“You were fixing to say something about Martin Luther King, weren’t you?” Jeb shielded his face with his notebook so no one could see him talking to me.
“Well, yeah,” I said. “Didn’t you hear what that Leland guy said?”
“If you want to get along around here, don’t ever stand up for Martin Luther King or anybody coloured.”
“Why not?” I whispered behind my notebook.
“You just don’t,” Jeb said. “You don’t have to say anything bad about him. Just don’t say anything, okay? Unless you just want kids to hate you.”
The bus took a sharp corner and there we were. Parnell School.
A mob of grown-ups swarmed over the playground and sidewalk. My stomach churned and my hands turned to ice.
So this is what it’s like to be a current event. I’d rather read about it in the newspaper.
“Ooba dooba,” yelled someone in the front seat. “Look at that!”
“Hey, are those TV cameras?” Saranne called from the back.
“Look at all the cops,” added Crew-Cut Boy.
“Cool it, Andy,” said Jeb. “You never seen a cop before?” Jeb sounded calm, but he looked a little white around the mouth.
“Oh boy,” squealed Debbie. “We’re gonna be on TV.” She fished a lipstick from her purse and drew a crooked pink mouth as the bus jounced to a halt.
Outside, the crowd chanted, “Two, four, six, eight, we don’t want to integrate!”
Nobody on the bus moved. Nobody made a sound. Ralph cranked open the door.
“Okay,” he bawled. “All you Parnell kids, off.”
With the bus doors open, the crowd sounded even louder.
“Send ’em back to Africa!” someone yelled.
“Y’all ain’t scared, are you?” Ralph grinned. Ralph didn’t have to worry. He wasn’t getting off the bus.
“Eight, six, four, two, send ’em back to Tougaloo!” the crowd shouted.
“Y’all a bunch of babies? Get off the bus,” ordered Ralph.
One by one, we stepped into the aisle. No pushing, no shoving, no tripping. As careful and polite as a film on bus safety. Andy, Crew-Cut Boy. Leland. Jeb. Then me.
Follow Jeb. Keep your eyes on Jeb.
I stared at the back of his blue shirt. A spreading sweat stain turned it a deeper blue.
“Niggers, go home! You ain’t gonna marry my kid!” shrieked a woman’s voice.
I stared down a human tunnel that stretched to the school door: policemen, and reporters with cameras in the front row. Behind them, people shook their fists and waved signs that said SEGREGATION NOW AND FOR EVER and NIGGER GO HOME.
The sign-wavers shouted words I couldn’t understand except for “nigger” and “coon”, their faces twisted with hate. I grabbed the back of Jeb’s soggy shirt. I had to hang on to someone.
Beyond the crowd, a car horn brayed the first notes of “Dixie” over and over. Oh I wish I was in the land of cotton. Over and over.
The path narrowed as the cops struggled to keep the crowd away from us kids. Red screaming faces strained over the locked arms of the police.
Sweat trickled down my sides.
Keep moving. One foot after the other.
The front door was just ahead. Somewhere.
Remember Daddy’s trick. Send your mind someplace else.
The Dunes. The Indiana Dunes at Lake Michigan. A lake breeze ruffled my hair. The scorching sidewalk turned to beach sand. The screaming mob faded into the surf slapping at the shore. I breathed in beach smells: Coppertone, hot dogs, and the slightly sour smell of lake water.
I opened my eyes. The shouting sign-wavers searched the line of kids for Valerie Taylor. Little by little, the noise died down as only white kids made their way up the front walk.
In the open school door a tall man in shirtsleeves waved to us.
“This way, students,” he called. “Don’t be afraid.”
Jeb and I stepped through the door into the warm, dim hallway. Safe inside, I felt my legs suddenly turn to Jell-O.
“Let go of my shirt,” Jeb grumbled. “You got it all wrinkled.”
The tall man pointed towards the auditorium. Inside, teachers directed us to seats, one right after the other, as if they were parking cars.
“I don’t sit next to girls,” protested Jeb as Miss LeFleur waved us to our seats.
“You sit where you’re told,” snapped Miss LeFleur, not so sweet today. “And no talking.”
The auditorium seats steadily filled, row after row. Kids craned their heads to see if the latest arrivals included Valerie Taylor.
Every single person in that room was white.
When it seemed as if the auditorium couldn’t get any hotter, the shirtsleeve man climbed the stage steps and walked over to a microphone.
“Boys and girls, I am Mr. Thibodeaux, your new principal,” he said.
Mr. Thibodeaux looked too young to be a principal. He had a lot of dark hair combed straight back with hair goop. He seemed like he might be nice. For a principal.
“Students,” said Mr. Thibodeaux, “we are a part of history. Parnell is one of five city schools that will have coloured students this fall.”
“You mean niggers,” muttered somebody behind me.
“Our new students will arrive in the next few days. I expect you to treat them as you would any other student. Do we understand each other?”
Silence.
“I said, do we understand each other?” The principal frowned and his eyebrows met in a straight line over his nose. “Say ‘Yessir, Mr. Thibodeaux.’”
“Yessir, Mr. Thibodeaux,” the room echoed.
“And now, students, let’s begin the school year with the Lord’s Prayer.”
“You pray in school? Isn’t that against the law?” I whispered to Jeb.
Jeb cut his eyes sideways but kept his head down. “Yeah, but only folks up North pay attention to it. Mama says folks up there are all atheists.”
“But…” I started to tell Jeb that all Northerners were not atheists, when I caught a whiff of scent behind me. Yardley’s English Lavender, like my grandmother kept in her nightgown drawer. A real old-lady smell.
The smell grew stronger as a pudgy, brown-speckled hand clamped on to my shoulder. It belonged to a toad-faced woman in a prune-coloured dress.
“Hush your mouth, or I’ll send you to the office,” said Toad Woman.
“Amen,” said five hundred voices, with Mr. Thibodeaux’s, loudest of all, crackling into the microphone.
“You are dismissed to your classrooms. Let’s have a good year,” shouted Mr. Thibodeaux as five hundred folding seats slammed shut. The toad-faced teacher turned her attention to the kids surging towards the door.
“Who caught you talking?” Jeb said as we inched up the aisle.
“Some teacher. Didn’t you see?”
“Not me. I was praying.” Jeb pulled an innocent face that somehow looked just the opposite. “Let’s see whose class we’re in. Now, don’t get the idea I’m going to do this all the time,” he added quickly. “Just today, ’cause you’re new.”
Kids stampeded past us, since there were no hall monitors yet. The girls all wore shifts and slip-on flats. Not one in a full skirt and oxfords. I felt like a freak. A sweaty, frizzy-haired freak.
We stopped at the door to room 6A.
MISS LEFLEUR’S CLASS, read the sign. WELCOME TO 6A. Bright construction-paper cutouts of fall leaves decorated the door.
Jeb and I scanned the blurry mimeographed list taped beneath the sign. We read it three times but didn’t find our names.
“Miss Gruen, here we come,” sighed Jeb.
There was no welcome sign on 6B. Just the list of names, with MISS EUGENIA GRUEN written in no nonsense black Magic Marker across the top.
Jeb and I went in.
Behind the teacher’s desk stood the Toad Woman from the auditorium.
Miss Eugenia Gruen. My new teacher.
“Hey, Yankee Girl.” Someone g
oosed me from behind. I turned around. Saranne. “I hear Miss Gruen eats Yankee Girls for lunch. With salt.”
Great. Just great. Miss Gruen and Saranne Russell.
It was going to be a long year, just like Pammie’d said.
Leland Bouchillon stomped in.
“Hey, did y’all see the list in the hall? That Valerie Taylor girl is gonna be in our room.”
A very, very long year.
Chapter Four
JACKSON DAILY JOURNAL, Monday, September 21, 1964
NO INCIDENTS REPORTED IN FIRST WEEK OF SCHOOL RACE MIXING
I snickered as I glued that headline into my scrapbook. Of course there hadn’t been any “incidents” the first week of school. There hadn’t been any Negro students. At least not at Parnell. Still no Valerie Taylor.
“Why do they call it ‘race mixing’?” I asked. “The newspaper’s always using that expression.”
“It means the newspaper doesn’t like the word ‘integration’,” said Daddy. “They think it’s too civilized a word for something they don’t want to do.”
Even without “race mixing”, sixth grade turned out to be tougher than I thought.
If math was hard in Chicago, it was twice as hard in Mississippi. It was harder because I couldn’t understand Miss Gruen’s accent. Her words ran together like poured molasses. I raised my hand three times that first morning to ask what she’d just said. Not that it helped. I didn’t understand the second time either.
“I don’t know about up North, but here we expect students to pay attention,” said Miss Gruen after the third time. At least I think that’s what she said.
Then there were the Cheerleaders. They always looked like they were having fun. Giggling in the lunch line. Trading Beatles cards on the playground before school. Singing along to Debbie’s transistor on the bus.
That is, until I showed up. Suddenly the smiles and giggles shrivelled and died. They stared over, through, and past me. I felt invisible.
It’s because I’m new. They’ll just have to get used to me.
I hovered at the edges of the group, hoping that someday they would let me in on the fun, too.
The Cheerleaders were harder to figure than math or Miss Gruen. They weren’t the prettiest girls in the class. Or the smartest. They just were. And they had power!
When Saranne announced that her favourite word was “vomitaceous”, sixth graders used it in every other sentence. It wasn’t even a word. I looked it up.
Debbie chewed only lime Fruit Stripe gum. Suddenly, everybody chewed lime Fruit Stripe. No one would be caught dead with orange or cherry.
Cheryl, Saranne, and Debbie decided that Paul was their favourite Beatle; the other Beatles were vomitaceous.
“I like Paul,” I said, sidling closer.
“Anybody want to trade a John for a George?” said Saranne, as if I weren’t standing right next to her. They were trading cards that came in packs of vomitaceous bubble gum from the Tote-Sum.
“I don’t care,” said Carrie. “I still like Ringo.”
“Mary Martha, you never said which Beatle you like best.” Debbie fanned her cards like a poker hand.
“I like them all,” Mary Martha said with a polite smile.
“That’s just plain ignorant,” sniffed Debbie. “Everybody’s gotta have a favourite. I’ll trade a Ringo for two Pauls.” Carrie and Debbie passed the cards right over my head.
Yep, Invisible Alice. That was me. Invisible most of the time: When I wasn’t picked for kickball and Miss Gruen made a team take me. When the girls talked about sleepovers or going to the movies. When I sat in the front seat on the bus, because none of the sixth graders let me sit with them; nobody wanted to sit behind Ralph.
The more they ignored me, the more I looked forward to Valerie Taylor. There was somebody who really needed a friend. She wouldn’t care that I was a Yankee.
On the third Monday of sixth grade, Valerie arrived.
The protesters and reporters and police still hung around, but not as many. I don’t know how she got past them, but Valerie was already standing by Miss Gruen’s desk when we came in.
“Class, this is Valerie Taylor.” Miss Gruen stood behind Valerie, not quite touching her. “I know you will show her the same courtesy you would any other member of this class.” Her expression added the “or else”.
Valerie reminded me of the flagpole in the auditorium, tall and straight and thin. Freckles spattered her honey-coloured cheeks and nose. I didn’t know Negroes freckled. A reddish brown ponytail swooped down her neck like a feather plume.
“She don’t dress like a nigra,” Debbie said to Carrie, not bothering to whisper.
What did that mean? How were Negroes supposed to dress? I liked Valerie’s maroon dress with the monogrammed collar.
“Mama says she don’t trust a nigra that’ll look you in the eye,” Carrie said back. “Means they’re uppity. Don’t know their place. See, she’s looking right at us.”
No, she wasn’t. Her eyes, the grey of a winter sky, looked through us, not at us. As if she didn’t see us at all. Anyway, she sure didn’t look like she wanted a friend.
“You may take the seat behind Leland,” said Miss Gruen. “Raise your hand, so Valerie can see you.” Leland sat catty-corner from me, the last desk in the last row.
“No nigger gonna sit behind me,” Leland grumbled, but raised his hand.
Miss Gruen opened her roll book and began taking attendance, scanning the rows for empty seats.
Valerie moved down the aisle, eyes fixed on her new desk. Suddenly she sprawled in the aisle beside me, books flung one way, notebooks another. Leland jerked a sneaker back under his desk.
“What happened?” Miss Gruen didn’t move, her voice cool as water.
“I tripped, ma’am.” Valerie gathered her belongings without looking up.
Miss Gruen gave us all the fisheye but went on taking roll.
I leaned over to help Valerie. She smelled like Ivory soap.
Something sharp poked me in the back.
“Don’t do that,” Jeb hissed, pencil poised to jab again.
“Why?”
“Tell you later. Just don’t!”
Jeb cornered me at recess as I waited my turn at kickball.
“You can’t be helping that nigra,” he said. “You know what kids are gonna call you?”
“Isn’t Yankee Girl enough? What else could they call me?”
“A nigger lover. And no one will be your friend.”
“Big deal,” I said. “You’re my only friend anyway.” Then I got what he meant. “You mean if I talk to Valerie, you won’t be my friend any more?”
Jeb scuffed at a bald spot in the grass with his loafer. “You don’t get it. Nigras ain’t like us.”
Miss Gruen yelled, “Alice Ann Moxley,” and then a whole sentence I couldn’t understand. Why couldn’t Southerners talk normal?
“Huh?” I stepped up to home plate.
“She said it’s your turn to kick,” said Jeb.
Miss Gruen marched across the infield and grabbed me by the elbow. “Young lady, you say ‘Yes, ma’am’ and ‘No, ma’am’ when you speak to an adult. Didn’t they teach you manners up North?”
I didn’t know what to say, besides “Yes, ma’am.”
Chicken hips! I was about to lose my one friend, and my teacher hated me.
I made the third out for our side.
“Nice going, Yankee Girl,” Saranne yelled as we headed for the outfield. “Bet that nigra can kick better’n you.”
Where was Valerie? From the outfield I spied her, slouched against the school wall, staring at her loafers. No one had picked Valerie for their team, and Miss Gruen hadn’t made anyone take her.
An ear-shattering whistle split the air. Miss Gruen had our attention.
“Class! Time to go inside. Line up, please.”
No one wanted to be next to Valerie. The kids on either side of her scooted away from her.
“Pee-yew, I s
mell something,” said Debbie, who wasn’t anywhere near Valerie.
“Niggers always stink,” added Leland.
Halfway down the hall, we stopped at the water fountain. When it was her turn, Valerie drank, then daintily patted her mouth with a hanky.
Suddenly, the kids behind her in line weren’t thirsty. I was glad when the rest of the class headed for the room, because I had a bad case of cotton mouth. But before I could even get close to the fountain, Jeb grabbed my arm.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he said.
“Getting a drink of water. What does it look like I’m doing?”
“Not after her. Are you crazy?”
“But I’m thirsty.”
“It’s almost lunch. You can wait.”
So! Jeb was my friend after all. He talked to me in front of his friends! He was right. I could wait half an hour for lunch.
We had assigned seats in the lunchroom. Saranne and Debbie and Leland, who chewed with his mouth open, sat across from me. Carrie and Andy, who had a retainer he liked to pop in and out with his tongue, sat on either side of me.
None of them talked to me.
“Hey, somebody pass me the salt,” Saranne said. Carrie passed it right across my plate.
“Thanks, sweetie.” Saranne’s voice dripped sugar.
Why is she nice to everybody but me?
“Wonder where the nigra’s gonna sit?” asked Andy.
“Who cares?” Leland said with his mouth full. “Long as it ain’t with us.”
“Look,” said Carrie. “She’s just standing there.”
Valerie gripped her tray, eyes flicking around the room.
Miss Gruen appeared and hustled Valerie towards the teachers’ table.
“She gonna eat with the teachers?” said Carrie. “I almost feel sorry for her.”
“Feel sorry for the teachers, don’t you mean.” Leland crammed a roll in his mouth. “I couldn’t eat with a nigger.”
Miss Gruen pulled out a chair for Valerie at the empty table next to the teachers. After a few minutes, a smaller Negro girl joined her.
Valerie took a sip of water. The other girl picked up her roll, and then put it down, as if it were too heavy. They stared at their trays and ate nothing.
Lunch over, we lined up for the rest room with Miss LeFleur’s class. Mary Martha, the girls’ rest-room monitor, guarded the door, letting us in five at a time.
Yankee Girl Page 4
