The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had

by Kristin Levine

  “Dit!” Ollie cried. It was her job to clean the floor.

  “Sorry,” I said. I wiped my hands on my pants as she passed me a broom to sweep up.

  I hardly touched my eggs at breakfast, which meant more for my brothers, so Raymond and Earl could tell something was wrong too. On the way to school, I finally broke down and told them what had happened.

  Raymond pounded his fist into the palm of his hand. “I’ll teach Chip a lesson.”

  “No,” I said. “I just want to forget about the whole thing.”

  “I’ll protect you, Dit,” said Earl. “Just let those two bullies try anything again.”

  My little brother was hardly strong enough to wrestle a squirrel, but I appreciated the thought.

  Course after all that worrying and fretting, nothing happened. Chip and Buster just left me alone. At recess I played marbles with Earl and Raymond and gave Pearl and Mary piggyback rides. It actually turned out to be a real nice day.

  That evening, I was over at Emma’s, eating Mrs. Walker’s biscuits again. I guess she had forgiven me. I was the only one who could get Emma to stop reading that dang history book for more than a few minutes at a time.

  “I ain’t working for Mrs. Pooley no more,” I said casually, pretending to focus on my math homework.

  “You’re not?” Emma sounded interested, but she didn’t take her eyes from the book.

  “No. I got a job driving into Selma for Dr. Griffith.”

  “Oh.” She was still reading.

  “I want to be good at something ’sides killing things.”

  Emma put down her book. “You are good at other things,” she said.

  “Like what?”

  “Skipping stones. Baseball.” A curl escaped from her braid and hung right over her eyes.

  I shook my head. “Something important.”

  Emma bit her lip. “You’re good at being my friend.”

  “Is that important?” I asked.

  “Yes,” she said quietly. “It sure is.”

  I saw her looking at me. Without thinking, I brushed the curl out of her eyes.

  She looked away.

  Had I upset her? I didn’t know what to say. So I simply picked up my pencil and did some more long division.

  32

  CHRISTMAS

  THE WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS, ULMAN, Elman, Raymond, me, Earl and Pa went out into the forest to cut down a pine tree. Got the biggest one we could find. It took all five of us boys to carry it home. While we were gone, Mama and the girls popped corn over the coals in the kitchen. They strung the popped corn into large ropes, with bright red cranberries spaced in between the kernels. Mama had a set of eight porcelain bells that she had gotten as a wedding present. Only she was allowed to hang them on the tree. When no one was looking, I’d flick a bell with my finger to hear the tiny ring.

  Reverend Cannon at the Negra church had found out Emma could play piano, so she spent the week before Christmas practicing on the church organ for the Christmas Eve service. I snuck inside and listened to her. She was much better than old Mrs. Weeks, who played at our church.

  One day Emma saw me sitting in the back row of the pews. “Dit,” she exclaimed. “I got you a Christmas present.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “It’s a surprise!”

  I started to worry. If she had a present for me, I’d have to get a present for her. Thought long and hard about what to get Emma. In my family, we just got stuff in our stockings. I didn’t have enough money to buy her something real special, like a new book. If I bought her something small and girly, like a handkerchief or some perfume, someone was sure to see me in Mrs. Pooley’s store. Word would get back to Chip or Buster, and that would set me up for a lot more grief. So I decided to make her a twine baseball. After all, I was teaching her how to play.

  I went to Mrs. Pooley’s store and bought the small rubber ball we used as the base for five cents. A roll of twine was only ten cents more, so that wasn’t much gone from my Fourth hunt money. Best of all, I could work on the present in front of anyone—even Emma—and no one would think a thing about it.

  I wound the twine carefully, trying to make it even on all sides. Raymond was really better at winding balls than me, but I wanted to do this one myself. When I was finished, I wrapped it in a piece of old newspaper and hid it under my bed.

  On Christmas Eve we all took a bath, just like it was Saturday evening. Right after supper, we all went to church. The preacher kept talking about the Star of Bethlehem and how amazed the shepherds had been when they had seen it. Our preacher wasn’t as enthusiastic as Reverend Cannon at Emma’s church, but I tried to pay attention. I didn’t want to accidentally end up going to hell. But the Christmas candles were so pretty and the pine wreaths smelled so nice, all I could think of was, I sure hope I get some candy in my stocking. When Mrs. Weeks started playing, it didn’t sound half as good as Emma, and I started wondering if she would like her present. It was Christmas after all. Surely God would understand if my mind wandered just a little.

  The next morning our stockings were filled with oranges and peppermint sticks. Oranges in winter were something special, and I savored each juicy section. For breakfast there was sausage, ribbon cane syrup, hot light biscuits and all the fresh butter and sweet milk you could eat. Pa made a big wood fire in the parlor. Usually we used coal to heat our rooms, so the flames and popping of the wood made things seem special. We roasted pecans over the fire and sucked on our peppermint candy.

  In the afternoon, I snuck out to meet Emma at our cave. I got there first and sat clutching the lumpy, newspaper-wrapped package in my lap. There was a chill in the air. I’d grabbed one of Raymond’s old sweaters, but there were patches on the elbows and the cold leaked in, causing me to shiver.

  “Merry Christmas!” exclaimed Emma as she ducked into the cave.

  “Hi,” I said. She had on a new red coat. The hood was trimmed with white fur.

  “Open it! Open it!” she squealed, thrusting a package wrapped in green tissue paper into my hands. “I can’t wait any longer!”

  I was pretty curious myself, so I tore off the green paper fast as can be. It was a brand-new, spanking-clean baseball. I forgot about being cold.

  “Emma . . .” I started, but nothing else came out.

  “Turn it over,” she said, grinning.

  I turned the ball over. On the other side, in clear black ink, was a signature. Walter Johnson. I stared.

  “Do you like it?” Emma asked. “Last month I asked my daddy who was the greatest baseball pitcher around and he said Walter Johnson. So I wrote Mr. Johnson a letter and told him my best friend was a big, big baseball fan and could he please, please, please send him a signed baseball for Christmas. The package came last week, and I just about burst waiting to give it to you. Do you like it?”

  “Emma . . .” I said again, but I couldn’t go on.

  “You like it!” she said, breaking into a huge smile.

  Like it? This was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for me, and all I had for her was an old twine baseball. I was embarrassed, but there was nothing else to do ’cept hand over my poorly wrapped package.

  Emma unfolded the newspaper carefully. “Oh, Dit,” she sighed when she saw the ball. “Did you make this for me?”

  I nodded.

  She picked up the baseball. “My very own baseball.” She pressed it to her heart. “This is about the sweetest thing anyone’s ever done for me.”

  “It’s just an old baseball,” I said. But she insisted on gushing over it, like it was made of pure gold. It wasn’t till we were outside throwing the twine baseball back and forth that I finally believed Emma liked her present too.

  That evening, the whole town lined up along Main Street. Me and Emma showed off our new baseballs to just about everyone. Even Chip and Buster didn’t tease us, just said, “Merry Christmas,” and kept on walking. When it got dark, Pa and Dr. Griffith shot off fireworks. The beautiful red and yellow and green
sparkles in the sky must have looked just like the Star of Bethlehem looked to the shepherds in the field.

  33

  THE FAMOUS

  DING LING CIRCUS

  WHEN I WALKED INTO SCHOOL AFTER THE Christmas holidays, the words The Famous Ding Ling Circus were written on the board. I was real glad that we were doing something different ’cause maybe that would help me smooth over my problems with Chip and Buster. Don’t get me wrong, I was still mad—especially at Chip. I knew we’d never be friends like we were before, but Moundville was too small to ignore them forever.

  Mrs. Seay stood in front of the class, a broad smile on her face. “This year, we are going to put on a play,” she announced. “The Famous Ding Ling Circus is about a Chinaman who comes to the United States to put on a circus and becomes rich and famous. Everyone will have a part, and it’s going to be lots of fun.”

  I was excited. Pa had taken Della to the circus when she was little. For years when she put us younger kids to bed, she told us stories of the acrobats and clowns and lions and tigers and elephants. I had always wanted to go to the circus myself, but it didn’t often come to Alabama. Being in a play about a circus was almost as good.

  Mrs. Seay wrote the names of all the roles on the board and started to assign parts. Pearl got to be the tightrope ballerina, and Raymond volunteered to be a cowboy. I had my eye on the lion tamer and was waiting for Mrs. Seay to get to that part.

  “Now we also need a ringmaster,” said Mrs. Seay. “This is the starring role.”

  Of course, no one raised their hand. Who wanted to learn all those lines?

  “Come on,” Mrs. Seay coaxed. “This is the great Ding Ling, come all the way from China to seek his fortune.”

  I slumped down further in my seat.

  “Well, someone has to do it.” Mrs. Seay tapped her pearls with her ruler. “Chip, how about you?”

  “No way!” said Chip. “I don’t want to be no Chinaman with slitty eyes!”

  The class laughed.

  “Then you, Dit.” She pointed the ruler at me.

  “But I want to be the lion tamer!” I protested.

  “Chip can do that part. You’ll be the ringmaster.” And it was settled just like that. Chip glanced over at me and grinned. I looked away.

  After school, I trudged up to Mrs. Seay’s desk.

  “Mrs. Seay, I really don’t want to be the ringmaster.”

  “Dit, I’m sure you can do it. You’re one of my best students.” She didn’t even look up from her papers.

  “No, I ain’t,” I said. “You only think so ’cause Emma helps me with my homework.”

  Mrs. Seay looked up. “That little Negra girl?”

  I nodded. “There’s no way I’m gonna be able to learn all those lines.”

  “Well, I’m sorry, Dit, but you’re going to have to try.” She gave me a smile and went back to her papers.

  Over the next few weeks, I spent hours at the Walker kitchen table, studying my script while Emma read the large history book. Most of our evenings went something like this:

  “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the most fabulous . . .”

  “Fantastical,” Emma corrected, not even looking up from her book.

  “. . . most fantastical circus of the year.”

  “Of the century.” Emma turned a page of her book.

  I looked at her and frowned. “How come you know my lines?”

  “I’ve heard you repeat them often enough,” she said.

  “Go back to your own work.”

  Emma smiled and continued reading.

  Finally, I admitted that going over my lines once a day was not enough. So in the afternoons, me and Emma started studying in our cave. It was late January, but not too cold. Emma wore her pretty red coat, and I just threw an old blanket around me. She would hold the script, and I was supposed to say my lines. It usually went more like this:

  “Now turn your attention to the death-dying—”

  “No,” Emma interrupted. “Now turn your attention to the death-defying . . .”

  “Now turn your attention to the death-defying tightrope walkers, who . . .” I stopped.

  “Who what?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “. . . who will dazzle your eyes with their feats of balance!”

  I grabbed the script from Emma and threw it down. “I only wanted to be the lion tamer.” I took a soda from our stash. “Read me some of your essay.”

  Emma had finished reading the fat history book and was now working on her essay for Mrs. Seay. It was good. Real good. Course she made it sound all smooth and flowery, but the point was this: during the war, both sides did bad things. Sherman was wrong to burn the homes and businesses of innocent people. But the war also brought freedom to millions of Negras. It forced us to come together as one country. And even though I was from the South, Emma’s essay made me decide that I was glad the Union had won the war.

  I clapped when she finished reading the paper. Emma played with a corner of her paper. “Stop teasing me, Dit.”

  “I’m not teasing,” I said. “It’s real good.”

  Emma smiled. “Tomorrow, I’m going to give it to Mrs. Seay.” Her smile slowly faded. “If that’s okay with you.”

  “Of course.” I wanted to see Mrs. Seay’s face when she realized how smart Emma was.

  “But Chip and Buster . . .”

  “What about them?”

  “I don’t want you to end up in jail again.”

  “How’d you hear about that?” I’d never mentioned it.

  “People talk.”

  I waved my hand in the air. “I don’t care about them,” I lied.

  Emma smiled again. “Thanks, Dit.”

  I got up to go home.

  “Dit,” Emma called out.

  I stopped in the mouth of our cave.

  “You’re my very best friend too.”

  And just like that, my lie was true. I really didn’t care about Chip or Buster. Who needed them when I had a friend like Emma.

  34

  THE LION TAMER

  THE NEXT DAY MRS. SEAY ASKED EVERYONE to stay after school to rehearse the play. It was almost the end of January, and no one was even close to knowing their lines. “Let’s take it from page five,” she said. Her dress wasn’t quite as crisp as it had been that morning, and even her hat was a little out of shape.

  I flipped through my copy of the script. “Where?”

  “From the lion tamer’s entrance.” Mrs. Seay tugged at her necklace. I think she was beginning to regret ever having come up with the idea of doing a play in the first place.

  “We ain’t got no lion tamer,” said Pearl.

  “What?” asked Mrs. Seay.

  “Chip’s not here,” Raymond explained.

  “Wasn’t he here this morning?” asked Mrs. Seay.

  “He went home at lunchtime,” I said. “Said his stomach hurt.”

  Mrs. Seay sent Raymond to Chip’s house to find out what was going on. Turned out Chip was in bed with appendicitis. Dr. Griffith told his mama she had better send him down to the hospital in Selma. “They’re gonna cut him open and rip out his appendix,” Raymond reported. “He won’t be back to school for a long time.”

  Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t want him to die or nothing. But I was a little bit glad.

  Mrs. Seay took off her hat and put it down on her desk. “So now we need a lion tamer.”

  “I can be the lion tamer,” I said. “Watch as I bravely put my head into the ferocious beast’s mouth. I pet his mane and he purrs like a kitten.” That was the one part I could always remember.

  “I’m not being the lion if he’s the lion tamer,” said Buster.

  “Dit’s the ringmaster,” said Mrs. Seay. She tugged at her necklace again. Must have been a little too hard, because there was a tiny pop and pearls flew everywhere. Mrs. Seay gasped, and her mouth hung open in a small O. She looked like she was gonna cry as she knelt down and began to gather up the bea
ds.

  Just then, the school door opened and Emma entered. Everyone turned to look at her. She blinked and forced on a brave smile.

  “What do you want?” Mrs. Seay snapped from the floor.

  “I just wanted to return your book and give you my essay.” Emma pulled the thick book out of her bag and placed it on a desk. Then she held out her essay, her neat black handwriting shiny on the white paper.

  Mrs. Seay looked lost. She struggled to her feet, the loose pearls clutched in one hand.

  “On the War Between the States,” Emma prompted. “Don’t you remember?”

  “You read this entire book?” asked Mrs. Seay, pointing to the desk.

  “Of course!” exclaimed Emma. “You told me not to come back until I did.” Emma glanced at me. I didn’t know what to say.

  “We’re rehearsing our play now,” said Mrs. Seay.

  Buster pointed at Emma and whispered something to Sally. She turned to Jill. They were already gossiping about her. But I didn’t care what they thought, right? Emma was my friend and I was gonna be brave and defend her. If only I could think of something to say.

  Mrs. Seay was still talking. “. . . and this is really not a good time to . . .”

  Emma was watching me like she was drowning and I had promised to throw her a rope, only I was standing on the riverbank watching her sink into the water.

  “. . . come here and think I could stop my lessons with my real students to—”

  “She can be my prompter,” I interrupted.

  “We don’t have any more scripts,” said Mrs. Seay.

  “Oh, I don’t need a script,” said Emma.

  “Little girl,” Mrs. Seay said sharply, “it’s not polite to brag.”

  “Her name’s Emma,” I said, “and she’s not bragging.” Felt like I was jumping off a cliff as I said that, right in front of everyone. Sure there was gonna be a big splash as Sally and Jill started talking about me. But there wasn’t no splash. They just stopped whispering and looked at Emma.