“This way,” Grandmother Johnson said, walking toward the open door. A smiling man handed them each a folded program; then a lady in white gloves led them down the aisle, keeping one hand locked behind her back. Grandmother Johnson held her chin high and walked the red carpet as though she were on a runway in Paris.
The cavernous space smelled of varnish, old carpet and the dust, sweat and tears of at least five generations. The woman led them farther and farther down the aisle until Minni was afraid she was taking them to the pews on the altar, next to the man who had just come out to play the organ.
Just before they reached the front, the lady stopped and held out her hand—her other hand still firmly behind her back—directing them to sit in the second row. Grandmother Johnson went in first, pulling Keira in beside her. Minni scooted in last.
The lone woman in the front row sat in her seat as if it had been hers since the day God had made the earth. Her hat was the only one in the place that rivaled Grandmother Johnson’s in its plumage. With all the yellow feathers and netting, it looked as though she had a whole flock of chicks nesting on her head.
A girl, old enough to be in high school, came and sat next to the lady. Minni got a glimpse of the woman’s profile. This wasn’t just any lady. It was the lady from the picture in the reception area—the first lady! Minni didn’t know what that meant exactly, but if she had the same name as the president’s wife she must be pretty important.
Several women and men in long blue robes filed out from a side door up front. The choir, Minni figured.
Then a large man in a black robe came out and stepped to the podium. She recognized him from the picture as well. The Reverend Dr. James Julius. He asked them to stand and then he said some fancy words and everyone read some words together off the program—except for Keira, who didn’t like to read out loud, and Minni, who stayed quiet so her sister wouldn’t feel alone. Then Grandmother Johnson handed them a big book opened to a song and the organ cranked up, and everyone sang, except for Minni and Keira again.
Minni couldn’t see around the first lady very well. She wondered how many people didn’t have a clear view of the reverend doctor because of Grandmother Johnson’s hat. The song ended and everyone sat.
“Now is the time in our service when we welcome all those who are joining us for the first time.” The reverend doctor smiled and held out his hand in their direction. “Deaconess Johnson, would you like to introduce your guests?”
Minni’s heart banged against the walls of her chest as if it were trying to run from the church, which was what she felt like doing. Her palms turned moist, and if she didn’t calm down quickly, her pits would soon have everyone around her wondering who had brought an overripe cantaloupe into church.
Grandmother Johnson rose to her feet like snow-covered Mount Rainier. “Stand up,” she said under her breath. “Giving all honor to God, the reverend doctor and his first lady, and all my fellow saints here today…”
Minni swallowed, trying to unstick her dry mouth. She hoped Grandmother Johnson didn’t expect her and Keira to say a bunch of fancy words like that.
“I have the pleasure of having my granddaughters with me this week. This is Minerva”—she reached across Keira and touched Minni’s shoulder, looking around the crowded room—“and Keira. They will be competing in the Miss Black Pearl Preteen of America pageant in exactly one week from today. I invite everyone to come out and give your support.”
Please don’t! Minni wanted to shout.
The reverend doctor welcomed them, then turned to a lady nearby who had stood while Grandmother Johnson was speaking. Minni sat, giving all honor to God that she hadn’t had to speak in front of all these people.
“Yes, Sister Russell?”
The woman stood alone. She was tall and stylish and wore a huge diamond ring.
“I want to add that my granddaughter, Alisha, will also be competing for the title of Miss Black Pearl Preteen.” The woman smiled at Grandmother Johnson from across the aisle.
The corners of Grandmother Johnson’s mouth turned up as well, but it was hard to tell if she was smiling or snarling. Her eyes narrowed as if she were inviting Sister Russell to duel.
After a few more introductions, the choir stood. The man at the organ played a few chords that sounded familiar. Minni couldn’t place them—until a girl in the choir started singing.
“Why should I feel discouraged?” she began.
The sparrow song. It sounded so much better than when she and Grandmother Johnson had practiced it.
The longer the girl sang, the more entranced Minni became. The music wrapped around her again and again until she could hardly move. It squeezed her heart so hard that a tear popped out of the corner of her eye and trickled down her cheek before she even knew what had happened.
The choir joined in on the chorus. “I sing because I’m happy. I sing because I’m free…”
Their voices dipped, dove and soared together, like a roomful of swallows, separate and yet one. Minni wasn’t sure if heaven actually existed, but if it did it would sound like this. Like the ocean, Keira’s laughter, Mama’s singing, and Daddy’s “I’m home!” all at once.
The belting voices sliced through her and made her insides melt like one of those chocolates with the liquidy centers, until she wanted to leap up with the people around her, who swayed and shouted to the music, and at the same time fall to the ground in a puddle of tears.
This was what the song was supposed to sound like? This was what it could make another person feel? She was at once overwhelmed with the knowledge that she could never make the song sound anything like this and inspired to give it everything she had the next time she tried.
She didn’t want the music to stop, and for a long time it didn’t. The organist kept returning to the chorus, and the soloist kept letting her voice slide up and down and all around, and people all over the church were shouting and some were even slumping to their seats and needing the ladies in white gloves to come and fan their faces.
When finally they reached the last chord, they held on to it so long that Minni expected some of the choir members themselves to faint. The choir director shook her hands in the air, encouraging the singers to keep the wall of sound coming, and they did, like a roaring waterfall, and then, just like that, the director brought her hands down and the water fall stopped.
The entire church—even Grandmother Johnson—was on its feet, applauding. Minni and Keira stood and clapped, too. Choir members shouted out, “Hallelujah!”
The organ kept playing as the reverend doctor came to the podium. “His eye is on the sparrow!” he shouted.
“Amen!” people shouted back.
“And I know…say, ‘I know!’”
“I know!” everyone said together.
“I know he watches me!”
“Yes, sir!” a man exclaimed.
“If I go up to the heavens, he is there.”
“Yes!”
“If I make my bed in the depths, he is there.”
“Thank you, Jesus!”
“If I settle on the far side of the sea, even there his hand shall guide me, his right hand shall hold me fast!”
“Amen!” people thundered. More applause and lots of organ playing.
Minni and Keira looked at each other and smiled. Maybe this church thing wouldn’t be so bad after all. This was a whole lot more exciting than the church they’d visited in Port Townsend where everyone sat with their hands in their laps and seemed to like things very quiet, as if God were sleeping and they didn’t want to wake him.
The organ stopped and everyone finally sat, but the music had worked like a charger, connecting the place to a giant electrical outlet, and though the room had quieted down, it was still full of energy.
The Reverend Dr. James Julius looked out at them all. “As we read in the Scriptures, God is like the hen that gathers her chicks under her wing.”
Grandmother Johnson put her fingers to her lips and belche
d. Not loudly enough for anyone to notice—except Minni and Keira. They looked at each other out of the corners of their eyes. Minni stifled a giggle.
The reverend doctor kept talking. The longer he went on, the more Grandmother Johnson shifted and squirmed in her seat. She crossed her legs one way and then quickly crossed them the other. At one point, the air around them turned funky. Minni grabbed the fan from the back of the pew in front of her and waved it in front of her face the way other women were doing around the church.
Meanwhile, Keira had started to shake with held-in laughter. Minni pinched her sister’s arm. She couldn’t control herself much longer. She held her breath and fanned harder. Grandmother Johnson glared at them until, thankfully, Keira got ahold of herself.
The pastor got louder and louder, and faster and faster, and Grandmother Johnson looked more and more uncomfortable, as if she were sitting on a pinecone. Then, quite unexpectedly, in the midst of the singsong rhythm he had established, the reverend doctor decided to add a dramatic pause. He stopped—just as a high-pitched squeak came from underneath Grandmother Johnson’s wide bottom.
Minni squeezed her sister’s arm. She tried to swallow her laughter, but some of it escaped through her nose, making a sound like a snorting horse.
Suddenly Keira was on her feet. Grandmother Johnson scooted them into the aisle. “Move. Now!” she whispered fiercely.
If the reverend doctor had noticed, he didn’t show it. He picked right back up where he had left off, calling people to come forward who needed God to touch them and make them well. People filled the aisle, moving toward the front of the church. Minni, Keira and Grandmother Johnson were suddenly walking upstream.
Did God know how to deal with gastrointestinal distress? Perhaps Grandmother Johnson should join the people going forward.
Minni stumbled alongside their grandmother, who dragged them to the end of the red carpet and through the first door, past the picture of the honorable Reverend Dr. James Julius and his first lady and down the front steps.
The glowing Jesus must have worked some kind of miracle, because Minni and Keira kept all their laughter inside until they were safely in their room, their faces buried deep in their pillows.
Chapter Eighteen
“She’s old and wrinkled and her skin looks like puff pastry. And one of her eyes is all cloudy and pale, almost glowing. It’s spooky.” Minni sat cross-legged on her bed. She was finally getting a chance to tell Keira about Laverna Oliphant. The past two days, they’d barely had a moment to themselves, and at bedtime they’d spoken to their parents, and one night to Gigi as well. They’d fallen asleep before Minni remembered to describe her encounter with the mysterious neighbor.
Now, after an afternoon of reading Black Beauty, with Grandmother Johnson watching over their shoulders and doing far too much intruding, then dinner and a game of hearts, they were at last alone in the attic. Recounting Grandmother Johnson’s untimely emission in church had made them roll with laughter and left them wide-awake.
“Do you really think she practices voodoo?” Keira asked, slipping into her nightshirt.
“Grandmother Johnson said she saw shrunken heads hanging in her kitchen window.”
“Shrunken heads?”
“I guess they have something to do with voodoo.”
“Sounds gross.”
Minni bolted upright. “I know. Let’s sneak out tonight and peek in her window!”
“You mean spy on her?” Keira sounded dubious.
“Not really. Just look and see if we can find anything to back up Grandmother Johnson’s claims. Like I said—she’s old. Really old. She probably won’t even be up.” Minni’s curiosity about this stray-loving, possibly voodoo-practicing neighbor had been piqued, but truth be told, she was too spooked—and concerned that Miss Oliphant might know of their involvement in the poop-on-the-door incident—to have any kind of real conversation with her.
“Okay. You got me. Let’s do it.”
They changed back into their clothes. As soon as the snoring started, they snuck downstairs. As they passed the bathroom, the floorboards creaked so loudly, Minni was sure they would be caught. They grabbed each other, their eyes glued to the door at the end of the hall. The snoring kept on like a small aircraft engine, and they tiptoed toward the kitchen, practically tripping over each other to get outside.
A soft glow came from the first-floor windows alongside Miss Oliphant’s house. “They’re too high,” Keira said, peering up. “There’s no way to see in.”
Maybe it was how well their scheme had worked this morning. Maybe it was the bright, shining moon. Whatever it was, Minni was feeling brave. “Stand on my shoulders,” she said.
It was a stunt they did all the time at home—something Keira had learned in gymnastics. She had taught Minni how to be the “under-stander,” the person on the bottom who needed to be strong, balanced and trustworthy. Minni had shown promise from their very first attempts, although it had still taken them several times to execute the mount flawlessly.
“Good idea.”
Minni spread her feet and bent her knees. She focused on being as rooted to the ground as the elm trees lining the street. Keira put a foot on Minni’s thigh and grabbed Minni’s hands, and up she went. Then step, step and she had a foot on each of Minni’s shoulders. Minni grasped her sister’s calves and worked hard not to sway. “What do you see?” she whispered.
“Candles—everywhere. Do you think she’s having a séance?”
“How would I know? I can’t see anything! What’s she doing?”
“She’s at her dining room table, surrounded by candles. She’s got some cards in a circle in front of her.”
“Playing cards?”
“No, they’re big. She’s flipping one at a time, with lots of pausing in between.”
Minni’s pulse quickened. “Tarot cards! She’s reading someone’s future!”
“Or trying to find out who put that bag of poop on her door.”
Minni’s arms and legs suddenly felt weak.
“Let me down! You’re shaking!” Keira lowered one leg and then the other so that she sat on Minni’s shoulders. Minni started to kneel, but her legs buckled. Keira tumbled to the ground.
“Sorry.” Minni grabbed Keira’s hand and pulled her up. They hurried into their house, up to the attic, and fell onto Minni’s bed, chests heaving from exertion and the thrill of their escape. They had collected some very intriguing intelligence about the enigmatic Miss Oliphant.
Perhaps Grandmother Johnson hadn’t exaggerated. Could her neighbor actually read futures and cast spells?
The next morning, Grandmother Johnson was limping. She hobbled into the dining room, where Keira and Minni sat pushing soggy bran cereal around their bowls, waiting for an opportunity to dump the buttermilk in the ferns.
“Are you all right?” Keira asked.
Grandmother Johnson set her teacup on the table and lowered herself into her chair, wincing. “Arthritis. It flares up when storms are moving in.”
Minni glanced out the window behind their grandmother. The sky was as clear and blue as a perfect piece of beach glass.
“Are you sure it’s not your neighbor?” Keira looked at Minni with a sly smile.
“What kind of nonsense are you talking now, child?”
“Maybe she’s got a voodoo doll over there and she’s poking it in the knee.”
Minni choked back a laugh.
Grandmother Johnson looked at Minni sternly, then turned to Keira. “Hogwash. I wouldn’t put it past her to try—vengeance for my act of justice the other day—but that witch doctor foolishness is just that—foolishness.” She waved her hand toward Keira’s bowl. “Now finish up. I want you to sit with Minni and do some more reading.”
Again, already? Minni thought. Although their lessons were going okay so far, she still felt awkward about tutoring her sister.
“Could we see more pictures of your grandmother, or other relatives of yours?” she asked quick
ly. Surely Keira wouldn’t mind if she got them out of having to read. Plus, now that Minni knew what their great-great-grandmother had looked like, she was curious to see other pictures of Grandmother Johnson’s extended family.
“They’re your relatives too, you know.”
“Oh, right. Other relatives of ours.”
Grandmother Johnson looked at Minni intently, sipping her tea. “I suppose…if you’re really interested.” Minni and Keira both nodded. Their grandmother’s lips curled into a small but pleased smile. She pushed back her chair and rose stiffly. “All right then, finish your breakfast and meet me in the living room.” She limped to her bedroom.
Minni poured their buttermilk into the ferns while Keira tiptoed into the kitchen and disposed of the bran cereal. They arrived in the living room at the same time as Grandmother Johnson and sat on either side of her on the straight-backed couch.
“Has your mother shown you this one?” Grandmother Johnson held up a framed photo of a man sitting in a stuffed armchair. A girl about Minni’s and Keira’s age sat in his lap, leaning back against his chest. Minni recognized the girl’s round brown eyes and full lips, parted in a big grin full of crooked teeth. Her hair looked different braided into two plaits, but it was clear who it was. Mama.
Minni took the picture and pondered the man. Twinkling eyes set in a honey-brown face and framed by rectangular black glasses looked straight back at her. The man’s arms circled Mama’s shoulders and his long legs jutted out underneath her sprawling ones, which were covered to the knees by fitted striped pants. They looked as if they were laughing at a joke that only they shared.
“Isn’t that Grandpa Johnson?” Keira reached for the picture and Minni gave it to her. Their grandfather, a government employee, had died before they were born. Mama still received money from interest earned off a big asbestos settlement he had won. A bitter reminder, she said, but a helpful supplement to her modest artist’s income nonetheless. He had always encouraged her artistic abilities, she said, and would be happy to know he was helping make her career possible.
The Other Half of My Heart Page 12