Before she settled in her chair and opened her dopey cooking magazine, Grandma Clark looked right at Billy and asked, “Do they know who vandalized your grocery?”
“The police are working on it.”
“I’m sure they’ll do a thorough investigation.” She smiled. My heart missed ten beats. When she started to ask more questions, I pulled Billy out the kitchen door. He could have talked to her forever. Right now, I couldn’t.
I hurried to the back fence and stopped in front of the shed. “Mr. Jackson sanded and scraped and painted two coats on the door to surprise my grandmother. Just yesterday. Paint’s not even dry.”
“Nice.” He touched the paint and pulled back a finger with a blue smear on it. We stood there admiring the door sparkling in the bright sunshine, being quiet one minute, talking about almost everything the next.
“Said he’d come back after school starts. I might not be here to see it finished.”
Billy’s head tilted to one side, then the other. “Hey, Azalea. If you had a superpower, what would it be?” His smile told me he already had his picked out.
“You mean like those Superman funny books you like?”
“Exactly.”
“The power to be invisible? See how long it takes Melinda to put her hair up in pin curls at night. Hear what my mama and daddy say about Paris Junction, why they left.”
“’Cause everybody knew their business?” Billy laughed, mocking me but in a nice way. “I want my power to be X-ray vision, like the real Superman.”
“Don’t think I’d like seeing blood and guts and bones inside everybody,” I said, laughing right back at him. We walked together toward the last of the bean vines and cucumbers. But before we snipped off one single cucumber or green bean.
Before I clipped one rose off the bush where two butterflies had landed.
Before Billy finished explaining to me about Superman’s X-ray vision.
We were interrupted.
By the meanest boy in Paris Junction, Arkansas.
Willis Big Roach, hollering from the tall oak tree.
An acorn came pelting down, one of the tiny green ones that hurt like the dickens. Or, according to my third-grade teacher, Miss Wood, could put your eye out.
“Willis? What are you doing up there?”
He broke off a hard branch, tossed it at a paint can. “Get away from here!”
When he chucked a stick and it hit me smack-dab on my bare arm, I yelled back at him. “Stop throwing stuff! You’re gonna mess up the new paint!”
Willis launched a leafy branch that bounced off Billy’s knee.
Billy headed straight for the back gate. He turned and said, “I’m leaving, Azalea. Great Uncle told me to walk away from Willis.” He disappeared down the alley without a single vegetable or even a rose.
“Now look what you’ve done. Billy was supposed to get vegetables and you ran him off.”
“What do I care. I’ve been climbing up here since way before he came to Paris Junction.”
The last time I climbed a tree, back in Texas, I ended up with two skinned knees, a twisted ankle, and a vow not to do it again. And I’d never ever climbed a tree with somebody mean in it. But I needed to talk to Willis up close. I took three deep breaths and pretended I didn’t mind boys like Willis. I even pretended he was nice.
Trying to avoid the thick thorns from the trellis roses, I pulled myself to a branch just below Willis. He kicked the air near me, sneered, and reached up under his T-shirt for something. Two somethings. Rolls of toilet paper.
Okay, he was not nice. I stopped pretending. “What are you doing?”
“Nothing.” He stuffed one roll between a fork in the tree. He opened the other and tossed it up, caught it, then tossed it again. He nodded toward the new paint. “Wonder how close I can get.”
I tried to snatch the toilet paper out of Willis’s hands. But truly, I didn’t want to let go of my branch. “You doing this because you’re mad at me? What’d I do?”
“This was my tree till that Chinese boy came. Now every time I need to climb it, he’s around.”
When a breeze rustled the tree’s leaves, I grabbed hold of a thicker branch and held on. “Ever think about being friends with Billy?” I asked, still not quite believing I was perched in a tree with Willis DeLoach. “Y’all will be going to the same school next year. May be on the track team together.”
“So what, chicken squat. Billy Wong and me ain’t nothing alike. Why does your grandmother even let you be friends with him?” He lobbed the toilet paper toward a can. Which was not quite closed and half full of blue paint. He barely missed.
“My grandmother wanted me and Billy to be friends. She says it’s good to have friends who aren’t exactly like you.”
“Not to me, it ain’t,” he muttered. “Anyhow, what were you doing at my school? Spying? He better not blab all over seventh grade about me having to help in the cafeteria. And for sure you’d better not come to my pecan grove again.”
“Billy doesn’t care about seeing you cleaning cafeteria tables. Or hanging out your wash. Heck, he works in his family’s store most every day.”
Willis muttered between clenched teeth but I heard him, loud and clear. “I bet he doesn’t have to wear an ugly hairnet and big apron.”
“You did look pretty funny wearing that white hairnet.” I shifted my weight closer to the trunk, farther from Willis, in case he hauled off and popped me.
“Shut up, Azalea. And get your ugly face out of my tree.”
“It’s not your tree. And it’s not nice to say shut up.”
I bit my lip hard. I’d never cried in front of a boy and I didn’t plan to start today. And unless you count Freddie Davis in first grade who cried when he wet his pants and everybody scooted away from him at story time, I’d never heard a boy cry out loud. So when a few tears slipped out of Willis’s eyes and he quickly turned his head, I changed the subject.
“You can see forever,” I said. And it was true. The sky stretched clear to Main Street. “Is that why you like it up here?”
Willis scratched at a nasty brown scab that had started to bleed down his leg. You’d think once blood was running down your leg, you’d move on to doing something else with your hands. But not Willis. He kept picking like he was digging for treasure.
“I like climbing this tree ’cause I’m higher than anybody. And nobody bothers me.” He blotted his knee with the bottom of his shirt. Oh boy, his mama’s gonna tan his hide when she sees the blood on that shirt.
I moved a little closer, thinking maybe I could get that last toilet paper roll before he knocked the petals off a prize rosebush or toppled over a paint can. Trying to distract him, I said, “I’m going back to Texas soon.”
“Thought you’d stay here forever.”
Much as I still don’t like talking to people I hardly know, especially people I don’t like. Much as I’d rather be under a tree all by myself. Willis in a tree branch seemed easier to talk to. But he was still clutching the toilet paper.
“I hope my grandma doesn’t find out you stole something valuable from her shed.”
“I didn’t steal anything!”
“That’s what you say. Anyhow, I could get in trouble for not telling her the truth about y’all sleeping there.” I looked down at the Timex watch Daddy gave me for reading the most books in third grade. “Where is your sister? Is your mama home yet?”
“Our cousins said me and Lizzie could stay with them till Mama gets well. We moved yesterday.”
“Good. And Willis? The police are asking about what happened at the Wongs’ store. They say anything to you?”
“Nope. We were here that night. For all I know, you messed up that grocery store.” His voice was back to hard as nails. Daring me to tell my grandmother they were sleeping next to her art things.
I was more than ready to get out of this tree.
But first, I glanced up. In time to see Willis pick up that roll of toilet paper, haul off and aim
it straight at the blue paint. He swung off one branch, then another, not even looking down. He jumped on his bike. Took off down the alley, fast. “Don’t follow me, Azalea,” he hollered back.
Next to the shed door, blue paint seeped onto the walkway like the sky was falling, piece by piece. I hurried to turn the big can right side up. At least there was one thing I could fix.
The next days were a blur of work and worry. First watering the garden, then running to Mr. Wong’s grocery for milk. What’s worse, every time I saw Billy, now that his great-uncle was feeling fine, all he talked about was school this and school that. All I could think about was me not telling the truth.
Then the doorbell rang.
It wasn’t time for the garden helpers. My grandmother’s neighbors walked right in with their casseroles and cakes. So who was ringing our doorbell? I clomped down the stairs in my cowboy boots and peeked through the front window.
Oh no! I should sneak out the kitchen door and take off!
The doorbell rang again, a long, loud buzz.
“Get that, Azalea!” my grandmother called from her room. “What’s the matter with you, girl?”
“Nothing.” I choked the word out so quiet I’m sure she didn’t hear it.
Now the knocks were even louder than the doorbell. I inched backward, holding my hands over my ears.
Grandma Clark’s cane clacked across the hall. “For heaven’s sake, I’ll get it.”
When she opened the door, a tall policeman stepped inside. He took off his blue hat. Even from my hiding place squeezed beside the dining room cupboard, I knew. He was the policeman I saw at Lucky Foods!
“Afternoon, ma’am. This is a courtesy call about the vandalism over on Main Street. Just to let you know the DeLoach boy has not been charged. Probably won’t be. Social worker lady says you’re listed in his file as looking out after him.”
“Willis has been helping me and my granddaughter in my garden. That’s all.” Grandma Clark held up her cane in case the policeman wondered why.
He shifted his hat from one hand to the other. “We’re double-checking his alibi.” He looked past her at me slinking away. “That your granddaughter? She a friend of his?”
Grandma Clark quickly turned toward the dining room. “Azalea, come in here,” she said, her voice sharp as a crow’s caw. I shut my eyes and counted to ten before I could face my grandmother and that policeman.
Pulling out a little notebook, he flipped through the pages. He looked up and smiled while I chewed my lip and fidgeted to keep my fingernails out of my mouth. “I’m Sergeant Steele. Willis DeLoach says he was with you when the Wongs’ store was vandalized. Late at night, around eleven thirty?”
Grandma Clark took in a sharp breath and narrowed her eyes, waiting for my answer. But I couldn’t get my voice to work. My grandmother would find out I’d been lying. Or they’d take me in for questioning. I didn’t know which was worse. Me disappointing her or me being hauled away in the backseat of Sergeant Steele’s police car.
“The good news is we found the culprit who damaged the store. Another businessman. Blamed the Wongs for his own store closing across the street.”
My grandmother was shaking her head, the policeman was frowning, and all I could think of was racing out the door, running all the way to Tyler, Texas, and never coming back.
Grandma Clark jolted me out of that thought. “Azalea, speak up. You won’t get in trouble if you tell the truth.”
I’m not so great at being bad. So I confessed about Willis being in the shed because Lizzie was scared. That his mama was sick and they had a puppy.
I left out the part about him bribing Lizzie with stolen gum. Every other part was the truth.
When the policeman left, my grandmother sat on the sofa, her back straight as a garden hoe, and patted the cushion next to her. Her voice was softer now, but she meant business. “Sit here. Tell me exactly what happened.”
“I’m really, really sorry, Grandma Clark.”
“Only thing to be sorry about? Not telling me. You did what you thought was right. If I’d been myself, I would have taken them in. Or at least let somebody know they were in their pecan grove all alone.”
“I don’t even like Willis. He’s been nothing but ugly to Billy. And he almost got me in trouble with you.”
“You never know what folks are going through, Azalea. Most people don’t want to let on when they need help. Like Willis and little Lizzie out there alone. Maybe that boy was trying to do something right for once.”
“Doesn’t matter. He had no right to be mean to Billy.”
We sat side by side for a long time, not talking. I don’t think it was because she was mad. Really and truly, we both liked the quietness in the living room.
Before we’d finished breakfast the next morning, the hall telephone ding-a-linged. I counted the rings—long-long-short—before answering.
“Mama!” I hadn’t heard her voice since she dropped me off in Paris Junction. Daddy had been the one calling, telling me he missed me, explaining they’d bought that paperweight at a store nowhere near the Grand Canyon. Mama had sent a postcard. She’d called Grandma Clark to check on her. But now, finally, I could tell her I wasn’t mad she’d left me in Paris Junction.
Her voice sparkled through the party-line phone. “We’re coming to get you in time for school. Can’t wait to see you, baby.”
And guess what my first thought was? Not about Barbara Jean being my recess buddy. Not about buying new pencils and notebooks. Not even about how much I missed them.
The first words out of my mouth were “I can’t leave before Sunday. We’re going to my friend’s sister’s piano recital.”
“We won’t make you miss that. I promise,” Mama said. But truthfully? Her sad voice sounded more than ready for me to come home.
Across the kitchen table, my grandmother sat quietly with her sewing basket, mending a bright yellow apron and smiling to beat the band.
A few weeks ago when she sent her message asking for my help, I hardly knew what to call Grandma Clark. The last thing I wanted to do was spend the end of my summer in Arkansas with a bunch of strangers. Now I hated to leave.
Two days later, Grandma Clark sent me to the shed.
I almost fainted off my chair. “The shed? Your painted china is there, all your brushes, your easel, those little canvases. What if I break something?”
We’d been lining up Popsicle stick markers. Sorting seed packets for her fall garden. But she held up a basket and shooed me out the back door. “I’ll clear off the table. You go put the art supplies in this basket. We’re making May Lin a gift.”
The shed’s blue door was still sticky from Mr. Jackson’s hard work, but Willis hadn’t messed up the paint too much. Inside, half buried under a pillow, a paper doll leg I hadn’t noticed, wearing a red shoe, made me smile. The only sign that Willis and Lizzie had been here. I glanced at the box of my letters. Grandma Clark had told me what they said, how all she wanted was to know me better. I didn’t need those letters. I had my real grandmother now.
After I carefully packed paint, brushes, and the smallest blank canvases into Grandma Clark’s basket, I held my breath all the way to the kitchen. Hoping I wouldn’t drop Billy’s sister’s present before I created it.
My grandmother spread newspapers and hovered over my shoulder, helping me, teaching me about painting on a canvas. “Use the smallest brush for the flowers, Azalea. And the lighter green shades on the stems.”
After we set the painting on the chest to dry, I stepped back. The gift had a secret message, a lily of the valley. Because it’s special for the month of May and her name’s May. And because the flower means happiness. “That was fun,” I said. “We’re good artists together, Grandma Clark.”
She looked like she might float away on the clouds I’d painted. “Don’t forget. Sign it there, on the bottom. Always sign your artwork, dear.”
“Our names are almost the same. Alice Ann and Azalea Ann.”
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“I know that, Azalea. Always have.” My grandmother lined the tubes of paint up in her basket, handed me brushes to clean, and I didn’t even care that she forgot to say please.
On the afternoon of the recital, I buttoned up the scratchy blue dress I hadn’t worn since I left Texas, put on my Sunday school shoes, and wheeled Grandma Clark down the sidewalk. She was holding a tray of cookies. May Lin’s gift was tucked into the side of her wheelchair. Her hat was pinned down just so and her dress was ironed so carefully you’d never know Dr. Wiggins had just taken a sling off one arm.
There was one thing we hadn’t counted on. Ten steep steps, straight up to the big front door. That was ten more than Grandma Clark had tackled in a while.
“Goodness. I wasn’t thinking. How am I supposed to get inside?”
“We can do it together. Leave the gift and the cookies. I’ll come back for them.”
Before I could take the tray, guess who came prancing down the steps of First Baptist. Melinda Bowman, holding on to another prissy girl.
She smiled her fakest of smiles at my grandmother. “Mrs. Clark, how are you feeling?”
“Better, thank you,” my grandmother answered.
“Guess y’all heard they caught the person who damaged the Wongs’ store,” Melinda said. “That awful man who sold fancy food across the street from the gas station. I knew it wasn’t Willis all along.”
She knew no such thing. But I kept quiet. I’d made my friend this summer. His name was not Melinda.
“We had a special practice for the duet Sandra and I are singing next Sunday.” She leaned close to the girl whose name must be Sandra, then spun around on her shiny shoes to face me. “Those cookies smell good. What are y’all doing here? Can I help?”
“We’re invited to Billy’s sister’s recital. She has a music scholarship to college next year,” I answered, looking at the cookies and my grandma. Not at Melinda.
Before Melinda could gossip about May Lin’s piano playing or go on about how she could bop over and make cookies with my grandmother any old time, I pushed Grandma Clark closer to the steps. Truly, I didn’t care to say another thing to those girls.
Making Friends with Billy Wong Page 10