At the flagpole, Marina calls out, “Speed up a tad!” So I turn up the jets. Now the ball fields are coming up, which means I’m nearly at the half split. Papá’s at the chalk line, giving me a thumbs-up. Boy, does that put a smile in my step. Papá’s helping me run! I float like a kite on a breezy day.
On the far side of my second lap, Marina shouts, “Right on it, Lu!” But I give it a teensy bit more gas anyway, just in case. As I approach Papá at the chalk line, I see him looking at his watch, then at me, then back at his watch and back at me. When I zip across the finish, he yells, “Two fifty-eight!” That’s my finishing time, and Papá says it’s darned good.
Here comes Marina. She cuts across the schoolyard, out of breath. “Papá, what are you waiting for?” she says, collapsing on the grass. “This girl needs to run track!”
“I agree,” he says.
“For real?” I shriek.
“That’s right. Believe it or not, even your mother is this close to saying yes. This close.” His index finger and thumb are spread maybe half an inch apart.
“Really?” I squeal.
Papá throws his head back and laughs. “Yes, and you can thank Mrs. Sampredo for that. As for me, I just needed to see your speed with my own eyes.”
“Ahhhhhhhh!” I run around in a circle, with my arms spread like a bird about to take off. I whoop at the top of my lungs and circle back around to high-five Papá and Marina. They whoop with me. When Mamá gets back from church, she’s going to be ready to say yes — I just know it! Wait till Mrs. Underwood finds out! I’ll tell her first thing Monday. Wait till Belinda hears! I’m calling her the second we get home.
Sam’s not late yet, but unless he’s still sick, he’d better hurry. Homeroom bell is about to go off.
During exam week our schedule is topsy-turvy. Monday through Wednesday, we take exams in the mornings, and in the afternoons, we float from class to class, reviewing and studying. Thursday, of course, is Field Day.
Abigail’s hunched over a three-ring binder, whispering definitions to herself. She has yet to say hello. Finally, at 7:54, Sam bustles in. The minute he stuffs his book bag in the cubby, he starts talking to me. “I heard about the party.”
“What did you hear?”
“That it went bad for you.” Paige must have been the one who told him what happened. “Nobody stuck up for you? Nobody?”
“Nobody.”
He takes that fountain pen in his fingers and flips it over and over in a circle, like the wheels in his head are turning. What the heck is he thinking? I wonder. But the bell rings before I get a chance to find out.
The whole day ticks by slowly. We take our first two exams, eat lunch, and get through fifth period.
Come sixth period, I’m finally about to see what’s on that boy’s mind. A tall stack of review sheets sits on Miss Garrett’s desk. Sam kind of messes up her lesson plans when he says, “Excuse me, Miss Garrett, there’s something I need to do.” She watches with startled eyes while he takes his books and lopes over to the left side of the classroom, where he plunks down in an empty desk between Spider and Angie. “I’m sitting over here from now on, if that’s okay with y’all,” he says to Spider.
Spider gives him a high five, then a low five and another high five. “Out of sight! Welcome to the sunny side of the street, brother!”
Miss Garret’s eyes flutter in confusion. “Pardon me?”
“Sorry for the interruption,” Sam answers, “but I couldn’t sit in that middle row anymore. This is where I belong.”
Nick mumbles something. Charles mumbles something back. Chad says, “Shut up, Charles.”
In one voice, Willa and Charles say, “You shut up!”
Sam says to Nick and Chad, “Guys, come on. It’s not a big deal — just let it be.”
Miss Garrett is on her feet, looking hot and bothered. “Sam, there’s a time and place for everything, and I hardly think this is the time.”
“I’m not trying to start trouble.”
“Oh, puh-leez,” Missy says. “Get off your high horse.” I guess she loves to say that.
“Yeah,” Connie says. “Get off your high horse before you fall off.” Missy and Phyllis shoot her with ice-cold stares.
Then Nick says, “Figures — coming from you, since you’re the son of Reverend Sissy Britches and all.” I expect Sam to turn redder than a boiled ham, but no, he’s having a jolly old time with Spider. Maybe he didn’t hear Nick.
Brrrr. Now that Sam’s gone, the middle row feels frosty as the North Pole. It’s just me and Abigail and Paige left here. I try hard to listen to Miss Garrett’s review, but my attention keeps jumping all over the place. When I check on Abigail, sitting two seats back, she won’t even look at me. Missy and Phyllis are in their corner, passing notes.
Meanwhile, Sam’s at his new desk on the black side of the classroom, looking perfectly hunky-dory. And now Belinda’s on the edge of her seat. She jerks her head at me in a come-here motion. She’s telling me: leave the middle row and join us. But I’m scared.
For a few seconds, I lock eyes with Belinda, still scared. Hardly able to breathe, I scoop up my book bag, still scared. I hurry over to the only empty desk on that side of the classroom and claim it for my own. Out of breath, heart hammering. Scared.
When Belinda reaches over to squeeze my hand, I feel much better. But then one of the white kids calls out, “Copycat!”
“Oh, Sam!” Nick says, using a little-girl voice. “I’ll follow you anywhere! Anywhere!” A bunch of my classmates die laughing. Did Sam hear them? I shrink down, down, down into my desk, where he can’t see how embarrassed I am.
While Miss Garrett runs for the light switch, Belinda and Angie huddle around me. “Don’t pay them any mind!” they whisper, but my face still burns like kingdom come.
In Mr. Barkley’s classroom, Sam and I sit with the black kids, just like we did yesterday in social studies. I’m glad not to be a middle-rower anymore, and I’m really glad to be sitting with Belinda, but all morning long Nick’s been calling me a copycat. Grrr. I want to spit nails! Sam tells me I should just ignore him, and I’m trying. I really am.
Belinda has a better idea. She comes up with a new rhyme, just to get me laughing: “Tootsie Pop, bubble gum, oink, oink, moo. Barnyard snack time, chew, chew, chew!”
But now goofy time is over. “Pencils ready,” Mr. Barkley says. “Flip your exams over, and … start.” Volcanoes, machines, atoms. The whole sixth-grade year of science ticks by in three sheets of paper, front and back.
Afterward, the room bubbles with whispers and fidgeting. Mr. Barkley puts a quick lid on it, but then Tommy has to go and launch a paper airplane. It glides across the back row, where Robbie and Spider try to snatch it out of the air. They both end up on their hands and knees, grabbing for it under Willa’s desk and making all kinds of shuffling noises. That’s when Mr. Barkley hits the roof. “All right, you three. I’ve had it. Get your things and march yourselves down to see Coach Williams. Now.”
Ugh. That probably means they’ll have to do fifty million push-ups, on a stopwatch, with Coach Williams frowning like a thundercloud.
While Robbie, Tommy, and Spider head for the door, Nick brays, “Take it eeeassy!” at Spider’s back, and some kids snicker.
“Oh, so we have a smart aleck, do we?” Mr. Barkley says, glowering at Nick. “Get moving, buster, you’re going, too.”
In a huff, Nick gathers his things, but he’s moving at the speed of cold ketchup. When he passes by Sam, he can’t resist making a jab. “What are you looking at, blockhead?”
Sam shrugs. “Nothing.”
“What a sissy britches.”
Sam laughs. “That again?” I brace myself for a nasty comeback from Nick. But like the strike of a rattlesnake, Nick’s fist flies out and goes pow, right on Sam’s mouth. Just as Mr. Barkley’s head jerks up from his grade book to see what in thunderation is going on, kids sitting nearby scatter like bird shot all over the room.
; Blood beads up on Sam’s lip. “You know what?” he says to Nick. “I don’t care what you say about me, but you shouldn’t —”
Slaaam! Nick’s fist flies again, and they crash against a bookcase. A globe tumbles off the top shelf and starts rolling, rolling. North America, Europe, Asia, North America, bounce, bounce. Mr. Barkley leaps over desks to reach the boys. In the middle of all this, the bell rings. We’re supposed to head off to our next exam, but now Mr. Barkley’s blocking the door. “You’re coming with me to see Coach Williams.” He grabs Nick by the scruff of his shirt and calls for Sam. “You’d better come, too.”
But Sam’s on all fours by the bookcase. “Mr. Barkley, please,” he says. “I lost a contact lens.” Mr. Barkley hurries over to help him, and everybody who’s been held up at the door rushes out, cheeping like biddies as they hustle down the hall. I drop to my knees by the bookcase and start searching for the dropped contact lens, too.
Sam says, “It’s okay, Lu. Go take your exam.”
“I don’t want to.”
His face is two inches from the floor, and his hand glides along in a slow swish. Drops of blood dribble on the linoleum. Mr. Barkley comes around with a flashlight, which should make the contact lens easier to spot. “Lu, this is not your affair,” he says, shooing me out the door.
Did you hear? Did you hear? Did you hear? The lunchroom is all abuzz. And for once, Mr. Abrams isn’t guarding the door. Something must be bad wrong.
I’m sitting with Belinda and Angie when Willa dashes over, sloshing milk all over her tray of food. “There was another fight! Somebody got jumped in the boys’ locker room!”
Rumors about the locker-room fight are spreading like wildfire, and it’s hard to weed out facts from whoppers. Is it true that three boys ganged up on one? Did somebody really break somebody’s ribs? Hearing the word police makes my hair stand on end. Spider’s nowhere to be seen — and where’s Sam, who’s not with his band buddies or anywhere else in the lunchroom?
“None of the boys who got sent to Coach Williams ever came back,” Willa says.
Lord, I feel dizzy, and the smell of fried catfish turns my stomach.
Mr. Barkley’s the lunchroom monitor today. But with so many kids running around, swapping pieces of the story, it takes all of the teachers to herd everybody back to their tables. Even some of the kitchen ladies have come out from behind the counter to see what the fuss is all about. “You’ll find out what happened soon enough!” Mr. Barkley keeps yelling.
Two girls stand on a table and holler at the white side of the room. “Y’all better not treat Spider and them wrong!” Mr. Barkley zips over and tells them to get down, then shouts for everyone to return to their seats.
And that’s when Chad sprints past. “They’re leaving in a police car!” Tons of us kids jump up from our tables and run toward the front entrance of the school, with Willa leading the pack. Belinda and I get as far as the door of the lunchroom before the crowd squeezes us against the wall. Elbows jab us. Feet nearly trample ours. While Mr. Barkley and the other teachers swarm out of the lunchroom screaming for everybody to get back where they belong, poor Miss Garrett trembles by the trophy case, blinking back tears. Soon, Mr. Abrams’s voice comes over the intercom. “Attention. All students return to your assigned classrooms immediately.” He has to repeat this five or six times before things begin to settle down.
Me, I’m not even close to settled down. It feels like ants are running all over my insides and outsides. I ask Mr. Barkley, “Did Sam find it? His contact lens?”
“That’s not the worst of his problems. He’s in that police car.”
“And Spider, too? They didn’t do anything!”
Tears spurt out of Belinda’s eyes. She reaches up to wipe them away, but they’re flowing fast. “Don’t cry! They’ll be okay!” I say this over and over, but I don’t believe my own words.
When I get home from school that afternoon, two ladies I’ve never seen before are standing in the living room with Mamá. Fiddlesticks. I didn’t want strangers here today. I wanted to hole up with my music and play one song after another until the upset feelings from school started dying down.
But the younger of the two women is wearing the wedding dress that Mamá’s been working on all these weeks, and the older one is beaming at her with so much pride that I figure she must be her mother. Both ladies have teary eyes, the kind that go together with special moments. To me, the dress was already as beautiful as a white rose, but seeing it on the bride, it’s even dreamier. While she turns this way and that, sending the skirt into swishes and swirls, her mother breaks down into a happy cry.
Mamá is all smiles. “In just a couple of weeks, you’ll have the bridesmaids’ dresses, too.”
This means more hours at the sewing machine, but it seems like Mamá doesn’t mind this in the least — not when her customers are in hog heaven, and not when her hard work is about to pay off with a plane ticket.
Yep, before long, Mamá will be packing her suitcases. They’ll be chock-full of gifts for the family in Argentina and stuffed with her own winter clothes, since the seasons down there are the opposite of ours. While we’re up here, roasting in July, Mamá and all the relatives will be bundled up in wool sweaters. She won’t care if it’s cold, though, because she’ll be floating with happiness. At the thought of this, something catches in my chest. It’s a tiny shot of joy, and it comes just when I least expect it. Pride wells up, too, because Mamá made that beautiful dress with her own two hands — and a little help from Marina. I guess all this happy crying is contagious, because now I’m about a gnat’s eyelash from blubbering all over myself.
Before supper, the phone rings. It’s Belinda. All she knows about Spider is that somebody else did his radio show today. That doesn’t sound good! My skin goes clammy.
“Do the police still have him?” I ask.
“I’m trying to find out.”
Then she says Sam never found his contact lens and that he had to go to the emergency room with a broken collarbone! Some boy — and we’re betting money it was Nick — slammed him against the lockers, and that’s when his collarbone went crack. The only good news is that Mr. Barkley was wrong — Sam didn’t get hauled off by the police after all, owing to that collarbone.
As if things weren’t crummy enough, it’s runoff night. Mamá and Papá and I eat supper in front of the TV, watching the returns. And what a sad supper it is. Wallace pulls ahead and stays ahead, and long before they announce it, we can tell Brewer has lost. Now I feel awful, because guess who’s going to be governor again? He’d better not mess with my school. He’d better not try to send my new friends away. My stomach knots up just thinking about it.
Papá says, “Claudia, we should go to the campaign headquarters to be with Marina.”
“Yes, of course,” Mamá says.
We quickly clear the table and wash the dishes. It’s already dark, and there’s hardly any traffic in the streets. In every house we pass, you can see the glow of a TV set coming from the windows.
When we walk in, Marina jumps up to hug us. You can tell she’s about two seconds from busting out sobbing. She’s not the only one. All of the volunteers are down in the mouth — Daisy, Mrs. Townsend, Reverend and Mrs. McCorkle, and bunches of people I’ve never met. Doughnuts aren’t helping. Lemonade’s not either.
Someone offers us chairs, and we join the gang huddled around the TV. When Governor Brewer gets in front of the cameras to concede the race, it’s quiet as a graveyard. He congratulates Wallace on the win. He thanks voters for their support and says nothing but nice things about the volunteers who worked long hours to make Alabama sit up and notice. Mrs. Townsend reaches for her handkerchief.
It’s not easy to wipe your eyes with short sleeves, I’m finding out. Somebody goes to the break room for a roll of paper towels. That roll gets smaller and smaller as it gets passed around the circle. After a while, we join hands and Reverend McCorkle closes the evening with a prayer. At the amen,
people start swapping hugs. I get a big one from Mrs. McCorkle, who explains that Sam is home resting up from his rough day.
Marina wants to stick around to help with the cleanup, but it’s late, and Papá and Mamá and I head out on Cornelius toward home. Cars roar up and down the street. Fast cars, like GTOs and souped-up jalopies. Pickup trucks, too. People hang out of windows, whooping and hollering. Fans of Wallace. A carload of teenagers zooms by and somebody screams into the night, “The South shall rise again!”
That’s when Mamá pulls me closer. Papá grabs Mamá’s hand and tells us to pick up the pace. We hurry past the offices of the Red Grove Gazette, where the lights are on. I bet the staff is at work on tomorrow’s paper. I know what those headlines will be, and I, for one, don’t care to see them.
Boy, it kind of feels like first grade all over again. Sam’s missing school, and teachers will have to give him makeup exams over the summer. At least he doesn’t have to put up with Wallace kids strutting around, going nyah-nyah-nyah at me and everybody else who supported Brewer.
That’s not the worst of it. All day goes by without a word about Spider, and that’s got a lot of us chewing our nails to the nub.
For our PE exam, we spread across the girls’ side of the gym and use bleachers as desks. Mrs. Underwood’s test questions are cinchy. Afterward, she calls Angie and Belinda and me off to the side. “Girls, I just got word that it’s officially approved. We’ll have a girls’ track team next year!” We burst into cheers. This news is about the only thing that could make me smile today. “And remember that tomorrow is Field Day,” she adds. “Who’s rarin’ to go?”
“We are!” I spot Connie off by herself in one corner of the bleachers, looking at us with sad eyes.
Missy and her disciples are clustered at the other end of the bleachers, where they’re passing around a paper sack. Each girl digs into the sack and fishes out a small object. I’m squinting hard, trying to figure out what it could be. Soon, one of the girls parades around showing everybody a lapel button that says WALLACE FOR GOVERNOR.
My Year in the Middle Page 14
