Lula Bell on Geekdom, Freakdom, & the Challenges of Bad Hair

by C. C. Payne

  Mama looked puzzled, but she accepted the shopping bag and said, “Thank you.”

  Hey, would a baby fainting goat fit into a shopping bag? I wondered, just for a split-second.

  Mrs. Purdy touched the pearls at her neck and said sadly, “It’s the last quilt Bernice ever worked on…and we all thought you should have it.”

  Okay, so it wasn’t a baby fainting goat, but it wasn’t a green bean casserole, either. Usually, Grandma’s quilting bee gave their quilts to sick children who were in the hospital for long periods of time, to make their hospital rooms and beds feel homier and comfier. But occasionally, they made quilts for their own families or for people from our church who were going through hard times.

  “Thank you,” Mama said again, but softer now and with more meaning.

  Mrs. Purdy hugged her. “I’m praying for you, precious.”

  When Mrs. Purdy was gone, Mama lowered herself onto the couch and said, “Just give me a minute, Lula Bell.”

  I nodded, knowing that Mama was trying to keep it together, trying not to cry. When I heard soft whimpering sounds, I busied myself with looking inside the shopping bag. I didn’t think I should leave Mama alone when she was upset like this, but I didn’t think I should stare at her either—staring is never polite.

  I pulled the edge of the quilt out of the bag and gasped.

  Mama’s head snapped up.

  I spread the quilt out on the living room carpet.

  We both stared.

  When I’d finally taken it all in, I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from laughing. The quilt was one humongous neon rainbow. In the center was a pastel striped unicorn with a monstrous metallic gold horn jutting out of its forehead. The result looked like something that had been plucked out of a deeply disturbed, completely crazy mind.

  Now Grandma Bernice had made some of the most beautiful quilts I’d ever seen, but this quilt, well…“hideous” is the word that springs to mind. But no, let’s just say that I am not a rainbows-and-unicorns kind of girl and leave it at that. Mama is not a rainbows-and-unicorns kind of girl either. Apparently.

  Mama’s eyes widened and her mouth dropped open as she looked over the quilt. For a minute, she didn’t say anything. Then, she burst out laughing.

  I was so relieved, I laughed, too.

  Mama laughed so hard that tears continued to pour down her face. She rolled back and forth on the couch. It was contagious. Neither of us could stop. We laughed until we could barely breathe.

  Finally, Mama sat up. She took deep breaths, trying to calm herself. Then she smiled. “Those are Grandma’s fabric remnants—all of them.”

  I looked back at the quilt again and exploded in another fit of laughter.

  “I’d been after her to get rid of those remnants for forever, telling her how she’d never find a use for all of them, so she…she…she”—Mama squealed with laughter—“she found a way to prove me wrong—it’s not a very pretty way, but it’s a way just the same.”

  I could almost hear Grandma Bernice saying, “Hmph!”

  “What in the world will we ever do with that?”

  “Hide it in the linen closet?” I suggested, which started Mama laughing again.

  “We have plenty of quilts already,” I finally said.

  “Agreed,” Mama said.

  “So maybe we should give this one away.”

  Mama looked at the quilt again and said, “A person would have to be homeless and freezing to death to accept this. We’ll have to wait ’til winter.”

  We laughed some more.

  That night, as Mama tucked me into bed, I said, “Maybe we should keep the quilt, just to remember and to make us laugh,” because it felt so good to laugh again and to hear Mama laugh again, too.

  “That quilt is the most unforgettable quilt I’ve ever laid eyes on,” Mama said, her hand resting on my light switch. “I say give it to anybody who’ll take it, please.” And with that, she turned the light out. I could hear her laughing all the way down the hall.

  The Betrayal

  Monday was the kind of May day that made me want to stay home from school and go crawdad fishing in Honey Run Creek. The sun was shining, and there were no signs that it would stop—only the faintest little wisp of a cloud streaking across the blue sky. But then I remembered that Grandma Bernice was the only one in our house who knew how to clean and cook crawdads.

  And anyway, nobody in my class stayed home that day. The entire fifth grade showed up to go on the field trip to Confederate hero Sam Davis’s plantation in Smyrna, Tennessee, about an hour away by bus.

  Of course, Alan West and I were bus buddies, pretending the poetry incident had never happened. But as soon as I stepped off the bus onto the gravel, Emilou Meriweather called out, “Lula Bell! Lula Bell!” Then she motioned for me to come with her.

  My heart jumped for joy. Quickly, I turned and handed Alan his Star Wars lunchbox. “Well…have fun!” I said cheerfully. “I’ll see you later.”

  Alan raised one eyebrow, giving me a kind of parental look, as if to say, I’m very disappointed in you, young lady. (I know that look well, because I’ve gotten it from Mama a lot.)

  I rolled my eyes at Alan and started to walk away.

  “Lula Bell,” he said, sounding desperate as he took a step toward me.

  I stopped and faced him.

  Alan took a deep breath and seemed to steady himself.

  “What?” I demanded. Couldn’t he see that I was in a hurry?

  “Have you noticed that I’m your friend all the time?”

  I shrugged. “I guess.”

  “And have you noticed that you’re only my friend when it’s convenient for you?”

  “What’re you trying to say?” I demanded.

  Alan looked like he really, really didn’t want to answer me, but finally, he did: “I’m saying that either you’re my friend or you’re not…all the time.”

  “Okay, then I guess I’m not,” I said as quickly as I could, because I really had to go—Emilou was waiting.

  As Emilou and I followed the rest of our class toward Sam Davis’s home, I glanced back at Alan. He was standing right where I’d left him, beet red from his forehead to his collarbone, clutching his lunchbox with one hand and feverishly scratching his neck with the other. DEFCON two, I thought, and for a few seconds I wondered what happened when Alan reached DEFCON one. Did he scream? Cry? Explode? Just fall over like a fainting goat? Honestly, I was glad I didn’t know.

  Emilou and I stuck together as the class went inside, toured the big white house, and listened to a lecture on life during the Civil War, which was given by women wearing big, round hoopskirts.

  We stuck together outside as we walked the same dirt paths that had been used for more than a hundred and fifty years—the dirt even smelled old—and I saw some of the biggest trees I’ve ever seen in my life. We stuck together as we crammed into the cottage that sat on the edge of Stewart’s Creek (called the Creek House) for a lecture on Civil War medicine—or lack of it—during which I held on to my chair with both hands and tried not to vomit, while Emilou rested her head face down on the table in front of us, using her arms to cover her ears. I have two words for you: cannon balls. Need I say more?

  If you ask me, it’s a miracle that any Americans survived the Civil War, and I’m not even talking about the war or the medical practices, which were too grim and grisly to even go into here. I’m just talking about basic hygiene. For example, after doing their business, soldiers wiped their behinds with a corn husk, the same corn husk they carried around in a little bag with their plates, cups, and toothbrushes! Honestly, it’s easy to see how germs claimed more lives than weapons, don’t you think?

  After the medical lecture, we went back to the big house and were ushered into a small movie theater-style room, where we watched a film about Sam Davis. I figured Sam Davis was probably a hero for killing lots of enemy soldiers, but it turns out, he was a hero because of the way he died. Man, Grandma Be
rnice would’ve loved him!

  In 1863, Sam Davis was captured by Union soldiers and charged with being a spy for the Confederacy, which he was. Then, Sam was held prisoner and told repeatedly by Union forces that his life would be spared if only he would give up the names of other Confederate spies. If he didn’t, he would be hanged. Sam was only a few years older than I am, and he must’ve been terrified. Still, he wouldn’t give up a single name. Instead, he’d proclaimed, “If I had a thousand lives, I would give them all rather than betray a friend.” True to their word, the Union hanged Sam Davis, and true to his word, Sam Davis gave his life rather than turning his back on his friends. Even his executioner had cried, which I could understand—I felt like crying for Sam, too.

  After the movie, we gathered out in front of Sam Davis’s home.

  “Everyone find a spot on the porch—and stay on the porch,” Mrs. Pritchett commanded, her hands cupped around her mouth. “It’s time to eat lunch.”

  The wooden planks under my feet shook as kids took off running in a race for the best spots on the wraparound porch. Emilou shuffled her feet and seemed to be waiting for me. I couldn’t have been happier or prouder if I’d had a peanut butter and grape jelly sandwich with the crusts cut off—which, incidentally, I did.

  “Over here!” Kali called, waving her arms. “Come sit with us!”

  By “us,” Kali meant Ashton Harris, Hannah Green, Rebecca Lynn Rayburn—all the girls who’d laughed at me. I looked at Emilou, uncertain.

  “C’mon,” she said as she walked toward Kali. I followed.

  Just as Emilou and I were about to sit down, Kali stared at me and sneered, “Not you, Lula Bell! You can’t sit with us!” Then she laughed her mean laugh and said, “You know, Emilou, if you want to adopt a stray, that’s fine. But the rest of us…we don’t bring our pets to lunch.”

  I could feel my face turning red. “That’s okay,” I said quickly to Emilou before I turned and walked away. I left the shade of the covered porch behind and sat down in the sun, on the porch steps, about as far away as I could get from Kali and her crew without actually leaving the porch.

  I felt sick, too sick to eat. And I felt lonely. Kali was right. I was like a stray dog—no pack, no people, no place to belong. I was a lone wolf. I remembered the omega wolf then and tried to tell myself that it was better to be a lone wolf than an omega wolf, but honestly, neither seemed like much fun.

  I looked around for Alan, thinking I’d find him with Richard and Bill, but I didn’t. I finally spotted Alan in a lone rocking chair, outside the gift shop, eating his sandwich and reading the paperback book I’d seen in his back pocket that morning. He looked perfectly content. He and his book were doing just fine.

  I wished I were fine. I wished I could get up and go sit with Alan. I wished I could talk to him. But what would I say? I guessed I could—and should—apologize, but I hate apologizing. So I stayed where I was and unpacked my lunch. I figured that would at least make me look fine. But I didn’t eat a bite.

  By the time we got back on the bus, I still didn’t know what to say. Alan must not have known what to say either, because even though we sat together—we were still assigned bus buddies—we never said a word to each other. It was a long ride back to school.

  I thought about Grandma Bernice and the way she had always said, “That Alan West is a smart boy, and handsome, too!” Smart, yes, I thought, but handsome? I turned and snuck a look at Alan as he read his book. I didn’t see handsome. All I saw was hair—and a splotchy, scratched-up neck.

  Then, I remembered the last time I’d complained about Alan to Grandma Bernice. It was last October, because Alan had been busy carving a pumpkin during my music lesson. “When he walked me to the door, Alan told me I smelled nice,” I’d told Grandma, making a disgusted face.

  Grandma Bernice had smiled. “That Alan West, he’s a smart boy, and handsome, too!”

  “I don’t think you understand,” I said. “He was sniffing me! I mean…ew.”

  Grandma seemed to think about this. Then she crossed her arms over her chest and said, “I knew a boy like Alan when I was in school.”

  “You did?” I said, pulling out my chair and joining her at the kitchen table. “Tell me.”

  Grandma’s eyes rolled up toward her forehead and stayed there as she tried to remember. “Well, back in grade school, there was this boy who was really smart, but he was going through sort of an awkward stage. It was just his age, you know.”

  I nodded.

  Grandma continued, “Anyway, this boy liked my friend, Florence, so when Valentine’s Day came around, he brought a big, fancy box of chocolate to school and gave it to her.”

  “What happened?” I said.

  “As soon as he walked away, Florence threw the box of chocolates in the trash, but the boy turned back just in time to see her do it. And he never forgot it.”

  “How do you know?” I asked.

  “I know because later, in high school, this boy became very tall and muscular and handsome—he was a real hunk!—and then Florence wanted him to take her out on a date. Finally, she asked him to take her out, which no girl did in those days, and he refused. He took me out instead.”

  I leaned forward. “Was Florence mad?”

  “Oh yes, but mostly she was mad at herself.” Grandma giggled. “And I’m sure Florence got over it…when that boy and I got married.”

  My mouth fell open.

  Grandma Bernice nodded. “His name was Roy, and he was your grandfather.”

  It was almost as hard for me to imagine my granddad as “a hunk” as it was to imagine Alan as one. But I kept trying.

  Again, I turned and looked at Alan and tried to see past any awkward stage. He might grow taller. He might get muscles, although I doubted it. But let’s face it: there are no awkward stages for hair. You get what you get and it is what it is for your entire life. For Alan, that meant a lifetime of disastrous hair. For me, it meant a lifetime without curls. I sighed.

  After that, I thought about Sam Davis for a while. I tried to put myself in his shoes: would I be able to give up my life to save my friends? What friends do I even have who would be worth saving? Since I didn’t have any friends, I figured I’d get to live. So good! I thought. Except…

  “I’m your friend all the time,” I remembered Alan saying. And when I really thought about it, he was right. Alan had chosen me every chance he’d gotten. He’d sat with me at lunch whenever I would let him. He’d sat with me on the bus, even though he knew that Kali Keele would probably make fun of me there—and he’d tried to help me with that. He’d even stood up for me on the bus in his own way, claiming to be my friend when Kali said I didn’t have any friends. He’d loaned me pencils. He’d tried to keep me upright when I tripped over my own two feet. He’d brought me flowers after Grandma Bernice had died. He’d lugged a huge stack of books and assignments home for me when I’d been absent—which couldn’t have been easy, since he had his own stuff to carry, too. And, I suspected, he’d told Miss Arnett that she ought to put me in the talent show—who else could it have been? He’d even memorized poetry for me.

  And still, somehow I hadn’t ever really considered Alan until now. Somehow, I hadn’t really seen him in the same way that I hadn’t really seen the cherry trees bloom.

  No, in return, I’d ignored Alan, asked him not to talk to me, yelled at him to leave me alone, laughed at him, and ditched him every chance I’d gotten, including that morning. And then I’d told him I wasn’t his friend. And it was true. I’d never really been Alan’s friend, not the way that he’d been mine, not in any way that really mattered. I felt sick again. Only this time, I was sick with shame.

  Emergency! Emergency!

  Over the next few days, I came to dread all freedom at school, times when other kids got to relax and enjoy hanging out or playing with their friends: waiting for the bus, riding on the bus, gym class, recess, and especially lunch. I dreaded this freedom because I had no friends, no hope of having
friends, and never was this fact clearer to me—or more embarrassing—than during those times.

  I wished we had assigned seats all the time, even at lunch, even on the bus. I wished no one was ever allowed to have any fun at all, because then it wouldn’t seem so weird and awful that I wasn’t having any.

  Anyhow, without any friends or fun to slow me down, I was the first one, except for Miss Arnett, to arrive in the gym after school on Thursday.

  Miss Arnett smiled and came right over when she saw me. “Oh, Lula Bell, good,” she said, like I was the person she’d most hoped to see that afternoon. “Do you have a costume you need to change into?”

  “Um, no, ma’am,” I said. Do I need a costume? I wondered.

  “Perfect,” Miss Arnett said. “Then why don’t you go ahead and do your number for me while the other kids are still arriving and getting changed.” It wasn’t really a question.

  “Um…okay,” I said, even though I’d been counting on a little more time to warm up to the idea of performing.

  Miss Arnett smiled and nodded encouragingly as I climbed the steps, sat down at the old upright piano, and placed my sheet music. Then I looked down at her. She was writing something on her clipboard as a few girls trickled in to the gym and headed for the girls’ locker room.

  Miss Arnett looked up at me and said, “Whenever you’re ready.”

  I just sat there, wiggling my toes. A few more kids arrived in the gym and headed for the locker rooms.

  After a couple of minutes, Miss Arnett said, “Did you forget something, Lula Bell?”

  I shook my head.