My Year in the Middle

by Lila Quintero Weaver

  When we get back to the campaign offices, Sam leads us straight to the break room. His mother is in there, stirring a tall pitcher of lemonade. “Hi, kids!” She has the most cheerful face you ever saw, loaded with freckles, just like Lonnie’s. She takes a gander at Sam tearing into the doughnut box. “Whoa, there, kiddo. Didn’t you eat lunch?”

  “I better get back home,” I tell Sam and Abigail, “or my mom will be worried.”

  Abigail says she’ll walk with me as far as my house. Her newly pumped tire rolls over the sidewalk cracks and up to the first curb. When the light turns, we hurry across Shelby and then Cornelius.

  “Guess what?” Abigail says. “I ordered me a set of detachable braids!”

  “What for?”

  “To look good, silly. Have you seen them in Groovy Gal, in those Nordic Gold ads? Four pairs only cost one dollar and ninety-five cents, plus four box tops. And that includes shipping and handling.”

  “You bought four boxes of Nordic Gold?”

  “I had to! It’ll take at least four braids for a hairdo! Plus, I’ve got to bleach my hair to match the braids, don’t I?” Abigail’s hair is light brown, so she’s already more than halfway to blond. Me? Not even forty boxes of Nordic Gold could turn my dark hair blond.

  “I just hope they get here in time for Phyllis’s party,” she adds.

  “Why?”

  “Lu, don’t you care about looking good at the party? Boys are going to be there, for heaven’s sake!”

  “So? They see us at school every single day, looking like our regular selves.”

  “This is different. This is a boy-girl party — romances happen there. Don’t you know anything?”

  I think about that stack of Groovy Gal magazines under my bed. They’re full of advice about crushes and parties and how to get boys’ attention. Abigail has read every word of every page — and it shows.

  No wonder Sam likes her.

  Good news. Nobody has called me a loser since Monday. For one thing, I’ve managed to beat the pack three days in a row, even with Belinda nipping at my heels and Connie’s ponytail lashing me every time I pass her.

  That Belinda’s a crafty one. She’s got a new trick — making me laugh in the middle of a run. She does this by shouting out goofy rhymes. It’s got something to do with that paperback she’s reading, The Book of Three, which I finally saw up close. There’s a picture of a knight and a horse and a pig on the cover. Weird. It’s a sword-fighting, magic-spell kind of book, the kind that boys usually go for. And somebody in the story is always rhyming, which Belinda seems to like — a lot. So say we’re charging around the last bend, making for the chalk line. She’s liable to blurt out, “Higgledy-piggledy!”— knowing full well it’ll crack me up. If I shake a fist at her, she’ll add, “Shaking and quaking!”

  Today, Belinda doesn’t even need rhyming. She pulls ahead of me at the last curve, zooms down the stretch, and across the chalk line before I can catch her. “Ratsy patsy!” I yell after her, but she just laughs at me. Afterward, we flop down under the tulip trees. I tell her she should be a poet, and she says she already is a poet. She even has a notebook for her poems.

  “Really?”

  “Yep. I’ll let you see it when you come to my house.”

  “Oh!” I’m so surprised that I don’t know what to say next. I pull on a sprig of clover. The idea of going to her house flits around me like a butterfly with pretty wings. “Oh,” I say again, like a dumb bunny, thinking about her notebook and her house — is it brick or wood? Is her dad a doctor-doctor or a college doctor?

  “Hey, goofy, is ‘oh’ the only word you know?” she says. “It’s just a house — nothing to be afraid of! The bogeyman doesn’t live there.” I fall back on the grass, laughing. Pretty soon, Angie joins us.

  Connie doesn’t show up for the longest time. She started off like a jackrabbit and ran out of gas before the flagpole. At long last, I spot her cutting across the lawn, heading straight for the locker room. Something’s going kaflooey with her. Maybe she’s sick, or maybe she’s plumb had it with running.

  While Mrs. Underwood huffs and puffs that the rest of the class is moving at the speed of molasses, the three of us find clover blossoms and start making a chain.

  In the locker room, Belinda grabs a pen and writes my phone number on her hand. I write her phone number on mine. I want her number, but the whole time we’re doing this, I’m jittery as a cat near water. If Phyllis or Missy catch me, it could start up another round of trouble — which Lord knows, I don’t need. But I sure do want Belinda’s number.

  “Is this thing even working?” Abigail hollers into the hot oven. The cake is taking its sweet time. You’re supposed to stick a toothpick in the middle to make sure it’s all the way done. Trouble is, the toothpick keeps coming up gooey. After letting it go another five minutes, we yank both layers out of the oven, done or not.

  It’s already twenty minutes past six, and Mr. Farrow is driving us to the rally at 6:45 for the cakewalk. Good thing the icing is mixed and ready. Abigail takes a metal spatula and dives right in. I follow her lead with a spoon. We slather white icing between, around, and on top of the layers. She smooths, and I swirl, and when we finish, Abigail near about cries with happiness. “It’s gorgeous,” she breathes.

  It is gorgeous — like a field of snow in one of those Christmas cards you always see.

  We dash upstairs to clean up, and by the time we return to the kitchen — boom — the snow has melted. Globs of icing are on the move, slipping down the sides, leaving naked parts of cake showing.

  Abigail screams, and Mr. Farrow hurries in to see what’s the matter. When he catches sight of the cake, he slaps his forehead. “Silly girl, you have to let the cake cool down before you ice it.”

  “Now you tell me!” Abigail moans. “This is a disaster!” She and I run around in a panic, searching for edible stuff to hold down the icing: shredded coconut, gumdrops, chopped pecans, raisins. We stick everything, willy-nilly, all over that cake, and boy oh boy, does it ever look stupid when we’re done. Bits of icing hang on for dear life to the gumdrops, and now the whole cake sags in the middle like a sorry old mattress.

  Mr. Farrow tries hard not to laugh. Me, I don’t say a word — Abigail’s already in a stew. It takes two of us to lower the cake into the cardboard bakery box. While Abigail gets in the car, I hold the box and hand it to her oh so gently, like a newborn baby going home from the hospital in its mama’s arms. An ugly baby.

  You can see the fairground’s field lights blocks away. Parked cars are backed up on both sides of the two-lane highway, so we have to walk a far piece along the grassy edge. The sound of a country-and-western band comes in loud and clear while we jostle elbow to elbow with people. “Watch it, I’ve got a cake in here,” Abigail snaps.

  Near the gate, Phyllis’s brother, Jimbo, pops up out of the crowd. Back when I used to go to Phyllis’s house a lot, Jimbo was actually nice to me. Most older brothers aren’t like that. “There’s my buddy Lu!” he says now. “What’re you doing here? I figured y’all for Brewer people.”

  “We are, but —”

  Abigail breaks in. “We’re actually here for the cakewalk. It’s the best fun!”

  “Oh, yeah?” Jimbo says. “Speaking of fun, why don’t you come over and play air hockey sometime?”

  Dang, I’d forgotten all about the Hartleys’ air-hockey table, but now that he brings it up, I sure have got a hankering to play. Too bad Phyllis and I aren’t buddy-buddy these days.

  Once he’s gone, Abigail says, “You played air hockey with Jimbo Hartley? Isn’t he a junior?” I can tell she’s impressed, and that doesn’t happen too often.

  “I used to, way back when.”

  The jostling gets worse when we squeeze through the gates. “Stay together, girls,” Mr. Farrow says. He takes the cake box from Abigail and holds it over his head as we plow through the crowd.

  The band we’ve been hearing ever since we turned the street corner is on
the stage. All around are red and blue decorations and WALLACE FOR GOVERNOR signs. Rows of metal chairs face the stage, and people stream up and down, claiming seats by throwing purses and jackets over them. Grown-ups gather in clumps, shooting the breeze. Some line up to buy colas and snack foods at the concession stand. Seems like I know half the folks here, starting with our neighbors, the Mandersons. Over there are Mr. Abrams and his whole family. Now I see the postmaster and the ticket lady from the Velvet Cinema.

  We make our way to the area marked out for the cakewalk. First, you’ve got to buy your ticket. PROCEEDS GO TO THE LOCAL WALLACE CAMPAIGN, a sign says — and that stops me in my tracks. “To the campaign?”

  Abigail puts a hand on her hip. “What did you expect, goofy? This is a Wallace rally.”

  “I know, I know.” But I’d almost forgotten about the Wallace part of it till now. Jeepers creepers, good thing I didn’t tell Marina we were coming to the cakewalk. She would have my hide if she knew I’d gone anywhere near him or plunked down change for his campaign. Oh well, it’s only fifty cents — surely Wallace can’t perform any miracles with that.

  Abigail heads straight for the cake display. The lady keeping watch over the donated cakes takes the box out of her hands and over to the crowded table.

  “That’s a whopping lot of cakes you’ve got there,” Mr. Farrow says to the lady. “Are you sure you need my daughter’s?” He throws Abigail a wink.

  “I suppose you want to hog it for yourself,” the lady says, grinning.

  “Not specially.” He laughs, and Abigail punches him on the arm.

  A tall light pole casts its bright, bluish light on a corner of the field. Under it, in a flat grassy area, they’ve laid out a circle for the cakewalk. It’s made of cardboard pieces with numbers stamped on them, set out like flagstones in a garden walkway. I take my stand on number twelve. Chad is right in front of me, and Robbie is ahead of him. They’re already cutting up like the dickens, braying like donkeys and doing the funky-chicken dance. The man minding the record player for the cakewalk is giving them the evil eye.

  Pretty much the whole white side of the sixth grade is already here, waiting for the start of the game. Not Sam, of course, and not Melody, who never goes anywhere outside of school except to clarinet lessons. But even Paige Donnelly is here, and I’m pretty sure her family doesn’t care for Wallace’s kind of politics. I guess she likes cakewalks, too.

  “Pssst, Paige,” I call to her. She wheels around to see who’s talking.

  “If your number’s called, don’t pick the cake in the red-and-white box.”

  “Why not?”

  “Trust me. Just don’t.”

  “Now you’ve got my curiosity up!”

  Two more people show up, and now every number in the circle is taken. The man at the record player announces: “Ladies and gents, without further ado …” He sets the needle down and up starts the music. A fellow with a voice deeper than God’s sings out: “There was an old man named Michael Finnegan. He grew whiskers on his chin again.” It’s a song we learned in first grade. Most of us walk along calmly like civilized human beings, but Chad and Robbie bunny-hop from one flagstone to the next, and now they’re singing, too. “The wind blew them off, and they grew in again. Poor old Michael Finnegan — begin again!” Other boys join in, trying their best to sound like the booming voice on the record, which makes us girls giggle. Even Missy, across the circle from me, doubles over laughing.

  The man lifts the needle off the record, and when the music stops dead, so do all the cakewalkers. You look down at your feet to see which number you’re standing on. I’m on eight. The cake lady pulls a numbered golf ball out of a big jar and calls out, “Number seventeen! Number seventeen!” A high-school girl squeals and rushes over to claim herself a cake.

  The music starts up again. It’s the same singer, but a different song. Eight, nine, ten … I continue along the path of cardboard numbers. The boys won’t stop cutting up, no matter how much the man at the record player harrumphs at them. I’m tickled sideways because it’s always more fun when they put on a show.

  “Number four! Number four!” That’s Chad’s number, but he wants to stay in the game, so they draw a second number. At this rate, we could be here all night — which I wouldn’t mind, because I’m having a merry ole time. But three rounds later, the cake lady calls out: “Sorry, but the main program is about to start. I’m afraid we’ll have to get back to the cakewalk afterward.”

  Everybody goes, “Awww, dang it!”

  Mr. Farrow leads the way to rows of cars parked inside the fairground. People are using the cars as extra seating. We hop up on the hood of somebody’s pickup truck and dangle our feet off the sides. It’s like being at the drive-in movie on a summer night. Sitting up high, we can keep an eye out for our friends.

  I’m smiling because it’s so nice that they feel like my friends again. I haven’t forgotten that somebody in my class wrote “Loser” on the chalkboard, but I figure it was just one the boys clowning around, since boys seem to love doing that. Well, not Sam. The Sam I used to know mostly kept his head down, fiddling with that fountain pen or cleaning his glasses. But the new Sam … well, I did catch him in a toothy grin the other day. The new Sam … uh-oh, that fish inside me starts going flip-flop — but now it’s flip-flopping slower, like it’s running out of air.

  The program starts, and is it ever boring. A lineup of bigwigs sits on the stage, and each one takes a turn at the microphone, carrying on about how great Wallace is. After a while, people in the bleachers start chanting, “We want Wallace! We want Wallace!” Soon, more folks pick up the chant, and before you know it, pretty much the whole fairground is yelling it. Fine with me — the sooner he talks, the sooner we can get back to the cakewalk.

  A man in a dark business suit bounces up the steps of the stage and works down the line of bigwigs, pumping hands. When the crowd realizes this is Wallace, they erupt into applause and whistles. The band cranks up again, this time with “Dixie.” People jump to their feet, belting out the verses: “In Dixie land where I was born early on a frosty morn, look away, look away, look away, Dixie land …” Six huge Confederate flags wave above the crowd, and many little ones flutter like hummingbird wings in people’s hands.

  Wallace starts in on his speech. His voice booms through the speakers, saying stuff like, “They have taken away our control of public schools, and I aim to get it back.” Wild cheering. “As soon as we get Sissy Britches out of the way, we can get back to running Alabama like it ought to be run.” Wilder cheering.

  I turn to Abigail. “What in thunderation is ‘sissy britches’?” I have to shout, or she won’t hear me.

  Abigail asks her father, then yells his answer in my ear. “Wallace’s nickname for Brewer!”

  Sissy Britches? Calling our governor a name like that? Ugh. That is pure mean.

  Wallace keeps going. He promises he’s going to fix everything that Sissy Britches hasn’t been man enough to fix. “School integration has been forced down our throats. The good white people of Alabama didn’t ask for this!” The audience applauds like crazy.

  I’m getting queasy. If he heard this kind of talk on TV, Papá would jump out of his chair to switch it off. And Marina? She’d sprout fangs that glow in the dark. But this crowd loves it.

  Confederate flags dance like the devil everywhere you look. I get to thinking about Belinda and all the other black kids in my grade. It seems like everybody here would like nothing better than to boot them out of Red Grove Elementary and send them back to their old school. The queasy feeling climbs up into my throat and stays there. That’s when a new thought comes to me: I don’t belong here.

  Thank goodness Wallace is just about done. “With your help, I’ll put Alabama back on the right road. Can I count on your support?” The crowd roars, “Yes!”

  “Dixie” starts up again, and you never heard such a racket. People are back on their feet, stomping, cheering, and whistling. I bet the graveyard
’s jumping. I bet the statues of Confederate soldiers on the courthouse lawn are saluting. I press my fingers to my ears but can’t drown out the noise. Wallace, Wallace, Wallace, Wallace!

  Now that it’s over, several men move through the crowd, handing out flyers. Others do the same among the parked cars. We hop off the pickup’s hood. When Abigail starts edging toward the cakewalk, Mr. Farrow says, “No, we’re going home.”

  “Why, Daddy?” Abigail pleads. “We didn’t finish the cakewalk!” But he cuts her off with a hard no. The two of us trudge behind him, making our way to the car. “He’s awfully grumpy about something,” Abigail mutters.

  “Maybe he didn’t like what Wallace said.”

  “Guess not.” Abigail sounds real glum.

  A group of girls skips past us, reciting in singsong voices: “Brewer is a sissy britches! Brewer is a sissy britches!” I look at Abigail to see her reaction. Her eyes are far off, and her mouth is in a pout. So I just trudge. And stew. And feel stupid for thinking this would be fun — even if it started off fun, which it did.

  As we pass parked cars, I notice flyers under each set of windshield wipers. Mr. Farrow’s Lincoln Continental has some on it, too. He yanks them off, and once we’re in the car, he keeps the dome light on for a minute to look them over. His lips make a tight line. “Disgusting,” he says, and balls up the flyers.

  “Let me see them, Daddy!”

  “No, Abigail. They’re ugly and full of lies. You don’t need to poison your mind with such things.” He cranks the motor and steers out into the bumper-to-bumper traffic. Car horns blare left and right. People hoot and yell.

  Abigail squeezes my arm and whispers, “Must’ve been really bad.”