The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

by Kristin Levine

  The ball thumped into the dirt six inches from where Emma stood. She jumped.

  “Pick it up!” I yelled. “Throw it to third!”

  Elman was running slowly around the bases, laughing.

  Emma picked up the ball like it was a wild rat about to bite her. She threw it with all her might. The ball went about ten feet. Toward Ulman on first. Elman slid into home.

  I threw my glove to the ground and marched over to Emma. “What were you doing?” I snapped. “That should have been an easy out!”

  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

  “Don’t you know how to throw a ball?”

  Emma shook her head. Her eyes welled up, but she didn’t make a sound.

  I felt a little bad then. “I gotta go back and pitch.”

  It started raining as I walked back to the mound. Mitch was up to bat next. He was the largest boy in the game, seventeen years old and at least 160 pounds. His face was slightly flat and he always wore a wide, lopsided grin. Dr. Griffith had some fancy name for his condition, but we just called him slow.

  I threw a wicked curveball. Mitch hit it through the drizzle all the way to Main Street.

  “Way to go!” Pearl called out. Raymond gave Mitch a push to start him running. Pretty soon everyone was chanting, “Mitch! Mitch!” as he took his victory lap around the bases.

  Mitch’s grin was wider than ever. He shook his head back and forth as the rain came down and he joined in the chant. “Mitch! Mitch!” he yelled. “Way to go!”

  Finally Mitch slid into home plate, splattering Raymond with mud. Everyone laughed.

  “Watch where you’re going!” Raymond grumbled.

  This only made Mitch grin harder.

  I glanced over at Emma. Even she was smiling a little. And suddenly I was glad I had asked her to play, even if it meant we lost the game.

  Maybe there was something to Mama’s rule.

  9

  THROWING STONES

  IT FINALLY STOPPED RAINING THAT EVENING after supper, and I went to hang out on Mrs. Pooley’s front porch. Doc Haley sat in one of the rockers, while me and Elbert played marbles in the mud. It was a nice, quiet evening, with no one saying much. After a game and a half, Big Foot wandered out of the store onto his mama’s front porch. Soon as Doc saw him, he jumped up.

  “Come on, Elbert,” Doc said.

  “I’m right in the middle of a game,” Elbert protested.

  “Sorry, son. It’s time to go.”

  Me and Elbert divvied up our marbles, and he and Doc went on home.

  Big Foot sat down in the empty chair without saying a word.

  I headed home soon after that. It was already dark. The moon was out, so I could see just fine to practice my pitching, which I did by throwing rocks at each of the houses I passed. I’d pick a spot, maybe ten inches square, above a door or between two windows and throw the rock at it. I’d heard once that was how the great pitcher Walter Johnson had perfected his aim, and ever since, I’d practiced that way myself.

  I hit Dr. Griffith’s place first. He’d moved to town five or six years ago and his wife died two years after that, so now he lived alone in their large wooden house. The oak front door made a nice thwunk when my rock hit it.

  Next to Dr. Griffith’s house was a smaller house that he rented out to the schoolteacher. We had only one teacher in our primary school, which went from first to eighth grade. As far back as anyone could remember, the teacher had been Mr. Summons. But the old man had finally died—choked on a fish bone while he was eating his supper. His housekeeper found him, a pile of ungraded papers under his head.

  So Mrs. Seay had recently moved into the house. She was a young widow from a rich family who had been educated at the University of Alabama. Most people said she wouldn’t be a schoolteacher for long; she was too pretty not to get married again. I hadn’t met her yet but had heard Mama gossiping about her. So I crept up to the window to see what she was like.

  I guess she hadn’t had time to hang her curtains ’cause I could see her clearly, reading by the fireside. She sure was pretty. Her long blond hair was braided and pinned high up on her head. Her dress had lace all over it and looked more suited to a fancy party than sitting at home reading a book. Round her neck she wore a string of pearls.

  I could even see the book she was reading: Democracy and Education, by one John Dewey. What kind of foolishness was that? Ain’t no democracy in school. Everyone knows that. The teacher is boss and if you forget that, you’re gonna end up with one sore bottom.

  I’d seen enough, so I moved a couple of steps back and took aim at a little dark patch on the wood above her window. I pulled my arm back. Then right before I let the stone fly, Emma stepped out of the darkness.

  It was exactly the wrong moment to surprise me: too late for me to stop my throw, but early enough to distract me. Instead of bouncing harmlessly off the wood, the rock sailed through the closed window, shattering the glass.

  We both winced and ran for the bushes. Peeking through the leaves, we could see Mrs. Seay pick up a kerosene lamp and walk toward the front door. The door opened and she stepped outside. “Who’s there?” she called sharply. Her long dress billowed in the night breeze.

  Emma took a deep breath, like she was gonna say something, but I grabbed her shoulder. She shut up. Mrs. Seay walked right by the bush where we were hiding, scanned the yard twice, then went back inside.

  I let out a sigh of relief and let my grip on Emma relax. She squirmed away. “You shouldn’t be throwing rocks at people’s houses.”

  “It’s your fault,” I spit back at her. “If you hadn’t startled me, I wouldn’t have broke her window.”

  “You have to go tell her what you did.”

  “No!” I whispered through clenched teeth. “Are you crazy?”

  “Then I will.” She brushed a clump of wet dirt off her dress.

  “Emma, you can’t tell,” I pleaded.

  “Why not?”

  “I’m saving money for the Fourth hunt. I can’t afford to pay for a broken window.”

  “Should have thought of that before you broke it.” Emma stood up and looked over toward the front door.

  “I’ll tell everyone you’re a snitch.”

  “So?” Emma replied.

  “None of the kids will want to play with you.”

  “None of the kids play with me anyway.”

  “I do.”

  “Only ’cause your mama makes you.”

  I wanted to say that wasn’t true, but it was. So I finally just said, “Please don’t tell.”

  Emma pretended to mull it over, but I think she already had the whole thing worked out in her head. “Teach me to throw a ball and I won’t tell.”

  “Emma,” I sighed. “You ain’t no good at baseball.”

  “I want to learn.”

  I shook my head.

  “Fine.” She started toward Mrs. Seay’s front door.

  “Wait,” I said.

  Emma paused. “Teach me to throw a ball,” she repeated, “and I’ll keep your secret.”

  I looked up at the broken window. Mrs. Seay was inside, sweeping up the glass shards. I looked back at Emma and nodded.

  The next day, me and Emma spent hours on the banks of the Black Warrior River, throwing small smooth stones. “I don’t want to learn to throw stones,” Emma protested. “I want to throw a baseball.”

  “You gotta learn how to keep your eye on the ball,” I explained. “And how to throw and how to aim. And the best way to learn all that is by skipping stones.”

  She didn’t complain no more after that.

  My stones would skip across the water like they was flying. Hers would fall in the water with a loud ker-plunk.

  But I gotta give her one thing. That girl was stubborn. I tried for three hours to show her how it was done, and she never got more than one skip. I thought that was the end of it. If my friend Chip didn’t catch on to something right away, he called it stupid and gave up.

  So I
was surprised when Emma came over the next day. She watched us weed the vegetable garden till Mama stopped and asked her what she wanted. “Dit was teaching me to skip stones yesterday, Mrs. Sims.”

  “Did you get the hang of it?” Mama asked, wiping her hands on her apron.

  “No, Mrs. Sims. It was my first time, since I wasn’t allowed to go down to the river by myself in Boston.”

  “Well, then,” said Mama, “sounds like you need yourself another lesson.”

  Three more hours on the riverbank and Emma’s stones still fell flat into the water. The whole thing seemed pointless to me. I knew there was no way Emma was ever gonna learn how to skip stones. But I didn’t want her to tell on me, so I guess I had to keep trying to teach her. Sooner or later, she’d decide to give up on her own.

  “You’re getting it,” I lied.

  “No, I’m not,” said Emma.

  “You’re not holding the stones right,” I said for the fifth time.

  “Show me again,” said Emma.

  So I took her hand in mine and wrapped it around a smooth flat stone. Her fingers were cool and stiff, but her skin was beautiful, kind of like the mud in a creek after a hard rain. I rubbed her hands between mine, trying to get the blood running. She watched me. Then I said, “Try it again.”

  She took that stone and threw it so hard, it skipped seven or eight times across the water. We both stood there with our mouths open. I’m not sure who was more surprised.

  “Oh, Dit, you did it!” she exclaimed. “You taught me to throw stones.”

  “I didn’t do nothing,” I said. “You figured it out yourself.”

  But it sure made me feel good that she’d said it. And I started to do some thinking. Taking Emma to the top of my mound hadn’t gotten rid of her. She hadn’t cried on the fishing trip, not even when we had to walk through the rain and the mud to Jim Dang-It’s. Now Emma had gone and learned how to skip stones when I had thought she couldn’t. Maybe there was other stuff I was wrong about too. Maybe Emma was someone who’d make a good friend.

  While I was thinking and wondering, Emma picked up another stone and threw it as hard as she could. It fell into the water with a loud ker-plunk. She just laughed and picked up another stone. This one skipped four or five times. Emma let out a delighted scream.

  We stood there till the sun went down, skipping stones.

  10

  THE CAVE

  EMMA SURE WASN’T LIKE NO OTHER GIRL I’d ever met. She told me about museums she had visited in Boston and had a set of paints like a real artist. Emma didn’t approve of sneaking into places, unless it was the Negra church so she could play the organ. She used to have piano lessons at her school in Boston and had a book of songs by people like Bach and Mozart. She said they were from faraway places like Germany and Austria. I pointed out that we were at war with Germany and she shouldn’t aid the enemy by playing their music. “How is playing their music going to aid them?” Emma asked. I didn’t have no answer, and the music was kind of pretty, so I just sat back and listened.

  It’s not like Emma knew everything. In some ways, she was plumb stupid. She had never built a fort or played hide-and-seek in the woods. When we decided to dig a secret hideout in one of the mounds, I had to show her everything.

  We weren’t working two minutes till Emma started complaining. “I’m getting blisters,” she said, staring at her hand.

  “You’re holding the shovel wrong.” I came over and showed her where to place her hands. She tried scooping up some more dirt with the shovel.

  “Better?” I asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Good. But you’re still gonna get blisters.”

  I showed Emma how to spread out the dirt on the side of the mound so it didn’t make a huge bulge or fall down in big clumps. If we were gonna have a secret hideout, we couldn’t have everyone knowing where it was.

  After an hour of work, I was covered with dirt and had to lie down in the tall grass to rest. But Emma was working at the same slow pace, looking like she had just bathed for church. “Did you ever build a cave back in Boston?” I asked.

  “No,” said Emma. “There wasn’t anywhere like this. We lived in a row house.”

  “What’s that?” I asked.

  “A bunch of houses built next to each other so that they share walls. You can get a whole bunch of row houses on one city block. Maybe nine or ten.”

  “Nine or ten houses on one block?” I asked.

  Emma shrugged. “Maybe more. There were always people around, sitting outside on their front porches, visiting. Kind of like people do at Mrs. Pooley’s store.”

  I thought for a moment. “Guess there’d be a lot of people to play with.”

  “Yeah,” said Emma quietly. “And a lot of noise too.”

  “What if you need a little peace and quiet?”

  “I’d go to my room and read a book.”

  “Didn’t you have a tree to sit in? Or a field to run around in?”

  “There was a park across town. But we had to take the streetcar there. And Mama didn’t like me to go alone. And it cost a dime.”

  I imagined having to pay a dime every time I wanted to see a tree or look at the sky or just be still and listen to my thoughts. If I had to live in one of those row houses, maybe I’d take up reading too.

  11

  ROOT BEER AND HARDTACK

  IT TOOK ME AND EMMA ABOUT A WEEK, but we finally had the cave big enough so that we could both crawl inside. We went to the riverbank and picked up two large stones and used them to pack the walls hard and smooth. Sunlight trickled in through the vines we had woven together for the door, making shapes of light on the dirt floor.

  “Know what would make this absolutely perfect?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “A bottle of soda,” I said.

  “How about a whole case of soda?” Emma suggested. “It’d stay cold in the cave.”

  I thought this over. I had a couple of dimes at home and almost a whole year to save for the Fourth hunt.

  “We can split the cost,” Emma continued. “Mama gave me some money when we took that train down from Boston.”

  I nodded. “Sounds good to me.”

  Me and Emma ran home to get our money. I picked up my wagon to pull the soda in and we headed on over to Mrs. Pooley’s store. When we got there, Big Foot was sitting in one of the rocking chairs, his feet propped up on an empty box.

  “Well, if it ain’t Dit and his nigger girl.” He took another sip of his beer.

  I didn’t know what to do. I’d heard Big Foot call colored folks in our town names before, but not right to their face. “Hello, Big Foot,” I said.

  Emma didn’t say anything.

  “Ain’t your mama trained you right,” Big Foot said to Emma. “A white man speak to you, you say hello.”

  “Hello,” mumbled Emma, then turned to me. “I’m going inside.”

  I waved bye to Big Foot and followed Emma inside. Found her standing in the back of the store, staring at her shoes. “You all right?” I asked.

  “I don’t like that man,” Emma said.

  “Nobody likes him much.”

  Emma said nothing.

  “Cream or root beer?” I asked.

  “What?”

  “What kind of soda you like?”

  “Root beer,” Emma said.

  “Me too,” I said, and handed her my dime.

  Emma paid Mrs. Pooley for the soda while I loaded the case into my wagon. We went out the back door, just in case Big Foot was still there. On the way back to the mound, Emma suggested we stop at the post office and say hi to her daddy.

  That was fine with me. Mr. Walker sometimes asked me and Emma to help him sort the mail. Emma thought this was boring, but I kind of liked it. Besides, the post office was right next to the train depot, and I was always up for a little train watching.

  Soon as we entered, Mr. Walker looked up from his record book and grinned. “Boy, I sure am glad to see yo
u two. My leg is hurting something awful today. Think you could stay a while and help me sort the mail?”

  “Sure,” I said. Mr. Walker found Emma a sharp knife while I dragged the mailbag over to the corner with the mailboxes. Emma slit open the bag and we started pulling out piles of letters, bills and catalogs. We had to put everything into the right mailbox. My family’s was number 14. I got into a rhythm while I worked—glance at the letter, see the number, stick it in the box. Found it kind of relaxing.

  But Emma was awful quiet. “You okay?” I asked.

  “Of course.” Emma kept sorting the letters into piles.

  Was she still upset about Big Foot? Should I have said something to him when he was nasty to her back at the store? I wanted to ask her what she thought, but I wasn’t sure if that’d make things worse. Mr. Walker was still standing across the room by the front counter, so finally I just lowered my voice and asked, “What happened to your daddy’s leg?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  Before I could press her about it, my pa came into the post office. He and Mr. Walker had been friendly since the fishing trip, and I thought maybe he was stopping by just to say hello.

  “Hi, Pa!” I cried out.

  Pa hardly looked at me as he rushed over to the counter where Mr. Walker was working.

  “Do you have the new Sears and Roebuck catalog?” Pa didn’t say hello to Mr. Walker either, but that only made me feel a little better.

  “Yes,” Mr. Walker said, reaching into his desk and pulling it out. “Is something wrong?”

  “Thank goodness,” said Pa, wiping his forehead with his sleeve. “Can you place an order by telegraph? There’s been so much rain, half my corn is rotting in the field. I thought if I got some more seed by next week, I might be able to—”

  “The corn is rotting?” I asked.