The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

by Kristin Levine

  Mrs. Seay folded her arms. “Then what does the ringmaster say when the clown enters?”

  Emma cleared her throat. “Now put your hands together and welcome Hairy Larry to the stage. His nose might be red and his hair blue, but his funny bone is screwed on just right.”

  Mrs. Seay looked down at the script. “How about the elephant trainer? What’s his line?”

  “When I hit them with my whip, the pachyderms like to dance and dip,” Emma rattled off.

  “A pack of worms?” asked Buster. Expected him to say something more, but guess he wasn’t as brave without Chip.

  Mrs. Seay uncrossed her arms. “What about when the acrobats make their entrance?”

  “The first or second time?” asked Emma.

  That’s when Mrs. Seay finally started to smile.

  35

  I OVERHEAR

  A CONVERSATION

  WE RAN ALL THE WAY HOME TO TELL MAMA and Mrs. Walker the good news. The play had been retitled The Famous African Princess Circus, and Emma was gonna be the ringmaster. I was gonna be the lion tamer, and Mrs. Seay had told Buster he still had to be the lion.

  But Mama and Mrs. Walker were not as pleased as we expected. In fact, Mrs. Walker took Emma’s arm and marched her inside, saying something about it being time for supper. But Mr. Walker didn’t get home till six, and it wasn’t even four thirty. I asked Mama if we were eating early too and she just shook her head. At eight Emma came over and asked me to tell Mrs. Seay her mama didn’t want her in the play.

  Mrs. Seay frowned when I delivered Emma’s message, but she didn’t say nothing. Didn’t even make us practice the play. I was almost happy to get back to math and reading, long as it meant I didn’t have to struggle through the ringmaster’s lines.

  That evening I was at Emma’s writing out my spelling words when there was a knock at the door. Mrs. Walker put down her sewing and went to answer it. It was Mrs. Seay. Mrs. Walker led her into the parlor and shut the door. I glanced at Emma and without a word, we both slid off our chairs and put our ears to the door.

  Now, I don’t try to listen to other people’s conversations. I know it ain’t polite. But sometimes what they are saying is so dang interesting, it’s not my fault if I accidentally on purpose listen in.

  “Did you read the essay Emma wrote?” I heard Mrs. Seay say through the door.

  “No,” answered Mrs. Walker.

  “You didn’t help her with it at all?”

  “I didn’t know she was writing it.”

  “It was better than the work of students twice her age. Why, she almost had me convinced that losing the war was a good thing—and I’m a Southern girl, born and bred.”

  “Emma’s not going to be in the play. I thought she asked Dit to tell you. I’m sorry you came all this way.”

  “Did you hear what I just said?” asked Mrs. Seay.

  “Yes. Did you hear me?” Mrs. Walker’s voice was cold. They sat in silence for a long moment.

  “I can’t believe I’m asking this,” Mrs. Seay said slowly, “but please let your daughter be in our play.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Don’t you think it’s hard for me to ask a Negra for help?” Mrs. Seay snapped.

  We heard Mrs. Walker stand up and march toward the door. Me and Emma scrambled quickly back to the table.

  “Mrs. Walker, I don’t always say the right thing,” Mrs. Seay called out. “But most of us in Alabama, we’re not bad people.”

  Mrs. Walker must have had her hand on the doorknob, ’cause it started to turn. Me and Emma pretended to concentrate on our homework. “Tell that to the poor Negro who was lynched in Jefferson County last month,” we heard Mrs. Walker call out.

  “I said most of us. Not all.”

  There was a long pause. “So what are you proposing?” Mrs. Walker said finally.

  “I’ve never worked with a Negra child before,” Mrs. Seay said brightly, “but I can’t see how she’s so much different than the rest. The play is supposed to go on in less than a month. No one knows the lines except Emma.”

  “No.”

  “Fine. Then you tell her she can’t play the role because she’s a Negra.”

  Emma grinned and squeezed my hand. That was the one thing Mrs. Walker would never do. And sure enough, the next morning Mrs. Walker told Emma she had changed her mind.

  36

  THE BIRTHDAY SURPRISE

  WE STARTED HAVING REHEARSALS EVERY day after school. I was excited Emma was gonna be in the play, but a little nervous too. The other kids knew Emma from the baseball field, of course, but there she was just the little Negra girl who couldn’t hit the ball. How would they react when they realized she was so smart? Would they think she was stuck-up? Call her teacher’s pet?

  I got real worried that first day when Emma started talking about how easy it was to learn her lines. That’s not too good a way to make people like you. Then she started chatting with Mrs. Seay about reading and books. I knew she was a book-worm, but she didn’t have to tell the whole schoolhouse. Finally, when Emma suggested that maybe one of these days we could do a real play, like Hamlet, Buster burst out laughing. “Emma wants to do a play about a ham!” he cried. “Want to fry up some eggs too?” Pretty soon everyone was calling her Egghead.

  But Emma didn’t seem to mind being called Egghead. And she knew everyone’s lines, not just her own, so if you froze up, she’d prompt you in a whisper. That won Sally and Jill over. Couple of days later she brought in a book with color pictures of circus animals. Little Ben and his big brother Nathan crowded around her to see the lions and tigers, and in their excitement, they forgot they thought she was a show-off. Finally, Emma’s mama sent a basket of biscuits for everyone to share one cold February afternoon. Then even Buster had to admit, “That Egghead ain’t so bad.”

  Two days later, on February 7, 1918, we were in the middle of a long division test when Pa came to school and pulled me out of class. It was my thirteenth birthday and I was awful glad to see him, especially since I hadn’t studied. He wouldn’t tell me where we were going, ’cept to say it was a big surprise for my birthday. I knew I was finally gonna get “the talk.”

  But when we got outside, Emma and Mr. Walker were waiting in Pa’s car. “We’re all going to Tuscaloosa to celebrate our birthdays!” exclaimed Emma. Her birthday was a week after mine, and I guess it was a nice idea, but it meant that—again—I wouldn’t get to be alone with my pa.

  Emma, Mr. Walker and Pa chattered away like squirrels in an acorn tree. When we passed a sign reading, WELCOME TO TUSCALOOSA, I gave up pouting and started to get excited too.

  I had been to Tuscaloosa a couple of times before, but it was usually on some holiday to visit relatives. I wondered if we were gonna see Pa’s oldest sister, Ida. Aunt Ida’s house was full of tiny, porcelain figurines. I never got through a visit without breaking something.

  But instead of turning onto Aunt Ida’s road, Pa dropped us off at a theater on Main Street. Pa told us he and Mr. Walker were gonna do some shopping and would pick us up after the show. Then they handed us two tickets and walked away.

  Me and Emma gave the usher our tickets. He took one look at Emma and pointed to the stairs. At the top of the stairs was a balcony, looking out over a large theater. We found two plush velvet seats and sat down. A moment later the lights dimmed and the play started.

  It wasn’t like no play I had ever seen, and I had seen half a dozen between church and school. Huge people walked across the stage. They smiled and their lips moved, but I couldn’t hear what they were saying. An organist in the corner played loudly, drowning them out.

  Suddenly there was a large train on the stage. It came closer and closer. It was gonna run us over! I scrunched my eyes closed and waited a long time.

  Finally, I opened my eyes. There were people and horses on the stage now. The train was gone. “Emma,” I whispered, “this is a mighty strange
play.”

  “It isn’t a play, Dit,” Emma said. “It’s a moving picture.”

  “Oh.” I stared in silence at the rest of the film.

  When it was over, we stumbled blinking into the bright afternoon sunlight. Pa and Mr. Walker were waiting for us on the sidewalk. They took us to a diner where we stuffed ourselves on hamburgers and pie.

  Emma told her daddy the entire story. “And then the bank robbers came and threatened to shoot everyone. And Dit was scared!”

  “I was not!” I lied.

  “You were too. But so was I. And then a posse came and rode after them and shot them all dead.”

  Mr. Walker smiled as he picked at his apple pie. “Sounds like you two enjoyed yourselves.”

  “This was the greatest day ever,” Emma gushed.

  “Oh, don’t say that yet.” Pa reached into his jacket and pulled out four more tickets. On the tickets, in small neat letters, was printed: RINGLING BROTHERS CIRCUS.

  I was so surprised, I nearly choked on my piece of cherry pie. Pa had to pound on my back till I coughed it up.

  All my dreams of going to the circus came rushing back when I handed the bearded lady at the entrance my ticket. I followed Pa, Emma and Mr. Walker into the big white tent. There were wooden benches for us to sit on and three separate rings. I wanted to see everything, but how could I look in three directions at once? We finally picked a bench in the middle and sat down.

  In the first ring were the animals. A trainer put his head into a lion’s mouth and the crowd roared. Elephants stood on their back legs. Monkeys came out riding bicycles. I had seen pictures of these animals in Emma’s books, but the pictures didn’t show how they moved or the sounds they made. Seeing them in real life was like having a snowflake melt on your tongue for the first time.

  The trapeze artists were in the second ring, men and women dressed in sequined outfits that shone like sunlight on water. Every time they leaped, I had to cover my eyes. But Emma stared. “They’re beautiful!” she whispered.

  “Are they dead yet?” I asked, peeking out between my fingers.

  “They aren’t going to fall!” Emma scoffed.

  In the third ring was the Wild West show, a mini-rodeo with a cowboy roping a calf, riding a bucking bull and shooting up white men dressed like Indians. The Indians had feather headdresses big as watermelons and as colorful as fall leaves. I could picture them running up and down our mounds, their feathers bobbing in the wind.

  I thought my eyes were gonna fall out of my head, I was watching so hard. I didn’t even blink. ’Cept once, I looked over at my pa and saw he wasn’t watching the circus, but me and Emma with a big, big smile.

  37

  I OVERHEAR ANOTHER

  CONVERSATION

  MRS. WALKER HAD REALLY COME AROUND to the idea of Emma being in the play. In fact, to hear her talk, you’d think she’d come up with the idea herself. She sent a telegram to a friend in Boston, who mailed her a piece of brightly patterned cloth. The multicolored fabric came “straight from Africa,” as Emma reminded me at least once a day. Instead of cutting it up and sewing it, Mrs. Walker showed Emma how to tie and pin the cloth so that it made a dress.

  Emma drilled me on my spelling while her mama washed, combed and plaited her hair, finally adding shiny, colorful beads to the ends. Pearl so loved the beads, she begged Mrs. Walker to do the same to her hair. “Your hair won’t hold, sweetie,” Mrs. Walker said to Pearl, but she did it anyway, covering Pearl’s head with tiny, tight braids. That evening Pearl drove our family crazy shaking her head to hear the beads rattle. Every time she did so, a few more beads would pop off and go flying. We spent most of the evening picking colored beads off the floor.

  I wanted to look just like the lion tamer in the real circus, so Mama spent hours sewing together bits of leather left over from patching saddles to make me a fringed vest that looked like it had been mauled by a lion. Pa even found an old whip in the barn from when we had horses instead of a car. Ulman loaned me a pair of boots that were only a bit too big, Ollie cut down a thick leather belt to my size and Elman threw in an old hat. When I swaggered into school for the first dress rehearsal, Mrs. Seay smiled and said, “Can I help you, Mr. Lion Tamer?” Even Buster laughed and said, “Roar, roar!”

  A few days later me and Emma were helping Mr. Walker sort the mail. Actually, me and Mr. Walker were sorting; Emma was hiding in the back corner, reading her birthday present. Her mama had given her a book of poems by a Robert Snow or Ice or something like that. The front bell rang and Doc Haley came in. Mr. Walker looked up. “Hello, Doc,” he said. “You expecting a letter?”

  “No. I wanted to speak to you,” said Doc Haley.

  Mr. Walker stopped sorting.

  “A couple of us at the church been a little concerned about you lately,” Doc went on.

  I ducked behind a sack of mail, hoping the men would forget I was there. Grown-ups always have the most interesting conversations when they forget you’re around.

  “Why is that?” asked Mr. Walker.

  “We don’t think your daughter ought to be in that school play.”

  Emma finally put down her book. Mr. Walker laughed and continued sorting.

  “Mr. Walker, we’ve spent a long time getting where we are today,” Doc went on. “And a couple of families are afraid your daughter being in that play is gonna bring on a whole new bunch of problems.”

  “Well, I thank you for your concern, but there’s nothing to be worried about.”

  “Mr. Walker, this here’s Alabama. You might be a big shot up North, but here you’re just another Negra. You don’t play by the rules, you’re risking trouble.”

  “Mr. Haley, I play by the rules. And if I’m told to take the postmaster’s exam every year, I’ll take it, even if white men only have to pass it once. But I’m risking trouble every day I show up for work.” He struggled with his pant leg, pulling it up. His calf was lined with twisted old scars. Emma winced, even though I’m sure she’d seen her daddy’s leg before.

  “I received this coming home from my first day of work in Boston. Seems like some white boys didn’t like getting their mail from a nigger. But there are some things that are worth fighting for. You’d do well to remember that.”

  He jerked his pant leg back down. “And if your own self-respect isn’t worth that much to you, think of Elbert. I’m not going to tell my own daughter she can’t be in a play because of the color of her skin.”

  Doc Haley shifted his weight from one foot to the other and stared at the ground. “Now, Mr. Walker, I didn’t mean to—”

  “You want to do something for this town? Next time you see an injustice, take a stand. It’s worth the risk.”

  Doc Haley turned and stomped out.

  Mr. Walker cursed up a storm, then remembered we were still there. “Get back to work, you two,” he snapped.

  We jumped up and started sorting.

  38

  THE FIGHT IN THE SCHOOL

  THE NEXT THURSDAY WAS THE DAY EVERYTHING started to go wrong. I should’ve realized it. Should have fallen out of bed and stubbed my toe or something. But that’s the problem. Those days start like any other.

  It was the twenty-first of February—the day of the final dress rehearsal. After school, Mrs. Seay moved her desk aside and set up a little platform for Emma at the front of the room.

  “Now turn your attention to the death-defying tightrope walkers, who will dazzle your eyes with their feats of balance.” Emma’s voice was loud and clear, just like the ringmaster in the real circus.

  Pearl and Mary, wrapped in yards of pink tulle, ran out and started walking on a thin wooden plank. Mary immediately fell off.

  “Girls!” Mrs. Seay cried. “Slower is better.”

  “It don’t look so good,” pouted Mary.

  “It looks better than falling off!” I called out. Everyone laughed.

  Mrs. Pooley poked her head in the front door. “Mrs. Seay, I got those new hairpins you wanted.” She look
ed around the classroom. “What the heck is going on?”

  “We’re having our dress rehearsal,” said Earl.

  I stepped onto the stage. “Watch as I bravely put my head into the ferocious beast’s mouth. I pet his mane and he purrs like a kitten.”

  Buster crawled over to me, a thick yarn mane wrapped around his head. “Roar! Roar!” he cried. I hit him with the whip. Might have been a bit too hard, ’cause Buster called out, “Hey!” and rubbed his back.

  “Sorry,” I said, pretending it was an accident.

  Emma walked back to the platform, her colorful dress wrapped around her. “And now Raymond the Renegade will perform feats of marksmanship!”

  Raymond stepped up front with a lasso. He had spent hours practicing with it in our front yard. He swung it high in the air and knocked over a pile of books. Mrs. Seay scurried over to pick them up.

  “What’s she doing up there?” asked Mrs. Pooley.

  “Who?” I asked.

  “The Negra.”

  “That’s Egghead,” said Buster.

  “Emma,” I corrected. I watched her proudly. “Ain’t she good?”

  I didn’t see Mrs. Pooley leave, but I can imagine her hobbling down the street to get Big Foot. If only she had fallen and broken her dang leg. Or if Doc Haley hadn’t been out sweeping and hadn’t seen Mrs. Pooley and Big Foot come back into the school. Or if Mr. Walker hadn’t told Doc to stand up for himself. Or if Emma had just left. Or if I had managed to keep my mouth shut. But wishing you had done things different ain’t never changed a thing.

  We were just finishing up when it happened. Most of Mrs. Seay’s hair had fallen out of its fancy braids and the room was a mess. Bits of costumes and pieces of script were scattered everywhere. Emma stood in the middle of the stage, saying her final lines. “And so I thank you all for coming to our show today. We hope you have . . .” Emma trailed off, staring at the back of the room. She never forgot her lines, so we all turned to look.