The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

by Kristin Levine

  “Dit’s got a sweetheart! Dit’s got a sweetheart!” chanted Buster.

  “Hush up, Buster,” I said. “Let’s just play another game.”

  So we did. But every time my shooter hit a marble out of the circle, Chip puckered up his lips and made kissing noises.

  “That’s seventeen kisses!” Buster exclaimed.

  “Come on, stop it.” This just made the guys laugh harder. I glanced over, looking for my brothers. Raymond and Earl were way off over by a tree playing catch. Pearl was watching the marble game, but I couldn’t exactly ask her for help without making things even worse. So I figured I’d just have to join in.

  “Fine, I admit it.” I threw my hands up in the air. “I sure do love that Negra. Watch out, Emma, here’s kiss number eighteen!”

  The boys roared with laughter.

  I flicked my shooter and knocked two more of their marbles out of the circle. “Nineteen and twenty. My, those kisses are fine!” I cried, loud as can be.

  Buster was laughing so hard he started to hiccup.

  “How about a hug now?” I went on. “Smooch, smooch, smooch!”

  Chip had tears in his eyes. “Oh, Dit,” Chip cried. “You are just too funny!”

  But when I glanced over at Pearl, she wasn’t laughing.

  On the way home, it seemed the Emma joke had finally grown stale. Me and Buster didn’t have much to say, so Chip turned his attention to Pearl’s best friend, Mary. Mary was a sweet girl, though not the quickest in school. She was especially bad at spelling. Mary and Pearl were just ahead of us when Chip started in. “That was sure a fun spelling bee this afternoon.”

  “Sure was,” Buster said.

  “Whole bunch of easy words. Like bake,” said Chip.

  Course that was one of the words Mary had gotten wrong.

  “And why,” added Buster.

  Mary had spelled it w-h-i-y.

  Pearl turned around to look at me. I just shook my head. She put her arm around Mary, and the two girls started to walk faster.

  “Though there were some hard words too,” said Chip. “Like Mary.”

  I knew where this was going. The old postmaster had a girl named Isabelle. She’d needed glasses but her daddy’d been too cheap to spend the money, so she’d squinted all the time. We had played the same joke on her.

  “I know how to spell Mary,” Buster said. “S-t-u-p-i-d.”

  Pearl looked at me again. I had to say something. Mary was staring at the ground.

  “Knock it off, Buster,” I said.

  They ignored me.

  “Mary?” said Chip. “I thought it was d-u-m-b.”

  “You’re gonna make her cry,” I warned.

  Sure enough, soon as I said it, Mary started crying.

  “Now look what you did, Dit!” scolded Chip. “Shame on you.”

  “Me! It was you.”

  Chip shrugged. “It’s just fun and games.” He pointed to Mary. “Even Mary knows that.”

  Mary nodded, even as she kept crying. Pearl sat down with her by the side of the road as me, Chip and Buster walked on by.

  It had been my idea last year to spell Isabelle i-d-i-o-t. I remembered laughing as she cried. But this year it didn’t seem funny. And I finally realized that the idiot had been me.

  18

  THE DONKEY

  THAT EVENING I SAT AT THE DINING ROOM table doing my homework with Pearl and Earl. The light from our oil lamp was dim, and the numbers seemed to swim in front of my eyes. “Mama?” I finally called out.

  Mama walked into the dining room, Lois crying on her hip. “What, Dit?”

  “I don’t understand this.” I pointed to my math homework.

  “Well, I can’t help you now.” Mama sounded tired. “I gotta get the little ones to bed.”

  “But Mama . . .”

  “Just do your best.” She walked out of the room. Mama was still mad at me for getting ink on my new clothes on the very first day of school.

  I stared at my paper and finally realized what was bugging me: I had made things right with Chip, but not with Emma. I slid off my chair and headed toward the door.

  “Where you going?” asked Pearl.

  “Out.”

  “I’m gonna tell!”

  I let the screen door slam behind me.

  A moment later, I stood on Emma’s front porch, still clutching my book and papers. Must have raised my hand three times before I finally got up the nerve to knock. After a minute or two, Mrs. Walker came to the front door. She didn’t say nothing.

  “May I speak to Emma, please?” I asked, looking at the wide, clean-swept boards that made up her front porch.

  “She doesn’t want to see you,” Mrs. Walker said. She had a clean apron on over her work dress and smelled like baking bread.

  “I know, ma’am.” I forced myself to look her in the eye. “That’s why I gotta talk to her.”

  Mrs. Walker nodded and led me into the parlor. Emma was sitting on the couch reading a book—Tarzan of the Apes. What the heck kind of name was Tarzan?

  Emma put down her book and folded her hands in her lap as I approached.

  I took a deep breath. “I shouldn’t have accused you of telling.” It was hard, but once I started, the words came a little easier. “You gave me your word, and I know you ain’t gonna break it.”

  “You hurt my feelings,” Emma said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  There was a long pause.

  “I ain’t never apologized to no one before,” I said finally. “Am I doing it right?”

  Emma gave a little smile. “Mama just made biscuits,” she said. “Would you like one?”

  “Sure.” The biscuits were delicious. I thought admitting I was wrong would cause me to pop like a balloon. Instead, I felt like a donkey had been sitting on my chest and I’d finally convinced him to stand up.

  While we ate, Emma told me about Tarzan. She went on and on for the time it took me to eat three biscuits, but I still wasn’t sure I understood the story.

  “So there’s this boy, Tarzan,” I repeated. “And when his parents die, he’s raised by an ape mama?”

  Emma nodded. “Her name’s Kala.”

  “And he teaches himself to read with an old primer?” I asked.

  “Yes,” Emma explained. “And then another man teaches him to speak French and . . .”

  “Do the apes speak French?”

  “No, but . . .”

  I shook my head. “That story sounds a bit too complicated for me. Anyway, I gotta get on home. Maybe Mama finally has time to help me with my long division.”

  “I can help you with that,” said Emma.

  “You can?” I asked.

  Before I could say anything else, Emma had shown me how to divide 4,673 by 22, explained how to bring down the numbers and write the remainder at the top. Didn’t take but five minutes, and Emma smiled when we were done. “You catch on quick, Dit.”

  “Nah,” I said. “I ain’t good at math.”

  “Who told you that?” she asked.

  I shrugged.

  Afterward, as I was walking out the door, I heard Mrs. Walker say to Mr. Walker, “I’ve never heard a white boy apologize to my girl before,” and I could hear the smile in her voice.

  19

  THE PLANE

  EVERY DAY AFTER SCHOOL, I’D HURRY through my chores and head over to the mounds to meet Emma in our cave. We’d skip stones, or practice throwing baseballs, or collect acorns, or just sit and talk. Sometimes, she’d paint my picture as I lay on the riverbank and looked at the sky. My skin would get all prickly when I felt her squinting at me in the sunlight. Looking at her pictures was strange: they were me, but something was always different. My hair was the wrong shade of red or my ears were too big. When I complained to Emma, she just laughed.

  But I didn’t talk about Emma at school, and Chip didn’t ask. I wanted to be Chip’s friend too. If he liked me, everyone at school liked me. We talked baseball and played marbles at recess, and
if it wasn’t as much fun as I’d remembered, that didn’t have nothing to do with Emma. How could it? She wasn’t even there.

  ’Cept sometimes it was like she was there, ’cause I could hear her asking me all sorts of questions. Why hadn’t I ever noticed that Chip’s teasing sometimes made the little kids cry? Why did I sometimes join in the teasing? Why did Chip suddenly want to spend more time with Buster? Why did Buster say yes to everything Chip wanted to do? Why did Chip and Buster play with Elbert on the ball field but wouldn’t speak to him if they ran into him on Mrs. Pooley’s front porch? Why did Chip cheat at marbles? Why’d I cheat at marbles? Why was it okay to like girls when you were a little kid, bad when you were a big kid and then okay to marry them once you were all grown up? And why, if Chip was my real good friend, was I so scared to mention Emma?

  Things went along like this for a month or so, with me wondering and why-ing till my head felt like it was screwed on backwards. Got so I didn’t say much around Chip and Buster ’cause I was so worried one of those “Emma questions” would come bursting out. I had my school friends and my after-school friends. Oh, they knew about each other—Moundville ain’t that big and people talk—but Chip and Buster had tired of teasing me. Least it seemed that way, till the first week in October.

  Mrs. Seay liked to call people up to the chalkboard to do math problems. Kept her from getting her hands all covered in chalk. Mary was standing in front of the whole class, scratching her head. “My problem was 67 times 43. I got 469,” she said, shuffling her feet. “But I don’t think that’s right.”

  Mrs. Seay shook her head. “Can anyone help Mary?”

  I raised my hand. “You forgot to bring down the zero,” I said, remembering what Emma had told me.

  Mrs. Seay nodded. Chip and Buster laughed at Mary as she sat down, but not me. I had gotten the same problem wrong the night before.

  Mrs. Seay asked Raymond to come to the board next. He was in the middle of his problem when a soft buzzing started. It quickly turned into a loud roar, a roar I couldn’t forget, specially since I’d once mistaken it for a buzzard.

  “It’s a plane!” I said.

  Everyone jumped out of their seats and ran to the window.

  “Students, please!” Mrs. Seay cried. “I know you’ve probably never seen a plane before, but . . .” No one was listening to her, so Mrs. Seay finally gave up and hurried over to the window herself.

  The plane was circling, and with each circle it came closer to the ground. “Is he landing?” asked Raymond.

  I couldn’t wait no longer. I jumped out of the window and raced toward the empty lot where we played baseball. If a pilot were gonna land, that’d be the best place in town.

  Chip, Raymond and Pearl were at my heels. “It’s down there, behind those trees,” Chip called out.

  We pushed through the row of trees and onto the empty lot, but there was nothing there.

  “Did he crash?” asked Pearl. We all stood still, gasping for breath.

  Uncle Wiggens hobbled onto the field. “Jesus, Joseph and General Lee.” He stood huffing for a moment. “Big Foot said the pilot landed in the big field out past the railroad yard.” That was over near the Wilson school. We took off at a run.

  Seemed like forever till we burst out of the forest and found the plane sitting in a cow pasture. The cows were annoyed. They mooed loudly at the big, silver machine that had interrupted their grazing. Most of the town was there too: Doc Haley, Mayor Davidson, Mrs. Pooley, Big Foot, Pa and Mama, Emma’s parents, Dr. Griffith, Emma, Elbert and a bunch of the other kids from the Wilson school. We were all staring at the plane.

  The pilot stood on the ground, leaning against one wing. He was a young man, with sweaty brown hair that stuck to his forehead, and held a helmet under one arm. Mayor Davidson walked over to greet him. “Welcome to Moundville.”

  The pilot took Mayor Davidson’s hand and shook it heartily. “Thank you, sir.” Then he turned to the crowd. “Sorry to cause all this commotion, folks. I’m afraid I ran out of gas.” Everyone laughed. The young man grinned. “Could somebody fetch me a few gallons?”

  Two older boys took off at a run before I could even think about moving. Emma pushed her way through the crowd to me. “Did you see it, Dit?” she cried. “Did you see it land?”

  I shook my head. “I just got here.”

  “It was beautiful!” Emma continued. “Just glided in like an eagle.”

  I glanced over at Chip and Buster and saw them watching me and Emma talking. They started laughing, and even though I was too far away to hear their words, I knew what they were saying.

  Emma saw them too. “Something wrong, Dit?”

  I shook my head again.

  Mrs. Seay eventually arrived to tell us that school had been dismissed for the day. Her hat had blown off her head, and her pale cheeks were rosy with excitement. When the boys came back with the gas, me and Emma pushed our way to the front of the crowd. We stood beside the wings of the plane, stroking the shiny metal.

  I saw Elbert across the way and waved. He waved back till he saw Emma standing next to me. Then he frowned and turned away.

  Before I could decide what to make of that, the pilot jumped onto the wing. He stood up, balanced himself with outstretched arms and poured the gasoline into a hidden tank. When he was finished, he jumped down right next to me and Emma.

  “You like planes?” he asked.

  “Yes, sir,” Emma answered.

  “Maybe you’ll get to take a ride someday.”

  Emma’s eyes shone. “I sure hope so.”

  The pilot winked at us, then Big Foot and Dr. Griffith forced all the children back.

  “Hold her tight,” the pilot instructed the grown-ups, “till I’m ready to go.”

  Big Foot, Dr. Griffith, Mr. Walker and Pa held on to the wings of the plane. The pilot spun the propeller and the engine sprang to life with a mighty roar.

  The pilot climbed back into the cockpit, adjusted his controls and gave a thumbs-up. The men let go and scattered. The plane shot forward, slowly lifting off the ground.

  It headed straight for a grove of trees.

  “He’s not gonna make it!” Mrs. Pooley cried. She covered her eyes.

  But at the last moment, the plane rose up and just brushed the top of the branches.

  “What a relief!” Mrs. Seay sighed. “I was afraid he was going to crash.”

  But as I walked home, I didn’t feel relieved. I felt worried. Worried that the days of keeping my friends separate were just about over.

  20

  STRIKING OUT

  THE DAY AFTER THE PLANE CAME TO town, I convinced Emma to give baseball another try. I sent her way out in right field, and for the first two innings not a ball came near her. Then Elman hit a ground ball and Emma actually managed to pick it up and throw it to first. She grinned like a horse with a mouthful of sugar. Of course, by that point Elman had already made it to third, but it was a start.

  By the time she got up to bat, however, Emma was no longer smiling.

  “You okay, Emma?” I asked.

  “Dit, I can’t do this.” Her hands trembled.

  “Sure you can,” I said as I handed her a bat and pushed her toward home plate. “It’s easy,” I said, though she was holding the bat all wrong.

  Raymond threw the first pitch. It was a nice, slow ball. Emma winced and jumped to one side.

  “Strike one,” cried Buster. He was catching, and Chip was on first. They hadn’t made no kissing noises or girlfriend jokes at school that day. Maybe I’d been wrong about them whispering about me and Emma when the plane landed.

  Raymond threw the next pitch. It was nice and easy again. Emma swung, missing the ball by a mile.

  “Strike two!” Buster sounded pleased.

  “Emma,” Raymond yelled. “I’m trying to make it easy for you!”

  Emma bit her lip. Raymond pitched again. Any gentler and the ball would have dropped out of the air. Emma swung so hard, she fell to the ground.


  “Strike three. You’re out!” Buster yelled.

  Emma left the bat on the ground and walked back to the circle of old stumps we used as our dugout.

  “Don’t worry, Emma,” Pearl said before taking her turn at bat. “Nobody hits the ball every time.”

  Emma started to cry.

  “You’ll hit it next time,” I said without much conviction, watching the tears drip off her chin onto the dusty ground.

  “Next time,” Emma spat, wiping her nose. “There’s not going to be a next time.”

  There was a loud crack. We looked over. Pearl was sliding into first base.

  “Even Pearl can do it,” Emma moaned. “Why do you think I’m so good at reading? It’s because I can’t do anything else!”

  She was probably right, but I didn’t think it would make her feel better to hear me say it. I stood watching her cry, unsure what to do.

  Mitch, the slow boy, lumbered over to her and put his arm around her. “Don’t cry, little Emma,” he said as if talking to a puppy. “I ain’t no good at reading.”

  Emma hiccuped and gave a little giggle. Mitch’s face broke into its usual grin. I felt all churned up inside, like milk before it turns to butter. Mitch had found a way to comfort Emma, while I just stood there like a fool.

  I was up to bat next. Raymond was a decent pitcher, but I could usually get a single or maybe even a double off of him. He threw a fastball, but I knew I could hit it, so I started to swing.

  “Girlfriend,” muttered Buster, just loud enough for me to hear.

  I was thrown off balance and the ball snapped into his glove. In a loud voice he called, “Strike one.”

  The next pitch was a curveball. Soon as I swung again, Buster whispered, “Saw you with her.”

  Strike two.

  I turned to face him this time. “What’d you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  Buster exchanged a glance with Chip on first, and I knew it wasn’t just about baseball. But I didn’t know what to do. Raymond was waiting and everyone was watching me, so finally, I just stepped back up to home plate.