by Tayari Jones
“I’m mad because the boy got snatched and you all up in his business like the police.” I licked my lips. Why he had to say something about going together? He bad as Mama. All I got to do is say a boy name and she asking fifty million questions.
Darlita squeezed my hands, smashing two of my fingers together. “Patricia’s brother got killed?”
“At school?” Donathan put his fingers in his mouth. He been looking for something to cry about all morning. “He gone to heaven with Jashante?”
Delvis gave me a ugly see-what-you-did look.
“I don’t want to go to heaven,” said Darlita, probably because somebody told them Jashante was there. All the little kids hated him because he liked to give them Indian burns and take their milk money.
“Well hurry up then.” Delvis pulled hard on Donathan’s arm. “We gonna miss breakfast.” He turned around and said, “Come on Sweet Pea. I got a extra dime if you want to get chocolate milk.”
Just as we got ready to cross Beckwith Street, we saw a white man standing on the corner wearing a red hat, kinda like a beanie, but baggy. Me and Delvis saw him at the same time.
“Where Miss Wilcox?” Delvis asked, looking for the regular crossing guard.
“It’s too early. She don’t be out here till seven-thirty.”
“Well, who is the white man?” He took Darlita’s right hand like me holding her left wasn’t enough.
“He just one of the Guardian Angels. They from New York.”
“How you know?”
I hate it when people act like I don’t know what I’m talking about. I also hate standing out in the cold weather. We were only about half a block from the warm school building. “I saw them on the news.”
“How you know they okay?”
“I didn’t say they was okay. I just said that I knew who they was.” The Angel had his arms crossed in front of him like Superman.
“We need to cross someplace else,” Delvis said, looking around.
“Let’s just cross,” I said. “That man ain’t nothing to be scared of. He not even in a car. How he gonna kidnap somebody without a car?”
“But still,” Delvis said.
“Oh come on. We look crazy standing out here in the cold.” And my ears were starting to hurt from all the wind blowing up in them.
Delvis still didn’t move. I was surprised because he is usually the one making other kids do things they know better than to do.
“Delvis, them Angels alright. When I saw them on the news they were with Miss Camille Bell. They work in the evenings with the Bat Patrollers.”
“They didn’t have no black Angels in New York that they could have sent down here?” He was steady complaining, but I know he felt better knowing that Miss Camille Bell be with the Angels. People say she stay around here somewhere. Over by Friendship Baptist Church. But I ain’t never seen her, except on TV.
I called myself being cool, calm, and collected, but my stomach balled up and my legs got ready to run when we got to the side of the street where the Angel was. He didn’t look dangerous. But if child murderers looked like child murderers, they wouldn’t be able to drum up business.
“You kids alright?” he said.
“Yes sir,” I said.
“Yeah,” Delvis said. “But let me ask you something.”
The Angel smiled and relaxed his Superman arms. He bent his knees a little bit. “Shoot.”
“Y’all got any black Angels?”
I couldn’t believe Delvis. Ten minutes ago, he was scared to cross the street, but now he got right in the man’s face, asking him if he was prejudiced.
The Angel kept smiling. “That’s a good question. Young people need to ask smart questions. The answer is yes. The Guardian Angels is a multiethnic organization.”
“So y’all got black ones?”
Delvis was going to get himself in trouble mouthing off like this to this Angel. “We better hurry up,” I said. “The twins are hungry.” I jerked Darlita’s arm a little bit trying to get her to whimper or something. But since we got to this side of the street the twins acted like they ain’t got a tongue between them.
The Angel held his hand up. “Just a moment.” He looked at Delvis in the face like man-to-man. “Yes, young man, there are a lot of black Guardian Angels.”
“Well,” Delvis said, “that’s who I want to save me.”
When we got to the cafeteria and got our trays, we split up. Delvis went to the back where the sixth- and seventh-grade boys would sit when they got here; the twins ate together at an oval table. Next year, they will sit apart, boys at one table and girls at another one. I sat by myself at a table by the window; I didn’t care that the wind blew right in like it didn’t see the big piece of glass trying to keep the air out. I pulled my coat around myself and looked out the window.
In front of me was a bowl of grits thick like white mud. I gave the cafeteria lady my bowl and asked her to fill it up with Froot Loops. She didn’t smile or call me baby. Instead she looked at the wall above my head and gave me these nasty grits. I was surprised because the cafeteria ladies are most of the time nicer than teachers or kids.
“Scuze me,” I said. “I asked for Froot Loops.”
“Don’t have none today,” she said.
I saw a big ol box of them behind her, but I didn’t want to get in a fight with a cafeteria lady. If you get on they bad side, you’ll never get nothing decent on your tray. I looked at her again, but her mind was moved on to someplace else.
I couldn’t decide to eat the grits or throw them away. I knew I would be starving like Marvin by noon. I scooped a chunk of grape jelly out of a little container. I stirred it into my grits and got ready to just choke it down. Nobody ever died from eating stiff grits, but hunger hurts and a growling stomach is embarrassing.
I managed to get three or four lumpy spoonfuls down, when I saw a pretty maroon Cadillac float into the parking lot. This is why I liked to sit by the window. I got up all my things, threw that ten-ton bowl of grits in the trash, and ran outside real fast before one of the hall monitors could ask where I was going.
“Mrs. Grier!” I hollered. “You want me to help you tote something?”
She smiled at me. “Good morning, Octavia.”
“Morning,” I said back to her. I love Mrs. Grier. For real. I told Mama this when I was in the second grade and Mrs. Grier was my teacher. Mama said, “Does Mrs. Grier put food on this table?” Like somebody got to feed you for you to love them.
Mrs. Grier opened her trunk and gave me a spelling book. “You can carry this,” she said, leaning on the word carry to let me know it was better than saying tote.
“I’ll carry it for you,” I said stretching the word out.
Mrs. Grier is one classy lady. She is tall and big, not fat, but big like she deserves the biggest room or the best plate of food. She brushes her hair to the back of her head and then she twists it into this pretty crisscross. But at the Spring Fashion Tea last year, she had it all fluffed out and I saw why they say old people’s hair is silver. Hers caught the light and gleamed like a quarter do to just make you have to bend down and pick it up. But more than just being classy, Mrs. Grier is right. I won’t say that she is nice because she isn’t really. She don’t play. If you don’t have your spelling words, you going to be in the corner, no doubt about that. And if you do something real bad like talk back or fighting, she will take a ruler to your palm without even thinking about it. But I say she is right because she can know the truth from a lie just as soon as she hear it.
Like one time, a library book had got abused. Mrs. Grier held the book up where everybody could see that damage and asked who did it. (She always gave the misbehaver a chance to tell on hisself before she went to investigate.) Nobody said anything. I was staring at the book with my mouth hanging all the way open to my knees. One of the first things we learned way back in Pre-K is to respect library property.
Monica Fisher said, “I saw Octavia Fuller writing in that bo
ok.”
I turned around and looked at that h-e-f-f-e-r. The ends of her ponytails were tied with smooth yellow ribbons. I couldn’t believe that somebody could sit there and lie for no reason at all, and in front of the person they were lying on. Even in the second grade I knew about kids talking about people behind they back, but I didn’t think somebody would do it right in front of my face. Mrs. Grier mashed her lips together and I knew that she was really mad. I opened my mouth right then to say my mama didn’t allow people to beat me. But quick as a flash, Mrs. Grier said, “This is not Octavia’s handwriting.”
Now, see, that’s what I’m talking about.
It was amazing for me to think that somebody could pay enough attention to me to know that I wrote my words in a certain way. And that thought made me feel good, but then my heart went in my stomach when I started picturing my letters. Sometime I crossed the Ts and sometime I didn’t. I used to write real fast and sloppy. My Os looked like Us because I didn’t take the time to close them off. But after then, I made sure that my penmanship was perfect, so somebody could know me for that.
After that, me and Mrs. Grier been friends. And that was good because after that day, I didn’t have no more regular friends in school anyway. Before, people had picked on me. They said, Octavia so black and ugly. Or they said my hair is short and nappy. But not every day. The next day, they would be on to the next person. Maybe talking about Tayari Jones because her mama, president of the PTA, always came to the school wearing weird square shoes with laces up the front. Sometimes, they laugh at Cassius and call him raccoon because he got circles around his eyes. But after that day, Monica Fisher made it her business to mess with me every day the Lord gave. And the Lord done gave a lot of days since second grade.
We went in the classroom and Mrs. Grier shut the door behind us. The desks were lined up in the same eight little rows like when I was in the second grade. I wanted to sit in my old desk for just a minute, but I couldn’t remember which one it was. I walked up in the rows, trying to think like a second-grader, and hoped that my legs would stop in the right place. I bent to sit; the chair was so low that I thought that the school board had sent over littler chairs to save money. But these desks were too beat-up to be new. I squashed my big old self in anyway. The top of the desk was all written on. TJ+AM and stuff like that. I ran my hand under the desk top and felt wads of gum, dried hard. I couldn’t believe it. Little kids writing on school property? Drawing little hearts talking about they going together? When I was in the second grade, boys and girls didn’t sit together in the cafeteria, let alone try to be a couple. And then they have the nerve to chew gum in class and not even dispose of it properly?
“Mrs. Grier,” I called.
She looked up from her desk where she was situating her teacher stuff. “Yes?”
I shook my head in a way that was a question.
“Wrong desk, Octavia. Move up one.”
That meant that I was sitting in Rodney’s chair then. He always sat behind me because Fuller comes before Green in the alphabet. I tried to remember him sitting back there three years ago, but I couldn’t see him. Why hadn’t I talked to him before this year? Why was I sitting in his chair right now? The feeling was like the time I was halfway through brushing my teeth and I realized that I was using Uncle Kenny’s toothbrush. I knocked the little seat over trying to unjam myself. My arms and legs were long and wobbly these days, like the bean plants growing in milk cartons on the windowsill.
Mrs. Grier came over to help me. She smelled nice always like talcum powder, cologne spray, and warm air. “Tell me what’s on your mind,” she said.
There was so much in my head that I couldn’t get it all lined up to come out. I opened my mouth and moved my lips around trying out different words. Before I could pick out one, Mrs. Grier hugged me.
I wanted to hug her back. Her warm arms smelled so good. I looked at the little window in the closed door. What if someone saw me? Every time Mrs. Grier do something for me, kids go around saying it’s because I can’t get somebody to do it for me at home. One time, Mrs. Grier brushed my hair and the next thing I knew, people said, Octavia so poor she ain’t got a brush at home. Mrs. Grier gave me some banana bread and they said my mama don’t feed me. If they saw me now, what would they say—that my mama don’t love me so Mrs. Grier have to hug me every day before class?
But after a second, I had to melt into her hug. I was tired from being up half the night crying for Rodney and sitting up listening for weird sounds. Her chest was a good place for me to take a little rest. I closed my eyes so if somebody could see me through the door-window, at least I didn’t have to see them doing it. After a minute, she held me away from her and looked at me. She turned her face to the side. “You’re friends with Rodney Green?”
“Kind of,” I said. “He was nice to me, mostly he was.”
“Always very mannerable,” she agreed. I could tell that she was leaving words out so she wouldn’t have to say was or is. Was would mean he was dead and is means he’s coming back and I know Mrs. Grier don’t like to lie.
“You think he dead?” I waited for her to say, Heavens no, Octavia. Why would you even suggest something like that? But she didn’t open her mouth. After I sat there a little more, I got hungry to hear her say anything at all.
“Ma’am?” I said, as if she had called my name.
“I don’t know,” she said.
That was it? I didn’t come all the way down here for her to say something I could have came up with by myself. I tried to pull my hands out of hers but she held on.
“You don’t walk home alone, do you?” She was looking at my fingers. My nails were clipped short and the cuticle pushed back, just like she told me.
“No, ma’am,” I said. “I walk with Delvis and the twins. On Wednesdays, though, I stay late for chorus.”
She nodded. “Are there patrols in your community?”
“Like the Bat Patrol? No. They all stay out in Techwood homes. We got Muslims, but Delvis say they can’t save nobody all dressed up in suits and church shoes.”
“Delvis is wise beyond his years.” Mrs. Grier laughed a little bit. “I never thought of it that way.”
“We saw a Guardian Angel this morning, but I wish we could get some Bat Patrollers over here.”
“I don’t know about that,” Mrs. Grier said. “I’m not sure that I like the idea of angry men roaming the streets with baseball bats. That seems like conflict just waiting to happen.”
“But at least they’ll be able to do something if they see somebody messing with a kid. What the Angels going to? Tell them to stop?” I heard myself shouting and I lowered my voice. Miss Russell the white art teacher walked down the hall with her brushes. “And anyway, at least the Bat Patrollers is black.”
“Calm down, Octavia. I was just thinking aloud.”
She wouldn’t be calm if she was the one people was trying to kill.
“I bet Rodney Green wish he had a Bat Patroller with him yesterday.” I couldn’t help saying one last thing.
“That’s enough, Octavia,” Mrs. Grier said. She looked back at my hands. Now I wished that I hadn’t groomed them like she said. She touched her lips together. “Make sure Delvis walks you all the way to your door, hear?”
She looked worried like Mama did that time I had a fever so bad that my lips chapped and the skin pulled back. Mrs. Grier’s mouth, pretty with lipstick, shrunk a little bit.
“My mama be there when I get home.” I said it to make her not worry, but her eyebrows shot up.
“Your mother is not working?”
Now what to do? Mama told me not to tell any of the school people that she was working the eleven to seven. Sometimes when they find out kids stay alone, they call the State and that’s how kids get took away to live with foster families that beat them.
“Oh, she still work at the bread factory. She just get off before I get home.” That wasn’t a lie but it tasted like one.
The bell rang in
the hallway and I was glad. “Have you eaten breakfast?”
“Sort of,” I said, thinking about the gummy grits.
“Sort of is not a complete sentence, or a balanced meal.” She went into her drawer and gave me a package of orange crackers with peanut butter in between. “You can’t concentrate with an empty stomach.”
Some of the second-graders were coming in the room now. It was time for me to leave. “Have a nice day,” I said to her, but she was helping one of the little kids get his scarf untangled before he choked himself to death.
To get to the fifth-grade class, I had to walk all the way down the hall, past the girls’ room, then outside through the double door. Over the summer, they put trailers out back to make room for all of us. A lot of people complain about being out there, saying it’s too hot in the summer and all of that, but I don’t mind it. Being out back means that you get to keep the hall pass longer when you say you have to go to the girls’ room. I’m always trying to think of reasons not to have to be in class. Sometimes I’ll ask to go to the nurse, or something like that. Last year, I used to go out in the hall with Fanon Robinson and Malcolm Smith when everybody was saying the Pledge. The two of them had letters from their parents saying they didn’t believe in the flag. I said I didn’t believe in it either so I could be out of the classroom. But this year, Malcolm and Fanon both got tired of being so different. They stand up with everybody else and put their hand over their heart. I’m not bold enough to not-believe by myself.
I stood outside the trailer door a second before I pushed it open and went inside. Two things I noticed right off the bat. One, was that a lot of people was absent that day. Every single row almost had one empty chair in it. And second was the noise. Whispering really. But when a clump of people get to whispering at the same time, it make a rumbling sound like on TV when Perry Mason call somebody a liar. At first I didn’t notice what had happened to my row. It had one empty seat, like most of the other rows. But when I sat down, I sat in the empty seat. So then my row was full. But how could that be? Rodney was absent, for sure. Stanley Halliday was right behind me in his seat.
