Tru and Nelle

by G. Neri

  Jenny’s icy blue eyes observed them over her reading glasses. “Good morning, Miss Nelle. How’s your mother doing?”

  Truman interceded. “We’re not supposed to talk about that, Cousin Jenny, on account of she’s . . . you know, crazy,” Truman whispered, a tad too loud.

  Jenny frowned. “You’ll have to forgive our Truman, dear. For such a smart little boy, he can sometimes be rather . . . rude.”

  “That’s okay, Miss Jenny,” said Nelle, admiring the surroundings. “Truman was just gonna loan me a new book, ma’am.”

  Jenny smiled. “That’s fine, dear.” It was then she noticed how dirty Nelle was. She sighed and turned back to her account books. “Well, you’ll not be wanting to read these books, I can tell you that. But they do keep our finances in order so I can pay the bills to keep my hat store open and this house afloat.”

  Truman pulled Nelle into the hallway, which was lined from floor to ceiling with leather-bound volumes of all colors. Nelle was astounded. She had never seen so many.

  “Not those, silly,” said Truman. “Those are boring grown-up books. I have the real deal in my room.”

  “Psst, Tru.”

  It was old Cousin Bud, poking his head through his bedroom door. Bud had a headful of snow-white hair and yellow teeth from all the tobacco he smoked. “Fancy a card game, Little Chappie?”

  “Not now, Cousin Bud, I have a guest.”

  Bud saw Nelle and nodded. “Mornin’, Miss Nelle. How’s your—”

  Truman cut him off. “I’ll stop by later and maybe we can play Go Fish, all right?”

  Bud winked. “Sure thing, Little Chappie.” He closed the door to his smoke-filled room.

  Nelle scrunched her nose. “That tobacco smells funny.”

  “It’s medicinal . . . for his asthma. Come on.”

  He guided her down the hall toward his room. But right when he was about to open his bedroom door, the door across from his swung open and there stood his cousin Callie. Callie was a teacher, wound tight, with coal-black hair and narrow gray eyes.

  “And what do you think you’re doing, young man?” she said, studying him. “Have you done your lessons?”

  Truman crossed his arms and stood firm. “No, ma’am. Because it’s summer. And you aren’t my mother!”

  “You impertinent little—I said you would be trouble as soon as you stepped foot in this house,” she huffed. “If you had a mother who cared for you, then you wouldn’t need us watching out for you! What you need is a good stick to your behind—”

  Truman laughed. “You touch me, and Jenny will use that stick on you!”

  Callie gasped; Nelle cleared her throat.

  Callie hadn’t noticed Nelle standing there. “Miss Nelle.” She was not impressed with Nelle’s dirty appearance and didn’t hesitate to say so. “I have students that have so much dirt in their ears, they could grow corn in them. But they work the farms. What’s your excuse?”

  “Don’t pay her any mind, Nelle. She’s just bored out of her gourd because she doesn’t have any students to boss around during the summer,” he said. “But if you must know, Cousin Callie, we are going into my room to look at books!”

  Truman quickly dragged Nelle into his bedroom before Callie could say anything back. Arguing with her was a losing proposition.

  He shut the door behind them. “Finally!” he said. “This is where I sleep.”

  Nelle looked around and was immediately drawn to a small shelf filled with children’s books of all kinds. “Golly,” she said, impressed. “Who needs a library when you got all these?”

  She cocked her head sideways so she could read all the titles. “What book should I read next?” Nelle asked.

  “Well, what do you fancy? Adventure? Fantasy?” He assessed her mood. “Wait. I know just the thing . . .”

  He went over to his bed, reached under the pillow, and pulled out a small green book. “I just finished this one. Sherlock Holmes, The Adventure of the Creeping Man,” he said, handing it over.

  Nelle gazed at the silhouette of the pipe-smoking Sherlock Holmes on the cover. “Is Watson in this one too?”

  “Of course! They’re a team. Everyone knows that when it comes to solving crime, two heads are better than one.”

  Nelle shrugged and tucked the book carefully into the front pocket of her overalls. It was then that she noticed there was another bed beside Truman’s.

  “This is really Sook’s room,” he said. “They just stuck me in here till I go back home again with my folks. I keep her company, poor old thing.”

  Nelle nodded. “I have to share a room with my older sisters, Bear and Weezie.”

  “You have a bear for a sister?” he asked.

  “No, silly, that’s just what we call her. She’s fifteen years older than me and as big as a bear.”

  “I wish I had sisters to complain about,” he said.

  “No, you don’t, you got it made—sleeping with your best friend and having books right by your bed. That’s like . . . heaven.”

  She gazed dreamily at the bookshelf, running her finger along the titles: Tom Swift in Captivity, the Hardy Boys’ Secret of the Old Mill, Nancy Drew’s The Hidden Staircase.

  “Sometimes I wish my sisters would disappear and leave me be.” She sighed.

  “You really think that?” he asked.

  She grew quiet. “They’re always joking around, saying how Mama found me under a rock and that I don’t really belong to the family on account of they’re so much older than me. I asked Daddy about it and he said no such thing.”

  “You’re lucky you have a daddy who’s on your side . . .” he said, though Nelle didn’t really hear him.

  She was glaring out the window at her house. “Last week, when three boys was making fun of me during a game of marbles, I just couldn’t take it no more, so I had to make ’em cry.”

  “How’d you do that?” asked Truman.

  “Rubbed their faces in the dirt. And do you know what my sisters did? They took the boys’ side! Can you beat that?”

  Truman knew what it was like not to feel wanted. “Is that your room over there? The window near the corner?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, I’ll tell you what. If your sisters ever gang up on you again, just signal me and I’ll sneak up to the window and scare the bejesus out them!” Truman giggled with delight.

  Nelle snickered. There was something about this strange little boy she liked. “Thanks, Tru.”

  4

  Too Hot for Mayhem

  “I think I’m gonna melt,” whined Truman in that peculiar singsong voice of his. After an hour of playing pirates and knights of the Round Table, followed by two games of marbles and three of jacks, they’d run out of things to do.

  Hot and tired, he and Nelle collapsed under the shade of the scuppernong grape arbor, where it was cool and breezy. They fanned themselves with the crossword-puzzle section of the Monroe Journal, which they’d also finished that morning.

  “Reality is so boring! I wish something exciting would happen for once in this town. I’ve been here over a month and it’s nothing like New Orleans.”

  “Well, it may not be all exciting like New Orleans,” said Nelle. “But stuff still happens ’round here too. Why, just the other day, that black boy Edison was out in the town square drawing a crowd ’cause he could imitate anything you asked him to. He could do birds and horses, Mr. Barnett and his wooden leg, the cotton-gin machine, anything. I asked him to do the mail-carrier train, and he started shuffling his feet in the dirt, chugging and tooting like a train whistle! That’s not something you see every day.”

  Truman was unimpressed. “I suppose we could go down to the drugstore and get some free candy again.” He rolled his eyes up into his head and began twitching and shaking as if he were having a fit.

  “Stop it. You just about gave Mr. Yarborough a heart attack. His son’s an epileptic, you know? And I think he knows candy doesn’t stop a fit.”

  Truman shr
ugged. “He still gave us free licorice.”

  “Yeah, to get rid of us.”

  Truman sat up. “What we need is some big-city excitement. Like . . . just imagine if somebody disappeared. Or there was a murder in town! Then we’d really have something to do.”

  Nelle stared at him like he was nuts. “Just what the heck would we do with a murder or a kidnapping?”

  “Why, solve it, of course. We could be detectives.” He snapped his fingers. “I could be Sherlock and you could be Watson! The brains and the muscle. See?” He pretended to be smoking a pipe.

  “Why cain’t I be—oh, never mind. No one ever gets murdered here anyways. Why, when General Lee himself came to Monroeville, he called it the most boring place on earth!”

  They both stared into the deep blue Alabama sky and counted bits of floating white cotton fluff that escaped from the cotton gin across town.

  “Well, he got that right,” said Truman eventually. “I guess it is too hot for mayhem. The only place where anything is happening is probably down at the swimming hole at Hatter’s Mill. We could go swimming and at least cool off. It’s no Lake Pontchartrain, but it’ll do.”

  Nelle made a face. “You don’t want to go down there.”

  Truman’s eyes lit up. “Why not? Are there gators? Is it dangerous?”

  Nelle wiped the sweat off her brow. She knew the boys who hung out at Hatter’s Mill. Billy Eugene and his pals would beat the snot out of a boy like Truman. The least she could do was keep him out of trouble.

  “No, it’s just not . . .” She couldn’t think of a good excuse.

  “What?” He tilted his head, curious. “You’re not chicken, are you? Can’t you swim?”

  Nelle was offended. “No, I ain’t chicken, and yes, I can swim rings around you!” She stared him down good. He just smiled back at her.

  “Fine, let’s go, then,” she said. “But on one condition.”

  “What’s that?” he asked innocently.

  “You have to dress more . . . normal.”

  “Normal?” said Truman. He blew the long wispy strands of hair out of his eyes. “Since when is normal any fun? I mean, look at you. You’re a girl and you dress like a boy!”

  Nelle tugged on her overalls. She knew it was useless to argue. Truman was only a year older than her, but he acted like he was already grown up. “Fine,” she said. “But don’t blame me if some boys throw you off the roof of the old millhouse. You’re always starting something.”

  Truman grinned like an impish pixie looking for trouble. “Who, me? I can’t help it if I’m a . . . harbinger.” He waited for a reaction from Nelle, who plain refused to play his little word games. He whipped out his miniature dictionary anyway and opened it to a marked page. “It means ‘innovating pioneer’—”

  “Ah don’t care what it means, Streckfus,” she said, pretending to ignore him.

  Truman jutted out his lower jaw and scowled. He hated when she called him that. “Suit yourself, Na-il Har-puh!”

  She stuck her tongue out; he just shrugged.

  “Well, go on, then, get dressed,” she said. “I’ll meet you over there, you ol’ . . . bellwether.”

  Truman giggled. Nelle was the only person he’d met who was as good as him with words.

  Of course, everyone was at the pond at Hatter’s Mill that afternoon. Billy Eugene, Hutch, Doofie, and Twiggs Butts were horsing around, diving into the water and shouting things at the other kids. The girly girls, who were afraid to get their hair wet, made cute comments back at them, trying to get them to dive off the roof of the mill. Nelle kept to herself, wading through the cool waters by the shore, letting the fish tickle her legs.

  Suddenly, everything went quiet. Nelle looked up and saw Edison, that gangly boy whose skin was so dark, she thought he might be a real African. He was standing at the edge of the pond in shorts that were made from an old sack of flour, dipping his toe in the water and imitating a gurgling stream.

  “Just what do you think you’re doing, boy?” Billy Eugene shouted.

  Edison looked around and saw everyone staring at him. “Just dippin’ my toe and talking to the stream,” he said quietly.

  The boys laughed. “You know no coloreds is allowed here. You got to go over to the Negro pond.”

  Edison looked confused. “The Negro pond is closed ever since y’all dammed it up.” He pointed down a ways to the drained part of the pond, which was only a bowl of dried-up mud now.

  “What’s a little mud, boy?” said Billy. “It ain’t like you gonna get any darker!” He and his friends had a good laugh at that.

  Nelle could see Edison’s jaw clenching. She hated when bullies picked on kids who couldn’t fight back, and a colored boy hitting a white boy? That was not allowed. She wanted to go over there herself and punch Billy Eugene in the nose, just so he’d mind his own business. Then she heard someone singing.

  “I found a million-dollar baby . . . in a five-an’-ten-cent store!” The singing was followed by whistling and then Truman appeared from around the bend. With all the subtlety of a peacock, he strutted down the path with an umbrella, acting like Little Lord Fauntleroy.

  “Heya, Edison!” He waved, pausing for all to admire his swimwear.

  While all the boys were barefoot and wearing hand-me-down swim trunks made of old cut-off pants, Truman had shown up in a bright red Hawaiian shirt, white pool sandals, and baby-blue designer swim trunks that his mother had sent him from a trip she’d taken to Florida.

  Nelle thought she was going to die of embarrassment. When Edison tried to touch Truman’s shirt, Tru playfully swatted his hand away. “Don’t touch! Just admire with your eyes like everyone else.” He winked at Edison, then whispered, “Now follow me.”

  Edison smiled and followed along.

  Truman was undersize for his age, but he held that big head of his high and proceeded toward Nelle with as much style as a fancy prince from Monaco—much to everyone’s wide-eyed amazement. Nelle was sure the boys would drag him into the mud with Edison, but nobody said a thing—their jaws were stuck on the ground.

  “Why be normal when you can have fun?” he said as he and Edison waded up to Nelle. “That’s how we do it in New Or-leeeens.”

  They made for quite a picture—the little prince, the tomboy, and the gangly black kid who imitated things. For now, it would pass for excitement in Monroeville.

  Only Truman could turn a sleepy Saturday upside down.

  5

  Bamboozled

  “Okay, open your eyes,” said Nelle.

  Truman pulled Nelle’s hands away from his face. He found himself smack in the center of the town square facing the Monroeville courthouse, the oldest and most stately building in the county, even if the clock in its impressive tower always ran five minutes slow.

  “What are we doing here?” he asked. He’d wanted to go swimming again but Nelle had had other plans.

  “You said you wanted some excitement. Well, here it is,” she said as if it were obvious.

  “The courthouse?”

  She poked him in the shoulder. “Dummy. Where do you think all the criminals end up? I thought you liked Sherlock Holmes?”

  Truman’s eyes grew wide. “Do you think they’ll try a murder case?”

  “Who knows? I come here all the time an’ there’s always some kinda mischief going on. Why, sometimes it’s better than going to the picture show.”

  Truman pondered this. “Wait. How come they let you in? Isn’t this place for grownups?”

  “Heck, no!” she said, pulling him along. “They know me ’cause I got connections . . .”

  She headed up to the main entrance, where a few town policemen were milling about. One officer, a lumbering oaf with a large shaggy beard, spotted her straightaway. “Morning, Miss Nelle. Looking for your daddy?”

  “Naw, we’re here to watch the new case.”

  The policeman raised his eyebrows and chuckled. “Well, this one’s a doozy, Miss Nelle. I hope you and your frie
nd here don’t scare easy.”

  Truman didn’t care to be put in his place. “We don’t scare easy. Why, I’ve seen danger up close, sir. I’ll have you know that when I was living in New Orleans, our neighbor kept a tiger in his basement.”

  “You don’t say,” said the cop.

  “I do, Officer. And boy, that tiger was something fierce! He’d already eaten two people alive that I knew about.”

  “Why didn’t he eat you, then?” asked Nelle.

  “Well . . . I guess tigers like me,” Truman answered, matter of fact. “Whenever I petted him, he purred just like a kitty. One day, the mailman came by and would’ve been swallowed whole if I hadn’t been there!”

  “Huh, don’t that beat all,” said the cop, not buying a word of it. “Well, I guess it’s true what they say—tigers don’t eat shrimp!” He cackled.

  The officers had a good laugh, then headed inside the courthouse. Truman stayed put, stewing on the front steps.

  “Well, ain’t you coming? You don’t want to miss the show,” said Nelle.

  Truman didn’t budge, so Nelle grabbed him by the hand and led him inside, squeezing between the adults in the lobby to reach a small stairway at the far end of the room. “Come on. Best seats in the house,” she said, heading up the wooden steps. They came to a door that said FOR COLORED ONLY, but Nelle ignored the sign and pushed on past it.

  They came out onto an empty balcony that overlooked the airy courtroom. Down below, there was an assortment of characters: the oafish policeman from outside, a crotchety old judge in a black gown, a weary-looking court stenographer, and an enormously fat lawyer conferring quietly with his client, a white woman dressed, oddly, like a princess from India, in gold and black robes. Across from them, sitting calmly behind a table, was a man wearing a plain, dark three-piece suit and horn-rimmed glasses, carefully studying everyone in the room.

  “Your daddy works here?” asked Truman as they sat down. “He’s not that awful policeman, is he?”