Seth and Samona

by Joanne Hyppolite

  Then I saw everyone looking toward the back and I turned to see Samona’s family walking in. I could hardly believe it, but Nigel and Anthony were wearing suits and ties. Leticia was in a long dress and there was Mrs. Gemini in a gold lame miniskirt and a white sequin shirt. She wore long curly hair and spike heels. I knew right away that Mrs. Gemini must be working on one of her stories for the Intruder ’cause she keeps her hair in braids all the time and the only shoes she ever wears are black boots. She was holding on to the arm of a short, skinny, lemon-yellow man with round glasses and a red bow tie.

  “Hey, y’all,” I said, impressed.

  “Seth, honey.” Mrs. Gemini rubbed my head like she always does and pulled the man up closer to me. “This here is Mistah Biggs.”

  “Hi, Mrs. Gemini. Mr. Biggs,” I mumbled. Now, I knew something was up. Mrs. Gemini never calls me Seth.

  “Asailum malekum, little brother.” Mr. Biggs shook my hand up and down.

  “Mr. Biggs is in the Nation of Islam,” Mrs. Gemini said in a hushed tone. I saw Leticia, Nigel and Anthony rolling their eyes behind her back.

  “Like Malcolm X?” I said, ’cause that was the only thing I could remember about the Nation of Islam.

  “Just like Malcolm X,” Anthony said with a nod, then mouthed, “kicked out.”

  “Why don’t we all take a seat,” Mr. Biggs said, coughing a little.

  “Yeah.” Leticia smiled, letting Mr. Biggs and her mama lead the way.

  “Okay, what’s going on?” I asked her quickly.

  “Samona ain’t told you yet?” Leticia grinned even wider, showing the gap in her front teeth. “Mama’s thinking about converting. At least that’s what Mr. Biggs thinks. You got to hear this one, Seth.”

  I watched Leticia, Nigel and Anthony move to the reserved seats, trying not to laugh at Mrs. Gemini’s disguise. The old Samona would have told me all about what’s going on by now. Mrs. Gemini must be doing that religious assignment she was talking about the last time I’d gone to their house. Just as I sat down in my seat, the lights went off.

  A tall, skinny lady with hair piled up on top of her head came out and started speaking into the microphone in the middle of the stage.

  “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the fifteenth annual Little Miss Dorchester contest.” The skinny lady was smiling hard enough to make her face crack. She started going on and on about the history of the contest and then she began to introduce the contestants. One by one, fifty-five girls came up and spoke into the microphone.

  At first I couldn’t tell one from the other. All of them had on frilly yellow, white or pink dresses. Everybody’s hair looked fresh from the hot comb. And they all said the same thing.

  “Good morning, my name is Aneisha Maron and I live in Dorchester.”

  “Good morning, my name is Shelita Gordon and I live in Dorchester.”

  “Good morning, my name is Anita Kayne and I live in Dorchester.”

  I was thinking they could have left out the “Dorchester” part, seeing as this was the Little Miss Dorchester contest, when Bessie Armstrong came out. She had on a frilly white dress too and her hair was twisted into a bunch of Shirley Temple curls. When she came up to the microphone, I saw her looking at her mother. Mrs. Armstrong leaned forward and mouthed the words along with her.

  “Hello, ladies and gentlemen, proud members of our community. My name is Bessie Armstrong and I’m proud to call Dorchester my home,” Bessie said in a loud voice. She was smiling more than I’d ever seen Bessie smile.

  “She’s pretty,” I heard somebody behind me whispering.

  Then, way in the back of the girl who was speaking now, I saw Samona coming across the stage. Only something was different. It wasn’t the new Samona. And it wasn’t the old Samona. This girl had on a white dress but it wasn’t frilly and she had a bright orange and green kente-cloth strip draped across her shoulders. This Samona had her hair in a fancy circle corn-row with bright white beads in it. I knew right away that Mrs. Fabiyi had done it for her. She wasn’t wearing a ton of makeup like all the other girls and she wasn’t smiling like crazy either. In fact, this girl looked scared.

  When it was her turn, Samona walked up to the microphone and whispered, “Akaroo, my brothers and sisters. That means ‘good morning’ in Yoruba. I’m Samona Gemini and I live where you all live: Dorchester.”

  Then her face split into a big grin and she walked to her place with the rest of the girls. I saw Bessie smiling at Samona. The audience just about went crazy clapping for Samona and I heard people whispering how cute she was. For the first time, I thought—Could Samona really win this contest?

  The talent segment of the beauty contest started right after that. I’ve never seen so many girls twirl batons or play the piano before. One even played the tuba. A couple of girls did some tap-dancing. And a whole lot of them sang. The audience clapped the loudest for this one girl, Chiquita Arnold, who just stood there and made faces. Her face must have been made of rubber cause she could pull it and stretch it into all sorts of funny and scary faces. Then Bessie came onstage in a pink tutu and did some ballet dancing while twirling two batons. She never dropped them once either. Even I was impressed with that.

  Finally, Samona came out and she had changed into some old raggedy long skirt and a shirt with holes in the arms. She had a handkerchief wrapped around her head and was carrying a big basket on one arm. I thought, Oh, no. Here it comes! Now Samona would make a fool of herself. But nothing happened. She just stood there, not moving, and staring at the stage. After a long minute, the audience started whispering. Samona looked more scared then she had during her introduction.

  Come on, Samona, I said to myself, leaning forward. I was waiting for her pride to kick in. She’d led the way up those stairs to Mrs. Fabiyi’s apartment even though I knew she was just as scared as I was. Any minute now she would get that hard look in her eyes and then it would be, “Watch out!”

  “Come on, Samona,” I whispered out loud this time. But Samona didn’t do anything and a couple of kids in the audience started calling out, “Get off the stage!”

  It was like she was trapped up there. Samona couldn’t do anything because she was trying to be somebody normal. Only this somebody normal didn’t have Samona’s guts or her attitude.

  Before I could think about it, I’d jumped out of my chair and into the aisle. Maybe if I yelled at her and called her a bo-bo head she’d snap back to herself. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do until I got to the first row and saw Samona still frozen on the stage. She didn’t even know I was there. Some people in the audience were looking at me so I did the first thing that came into my head.

  I flapped my arms.

  Then I wobbled my legs and stuck my head out back and forth.

  I was doing Samona’s funky chicken dance and people in the audience were starting to point at me.

  I wobbled down the aisle, flapping harder. I could hear some giggling coming from behind me.

  “Oooohhh yeeeaaah!” I sang loudly, like I’d seen Samona do, and then I started shaking my legs in the air one at a time. By now the whole audience was laughing and watching me. I didn’t mind. It felt good to just jump around and just act any way I wanted to. This was what Samona must feel like all the time, I thought.

  “Stop that!”

  The skinny lady from the stage was coming down the aisle after me, and she was mad. I started wobbling faster, until I was running around the auditorium with the skinny lady chasing after me. I passed Mrs. Whitmore once and saw that she was laughing as hard as the rest of the audience.

  When I came back around to the stage, I saw that Samona was laughing too. She had her hand over her mouth to hide it but I could tell. She didn’t look scared anymore. I ran back to my seat, where Papi, Manmi, Jean-Claude, Granmè and Chantal were staring at me like they didn’t know me. The skinny lady didn’t know where I’d sat down. She walked up and down the aisle for a few minutes muttering things like “pageant integr
ity” before huffing back to the stage.

  After everyone quieted down, Samona looked straight into the audience without smiling again and started talking in a loud, serious voice that sounded like an old woman.

  Dat man ober dar say dat woman needs to be lifted ober ditches and to have de best place every whar. Nobody eber helped me into carriages, or ober mud puddles, or gives me any best place—and ar’n’t I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me—and ar’n’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it), and bear de lash as well—and ar’n’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilern and seen em mos’ all sold off into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard—and ar’n’t I a woman?

  Samona was doing that speech by Sojourner Truth that Mrs. Whitmore had read to us one day in history class. Samona made every word ring out and put so much feeling into the speech that I forgot she wasn’t Sojourner Truth for a while. So did the audience, ’cause Samona got a standing ovation. Manmi had tears in her eyes and Jean-Claude was whistling and clapping his hands off. That’s when I started thinking that Samona deserved to win the contest. So I wasn’t so surprised when after giving the audience a lecture on proper pageant etiquette, the skinny lady announced that Samona, Bessie, Chiquita Arnold and some other girl had made it to the finals.

  The next part of the contest was personality and it was pretty boring. The skinny lady just listed the achievements and community work or whatever else the contestants had done that made them look good. While she was doing this, the four finalists came out dressed in new fancy dresses. Then all of them stood in a row and waited for the skinny lady to stop talking and begin the question part of the program. Bessie still looked scared. Samona just looked quiet and serious and the other two girls were smiling their heads off.

  Finally, the skinny lady stopped talking about this girl who visited old ladies every Saturday and that girl who tutored after school and announced that the questions would begin. She went up to each girl and asked three questions of each one. The first two were the same of everybody:

  “What would you most like to change about our society?”

  “If you were on a desert island, what book would you most want with you and why?”

  And all the girls gave the same kind of stupid answers. You could tell they must have spent weeks watching recordings of the old Miss America pageants. Everybody was talking about world hunger and AIDS and even American patriotism. She asked one girl about welfare and she said she didn’t know anything about welfare ’cause her family supported themselves and she figured everybody should do that and get off welfare. Most of the audience booed her.

  Chiquita Arnold said the one thing she wanted to change about the world was school, which everybody laughed at but I thought was the most honest answer. Everybody was making up all that other stuff just so they could look good. Bessie Armstrong said that she wished everybody would be nice to one another. Even Samona made some stuff up about bringing along Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun to a desert island cause she thought it was “moving” and “inspiring.” I knew Samona’s never even read that play. We saw it on TV one Sunday at Samona’s house with her aunt Mary, who is crazy about Sidney Poitier movies. That’s who Samona’s aunt Mary would want on a desert island with her. The real Samona would have asked if she could have an air conditioner or a pool or something more practical than a book.

  After the questions, the skinny lady said there would be an intermission while the judges tabulated the votes. Then she said they’d be selling Kool-Aid and cookies right outside the door and everybody started jumping out their seats and rushing up the aisle.

  I decided to get up and say hi to Mrs. Fabiyi. She was sitting dead center in the front row and watching the stage like the pageant was still going on. I sat down beside her quietly.

  “So, Seth,” Mrs. Fabiyi said, still not looking away from the stage. “Samona do good job, eh-eh?”

  “Yeah,” I said, leaning back against the chairs. “She had the whole thing planned and everybody fooled.”

  “It good surprise,” Mrs. Fabiyi said with a nod, “no?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I nodded. “You helped her with all that stuff, didn’t you? The speech and the hair? Why didn’t she tell me?”

  “I help with outside.” Mrs. Fabiyi turned her head away from the stage and stared at me with her old black eyes. “You help with inside. You and Samona good friends.”

  I swallowed. A good friend wouldn’t try and change someone.

  “Samona want surprise everyone. You not believe unless you see. No?” said Mrs. Fabiyi.

  “No,” I admitted. I didn’t know Samona could act so well. Maybe I would be nice and go congratulate her after the contest.

  “You go with me—behind, after the contest over,” Mrs. Fabiyi said, as if she could read my mind.

  “Okay.” I stood up as the lights started to go down again.

  By the time I got back to my seat, the skinny lady was talking again. This time she was saying all this stuff about how every little girl who entered the contest was a winner and how she wished she had fifty-five crowns to give away. The audience started to boo and she shut up and started announcing the winners in a high, excited voice.

  “Honorable mention—Miss Bessie Armstrong,” she screamed into the microphone.

  Everybody started clapping, then Bessie came up to the front of the stage and got a bunch of flowers and a certificate. Her lips were shaking as if she was about to cry. I looked around and saw Mrs. Armstrong leave her seat to rush backstage. I felt real sorry for Bessie.

  The skinny lady pulled Bessie over to one corner and made her stand there. Then she read off the next name.

  “Second runner-up—Chiquita Arnold,” she said, screaming again. This time everybody covered their ears from the screeching of the microphone.

  Chiquita walked up to the front of the stage with a big grin on her face. She took the flowers and the certificate and waved to the audience like she had come in first place or something. Then she took her place next to Bessie and started pulling her face into one of those scary faces like she did in the talent segment.

  “First runner-up—Samona Gemini,” the skinny lady said in a lower voice.

  “First runner-up!” Leticia jumped up out of her seat. Then the whole audience was booing and talking. No one could believe Samona hadn’t won first place. I heard Granmè shouting in Kreyol that they needed to count the votes again. Nigel and Anthony were saying that it was fixed.

  But Samona just walked up to the front of the stage and grinned at all the noise everyone was making. She took her flowers and her certificate and went over and started talking to Bessie Armstrong. Whatever she said must have worked ’cause Bessie stopped crying and started giggling and the two of them hugged each other.

  Practically no one heard the skinny lady announce the winner. Her name was Rosalie Aubry. The skinny lady had all but lost her voice and could barely say her name. And the audience was still talking about fixes and bribes and how Rosalie looked like the judge with the purple dress.

  Mrs. Fabiyi came over to get me to go backstage with her and then my whole family and Samona’s whole family all decided to go backstage too so there were a bunch of us waiting when Samona came off the stage.

  Everybody started hugging and kissing her and telling her that it was a shame she didn’t win and how pretty she looked. Samona was smiling and laughing and talking.

  Mrs. Gemini kissed Samona on both cheeks. “You conducted yourself like a sunflower.”

  “Like queen,” Mrs. Fabiyi pitched in.

  “Like a Nubian princess,” Jean-Claude said, tapping her on the shoulder.

  Then Samona’s family said they were gonna celebrate by going out to the Charthouse, which was a fancy restaurant, and that everybody should come.

  In the middle of it all, I got two seconds to talk to Sa
mona.

  “I wanted to say congratulations and you should have won,” I said real fast. Then I looked her dead in the eye. “Guess you’re not completely crazy, Samona Gemini.”

  Samona’s eyes were shining straight back into mine. She looked like she was getting ready to say something but Mrs. Whitmore suddenly broke through the crowd and swallowed up Samona in a hug.

  “There she is! My star student!” Mrs. Whitmore yelled, squeezing the life out of Samona until Nigel rescued her. Mrs. Whitmore started pulling on Samona’s arm and asking her a question and I figured Samona had forgotten all about what I said. Then, right before answering Mrs. Whitmore, Samona turned to look at me and stuck out her tongue.

  That’s when I knew for sure the old Samona was still there.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JOANNE HYPPOLITE was born in Haiti in 1969. Her family settled in the United States when she was four years old, and she grew up in Boston. She graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in creative writing and received her master’s degree from the Department of Afro-American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. She currently lives in Florida, where she plans to pursue her goals of writing and teaching.

  Seth and Samona, her first novel, won the Second Annual Marguerite de Angeli Prize from Delacorte Press.

  Published by

  Dell Yearling

  an imprint of

  Random House Children’s Books

  a division of Random House, Inc

  1540 Broadway

  New York, New York 10036

  Text copyright © 1995 by Joanne Hyppolite

  Illustrations copyright © 1995 by Colin Bootman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Delacorte Press, New York, New York 10036.