“Respect … Helane—”
“Dad, I’m sorry.” I’m crying. “But what about Mom?”
“Look, Nina, your loyalty to your mother is admirable, but you have to understand …”
Understand what? If he can stop loving Mom, does that mean he can stop loving me? What’s next?
“And I am seeing Helane. Whom you, young lady, will respect.” He stops and grabs my shoulder. “I saw how you cut your eyes at her. That will not happen again! You will treat her with respect. The respect that she is due.”
If I ever see her again. Which I intend not to. “She’s not—” I start to say, She’s not my mother, but somehow the words come out different. “She’s not a woman I respect.” I hear a voice that sounds like mine speak those words. Out loud. Honestly, it’s like the devil’s got my tongue. I wish I could run away right this second and disappear forever. I’d never come back.
Dad looks like he’s gonna lose his mind. Grounded for life, he’s gonna say. He’s turning totally blue and purple, and his eyes aren’t bulging anymore. Now they’re slits. I’ll be locked in my room forever. No food, no water.
“I will deal with you when we get back to my apartment, where you will apologize to Helane. Immediately,” he snarls, before he spins around.
“But why should I apologize to her? I didn’t do anything to her,” I protest.
He keeps moving, with me in tow.
“She doesn’t even know what I said!” Now I’m righteous, as Dad would say. “So I don’t see why I should apologize.” I’m practically snapping my fingers. I don’t know where my courage is coming from, but really, I don’t see any reason to say I’m sorry to somebody who doesn’t even know there was a conversation about her.
He drags me away from the car, growling, “You will apologize, young lady.” His lips are tight. “You showed disrespect by leaving abruptly. Rudely. Helane’s no fool. She can put two and two together.” He glares.
I feel like rolling my eyes, but even in my newfound state of bravery, I don’t want to commit suicide.
“And the things you said to me …” His eyes start popping again. “I will not have it, Nina Armstrong. You will apologize for being rude. To her. And to me. You will ask forgiveness from us together.”
Together. Ugh. The thought makes me so sick I shake.
But he tugs me back to the staircase in front of his building. When we get there he takes the steps two at a time, pulling me up, and turns his key in the front door. While I’m being dragged up the steps I glance at the azalea bush. It’s motionless.
In the mirror built into one wall of the hallway, I see how scared I am. Paler than Mom. I put my eyes down and stare at my feet, hoping I’ll dissolve into a puddle on the floor, like when Jimi and I used to play the bad witch—”I’m melting, I’m melting”—and sink down.
How did everything get so bad so fast? Three months ago I knew who I was: Nina Armstrong, with no color that was important, with one mom, one dad, a pesky brother, and one best friend left after Francesca moved—Jessica Raymond. And there was no scary thug chasing Jimi.
Dad opens the door and pushes me into the living room. Helane is sitting alone, grinning like an idiot. Jimi must be in his room. When she sees us storm in she looks up and says, “Baby, what’s wrong?” But she’s not talking to me, she’s talking to my dad. Sweet like honey. It would make anyone gag.
“Nina has something to say.” Dad thrusts me in front and moves back, like I’m a puppet who talks on command. He stands there, arms folded. Waiting.
I’m numb. It’s as if all the words in me have flown away. I’ve never felt so speechless. I couldn’t talk even if I wanted to. Which I don’t.
“Nina!” His voice rises.
No. I am not going to apologize. Not to her. Suddenly I know that if I say even one word, all the tears inside will gush out, like a fountain. I’d probably cry for the rest of my life. I am not going to do that in front of Helane. I hold my breath.
Dad lunges toward me.
My feet sprout wings, all on their own, and before he touches me I’ve bolted out the door and I’m sprinting toward home. All I can think through the fog of terror is, At least I’ve got more Sarah Armstrong to read about. I hate my dad, but I do care about her. All I want to do when I get to my room is bury myself in the pages and forget about everything else in my rotten, crummy life. I race home as if my life depends on it.
Horses Reared, Horses Pitched
Whenever Aunt Rachel gave a sign that she’d teach that night, Sarah stole back to pit school, leaving her mother, she knew, anguished with worry. Soon Sarah made the torment even worse. She wanted to take Esther.
“No,” Mama screamed. “One is enough. I won’t risk you both.”
Sarah persisted, her mind swirling. “Why?” she asked. “Why is he mean? Why does he hate for us to read?”
“Why, why,” her mother echoed. “There’s not a reason for everything. He is what he is. Seems like they’re put on earth to peck at us poor colored folks, the way a buzzard pecks at a dead man’s eyes. Peck, peck, they won’t leave us alone. Like you won’t let me be for two seconds without your questions. Reading is trouble, that’s all. Ol’ massa is trouble. Put the two together, it’s like dry wood and a match.”
So Sarah began to tug Ruth along, as she’d originally intended—Ruth, who was as outspoken and agile as she. That night and for weeks afterward they pored over the alphabet. Yet Ruth grabbed the concept of words before her friend.
“Listen,” Ruth labored, reading a verse one dark night. “It says, ‘And God saw every thing that he had made, and …’“ She had to sound out the next word. Finally, she got it. “‘Behold, it was very good.’“ Ruth turned to Sarah and smiled so delightedly her entire body seemed to shine, leading Sarah, instinctively, to want to cover her up. Every nerve was on edge, attuned to secrecy. “And behold,” Ruth repeated. “It was very good.”
Sarah’s eyes smarted. “How can it be?” She gestured around their schoolroom of dirt, pointed at the flickering candle, and began to cry. “I’m afraid ol’ massa is going to find us here and cut our hands off.”
“No, he won’t.” Ruth looked sideways at her friend. “Don’t think about that. Think how we’re reading.” Ruth touched her friend’s arm and squeezed it. “Dwell on good, like the Good Book says.”
And so it was. During that one long summer, with its warm nights, the two friends grew into what they’d heard was a most feared possession: property that could read. Now they could decipher scraps of newspaper with writing on it, bits and pieces that fluttered from carriages entering the plantation. Now they’d be able to work out Bible stories for themselves. “There must be another Bible within that white peoples’ Bible,” Sarah had heard the old folks say. She was going to find it.
Sarah often stole away at night now to read. She pored over the stories, looking to see the parts ol’ massa quoted. She couldn’t find anywhere a story saying that buzzards hatched black babies. Was it true? And look though she might, Sarah couldn’t find a passage that said if she saw someone stealing chicken eggs, she should run and tell ol’ miss right away who did it.
Instead, she read about Moses leading his people out of bondage, going to a promised liberation. And the Day of Judgment swore justice. When she read this, Sarah, who habitually stooped, pulled back her shoulders and lifted her head. “Hold your head up, daughter,” her father told her. She’d ignored him before, but after reading the Bible, something inside thrust her shoulders back, yanking her upright.
One windy winter night, while Sarah struggled to decode murky words in the dank pit school, she heard shouting, then the pounding of hooves. Terrified, she clutched at Aunt Rachel. “I don’t want ol’ massa to find me here. He’ll whip me, or cut my fingers.”
The woman held Sarah close for a moment, whispering, “Remember our plan. And run as fast as you can.”
At that moment Sarah heard the distinct sound of a gang of pattyrollers thundering in on h
orseback. Three voices, the voices of white men hired to patrol roads and woods around the plantation, echoed in the clearing, and Sarah imagined their lashes flying. “You got no time to serve God,” one of the men shouted, no doubt supposing they’d stumbled on a camp meeting. “To bed, so you can serve!” The sound of whips tore through the air and the horses’ hooves beat a deafening sound, lending violent noise to the fury.
The five students and Aunt Rachel jumped out of the pit, scattering in all directions, zigzagging to escape the lash and confuse the pattyrollers. Only Wilbert and Tamra ran together down one broad path, clearly visible, choosing the route they’d long planned should their underground school be discovered. In the ruckus Sarah and Ruth scrambled through a thicket, as they’d been instructed, until Sarah heard great cries and stopped to listen. “Ow!” “Help!”
She could tell by their screams that the pattyrollers had ridden into their trap. She and Ruth, only yesterday, had stretched a line of grapevines across the wide path. Wilbert and Tamra had led the men that way, where vines tripped the horses and bucked the men directly into a briar patch. Now they howled and begged for help.
Sarah sprinted with the others back to the cabins. They tore through the woods as fast as they could, but went the long way around, not wanting to meet any more of ol’ massa’s men. Sarah ran so hard she thought her lungs would explode. Bursting into her cabin, she stopped short, out of breath, and froze, gasping, in the middle of the floor.
“What happened?” her mother asked, hand to heart.
“Pattyrollers,” Sarah panted.
“Oh no.” Mama instinctively reached out to pull her daughter close.
“But we got ‘em.” Sarah took a deep breath. “You can’t go again. Promise me.”
“I will go,” Sarah said, hardening herself against her mother’s pleading face. “I have to.”
“Headstrong girl. Trouble.” Mama turned her head away, muttering, but Sarah felt a teardrop on her arm.
Early the next morning a new song flew among the cabins. “Horses reared, horses pitched, throwed them pattyrollers in the ditch.” By afternoon the verse tucked neatly into a long chant, sewn so subtly it sounded as though it had always been there, a classic stanza hidden among other rhymes of rebellion, bracketed by the constant reassuring refrain, “Yes, Lord, Oh, yes, Lord.” Every time Sarah heard people sing it, she tried to picture the pattyrollers, stunned and terrified as they hurtled through air, headed for the briar patch. She sang along, chuckling at the memory of the pattyrollers’ cries, but underneath the chuckle, a cold fist of fear clamped itself on her heart.
CHAPTER 7
He was so mad, I thought he was going to die right there on the spot.” It’s Monday noon and I’m on the lower school steps. The fog has rolled in again; it’s suddenly cold for mid-October, which I associate with blistering heat. Could the Oakland fires have anything to do with this strange climate? The Halloween decorations sprouting all over school look odd in this freaky weather, black cats looming out of the billowing fog. The wind blows hard, biting into my neck, and I’m shivering. Lavonn sits next to me, looking totally unfazed by the abnormal chill while she unwraps her disgusting roast beef sandwich. The meat is practically bleeding into the rye bread. I’m trying not to look, but it’s so nasty I can’t keep my eyes off it.
On her other side is Ayanna, a large girl with a white shirt that’s way too small, who’s following us around. It’s annoying. Lavonn’s my friend and I need to talk to her. “I mean, he almost died of a heart attack. I’ve never seen him so furious. It was like a nightmare.”
“What happened?” Ayanna grills me, leaning over Lavonn.
I keep talking, munching on chips. “He was screaming, ‘You have to apologize to Helane!’ No way. Then I ran away from him.”
“Who’s Helane?” Ayanna butts in.
That girl is driving me nuts. But I answer her, with a mouth full of chips. “My dad’s, uh, girlfriend, I guess.”
“Your dad has a girlfriend?” Her eyes grow round and she leans toward me. “Whoa. My moms would hit my dad. Whack.” She makes a smacking motion and laughs.
“Forget about it,” I say to Ayanna, and turn back to Lavonn. “Can you believe I ran away from my dad? I left him standing there. ‘Disobedience.’ That’s the thing he hates the most. ‘Showing out in public.’ It makes him wild. But I’m not going to apologize. Why should I? She’s the one who should apologize to me.”
“Yuh.” Lavonn’s mouth is full.
“Dad called my mom before I got home. She said he sounded out of his mind. It was horrible. He told Mom he’s going to deal with me, after I ‘ponder my transgression.’ And he’s not playing. I know my dad.”
Red juice from the meat drips down one corner of Lavonn’s mouth. When she sees me stare, she picks up her napkin and wipes it. I continue, “Next time I’m supposed to be at his house, and Mom thinks I’m going there, I’m gonna have to hide.”
“Girl, you’re crazy. Where you gonna hide?” She puts her sandwich down and looks at me like she’s about to call for a straitjacket.
“Hide?” Ayanna echoes.
My heart’s beating fast. “I’ve gotta find somewhere.” The bell clangs behind us.
I want to tell Lavonn about Jimi and the bike he stole and Tyrone looking for him. Now Tyrone knows where Jimi lives, and he saw me too. I wonder who he’s told. The bell rings again and everybody’s scrambling up, crumpling papers, tossing them into a big can near where we sit. A wax-paper wrapper lands in my lap, with bits of gummy food. I brush it off; some sticks to my pants. “Missed the shot,” someone calls over, laughing. When I whip around I can’t tell who in the crowd did it. Could it have been Tyrone?
“We have to go.” Lavonn stands up and looks at me expectantly.
“I have to think of something.” I don’t move. “I’m supposed to go to Dad’s on Friday. Four days from now.”
Lavonn simply pulls me up. I follow her and Ayanna into the old brick building, the unrenovated part of Canyon Valley High, where I squeeze into Government class one second before the door slams shut behind me. I take my assigned seat in the front row and prepare to be bored stiff for the next forty-five minutes.
Mr. Apuzio is pacing back and forth, like a caged animal. “The Thirteenth Amendment is the one that did what?” he asks. Like I care. Government is not my favorite subject. Music and math are my two best, and I like history too, but this class is so dry, all about federal, state, and local regulations. Like who cares? Today we’re on the Constitution, I think. The teacher’s voice drones on, putting me to sleep. I slouch in my seat, trying to figure out where I could hide until Dad forgets. Ha, like never. I’d have to stay hidden for the rest of my life.
“The Thirteenth Amendment?” he asks again. No one answers. I wonder if anyone’s even listening. Why are we studying this stuff? He holds up a piece of paper and begins to read. I barely hear him. “Section one,” he starts, and I know I’m in for a long nap, which I’m perfecting in this class. Already I’ve learned how to nod off with my eyes open. I peer up every few minutes—that seem like an hour—at the clock on the wall. When I’m sure I haven’t looked for ten minutes, it’s only been two.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude …” Mr. Apuzio’s voice punctures my trance, and I sit up in my chair, “… except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.” He stops. “So what did this amendment do?” Hands shoot up now. He peers over his glasses and points at Claudette, sitting in the back of the room. “Claudette, can you tell us?”
“Freed the slaves,” she mouths mechanically, as if this ancient history is the most boring subject in the world, as if it has nothing to do with her.
“Yes,” Mr. Apuzio says, “the Thirteenth Amendment did something remarkable. You remember that in 1863 President Lincoln had issued an Emancipation Proclamation. Which …?” He pauses and looks out again over the top of his glasses.
&
nbsp; Moeisha shoots up her hand. “Freed the slaves too.”
“Right, but which slaves?”
Silence. Mr. Apuzio starts to talk while my stomach churns my lunch. “The proclamation declared that, based on the president’s war powers, in states in rebellion against the United States, ‘all persons held as slaves … within designated States, and parts of States, are, and henceforward shall be free.’ The proclamation didn’t address slaves in the loyalist states.” He stops and stares over his glasses at us, in a way that’s supposed to be significant, I guess. “Plus, there were questions about whether the proclamation was even valid. Did the president have the power to issue the order at all?” He stops again. “In fact, most people were convinced it wouldn’t hold once the seceded states came back to the Union. So, to end slavery, we needed a …?”
Two boys in front call out in unison, “Constitutional amendment.”
“And that gets passed how?” Mr. Apuzio asks.
Now I raise my hand. “By Congress,” I say.
“If the House of Representatives can muster a two-thirds vote, it does,” he says, nodding. “But this one didn’t. It had to go to …?”
“The states,” Demetre calls out.
Mr. Apuzio nods. “In December, 1865, it was ratified and is now the law of the land. A Supreme Court decision affirmed in 1883 that it applied to every class of citizens, when it ruled that it ‘forbids any other kind of slavery, now or hereafter.’“
Wow. Too bad Sarah couldn’t have been born a little later. She wouldn’t have had to run away by herself. But if she hadn’t headed to Washington, D.C., she might not have survived, and I wouldn’t be here—which might or might not be good, considering the way my life is going. The bell clangs and everybody stands up, even though Mr. Apuzio keeps talking over the din: “Read pages twenty to thirty in your books.” Most of the white kids chat and laugh; all I hear them say is the usual stuff about themselves. Don’t they get it? Tommie Kennedy is even mimicking a “yassa, massa” voice. Some of the black kids don’t appear to be taking it seriously either. Brandon is pulling Paris’s hoodie, and Paris is grabbing Jeezy’s baseball hat. But I see a couple of African American girls look really solemn. At this minute, I am completely, one hundred percent, one of them.
Black, White, Other Page 8