand reaching up from beneath the counter. For a good five minutes the girl chatted into the shack, then she’d waved ‘good-bye’ and lumbered off.
Nola continued to stare at Mad Aggie’s grease-polished lips still smacking as she hung something from the roof of her shack. The foil from Dahlia’s package, shaped diligently into a perfect cone dangled cheerily from a thin piece of cloth between the other chimes, the remnants of Dahlia’s lunch glistening in the sun like a morning star.
She pushed the napkin towards Dahlia and laughed as the girl immediately pasted the paper to her face. When she pulled it away, orange crumbs speckled her lip-nose. Dahlia returned Nola’s laughter with a mighty belch. Clarice and Faith, true to form, gave scoffs of disgust and fanned the air.
It must have been the recklessness of that last day, the dreariness of her heart, for without even thinking, Nola turned to them and snapped, “Why the two of you don’t just get lost?”
Silence, then a gasp of shock from somewhere in the back of the classroom. Even as Dahlia guffawed and pointed at Clarice’s reddening face, the realization of what she’d done made Nola want to slap her own hand over her mouth. She quickly stood up and raced out of the classroom.
It was not until she reached beneath the lignum vitae tree that she realized that Dahlia and Delroy were behind her.
“Good for you, Nola!” Dahlia shouted. “Bout time you stand up to that feisty gal!”
“Well, well, well! You three decide that the school year must finish for you before it finish for everybody else?”
All three of them jumped at the sound of Slugga’s voice behind them.
“World on your shoulders, Nola?” Slugga raised an agile brow.
The world, and all the universe with it! Nola wanted to say, but she just shook her head.
“Good. Look at you,” Slugga eventually said with a little laugh. “Look at the three of you out here.”
Nola and Delroy exchanged wary glances.
Slugga sighed. “Let me ask you all a question. You think that if I never put the three of you to work together that you would ever figure out that you weren’t enemies? You think the three of you would be out here, while the rest of them in there?”
Nola wanted to gasp, but swallowed the sound on a cough. This could not be Slugga standing before them with that little smile on her face!
Slugga stared at her, then wagged a finger at her bewildered face. “Ever break one stick, Nola Chambers? It breaks easy, right? Snaps right in your hand. But try breaking it while it’s in a bundle, and what you think will happen?” Crisp curls shook vigorously.
“Won’t,” Slugga said. “Won’t break so easy.” She sighed.
“Sometimes you have to force those sticks together to keep them from breaking.”
So there it was! The whole riddle, the whole ridiculous scenario, suddenly clicked. They had been an experiment, a bundle of stupid sticks! She and Dahlia and Delroy, forced together to prove a point.
Dahlia clapped her hands and gave a loud laugh. “Delroy!” she said, “You don’t see? It’s just like your blade of grass. Never break! Never break! The bungle of sticks can’t break, just like your blade of grass! You don’t see Delroy. You and Slugga think exactly the same!”
In her excitement, Dahlia hadn’t even realized that she’d referred to the headmistress by her nick-name. But either Slugga hadn’t heard, or chose to ignore it, for she only began to rifle through the envelopes she was carrying.
Dahlia grabbed Nola’s shoulders and planted a wet kiss on her cheek. “Hello, Bungle,” she said, then she slapped Delroy shoulder. “Hello, Bungle,” she repeated, then gave a little skip.
“Never break! Never break!”
For the life of her, Nola could not share in Dahlia’s humour. She was too busy watching Delroy kick aggressively at a stone. Then his eyes met hers for one second before he turned and sauntered back towards the classroom.
Slugga frowned slightly, but did not call him back. “I not going to be here next term.” She eventually said.
Dahlia gasped and opened her mouth to speak, but Slugga held up a silencing hand.
“Somebody is coming to take my place, but, I really wanted the three of you to know something before I left. You see, plenty people in this world going to try and make you think that you’re not worth anything. A lot of people going to try to make you feel that your lives don’t mean a thing! But I know, and I want the three of you to know it too. The three of you have something special.” She cocked her head to the side and studied them. “I see something in the three of you, something that I know will take you through the trials.” An eyebrow brushed her sweat-beaded hairline. “You know what it is?”
Dahlia opened her mouth to answer but was once again silenced by the hand.
“The struggle!” Slugga answered her own question. “The struggle you have to deal with every day, just to come here.” She waved the hand towards the classrooms.
Nola felt her face growing hot as the green frames turned on her.
“Struggle.” Slugga repeated thoughtfully. “Some people think that struggle is a bad thing, but you know what? That’s what makes you strong! That’s what makes you better than the rest!”
Nola blinked in shock at the thick emotion in Slugga’s voice. She looked at Dahlia to see if the girl had noticed it too.
Dahlia’s bottom lip was quivering. “But why you not coming back next year, Miss?” she wailed.
Slugga patted the damp hair off her forehead and sighed. “I have to take care of my niece in Kingston.” Her voice seemed to shake as she looked towards the noisy classrooms. “She’s not … so well.” She removed a tissue from her pocket and patted her face, leaving a trail of white flecks across her forehead. “Promise me something,” she continued, replacing the brown-stained tissue into her pocket.
Dahlia nodded eagerly, but Nola said nothing.
“Promise me that no matter what bad things the world tells you about yourselves, you will never believe it.” She said, plucking two envelopes from the top of her pile and handing them over. “That will prove it,” she said with a nod. “That will prove that you can do anything!”
With that, she gave a final nod, then turned to waddle back towards the classrooms, leaving
Dahlia to whoop with delight at the ‘A’s and ‘B’s down the pages of her report.
Nola smiled and hugged Dahlia back, but, somehow, she just could not take her eyes from that classroom.
CHAPTER
19
In all her weeks of going to Merlene’s, Nola had always avoided the red door of the Bar and Grill like the plague. But on that last day of school, the last day of her visits to Merlene and Dahlia’s home, the recklessness of the day stayed with her. That evening, when Merlene said she had to check on something in the bar, and Dahlia, in the middle of her story about Slugga leaving the school, jumped up to accompany her, Nola went too. She followed them right through the red door.
It was dim inside. There were only five naked bulbs in the room, one in each corner, and another dangling from a cord above the bar. The entire room was just a little bigger than Mama’s living room, the ‘L’-shaped bar taking up most of the space on the right side. The bar itself was constructed of bamboo, the trunks bound together by rope and topped with a rough wooden counter. Everything was very basic—the bar, four round tables surrounded by four or so plastic chairs each, and shelves of glasses of differing sizes and shapes on the walls. No décor except for the plastic tablecloths on the tables and the jars of plumbago blooms in the middle of each.
The floor was raw concrete, stained throughout with spots, and a section near the bar was now swimming beneath a layer of water. The sound of grating metal echoed around the small room. When Merlene called out, a bald, sweating pate appeared above the counter.
Bertie. Nola had passed him many times, quietly sweeping puffs of dust out of the red door. Merlene had often referred to him as her ‘Man Friday’, speaking of him with affection when she discussed the bar with Biscuit. He now agitatedly waved a wrench over the bar and embarked upon a stammering rampage about rusted pipes and the short-term effects of duct tape. Merlene assured him that Clars would take a look at it later that night.
Nola blinked at the mention of the plumber’s name. Clarence Wilks was one of Redding’s prides and joys. It was said he could fix any leak with nothing more than a toothpick. He also gave one of the loudest ‘alleleujahs’ when Pastor prayed about the lost souls at the bottom of Della Way.
Soon, everything about the leaking pipe was forgotten. Dahlia poured them all Kola Champagnes, and they sat at a table and giggled hysterically as Dahlia described each face in the classroom when Nola had insulted Clarice. After a while, the smell of grilling chicken filled the room, and Dahlia poked her head through the back window and brought back plates of ‘Janie’s special, special’ jerk chicken for them to sample.
As usual, the time went by before Nola could blink, and with her jaws hurting from laughing, she grudgingly got up to leave. Merlene made her promise to visit throughout the holiday, and Nola gleefully said that she would.
And so, this was the picture—Nola running out of the red door of Merlene’s Bar and Grill, smiling, waving, promising to come back soon, and Merlene Daley and her daughter waving back, telling her that they were going to miss her.
It was because of all the laughing and waving that no one had seen or even heard the lime green truck, the one that Camille had sent for her parents. Nola only spotted it when she turned from the red door to run up Della Way, but by then it was too late. By then she could only stop dead in her tracks and stare into the widening eyes of Mrs. Spence.
Nola remained immobile even as the truck ambled to the bottom of the Della Way, turned clumsily at the wide section of the road, and headed back up the road where it stopped in front of Miss June’s shop.
She walked slowly up Macca Hill, waiting to hear the truck growl past her with its golden nugget of news. More than once, she thought of running into the thick twine of the hillside. She wondered how long it would be before they found her. Maybe they wouldn’t, if she jumped into the river, into the section where the water frothed like icing over the sharpened rocks. Suddenly she stopped in her tracks, squinting at the figure ahead of her. The back was turned, but the stoop of the lanky shoulders, the way the hands dug deep into the khaki pockets, was so, so familiar. Her heart did its usual flip.
He turned suddenly, as if he’d felt her eyes on him. She tried to fix her lips, forcing down the sides which had shot up involuntarily. She shaded her eyes with her hand, suddenly conscious that her dark skin was probably shiny with sweat and dust from the walk. His hands dug deeper into his pockets as she made a casual gesture of wiping her forehead. Yet, through all the jittering, their gazes remained locked. Nola wondered if his hands had come out of his pockets since Slugga’s revelation earlier that day. She thought she saw his shoulders give a little shrug, as if answering the question that had traveled on their stares.
Eventually, she dragged her legs across the space between them.
“Merlene was askin’ for you.” She started to speak before she got to him, trying to break the strange tension that had arisen between them. “She wanted to know how you did in your exams. Me and Dahlia did good. Merlene say that she goin’ cook a special dinner for all of us one day next week, that is, if you want to come. She say it would be our own end of school party. I know we had one at school, but this would be ours, you know, since we study together and all …” She knew she was rambling, but she also knew that if she stopped speaking she would have to hear what she didn’t want to hear—Delroy Reckus’ goodbye.
He shrugged in response to the speech, then kicked a stone into the fern fronds beside them.
Nola took a deep breath. “You should’a come to say goodbye to Merlene, Delroy. She really like you, you know.”
This time, he picked up a stone and threw it down the hillside. Branches cracked their protests and two ground doves cawed and fluttered angrily away. But Nola could pay attention to nothing but the scent that had wafted from Delroy’s throwing arm—musky sweat mixed the residue of sweet deodorant.
“Redding not that big, I’ll see them round town,” he shrugged.
See them round town! First of all, Merlene didn’t go ‘round town’, and second of all, what was he planning to do—walk up to her at the bus stop and say, “Hi Merlene Daley. How are you on this fine day in Redding?”
“So, how was your report?” She decided it was better to switch the topic.
Delroy gave a bitter laugh. “You never hear what Slugga say? Sticks in a bungle.” He shrugged again. “Of course I did good! It was a successful experiment. A successful bungle of sticks!”
“It getting late,” Nola said quietly as Miss Terry nodded a suspicious greeting. “I have to get home …” her voice trailed off. The word ‘home’ had suddenly brought back the memory of that green truck.
Delroy nodded. “I comin’ up with you.”
“No!” The sharpness in her tone frightened even herself, but the thought of him once again witnessing Papa’s rage towards her was just too much to bear. She shook her head and pointedly softened her voice. “Him … Papa goin’ be washin’ the car today. If him see you with me …”
He hesitated, then nodded again, studying her face through slightly squinted eyes. She looked away, once again painfully aware of her sweaty ugliness.
“Nola, I … I have to tell you someting.” He touched her shoulder.
She flinched from the heat of his fingers, even though it was just a light brush on her blouse. Dear God! She was melting, right there in the middle of the road! She looked up at his face and drank in every detail of him for the last time—his lips, slightly pursed now, and lighter on the inside where it glistened with his saliva …
“I want you to know that I never mean for that box to lick you. The scrimmage box … I never wanted it to lick you that day.”
His eyes! Light brown, with dark inner rings panning out like the river ….
“I saw Clarice there, and I was just tryin’ to get her away from you ….”
His eyebrows were slightly askew, one a little higher than the other…
“… but it hit you instead.�
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So beautiful, he was. So beautiful that he could lie to her all he wanted. She would listen.
“When Slugga say that she wanted to prove that we weren’t enemies, I know what she was thinkin’. She was talkin’ ‘bout that day with the juice box. But you wasn’t my enemy, Nola.” His hands dug deep again. “That day when Dahlia never do her math homework, and Slugga call the two of you to the office, I went too. I thought you was in some kind of trouble, so I went in case I had to tell Slugga that you never do anyting. I was there, outside the window, listenin’ to everyting she said. That evenin’, I follow the two of you. Shane and Devon and Oliver did come too, because when them see where I was goin’, them say them wanted to come and catch lizards ….” His mouth suddenly snapped shut as he focused his gaze on something behind her shoulder.
Shamoney Leach, jostling up the hill.
“I just wanted to make sure that you was okay, you know,” he continued, whispering now. “I never know that Merlene was so nice, and I thought she would ….” He gave an apologetic shrug. “You know what everybody say ‘bout Merlene.”
Nola’s head was spinning. Make sure she was okay? Then suddenly, it clicked. The thought that rushed to her mind sent a bolt of awareness through her chest.
It was a trick! She was being set up, by Delroy, and Clarice, and the rest of the class, in retaliation for what she’d said earlier. They were probably all hidden in the bushes, in between the ferns and cocoa leaves, holding their mouths against the snorts of laughter!
Nola looked suspiciously at the feathery fronds of fern and the thorny spines of privet as she shouted. “You neva even like me! You forget what the whole lot of you call me—Fassy Face Nola?!”
He shook his head and reached out as if to hold her hand, but changed his mind and dropped his arms by his sides.
“Not me! I never called you that! The others did, but not me. You don’t know ….”
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