Orchard of Hope

by Ann H. Gabhart

  A couple of cars eased past her, and Jocie thought about ditching her bike and flagging down one of the drivers to hitch a ride. But she was nearly to the top of the hill, and it was mostly downhill the rest of the way to Hollyhill.

  Her dad would wait for her or come looking for her if she didn’t show up soon. He’d been paying more attention to where she was, ever since the tornado. Of course, that could be because she was always underfoot, going with him to see Wes or at the newspaper office helping get out the Banner. About the only times she wasn’t close enough for him to yell at her if he needed something was when he was taking Tabitha to the doctor over in Grundy or when he was down at the courthouse talking to Leigh Jacobson.

  Aunt Love said Jocie’s father and Leigh were sparking even if they hadn’t really gone out anywhere except to church or to see Wes at the hospital. And Leigh did show up regular as clockwork to help fold the Banner on printing night every week now. That was okay with Jocie. Leigh always brought brownies.

  Jocie wasn’t saying a stepmother prayer the way she had the sister prayer (“please let Tabitha come home”) and the dog prayer (“please let me have a dog”). She’d asked her dad if she should, and he’d said to leave that prayer up to him.

  At the top of the hill, Jocie paused long enough to wipe the sweat off her forehead with her shirttail before she got up on the bike seat. She glanced back at the rear tire to be sure it still had enough air in it. She really did need some new inner tubes. Then she took off down the hill, happy to feel the breeze on her face, what with the way the sun was roasting the top of her head.

  Up ahead of her, she spotted another bike. It wasn’t one of the little kids from the houses along the road. This kid was big, bigger than Jocie. Maybe not a kid at all. No one Jocie recognized, at least from the back. It was pretty uncommon seeing somebody in Hollyhill she didn’t recognize. It was even more uncommon to see a stranger riding a bike to town. She generally knew everything about any new family that moved into the neighborhood long before their bikes were unloaded.

  She started pedaling faster, curiosity making her forget the heat and how thirsty she was. Worse, she forgot that the old bike didn’t handle speed very well. The chain started clacking. Jocie braked, but it was too late. The chain had already slipped off the cogs and the pedals were useless. She was freewheeling down the hill.

  She still might have been okay if the bike up ahead of her hadn’t been passing by the Sawyers’ house. Butch, the Sawyers’ big German shepherd, lunged off the porch toward the road. Butch never let any bike pass his house unchallenged, and the thing to do was either pedal as fast as possible to get by with no bite marks, or walk by because as soon as your feet were on the ground instead of on pedals, Butch turned into a big pussycat.

  The person on the bike in front of Jocie obviously didn’t know that. He slowed his bike down to keep an eye on the dog.

  “Watch out!” Jocie yelled, as she barreled down the hill toward him.

  The boy looked over his shoulder and pushed hard on the pedals to get out of the way. The dog was barking and nipping at his front wheel. Jocie tried to swerve around them, but Butch jumped in front of her. Without thinking, she laid the bike down rather than hit the dog. The dog jumped sideways and banged into the other bike’s rear wheel. They all ended up in a heap in the ditch. Butch quit barking, jumped on top of Jocie, and started licking her face. Her leg was hurting some, but the dog’s front paws digging into her shoulder hurt worse, so surely nothing was broken.

  Jocie pushed Butch back and peeked around the big dog to look at the boy on the other side of the spinning bike wheels. She’d been right about him being a stranger. He looked about fifteen or sixteen, with curly black hair cut close to his head and angry dark brown eyes staring at her out of his black face. Blood was trickling down from a nasty scrape on his forehead.

  “Are you okay?” Jocie asked. She was glad the bikes were between them.

  3

  “Am I okay?!” he shouted. “Do I look okay?”

  Jocie winced. “Well, no. Your forehead’s bleeding a little.”

  He touched his forehead and then looked at the blood on his fingers.

  “It doesn’t look too bad,” Jocie said. “I mean, from what I can see.”

  “No thanks to you and your dog,” he said as he wiped his fingers on the grass.

  The boy yanked his foot out from under his bicycle and sat up. The better to glare at Jocie. She put her arm around Butch for courage and said, “He’s not my dog.”

  “He’s not your dog?! Then why’s he trying to lick your face off?”

  “He just likes me. At least as long as I’m not on a bike. He doesn’t like anybody on a bike.”

  “No kidding.”

  “And I didn’t aim to run into you. The chain came off my bike and I couldn’t stop. Didn’t you hear me yelling at you? And it was just bad luck Butch jumped in front of me. I’m really sorry. I hope nothing’s broken.” Jocie looked at her bike. The wheels had finally stopped spinning.

  “You mean on us or on the bikes?” The boy was still frowning.

  “Both. I’ve already totaled one bike this summer.”

  “What’s the other poor guy look like?” the boy asked.

  “Not too good actually,” Jocie said. “He’s in the hospital.”

  The boy looked at her and suddenly burst out laughing. Butch started barking and jumping around them.

  “It’s not really all that funny.” Jocie made a halfhearted attempt at a smile just to be agreeable, but what she really felt like doing was crying. She was still a mile from town. It’d take her forever to get the old bike straightened out and the chain back on. She could run, but when she stood up, her ankle hurt. She must have sprained it. She might walk on it, but running was definitely out.

  The boy wiped the laughter tears off his cheeks with the back of his hand. “I’m sorry, but it really is.”

  “Look, I’d love to stay and keep you laughing, but I’ve got to get to town.” Jocie picked up her bike and looked at it. It was hopeless. She let it drop back down in the ditch. She’d have to work on it later.

  “What’s your hurry?” the boy said. “You haven’t even told me your name yet. If I’m going to charge you with reckless bike riding, I need to know your name.”

  “Jocie. Jocie Brooke. I live down the road about a mile. And charge me with whatever you want to. I told you I was sorry and that it was an accident.” She gave Butch one more pat on the head before she started down the road.

  “Hey, are you hurt?”

  “I’m not bleeding. At least I don’t think I am.” Jocie stopped to feel her face and look at her hands and legs. Nothing but dirt and grass stains.

  “You’re limping.”

  “And you’re bleeding.”

  “But you said it looked like I’d live,” the boy said.

  “Me too. I just won’t be able to run for a while.” Jocie was walking again. Butch ran ahead a couple of steps and waited for her to catch up.

  “You want to run?” the boy asked as he picked up his bike and set it on its wheels out on the road.

  “I’m late to meet my dad,” she said over her shoulder without stopping.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me my name? Or do you just ask white kids for their names?”

  Jocie stopped walking and turned around to look at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “That you didn’t ask me my name, I guess.”

  “Well, actually I’ve been told I shouldn’t talk to strangers at all, much less ask them their names.”

  “We can’t be strangers after we’ve been down in a ditch together.” The boy wasn’t smiling, but his eyes were still laughing at her.

  Jocie took a deep breath and blew the air out of her lungs slowly. She wouldn’t let herself get mad. After all, she had run him over on her bike, so if he wanted to laugh at her, that was better than yelling at her. She kept her voice calm. “Okay, good point. So what’s your name?”
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  “Maybe I don’t want to tell you. Maybe I want to stay a stranger.”

  “Then suit yourself.” Jocie turned around and started walking again. She didn’t have time for whatever game this boy was playing. She tried to keep from limping, but she couldn’t. At the edge of the Sawyers’ yard, she scratched the spot right in front of Butch’s tail and pointed him back to his porch. To her surprise the dog went.

  “Are you sure that bike-biting terror is not your dog?” the boy asked. He was pushing his bike along beside Jocie.

  “He’s not my dog.” Jocie looked over at him. “I’m glad your bike wasn’t banged up too bad.”

  “How about my bloody head?”

  “I’ve already told you I was sorry about that.”

  They kept walking without saying anything. Finally the boy said, “Your ankle looks swollen.”

  “Yeah. I must’ve twisted it,” Jocie said.

  They went a few more steps before the boy said, “Look, I know you’re a little white girl and I’m a big black boy and I just moved here and I’m not sure what the rules are around here about this kind of thing, but do you want a ride?”

  “I’m not a little girl. I’ll be fourteen next month. And it’s my guess you aren’t much older or you’d be driving a car instead of riding a bike.”

  “So I lack a little being sixteen. I’m still a big black boy in a white neighborhood, and I don’t bow and scrape too good.” The boy grimaced and touched his forehead. “Well, that might not have been the best word to use right now, what with this scrape on my head. But now that the dog’s gone I’ll give you a ride.”

  “You forgot about the stranger part,” Jocie said.

  “I bet you’ve never met a stranger.”

  “Somebody who doesn’t want to say his name is pretty strange.”

  The boy laughed again. “Your point.”

  “Maybe my point, but your serve,” Jocie said.

  “You play tennis?”

  “No. We don’t have any tennis courts, but I’ve played badminton sometimes. All you need is a yard and a net for that.”

  “I told my mother this place was too backward to move to. We should have stayed in Chicago. Lots of tennis courts up there.”

  “You play tennis?”

  “How come you sound so surprised? Because I’m black and black people don’t play tennis?”

  “Do you?”

  “Well, no, but I might someday. So how about the ride? Yes or no?”

  Jocie stopped walking and looked straight at him. “How about the name? Yes or no?”

  He stopped rolling his bike and smiled at her. “Noah Hearndon at your service, Miss Brooke.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hearndon, and I’d be more than happy to take you up on that offer of a ride if it’s not too much trouble.”

  “Climb aboard.” Noah straddled the bike and waited while Jocie tried to figure out the best way to sit on the back fender.

  “I don’t think this is going to work,” she said finally.

  “Not unless you grab hold of my waist,” Noah said. When Jocie still hesitated, he laughed and added, “I promise the black won’t rub off on you.”

  Jocie wasn’t a bit worried about the black rubbing off, but she hadn’t grabbed hold of a boy since she used to wrestle with Teddy Whitehead in second grade. Still, she’d told Noah she wanted a ride, and she couldn’t ride without holding on. She took a deep breath and put one hand gingerly on each side of his waist. His muscles felt hard under his sweaty T-shirt.

  Noah gave her a look over his shoulder and said, “Hold on and pray.”

  Jocie was already praying. She just wasn’t sure exactly what she should be praying for the most. That she wouldn’t fall off? Surely this couldn’t be that much different than riding on the back of a motorcycle, and she’d done that plenty of times with Wes. But with Wes, she just wrapped her arms around his waist without a second’s thought. She couldn’t very well hug this boy like that.

  Or maybe she should be praying that she wouldn’t make Noah laugh at her again. She didn’t know why she cared if he did or not. After all, she really didn’t know him. She didn’t know where he lived. She didn’t know why he was in Hollyhill. She didn’t know why he went from being mad to laughing his head off in a second’s time. And she didn’t know which she was going to make him do next or how.

  One thing for sure, she wasn’t going to find out any of the answers without asking. Now seemed to be as good a time as any.

  “You move in somewhere around here?”

  “You don’t think I biked down from Chicago, do you?”

  “I haven’t heard about anybody moving into the neighborhood.”

  “And you’d have heard if I moved into your neighborhood. That’s for sure.”

  “Okay, so you don’t live in Chicago or my neighborhood. Where do you live? Or did you just fall out of a spaceship?” She knew he wouldn’t know what she was talking about, but she didn’t care. That was what Wes was always telling Jocie. That he fell out of a spaceship and landed in Hollyhill.

  “My misguided parents moved down here to plant an orchard out on Hoopole Road. I bet you don’t even know where that is. It’s so far out in the sticks that nobody could know where that is.”

  “But I do. My father’s the preacher at Mt. Pleasant Church just over the hill from Hoopole Road,” Jocie said.

  “A preacher’s kid. You have my sympathy.”

  “I don’t need it. I like being a preacher’s kid,” Jocie said.

  “All the time?” He glanced back over his shoulder at her.

  “Well, my father’s the newspaper editor too, so I can be the editor’s kid part of the time.”

  “I’ll bet nobody ever forgets you’re a preacher’s kid, though.”

  “I don’t want them to,” Jocie said. Just a few weeks ago she’d been more worried about people not believing she was the preacher’s kid. “Are you a preacher’s kid too?”

  “My father a preacher? No way.” Noah was laughing again. The bike wobbled a little before he paid attention to keeping his wheels straight. “He doesn’t have much use for preachers.”

  “Why not?”

  “Beats me,” Noah said. “Now my mother, that’s a different matter altogether. She might have been a preacher if the job was open to women. Instead she just preaches at me and anybody else who will stand still five minutes.”

  “What’s she preach about?”

  “Anything and everything, according to her mood. But mostly freedom. She’s what some might call an activist. Went to the March on Washington with the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. last summer.”

  “Oh yeah. My dad had me read Rev. King’s speech because he thought it was so good. He kept saying he wished he could hear him preach in person sometime.”

  “Yeah, that part about having a dream really grabbed people. My mother came home all charged up, but my daddy said that’s all it is—a dream. A dream that won’t ever come true, but my mama says it will if we make it happen.” Noah looked over his shoulder at Jocie. “I don’t know how you people here in the big town of Hollyhill feel about blacks in general, but one thing for sure, you’re going to know it when my mama comes to town. Your little town will never be the same once Myra Cassidy Hearndon gets hold of it.”

  Jocie didn’t say so out loud, but she thought the same might be said about Myra’s son, Noah Hearndon.

  4

  Jocie pointed out the newspaper office when they got to Main Street.

  “People are looking,” Noah said as he stopped the bike in an open parking space in front of the office.

  “Just because they don’t know who you are. We expect to know everybody we see in Hollyhill.” Jocie climbed off the bike and stepped down gingerly on her ankle. It still hurt.

  “Yeah. I’m sure that’s it and that it doesn’t have a thing to do with me being a little dark around the edges and you being so lily white.”

  “We have black people in Hollyhill.”
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br />   “You ever ridden on the backs of any of their bikes?”

  “Not yet. They know me well enough to stay out of my way when they see me coming on my bike.”

  “Smart guys,” Noah said, smiling again.

  Jocie stood on the sidewalk and looked at Noah. “You never did tell me why you were coming to town.”

  “You’re sort of nosey, aren’t you?”

  “Maybe.” Jocie didn’t let what he said bother her. “I guess it comes from helping my dad get stories for the paper.”

  “I know. And being a preacher’s kid.”

  “That too.” Jocie waited for him to say why he was in Hollyhill, but he just balanced himself with one foot on the road and one on his bike pedal and looked at her without saying a word.

  She eyed him, then gave a shrug. “Okay, don’t tell me. The Banner just came out yesterday anyway, and your story, whatever it is, would be such old news by next week’s issue that nobody would care.” She nodded toward the door. “But come on inside and meet my dad. And you can clean up the scrape on your head. If you were looking for a job or something, you wouldn’t want to show up bleeding.”

  “What makes you think I need a job?” Noah asked, but he got off his bike, sat it up on the sidewalk, and kicked down the stand.

  “You’re almost sixteen and you want to drive a car instead of ride a bike,” Jocie said.

  “Deductive thinking. You must be a regular female Sherlock Holmes.”

  “That’s me. Come on and I’ll get you a Band-Aid and a copy of this week’s Banner. I don’t remember any help-wanted ads, but there might have been one or Dad might know somebody that needs help. Of course, there are always farmers working in hay and stuff.”

  “I’ve already got a line on something like that. The guy who sold us the farm said he might need some help with fencing and painting his barn roof in a week or two.”

  “Who was that?”

  “Harvey McMurtry. You know him?”

  “Sure. Mr. Harvey goes to my dad’s church.”

  “Small world, isn’t it?” Noah said and then looked up and down Main Street before making a face. “Real small.”