“Come on in,” he said, stepping back to let them in.
Althea pranced into the tiny room and plopped down on the couch, cradling the bowl of macaroni salad in her lap.
“It stinks in here,” she said.
Mr. Avery laughed. “That dern little ole window won’t stay open.”
They all looked at the only window in the room, way up toward the ceiling. Long, narrow, and dark with sooty dust.
Mr. Avery went over to the grease-splattered stove in the corner of the room and stirred something in a pan. The door to the bedroom was only open a crack.
Randall heard Queenie’s soft snoring. Lately, she slept a lot during the day. Sometimes she slept sitting right there in the kitchen, her head resting on the table beside a bowl of soggy cereal.
Randall reached in his pocket and brought out a folded piece of paper.
“I brought this,” he said.
Mr. Avery unfolded the paper and inspected the drawing. “Downy woodpecker, right?”
“Right.”
Birds were Randall’s specialty, and Mr. Avery knew a lot about birds. Randall always wondered how he knew so much about birds when the only thing he could see from his basement window was the sidewalk above. Sometimes the legs of folks walking by. A dog or two once in a while. But hardly ever a bird.
Mr. Avery smoothed the drawing out on the coffee table. “That’s real good, Randall,” he said. “I’ll show Queenie when she wakes up, okay?”
“Okay.” Randall stood up. “We better go.”
“I don’t have to go,” Althea said. “I can sing to Queenie.”
“You can’t, neither,” Jaybird said. He snatched the macaroni salad off Althea’s lap and handed it to Mr. Avery.
Althea jumped off the couch and shoved Jaybird with both hands. He grabbed one of her spiky braids and yanked. Randall hurried toward the door.
“Come on, Jaybird,” he said. “Bye, Mr. Avery. Tell Queenie we said hey.”
On the way home, Althea rubbed her arm.
“I’m tellin’ Mama you knuckle-balled me,” she said.
“Go ahead, toad booger,” Jaybird said. “Then I’ll knuckle-ball your other arm and you can tell again, okay?”
“Hey, look.” Randall pointed across the street.
“There’s Preacher Ron and Moses!”
They raced across the street. Preacher Ron sat on a bench outside Agnes’s Cut ‘n’ Curl beauty parlor, pushing a stroller back and forth with his foot.
“Well, do help us!” he said. “How y‘all doin’?”
“Fine,” Randall said. “Is that Moses?”
“Yes, it is.”
The baby slapped his tiny hands against the front of the stroller and smiled up at them.
“He likes me,” Althea said. “Watch this.”
She stuck her face down in front of Moses. He squealed and wrapped his chubby fingers around one of Althea’s braids.
“See?” Althea beamed up at Preacher Ron.
“When do you think his mama is going to come get him?” Randall said.
“Well now, I can’t say.” Preacher Ron ran his hand over his smooth, evenly parted hair.
“What if she doesn’t ever come back?” Randall said.
Preacher Ron looked down at the baby clutching Althea’s braid. Moses made a little noise that sounded like “B-a-a-a-a.”
“Well, I reckon we gotta just take this thing one day at a time,” he said. “No use in fretting about what-ifs when we got plenty of for-sures to fret about. Right?”
A bell tinkled when the door to the beauty parlor opened, and Mrs. Charlotte Jennings came out. Althea peeled Moses’ fingers off her braid and ran over to Mrs. Jennings.
“Can I feel your hair?” Althea said.
Mrs. Jennings looked irritated, but she leaned down to let Althea pat her stiff blond hair.
“This is called a French twist,” Althea said to Randall and Jaybird. “Ain’t it, Mrs. Jennings?”
“Yes, Althea, it is.” Mrs. Jennings fiddled with the pale blue blanket tucked around Moses.
“Is Miss Frieda gonna take Moses to be with her foster kids?” Randall asked.
Mrs. Jennings stood up straight and stiff. “No, Randall,” she said. “Moses was delivered to the brothers and sisters of the Rock of Ages Baptist Church. That is the PLAN for Moses. You know about how there is a DIVINE PLAN for each and every one of us, Randall.” Mrs. Jennings had slipped into her preaching way of talking, saying particular words real loud so everyone would be sure and get the point.
“But what if the divine plan is for Miss Frieda to take care of Moses until his mama comes back?”
Randall knew he was liable to rile Mrs. Jennings up good, but he just couldn’t seem to stop himself.
Mrs. Jennings pursed her lips together tight. Red splotches began to appear on her neck. She glanced at Moses and then said in a low, quiet voice, “But that isn’t the divine plan, Randall.”
“Stop right now,” Randall told himself. “Don’t you say another word.”
But no matter how hard he tried to keep quiet, the words “How do you know?” came out of his mouth.
Mrs. Jennings turned to Preacher Ron. She cocked her head at him and waited.
Preacher Ron cleared his throat. “Well now, Randall, we know—”
“That couldn’t be the divine plan,” Althea interrupted. “’Cause Miss Frieda don’t go to church. She’s a heathen, ain’t she, Preacher Ron?” She ran her hand over Moses’ fuzzy black hair.
“Besides,” she added, “Miss Frieda already has lots of kids and Mrs. Jennings don’t have any.”
Preacher Ron stood up. “I expect we better get on home now,” he said.
Randall watched them push the stroller down the sidewalk and disappear around the corner. His thoughts were so tangled he didn’t even answer when Jaybird said, “Let’s go look for cans behind the Winn-Dixie.” And he didn’t pay attention to Althea saying, “Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy.”
He looked over at the empty space where, just minutes before, the stroller had been. Then he looked up and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the glass door of Agnes’s Cut ’n’ Curl. He saw his squeezed-up eyebrows and his turned-down mouth, and he knew there was only one word for that look. Worry.
Randall Mackey’s secret was starting to stir up a little cloud of worry. And Randall knew that sometimes little clouds turn into big storms.
6
“’Cause I got a piece of paper that says so, Iris,” Miss Frieda was saying to Randall’s mother. “I’m the one here in Foley that takes in the children. Can’t just anybody up and keep a baby like that.”
Her voice was loud and gravelly, booming down to Randall and Jaybird from the porch above them.
The floorboards squeaked and groaned as the women rocked. Back and forth. Back and forth. One of them rocked faster than the others. Randall figured it was Miss Frieda. Her voice sounded like the voice of someone who was rocking fast.
“You’re right, Frieda,” Randall’s mother said. “But maybe there’s no harm in Charlotte tending to that child for a day or two.”
“She’s had that baby over a week now.”
“That’s right, Frieda,” Jaybird’s mother said. “She has had that baby for a week.”
“Over a week,” Miss Frieda said. “She ought to be made to do the right thing instead of whatever she dern well pleases.” The rocking chair was moving faster now. “She’s got no intention of doing what’s right,” she added.
“Preacher Ron said they reported everything like they were supposed to,” Mrs. Mackey said.
“Iris,” Miss Frieda said, “pardon me if I stir up some muddy water here, but that preacher man’s got a way of making everything sound like a gift from heaven sent special delivery to him and that wife of his.”
Randall sat still, waiting. He could picture his mama’s face: pinched up and twitching. All anybody had to do to get a rise out of her was to say something bad about Preacher Ron.
“Well, Frieda,” Randall’s mother said, “you are caring for an awful lot of children right now. I can’t see why you’re making such a fuss about Charlotte keeping just one.”
Back and forth the conversation went. Every so often, Mrs. Gilley said, “That’s right” or “Uh-huh!” Randall and Jaybird grinned at each other every time Miss Frieda said something nasty, like when she called Mrs. Jennings a high-and-mighty starched shirt. Then when she said Mrs. Jennings thought she could stick her head in a bucket of slop and come out smelling like a rose, they had to cover their heads with a beach towel to keep from laughing out loud.
“Let’s go see if T.J. and them are shootin’ hoops,” Jaybird whispered to Randall under the towel.
Randall shook his head. “Naw, it’s too hot.”
Outside, the air was thick with heat, but under the porch, it was cool and damp. The scraggly marigolds along the edge of the porch were dried up and brown. From his dug-out seat in the dirt of the fort, Randall could see the steamy heat rising up off the street in waves. The asphalt basketball court behind the school would be even hotter. Besides, Randall wanted to stay and hear what else the women were going to say about Moses.
Jaybird threw the beach towel off their heads and lay back in the dirt.
“Who you think oughtta take care of Moses?” he whispered.
“His mama, I reckon.”
“Naw, I mean if his mama is gone for good.”
“She’s not gone for good,” Randall said.
“How do you know?”
“Why would anybody just up and leave their baby like that? Think about it, Jaybird.”
“Shoot, Randall, sometimes you ain’t got a lick of sense,” Jaybird said. “Mamas leave babies all the time. Why do you think Miss Frieda has all them kids?”
The rocking chairs stopped rocking, and the porch steps creaked. Randall and Jaybird watched Miss Frieda’s ugly brown shoes go down the steps and up the sidewalk. The screen door above them slammed when Mrs. Gilley and Mrs. Mackey went inside.
Randall and Jaybird started to crawl out from under the porch but stopped when they heard Althea’s voice.
“Hey, Miss Frieda.”
“Althea. How you doin’, lamb?”
“I’m doing fine, but T.J. ain’t.”
“What you mean?”
“He lit a firecracker and made somebody cry.”
“A firecracker?” Miss Frieda hollered. “Who cried?”
“Inez Dawson,” Althea said. “And then her big ole son come out and grabbed T.J. You know her son? That man named Henry?”
Randall and Jaybird watched through the lattice as Miss Frieda stormed off up the street, her shorts making a swish, swish, swish noise.
Althea skipped toward the porch, clutching a paper bag.
“I got somethin’ y’all want,” she sang into the fort.
“Oh, yeah?” Jaybird hollered through the lattice. “Well, that’s good, ’cause we want something to make you drop dead and disappear.”
“Okay,” Althea said. “I reckon I’ll just give these ole firecrackers to somebody who wants ’em.”
Randall and Jaybird scrambled out from under the porch.
“Give me that,” Jaybird said, grabbing for the bag.
“It’s mine.” Althea jerked the bag behind her back.
“Give it here.”
Jaybird dove for Althea’s legs, knocking her into the dirt with an “Oompf.”
“Get that bag, Randall,” he called out while he held Althea down. Her skinny legs kicked and flailed in the air.
Randall looked up at the porch to make sure Mrs. Gilley and his mama hadn’t come back out. Then he snatched the bag away from Althea and peered inside.
“It is firecrackers,” he said.
Jaybird shook Althea’s shoulders. “Where’d you get them firecrackers?”
“T.J. give ’em to me.”
“How come?”
“’Cause that man Henry was gonna bust him one for scarin’ Mrs. Dawson, and T.J. was crying and all and saying it wasn’t him and then he threw that bag to me and I come on home.”
Althea grabbed at the bag, but Randall jerked it away from her.
“I hate you, Randall Mackey,” Althea said. “And you ain’t invited to the party for Moses.”
“What party?”
“The party I’m having when I baby-sit.”
“You lie like a rug, Althea,” Jaybird said.
“I do not.”
“I already told you, Althea. Nobody’s gonna let a ninny-brain diaper head like you baby-sit.”
“I am too.” Althea stamped her foot. “I’m gonna be a mother’s helper, and I start tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow is church day,” Jaybird said.
“I know that, you smelly rat-breath baby,” Althea said. “I get to hold Moses while Mrs. Jennings sings with the Celebration Choir. And then when I win the Bible drill, I get to be a mother’s helper every Sunday.”
“What if you don’t win the Bible drill?” Randall said.
“I am winning.” Althea tossed her head and skipped off down the sidewalk.
That night, Randall crawled way down under his sheet with a flashlight. He made a fist and inspected it. Then he tried to draw it. Fists were tricky, but he kept trying until he got it right. Then he drew another fist. Perfect, he thought. Two punching fists. One black, one white. Then, up at the top, he drew the floppy hat and the wild black hair, looking down at the two angry fists.
7
“And what else do you think needs to be planted in your Garden of Life?” Preacher Ron said.
He put both hands on the pulpit and leaned over to gaze out at the congregation. The room grew quiet. A few church bulletins flapped as folks fanned themselves. Someone coughed. A ceiling fan whirred lazily above them.
Preacher Ron had already told them about how they needed to plant plenty of peas, like “politeness” and “prayer.” And then they needed squash in their Gardens of Life, to squash gossip and squash lies.
The room was so still and quiet Randall could hear Carl Langley’s wheezy breathing from way in the back row.
“LETTUCE!” Preacher Ron hollered, making a few folks jump.
He leaned farther over the pulpit and said almost in a whisper, “Let us be faithful.”
Randall’s mother nodded.
“Let us be unselfish.”
Nod. “Amen.”
“And let us LOVE one another.”
All around the room folks raised their hands and said, “Amen.”
“But our Gardens of Life need one more thing,” Preacher Ron said.
Randall tried to think what it could be. Corn? Naw. Potatoes? Probably not.
“TURNIPS!” Preacher Ron shouted.
Randall’s daddy chuckled and poked Randall in the ribs. Some kid laughed out real loud. Randall figured it was probably Althea.
“TURN UP for church,” Preacher Ron said, grinning out at everyone.
“And TURN UP with a smile.”
“Amen, brother,” Mrs. Mackey said.
Preacher Ron went on some more about pulling the weeds of evil habits and bad tempers out of your Garden of Life, and then he called Hank Dowlings up to give the announcements.
Hank gave the Sunday school attendance report and the score of the softball game with the Gospel Light Church over in Aiken. He announced the next Partners in Prayer meeting and gave an update on the cost of repairs to the church bus. He reminded all the young people about the Junior Bible Drill next Sunday night, and then he asked if anyone had any questions.
Someone in the back of the room called out, “Any word on finding that baby’s mama?”
Randall felt his heart pounding in his chest. He kept his eyes on the hymnal in his lap so nobody could see what surely must have been written right there plain as day on his face: “I know who left that baby in the cardboard box.”
“Well now, Howard,” Preacher Ron said. “I’m glad you asked that.”
&nb
sp; He looked over at Mrs. Jennings sitting in the front row.
“Charlotte and I have reported everything to the authorities, and now all we can do is take care of little Moses like we were chosen to do,” he said.
Mrs. Jennings set a smile on her face and nodded, glancing around the room. Her blond French twist glittered with hair spray. Then she stood up and faced the congregation and asked that baby Moses be cradled in the arms of the Rock of Ages Baptist Church.
“He is a lamb in need of a flock,” she said.
Randall fidgeted on the hard pew. His mother put her hand on his knee and gave him a look that meant “Quit that fidgeting.”
Then Mrs. Jennings announced that the winner of the Junior Bible Drill would get to take care of Moses every week during choir practice. Randall looked back at Althea. She was sitting up straight and stiff, with yellow bows on every braid. She grinned and wiggled her white-gloved fingers at him.
After church, Randall waited in the Fellowship Hall for Jaybird.
“I told you I was gonna be a mother’s helper every Sunday,” Althea said.
Randall wrapped some brownies in a paper napkin. “You have to win the Bible drill first,” he said.
“I am winning the Bible drill.”
“How do you know?”
“I just know.” Althea licked frosting off a cupcake.
Jaybird tiptoed up behind her and yelled, “Boo!”
Althea just kept licking that cupcake like she hadn’t even heard him.
“Mama said you have to help her pack up Queenie’s lunch,” Jaybird said to Althea. He loosened his tie and examined the dessert table.
“You can’t have the peach cobbler,” Althea said. “It’s only for grownups.”
Jaybird scooped peach cobbler onto a paper plate.
“I’m tellin’.” Althea disappeared into the crowd of folks clustered in groups around the Fellowship Hall.
“What you want to do today?” Jaybird asked Randall.
Randall shrugged. “I don’t know. What do you want to do?”
Jaybird shrugged. “I don’t know.”
Just then the sound of Jaybird’s mother’s voice could be heard above the noise of the crowd.
Taking Care of Moses Page 3
