by Robin Talley
I should be angry. I’m upset about having to rewrite my essay, that’s for sure, but there’s no point being afraid.
Bo and his friends are going to do what they’re going to do. Because they’re children. They don’t know any better. They aren’t capable of learning new things. They simply need to be ignored until they get tired and go find something else to do. Like Bobby when he’s playing the “Why?” game.
I do worry about Ruth, though. She shouldn’t have to suffer just because I did something reckless.
I don’t regret what I said to Bo yesterday, but if anything happened to Ruth my regrets would pile up faster than I want to think about.
I’ve gone back to my old habit of meeting her in the halls between classes. The first time she saw me there, she said hello. The second time, she rolled her eyes. The third time, she said, “Do I need to remind you I’m not six years old anymore?”
I smiled at her. I’m not letting Ruth get to me, either.
I don’t think she really minds it, anyway. She knows we won’t be in school together much longer. Three weeks from now, I’ll have graduated and she’ll be on her own.
But she won’t be on her own at Jefferson. Not if I can help it.
I’m on alert the rest of the day, ready to head off any more childish pranks, but none of my other homework goes missing. There are only a few more taunts in the halls and pencils thrown at me in class than usual.
In Home Ec someone passes me the salt instead of the sugar when we’re making pie dough. I notice right before I dump it into my bowl.
I start to relax. I start to think this is as bad as it will get.
I’m wrong.
It happens in Study Hall. When I arrive in the doorway everyone is already sitting quietly, but there’s still half a minute to the bell and the teacher isn’t there yet. Every seat is taken except mine, even though there are usually at least three or four empty seats around me. Someone must’ve moved the extra desks out of the room.
They’ve been planning this. Whatever this is.
The girls are smiling and whispering behind cupped hands as I walk by. I accidentally brush one girl’s hand with my own when I pass her desk, and she jerks away with a gasp.
For a second the old anxiety comes back. The fear that she knows my secret.
Then I remember: none of these people know anything about who I really am. They’ve never even tried to.
I’m three feet from my desk when I see it.
My chair isn’t empty after all. There’s a clear liquid on it.
No. Not clear. Yellow.
I can smell it, too.
Urine. There is urine on my seat.
The others see me see it. And then the laughter starts.
I step back, wondering how they can stand to sit here with that smell. They’re all rocking with laughter.
A few of them look disappointed. Probably wishing I’d sat down before I noticed.
The door swings open and the teacher, Mr. Dabney, comes in. The laughs die down to snickers. He strides over to his desk on the far side of the room as though nothing’s amiss.
“Well, Sarah?” he says when the bell rings. “Will you be joining us for class today, or are you on your way somewhere more interesting?”
“I’m not sitting in that seat,” I say. “I’ll go get a chair from another class.”
“The bell has rung,” he says. “Sit down.”
He can’t be serious. “Sir, there’s—”
Most of the boys, and a few of the girls, are laughing now. Mr. Dabney either hasn’t figured out what happened or he doesn’t care.
“Look,” he says. “Either sit down or go see the principal.”
Not the principal again. “But, sir—”
“Do you really think it’s wise to keep talking back to me?”
So I leave.
I rewrite my Zachary Taylor essay while I wait in the principal’s office. It’s much easier here than in Study Hall where I’d be distracted by all the spitballs. By the time I get called in to see Principal Cole, Mr. Dabney has surely seen what happened, but he hasn’t sent anyone to call me back to class.
The principal doesn’t look at me when I come in. He’s flipping through a stack of papers on his desk. I stand awkwardly by the door, since he hasn’t told me to sit. The only other time I’ve been in his office was when I came to report what happened to Paulie. That time I didn’t sit down, either. The principal just gave me a detention slip and sent me on my way.
“Sarah Dunbar,” Principal Cole says, still looking at his papers. “Here you are again.”
“Yes, sir.”
“How many times have you been in my office this year?”
“This is the second time, sir.”
He still hasn’t looked up. “Seems like more than that.”
He gestures with his papers to a hard plastic chair across from his desk. I sit.
“What is it this time?” he says.
I try to find a polite way to say it, but there isn’t one. “Sir, Mr. Dabney told me to come see you, because I wouldn’t sit down in Study Hall, because someone had put urine on my seat.”
The principal finally looks at me. He’s about ten years older than Daddy, with thinning brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of his nose. “Are you trying to be funny, Sarah?”
“No, sir.”
“My office is not the place for jokes.”
“No, sir. I know, sir. I’m telling the truth, sir.”
He leans back in his desk chair and meets my eyes. Last week I would’ve looked down demurely at my hands. Today I hold his gaze.
“Close the door,” he says.
Startled, I stand up and reach for the door leading to the outer office. Miss Jones is looking right at me. I get a little relish out of closing the door in her face before I sit back down.
“I’m going to be frank with you, Sarah, because I sense a certain maturity in you,” Principal Cole says. “This school year has been very difficult for all of us, but these problems were not unforeseen. I’m sure you’re aware that the school board and administrators asked for more time to prepare before integration began, but those requests were denied by the courts. As a result, there’s been some unpleasantness that could’ve been avoided. Like this nonsense in Mr. Dabney’s class today.”
I wonder if Principal Cole even listens to himself.
“Unpleasantness?” The words are coming out of me too fast. I can’t stop them. “Is that what you call Paulie getting hit with a baseball? Yvonne getting run down in the hallway? Is unpleasantness what you call Chuck nearly getting killed?”
I stop to take a breath. Principal Cole is staring at me. He looks as surprised at my outburst as I am.
“I apologize, sir,” I say quickly. “I—”
But I can’t think of what to apologize for. I suppose I was being disrespectful, but there’s nothing I said that I want to take back. Finally, I say, “I shouldn’t have spoken out of turn.”
“No, you shouldn’t,” the principal says. “Tell me, Sarah, how often do you speak out of turn?”
“Not often,” I admit. The only times I can remember speaking out of turn all year have been with Linda.
“The school board anticipated that the Negro students entering white schools would have emotional difficulties,” Principal Cole says. He isn’t looking at me anymore. His eyes are hazy. “That was their chief argument for delaying integration. At the time, I questioned their position. I thought any supposed emotional problems would pale in comparison to the academic issues. The Negro schools are known to be inferior, so naturally, we worried that the white students would be impeded in their studies by teachers having to accommodate the Negroes in their classes. We’ve largely avoided that problem at
Jefferson by tracking the Negro students into less challenging courses. But as for the emotional difficulties experienced by you Negroes—I’m sure you’ll agree that the school board was right on the money with that one.”
I clamp my mouth shut so I won’t let loose what I’m really thinking again.
That’s why they put us in Remedial. So we wouldn’t hold the white kids back. Since they’re so much smarter than us.
But now Principal Cole thinks we’re having “emotional difficulties”?
What about the “emotional difficulties” from being told you aren’t qualified to go to school with white people? The same white people who urinated on my chair?
“Sir,” I say, measuring my words carefully, “Paulie didn’t transfer schools because he was having emotional difficulties. He left because he was attacked. Physically.”
Principal Cole takes off his glasses and pinches his nose. “Sarah, I’m going to ask you a question, and I’d like you to answer honestly, please. Tell me. Do you think I like seeing children get hurt?”
This feels like a trick. “No, sir.”
“Things like what happened to your friend Paul. Do you think I want them happening in my school?”
“Of course not, sir.”
“Then why on earth would I support something that was bound to lead down this path? It was inevitable, from the day the Supreme Court ruled, that children would wind up getting hurt. The courts can issue all the verdicts they like, but those judges aren’t the ones who have to see it with their own eyes every day. They issued their ruling and washed their hands and left it for people like me to clean up the mess. I’m not bothered by childish nonsense like what happened in Mr. Dabney’s class today, Sarah. When the doors to Jefferson opened in February, my priority was making sure every student in my school survived through June.”
I open my mouth, but there are no words.
“So yes, Sarah, I call what’s happened so far this year unpleasantness. And if we make it through the graduation ceremony without encountering anything more extreme than what we’ve already endured, I’ll call that a victory. Are you planning to attend graduation?”
It’s an odd question. He must know I’m a senior. “Yes, sir.”
He nods, but his forehead creases. “Well, then. I’d say the hard part is over, but that might not be true. I suppose we’ll see.”
He stands up. I do, too. I know when I’m being dismissed.
I’ve gone through the door and am about to close it behind me when the principal says, “And, Sarah?”
I turn around. “Sir?”
“You’re excused from Study Hall today.”
I nod. “Thank you, sir.”
I ignore Miss Jones’s glare as I leave the office.
As I walk toward the stairwell, my loafers squeaking in the empty hallway, I realize something.
I’m not angry.
When I first started at Jefferson, a day like today would’ve made me furious. If I’d been Ruth’s age it might’ve even made me cry.
Now it all simply seems ridiculous.
Urine. On my chair.
And they say the white people are supposed to be the civilized ones.
Principal Cole said he doesn’t know yet if the hard part is over, but I know.
All year, the white people have been trying to show they have power over me. Because they’ve already figured out they have none.
I have the power.
I know what it feels like now.
For years, this was how I felt when I was singing. Now it’s always there. And it’s up to me to choose what I do with it.
My parents brought us to Davisburg because they wanted us to be part of the movement. I’m glad they did. I’m glad I’ve done what I’ve done. But it nearly broke me.
Maybe someday I’ll write about injustice, like Daddy. Or be a lawyer like Ennis’s father. Or a leader like Mrs. Mullins.
Except I’ll be a different kind of leader. I won’t lie to my people.
I want to help the movement. I just don’t know how yet.
But whatever I do, it’s up to me to choose what my future looks like.
I can keep sitting quietly, like a good girl.
Or I can get out the letter that came yesterday and decide for myself what happens next.
* * *
Chuck is awake.
Daddy tells us the news as soon as we get home from school. Chuck woke up in the hospital this morning. He’s still groggy, and his injuries are still serious, but he’s going to live.
Ruth and I throw our arms around each other and laugh and cry. I pick her up and try to spin her around the way I did when she was little, but I don’t get far. I let her go and we both fall, laughing, to the floor. Daddy tells us to behave ourselves like proper young ladies, now, but he’s laughing, too, as he sends us up to our room to do our homework.
For the hour before dinner I think about not telling them after all. Now that we know Chuck is all right, it’s become a happy day, a wonderful day, and I don’t want to ruin it. But this can’t wait any longer. I can’t believe I’ve waited this long.
So as we’re finishing up dessert, I tell Mama and Daddy there’s something I want to talk about. They both look tired, but Mama nods and sends Ruth and Bobby upstairs. She can see how serious I am.
I show them the letter I got back from Mr. Deskins first. That will be the easy part.
They set it on the table between them and read it at the same time. Mama’s frown deepens with each line. Daddy just looks horrified from start to finish.
“How did this happen?” Mama says. “Did you write to Mr. Deskins without telling us? Sarah, this is serious.”
“I’ll say it’s serious.” Daddy shoves the letter back at me. “While you are still under my roof you will—”
“I don’t want to be under your roof,” I say.
The kitchen is silent. None of us can believe I interrupted Daddy. Me least of all.
I force myself to keep going.
“It has nothing to do with you, of course,” I say as fast as I can. “But I don’t want to be here in Davisburg any second I don’t have to. Not after what happened to Chuck. Please, Daddy. Mama, please, I need to do this.”
They look at each other for a long time.
If they say no, I’ll—I don’t know what I’ll do. Maybe I can survive in this town all summer.
If I never leave this house. If I never have to see another white person. Well, except one.
Finally Daddy turns back to me and taps the letter. “You’d be living with Frank Deskins and his wife. They’d keep an eye on you.”
“Yes, of course.”
Mr. Deskins works in the dean’s office at Howard. He’s the one who arranged for me to get my scholarship, and who made sure the school wouldn’t hold it against me when I got placed in Remedial this year. When I asked if he could get me a job on campus for the summer, he wrote back right away and said yes. As long as I came up straight after graduation, and as long as I helped his wife take care of their two-year-old twins.
“They live in a nice neighborhood right near Howard,” I say. “I’d be working in his office for the summer. It’ll be a good chance to practice my typing. I’ll send the money I earn back home to help out here.”
Mama and Daddy don’t look any more convinced than they did before, so I add, “Mama, you always said Mr. Deskins was a nice man, right? He’s friends with Uncle John, isn’t he?”
“Yes, of course he is,” she says. “Honey, this isn’t about whether Mr. Deskins is a nice man.”
I know it isn’t.
“We know you’re upset about what happened to Chuck,” Daddy says. “We all are. But what you have to understand, honey, is things like that don’t only happen in Davisbu
rg. Anywhere you go, you’ll see things that aren’t right.”
I nod. I know it’s the truth.
I still can’t stay here.
“There’s more,” I say. “There’s something else I want to ask you.”
“There’s more?” Daddy says.
But Mama doesn’t look surprised. So I keep my eyes on her when I say, “I want Ruth to go back to Johns next year.”
Daddy sits back in his seat, studying me. Mama doesn’t move.
“She’s been through enough,” I say. “She deserves to go to a normal school. When I think of her living another three years like this one—I can’t let her do it by herself. No one should have to.”
They still haven’t said anything.
I know what they’re thinking. I’m thinking it, too.
No one should have to do what we did this year, but someone has to. If we don’t, nothing will ever change.
This is how it works. Someone has to sacrifice. Or nothing will get better for any of us.
I just don’t want to sacrifice my own little sister.
Finally Mama says, “Go get Ruth and bring her down here.”
Does that mean they’re saying yes?
I bite down my smile and run upstairs. Ruth is lying on her bed, writing in her diary and listening to a terrible Guy Mitchell song on the radio.
“Mama and Daddy want you downstairs,” I say.
Her eyes widen. “Am I in trouble?”
“No. It’s good news. Well, maybe.” I’m grinning so wide, she starts grinning, too.
“Are we getting a dog?” she says.
“Don’t be silly.”
She rolls her eyes, but she runs down the stairs ahead of me anyway.
Mama and Daddy are waiting for us at the kitchen table. When she sees their serious expressions, Ruth’s smile fades. She glances back at me, but I don’t know what they’re going to say, either, so I gesture for her to sit across from them. She does. I sit beside her and wait.
“There’s something we’d like to tell both you girls,” Daddy begins.
I nod, my smile starting to slip.
“We’re very proud of the way you’ve handled things this year,” he says. “We know it hasn’t been easy. Most of the time it’s been as hard as it can possibly be.”