Ola Shakes It Up

by Joanne Hyppolite

  “And just why did four o'clock in the morning seem like the best time to go climbing for it?” Mama asked. She was giving me that same look Mr. Elijah had been giving me earlier, like I was crazy.

  “W-Well, I couldn't sleep,” I stammered, looking away from Mama to Dad. I was hoping he would hurry up and give me my punishment. It's always the same. Mama does all the yelling and Dad gives out the punishments.

  “Normally four o'clock in the morning wouldn't be such a bad time to be climbing trees,” Mr. Elijah cut in. “It was just the wrong time of year. Too much ice around in the wintertime.”

  I tried to smile at Mr. Elijah for helping me out, but my cheek hurt too much. “Yeah.”

  “Yeah nothing.” Mama put her hands on her hips. She looked like a witch, with her hair all over her face and her long flannel nightgown going all the way down to her feet. “Do we have to watch you every minute of the night, too, Ola?”

  Mama looked really frustrated. She stared at me for a full minute in complete silence. I knew she was trying to figure out what was really going on with me. Finally she sighed and said, “You have to try, Ola.”

  I looked away from her and nodded. From the corner of my eye, I saw Mama look at Dad and nod. Good— this was almost over.

  “Dish duty every night this week. And straight home from school all month. No playing outside,” Dad announced. He wiped his hand across his face like he was tired.

  No playing outside? Had Dad forgotten where we lived? I didn't know anybody yet, and even if I did, there was a rule against playing outside on the street in this neighborhood.

  “Okay,” I said quickly, remembering how late Dad had come in from work the night before. Dad must have been really tired to let me get away so easy.

  “We thank you, Mr. Elijah,” Mama said, turning to where Mr. Elijah was sitting.

  Mr. Elijah waved a hand in the air. “Not a problem. Glad to help a neighbor out these days. Don't get to do it much in this community, what with all the rules. People keep to themselves here.”

  Mama put her hands on the table. “So you haven't always lived here?”

  “Family's been living in Walcott since 1812. Back then Walcott was a big mill town, and lots of folk were moving here for the work. My great-grandfather was a Scandinavian immigrant. Married an Italian girl.” Mr. Elijah's whole face lit up and made him look younger when he talked about Walcott. “Used to live in a grand old house for seniors near the park at the center of town, but there was a real bad fire there last year. Whole block burned to the ground. Some of us seniors moved here to this new development.”

  Mr. Elijah looked really sad about having to leave the grand old senior citizens' home. I knew exactly how he felt. “Do you live here by yourself, Mr. Elijah?”

  “Live with my daughter and her no-good husband. It was his idea to move here to this cookie-cutter development.” Mr. Elijah wrinkled his mouth. “Can't say as I've gotten used to it yet.”

  I looked at Mama and Dad meaningfully. Mr. Elijah had been living here a whole year and still didn't like it. They both ignored me while Mr. Elijah told them about this thing that had happened in Walcott in 1943 and that thing that had happened in 1911. All that history put me to sleep in less than two minutes, but not before I'd made a promise to myself. For Mama's sake, I was gonna do what she asked. I was gonna try.

  was the first person off the bus when it arrived at school. I waved goodbye to Aeisha and Otis and hurried up the steps and into the building. Then I booked it up the stairs and turned the corner.

  Great. Maria Poncinelli wasn't there yet.

  I walked over to the wall outside our homeroom and leaned against it. There. Now all I had to do was wait for her to arrive. She would be so surprised to see me leaning against her wall that she would speak to me. Then I'd explain to her that I felt the same way she did about this school and this town. Soon we'd be hanging out together and leaning against walls all over town.

  This trying thing was turning out to be hard work.

  The day after my fall — or what Mama liked to call my tree-climbing fiasco —I had come up with a plan for fitting in at school. It was called Operation Pretend I Belong Here. For two weeks I tried to act like Aeisha by studying hard and behaving in school, but that just got me in more trouble.

  The only people who noticed me were my teachers, and they expected me to keep it up! One teacher even mentioned putting me in the advanced classes! I knew I had to slack off or I'd be wearing owl glasses and joining the math club by the end of the year. So the next week I came up with another plan: Operation Smile If It Kills You. I went back to studying my usual way though I kept trying to behave. But I added an extra-nice smile to everything I did. I smiled at people in my classes, in the hallways and on the bus. I remembered what Mrs. Gransby had told me about a smile being your passport. But my smile didn't even get me out the front door. For some reason, most everyone just looked back at me weird. Aeisha said my smile was more scary than friendly, but I ignored her. I couldn't understand why my plans weren't working. Finally I decided it was because I was thinking too big. Instead of trying to be friends with everybody, I would start with just one person: Maria Poncinelli.

  I had seen her the other day when Mama and I were shopping in downtown Walcott. She was with her mother and three older sisters, and she stuck out like a neon sign. Her mother was all dressed up in a fancy pink suit, and her sisters were all wearing dresses and shoes with little heels. Maria was the only one wearing a bandanna and torn jeans, and she was walking a little behind them, like she didn't belong. I figured she would be a good person to make friends with, 'cause I knew how she felt. I didn't belong in this town or this school, either.

  It didn't help that Aeisha was fitting in great at school. Mama had been right — people got tired of staring at us after just a few days. After that, Aeisha started making friends from her classes and joining clubs. She also had Otis. He was still following her around, except Aeisha was actually talking to him now. It turned out Otis was as much a superdweeb as Aeisha. He was taking advanced classes, too, and all he and Aeisha ever talked about was their homework and Davis. Davis was Otis's baby brother and just like Mrs. Spunklemeyer had told us, he kept his family awake all night crying. He said that 'cause of the baby, his mother hadn't slept in almost two months. Aeisha did some research on her computer on babies and gave him advice on how to make the baby stop crying. None of it had worked, but Otis still kept hanging around. I offered to train Grady to chase him away, but Aeisha said no. I figured that meant she liked Otis more than she was saying.

  When I told Aeisha about my newest plan, Operation Two Rebels Are Better than One, Aeisha said the reason I wasn't making friends was because I had a big chip on my shoulder. She said I didn't really want to make friends. As smart as Aeisha is, she doesn't know what she's talking about sometimes. Why would I be going through all these plans not to make friends? And besides, this plan was gonna work—I hoped.

  Standing there, leaning against the wall, I started to get a bunch of negative thoughts. Suppose Maria didn't want to be friends with me? What if she got offended that I was leaning against her wall? What if she got so mad, she wanted to beat me up?

  I tried not to think about that.

  I waited a few minutes. Other kids from our homeroom looked at me on their way into the classroom, but no one said anything. Anna Banana walked straight into the classroom without even glancing at me. As soon as she and the rest of the school figured out that Aeisha and I weren't gangsters, she'd stopped being interested in me. I think she was actually disappointed.

  After a few more minutes, I shifted and leaned with my back against the wall instead. I bent one knee and placed the sole of my foot on the wall. There. That was even cooler. I turned my head to look casually down the hall, and my foot slipped. Maria was coming!

  I put my foot back up hurriedly and waited. I could feel my heart start to beat louder and faster. Maria appeared in front of me, and I could feel her checkin
g me out. I swallowed quietly. She was dressed in her usual gear, except that her bandanna was blue this time. She looked at me for a few seconds with a blank face. Then she moved further down the wall and leaned there, too.

  I started breathing again. This was great. Here we were, just two girls leaning against the wall and hanging out. I glanced at my watch quickly. The bell was going to ring soon, which meant we would have to start talking soon. If I was gonna risk getting a late slip, then I wanted it to be worth it.

  I waited a couple more seconds and then turned to look at her. Maria didn't look like she was going to say anything. Maybe she was waiting for me to speak first.

  “Hi,” I said finally. I gave her a quick wave, too, and then the bell rang.

  The last thing I noticed as Maria walked off with the stream of other kids coming out of all the classrooms was a big smirk on her face.

  By the time I got off the school bus that afternoon, I'd made up my mind. I wasn't going back to school again. Ever. Since we couldn't move back into our old neighborhood, Mama and Dad would have to get me a home teacher. I knew all about home teachers because of Daba, one of my old friends from Roxbury. Daba is a Muslim and is always dressed in those long, dark dresses that go all the way down to her feet, and she also wears a head wrap that looks like the ones nuns wear. She has a home teacher because there's something wrong with her heart and she's always sick.

  I couldn't understand why my plan hadn't worked. I'd been leaning against the wall before our math class, just like I was earlier that morning. And just like in the morning, Maria had come and leaned next to me. And ignored me. This time there was no doubt about it. I had tried to talk to her a few times, but she hadn't answered me. She didn't even look at me.

  I walked to our house automatically. Mama had put a big red clay pot with a fir tree on each side of the front door so I couldn't complain about not knowing which one was our house. Dad had said he would spell my name out on the grass if that didn't work. I unlocked the door to the house with my key and walked in. Everything was very quiet, as usual. Even Khatib was spending a lot more time at school than he used to. At dinner he was always complaining about how much his muscles ached — not from basketball practice but from dance class! Mama and Dad had started their new jobs and were really busy. Twice that week Dad hadn't even come home for dinner 'cause of some big project he was working on. He said all the hours he was putting in were expected of him, but I wondered how much of it had to do with him trying to show that he was just as good as those young hotshot engineers he worked with. Mama liked her new job, too. At dinner, she would talk about her students and their interesting projects. She even said that she enjoyed teaching. When she told us that, I knew we were stuck here forever.

  As soon as I stepped inside the house, Grady came running into the hallway and stopped in front of me with his tongue hanging out. He knew that after school was our time together. I was trying to train him to do simple dog things, like sit, stay and fetch, from the dog-training book Mrs. Gransby had given me. The lady who had owned him before us had forgotten all about educating him, 'cause he didn't know how to do any of that stuff. “Hi, Grady. You wouldn't believe what happened to me today.”

  Grady gave me a short bark and started licking my hand. I got down on my knees and gave him a quick hug before peeling off my coat, gloves and hat. Then I looked him in the eye. Ms. Pitapat's book says you should always look your dog in the eye.

  “Okay, Grady, sit!” I ordered loudly.

  Grady licked my face again. His nose was wet and cold against my cheek. I pushed him away firmly. Ms. Pitapat's book says that you have to be firm with your pet.

  “Sit!” I ordered again, trying to sound as mean as possible.

  Grady just looked at me and wagged his tail.

  “Pay attention, Grady” I put my hand on his back and pressed gently “Sit, boy Come on.”

  Grady turned around in a circle, knocking my hand off his back. He'd learned that all on his own.

  “Sit. Come on, Grady, sit.” I was begging now. I'd been trying to train Grady for two weeks and he hadn't learned one thing. At this rate, I was never gonna get to the cool circus tricks in the second part of the book. I knew I shouldn't be taking it so hard, but it seemed like nothing was going right that day. In fact, nothing had gone right since we moved here.

  I decided to try and call Karen. Talking to her would make me feel better. When we first moved in I had spoken to Karen or Margarita almost every day. They missed me as much as I missed them. Then Mama got the phone bill and showed me that I had spent sixty-three dollars making phone calls to them in just one month! Mama had made me promise that I would only call once a week. I pulled our phone over to the stairs and sat down to dial. Grady came over and sat down by my feet.

  “Sure, now you sit,” I grumbled at him. The phone was ringing at Karen's house.

  “Hello.” I could tell Karen's little brother, Lucas, had answered the phone.

  “Hi, Lucas, it's me, Ola.”

  “Ola who?”

  I smiled, 'cause Lucas always does that when I call. He's a bratty kid — the kind that makes me glad I don't have any younger brothers and sisters. Normally I would have been yelling at him by this point, but even hearing his voice made me feel good. “Ola Benson.”

  “The Ola Benson who moved outta here weeks ago?”

  “Lucas, get Karen for me,” I ordered. Enough was enough.

  “That Ola Benson?”

  “Lucas!”

  “No can do.”

  “No can do what?”

  “Karens not here, so you can't talk to her.” Lucas laughed. “She went downtown with Margarita.”

  “Downtown?” I yelled. We'd never been allowed to take the train to downtown Boston by ourselves. Margarita, Karen and I used to always complain about that, 'cause downtown is the best place to go. That's where all the stores are, and the swan pond, and the park, which is called Boston Common, and vendors that sell popcorn, pretzels and pizza on the street. The three of us were always talking about how we couldn't wait until we were old enough to go by ourselves and how when we were sixteen we were going to get jobs at a department store downtown like Margarita's sister, Carmen. “Stop fooling around, Lucas.”

  “It's true,” Lucas said. His squeaky voice sounded sad now. “Carmen took them ice skating, and Karen wouldn't let me go with her 'cause she said I bother her too much.”

  “Thanks, Lucas.” I hung up quickly. They were probably forgetting all about me while they were having fun.

  I stood up and put the phone back on the hall table. Maybe some food would make me feel better. The way I was eating Lillian's cooking, I was gonna have to add fat to my list of problems. Aeisha had even taken me aside because she wanted to talk to me about how I shouldn't use food to make myself feel better. She showed me pictures from one of her teen magazines of girls with eating disorders like anorexia nervosa and bulimia. They looked like normal girls to me, but when I told Aeisha that she just shook her head and said, “Exactly.”

  I walked into the kitchen and found Lillian there, as usual, in front of the stove. She was still dressing funny, and no one had said anything about it to her yet. That was probably because she was so quiet. Whenever Mama and Dad tried to talk to her, she never said much back. Marie-Thèrése had told us that she could speak some English, but it was hard to tell because she hardly said anything that had more than one syllable in it. It was really creepy. She was like a shadow. Dad said she just needed time to get used to living with us.

  I could smell something delicious cooking, and I wondered what she was making. The day before, she had made us something called cod salad, which had salt fish and tomatoes and peppers in it. It was so good nobody could talk during dinner 'cause they were too busy eating. “Hi, Lillian.”

  “Ah-lo, Ola,” Lillian said softly. She put a small bowl of some kind of orange-brown soup in front of me. It smelled good, but I wasn't feeling hungry anymore.

  “No, than
k you, Lillian,” I said, pushing the bowl away from me a little. I put my elbows on the table and cupped my chin in my hands. If I'd been in my old neighborhood, I'd have been outside riding my bike or roller-skating—on the street.

  I heard the sound of the bowl moving across the counter, and I glanced down, surprised. Lillian had moved it back in front of me. I looked up and saw that she was watching me. “What?”

  Lillian tapped my elbow with one finger and said, “Manje—eat,” loud and clear.

  I took my elbows off the counter. Lillian s voice always surprised me. It was deep and strong, like a cello. This was the first time she'd spoken to me without me speaking to her first. “I'm not hungry.”

  Lillian didn't take her eyes off me. Her voice came again, welling up from inside her. “Eat. Soup good inside you.”

  I picked up the spoon. “What kind of soup is this, Lillian?”

  “Soup jumeau,” Lillian answered. She sat beside me on the other stool and started twisting her fingers in her lap. Finally she looked up and asked, “Is good?”

  I nodded, taking another spoonful. Lillian's soup had made my appetite come back, but I was even more excited that Lillian was talking to me. I'd been wanting to ask her questions about Haiti, but Mama had made me promise not to pester her. “What's it made of?”

  “Soup with … pumpkin,” Lillian said slowly. “Is made with Walcott world-famous pumpkin.”

  I looked at Lillian. For a second there, she sounded just like Mrs. Spunklemeyer had on the day she'd brought us the pumpkin pie. I wondered if she was trying to be funny by imitating Otis's mama, but Lillian spoke again before I could be sure. “In Ayiti, we eat soup for first day of year.”

  “How come?” I asked. Lillian had a heavy accent that sounded like French mixed in with something else. But her English was pretty good.

  Lillian smiled a little. “Give you luck.”

  “But this isn't New Year's Day,” I pointed out.