by Sara Cassidy
“I’m doing a project on South Africa for school,” I tell her.
“So you know about Nelson Mandela?”
“Yeah. Cool guy!” Mandela was South Africa’s president from 1994 to 1999. When he was young, he fought against his country’s racist government. He was put in jail. Mandela is black, as are most South Africans. The government enforced apartheid, which means “apartness.” Only white people could be in power. White people had tons of money and land. Everyone else got the toughest jobs, the worst land and the crummiest schools. Black girls weren’t even allowed to go to school.
People all over the world fought against apartheid. Countries wouldn’t trade with South Africa. Mom says that for years neither she nor any of her friends would buy anything made in South Africa. Finally apartheid ended, and Mandela was released from prison. Soon after that he was elected president.
“He was in jail for twenty-seven years,” Imogen says, shaking her head.
“Yeah. He taught the other inmates about the law and human rights. The jail was known as ‘Mandela University,’” I say.
“He also planted a garden on the prison roof so the inmates could have fresh vegetables,” Imogen says.
I didn’t know that.
“There was so much produce, the prison guards brought sacks for Mandela to fill. He actually grew food for his jailers! He said a garden was one of the few things in prison that a person could control: ‘To plant a seed, watch it grow, to tend it and then harvest it, offered…a taste of freedom.’ That’s what guerrilla gardening is about: freedom, the freedom to choose what you eat and to work and feast with your neighbors. Food tastes better when it is grown on the land where you live.”
“Yeah, I know,” I say. I kick at the pile of boards on the ground. I am interested in what Imogen is saying, but now I am drenched with sadness. “We used to pick apples straight from the tree house. They were the best apples I ever ate.”
Imogen gives me a sympathetic frown. Then she shrugs. “Cheer up! It couldn’t live forever. The oldest apple tree is one hundred and eighty-five years old. It’s in Vancouver. They’ve got a fence around it and everything. Yours did very well. Listen, come and see my garden tomorrow. I just planted chard and broccoli—they can survive the winter. Bring your bike. I’ll give you a tour of a few local guerrilla gardens.”
Chapter Eleven
We pass Richard’s bench on the way to school each day, but I don’t look at it anymore. I’m still mad at Richard for making me feel bad. Or, I don’t know, maybe for not being around when I have all these questions. Maybe I’m angry because I think my anger will wake him up—to defend himself.
Even though I don’t look at Richard’s bench, I still get a feeling that he’s watching me when I walk through. One day, as we’re walking to school, Silas says, “Stop. Let’s tidy up.”
Leland says, “Good idea.”
The sunflower is shriveled up, and the seat of the bench is littered with curling yellow leaves. I wipe the photo frame clean with my sleeve. Leland clears the leaves from the bench.
The rain and sun have faded the Rest in Peace sign to a blank page. Silas gets a pen and paper from his backpack and makes a new one.
I gather a bouquet to lay on the bench. There aren’t many flowers at this time of year, so I collect small evergreen branches from the ground. I search under the skirt of a cedar tree and am jolted by what I see.
At the base of the tree is an old wool blanket in a clump, a sleeping bag with fiberfill fizzing through its large holes and a dirty pillow. Beside the bedding are three blackened candle stubs, a couple of forks, a bent spoon, a canopener and three unopened cans. There are Heinz Baked Beans, Alphagetti and Chef Boyardee Ravioli. They are what my mom calls “non-food.”
It’s damp under the tree, but it’s protected. I look at the spiraling branches above and imagine the moonlight sifting down. It could be beautiful. But mostly, it feels primitive and cramped.
“Liza?” Silas sounds ready to go. I hurry out from under the boughs. I don’t want him to see. I don’t know if it was Richard’s sleeping place, but I have a strong urge to protect the little bit of privacy Richard had.
At school we pass the planter where the boys and I had snacks before the funeral. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice green sprigs shooting out of the carrot tops we shoved into the dirt. They look triumphant. They give me a thrill.
Moments later Niall stops me outside class. He’s shaking with anger. “She said it would be too smelly! No, she said ‘too odorific,’” he seethes. “Can you believe it?”
Just then a clunk sounds through the pa system. Mrs. Reynolds’s voice squeaks nasally. “I’d like to remind everyone to be careful of the flagpole in the front schoolyard. A flag is a very important symbol. So, please, keep your distance.”
Niall and I laugh. Niall says he’s going to give the petition to the vice-principal and send it to the head of the school board. I suggest he send it to the editor of the city’s daily paper.
“Good idea.” He nods. Then he slumps against the wall. “I’ve got to say, I’m getting tired of asking.”
That afternoon I’m in class staring out the window at the schoolyard when I notice that a swath of grass has been dug up. A huge patch of dirt has been laid bare. I look at the blank blackboard at the front of the room, then back at the patch of dirt. They have the same message: Make a mark. Create. Invent.
As the blackboard fills with math equations, I glance down at the rectangle of dirt and imagine it as a bmx track or a tennis court or a dance floor.
After school, I pass Mr. Moyle, our school custodian, turning the dirt with a shovel.
“The grass was getting choked out by a nasty weed that I couldn’t fully uproot,” he explains when I ask what’s going on. “I had to dig the whole thing up. I’ll be reseeding in a couple of weeks.”
“With what?” I ask.
“Grass,” he answers. “Of course.”
I stare at the patch of dirt, imagining a carpet of grass. In my mind, the grass suffocates the dirt. Then I notice Mr. Moyle is giving me a quizzical look.
On my way home through the park, there’s rustling again in the bushes near Richard’s bench. I’m on my own. I feel frightened and excited. It’s silly, but I call out, “Richard?” The bushes rustle again, but nothing emerges. I run home as fast as I can. I race straight to my room.
“Liza?” Mom is at my door. “Would you like a cup of tea?”
“No thanks,” I say. I’m lying face-down on my bed.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah.”
“Can I come in?”
“Sure.”
Mom sits on the edge of my bed. She hands me a cup of tea. I take a deep breath and ask, “Mom, do we even know that Richard’s dead? I mean, those ashes in that box. No one saw them. They could have been Cheerios.”
“Cheerios?” Mom laughs.
“Who saw his body, anyway? Who found Richard?”
“Richard is dead, Liza. There isn’t any doubt.” Mom rubs my back.
“You wouldn’t know it by the way you and the boys act,” I say peevishly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean you guys act as if nothing’s changed. You chat with your friends about the weather. On the morning he died, the boys played Lego!”
“Liza, Silas was crying so hard that day, I had to get him out of school early. But I don’t have to prove how he feels. People mourn in different ways, but we all feel sad. We also feel angry and confused. Sometimes, we even deny that the person died. Honey, you can’t judge what’s inside someone’s heart by how they act. You have to ask.”
“Yeah, that’s the problem. I wish I knew how Richard felt all those years.”
“I do too. I wish I’d asked.”
“Me too.”
The world goes silent then. We both slurp our tea.
The next day Niall and I are talking in the hallway when Mr. Moyle shuffles by with his shovel. As I watch him head o
utside, my brain ignites with the best idea I’ve ever had. I tingle all over. I can almost hear my brain synapses snap and sizzle.
“Are you okay?” Niall asks, smiling.
“I’m fine,” I say. I decide to keep my sizzling idea to myself for now. Mom always says, “Let it percolate before you pour.” For once I will take her advice.
I spend the next two days percolating. I gaze out the classroom window at that swath of dirt where anything could go. Plain, boring, inedible grass is an insult. It’s like asking an opera singer to sing “Mary Had a Little Lamb” or a chef to cook Kraft Dinner. I remember the lines Mom read at the memorial: Turn me into song; sing me awake. I imagine plants bursting up from that brown pool. I see vines and branches rustling and pulsing with nourishment, their fruit swelling.
My idea is good.
“Mrs. Reynolds!” I burst into her office at lunch. Words tumble out of me. “The dirt in the side yard. Could GRRR! plant a garden there? Like Nelson Mandela did when he was in prison? Each class could take turns looking after it.”
Mrs. Reynolds doesn’t even consider it. “No,” she says.
“But we’d have fresh food. Kids could learn how things grow.”
“Students would track dirt into the school. It would look untidy. Strangers would take the food.”
“So what? They’d be eating it.”
“No.”
“But—”
“No, Liza Maybird,” she says. “And I don’t appreciate your insinuation that this school is like a South African prison.”
“It didn’t used to be!”
“Get to class. Or I will see you in detention.”
Now I understand Niall’s fury.
When I go outside for recess, I wonder if seeing the patch of dirt will anger me more. Instead it slows me right down. It is simply “there,” free of expectation. It’s patient like Richard. What had he missed out on? What had he dreamed of doing when he was my age?
Now, I imagine Richard happy and golden on his bench. I see sprigs of green reaching, small explosions of color. I know what I am going to do. I only hope the girls of GRRR! will get on board.
Chapter Twelve
Leland, in his prize bowler hat, is at the front door handing out tickets as the girls arrive. Silas organizes the clothes into piles and stacks the books on the dining-room table. I’ve arranged my bedroom as a change area. I set up Mom’s full-length mirror in the living room.
I’m serving Moroccan-style mint tea. I stuff loads of mint from our yard into tall glasses, add a tablespoon of sugar, pour in boiling water and stir. Silas yells that everything’s ready, and we head into the living room. I’ve strung Christmas lights for ambience and put out chairs.
The floor is covered in clothes. Finally, there’s a knock at the door. Olive thinks we’re going for a bike ride. I open the door and stand there grinning.
“What?” she asks.
Then everyone yells, “Surprise!” Olive looks into the living room and screams.
After the shock wears off, she sets down her helmet and examines the piles. She chooses a pair of skinny jeans and a striped T-shirt—a complete outfit. Then she chooses a book, Island of the Blue Dolphins. It is based on a true story of a twelve-year-old girl who survives alone on a California island for eighteen years. She builds a house of whale bones and sealskins, and she hunts birds at night. She even makes a skirt out of cormorant feathers.
My heart lurches when Olive chooses it. I want to read it again. Later, when Lizzie tries on my old jeans, I get the same feeling. I realize it isn’t about the things—I’ve read that book a hundred times and those jeans don’t fit me—it’s about saying goodbye.
Mom says that in giving, we get more. She doesn’t mean more stuff or money. I’ve asked. She means we feel more goodness. I get it. I watch my friends light up over their new clothes and books, and I feel good. I get some great scores too, which helps. I choose jean overalls with just the right bagginess and a T-shirt silk-screened with the image of a dragonfly breathing out fire. On my second round I take a cool wool kilt with silver clasp pin and a fantastic pair of slightly scuffed Oxford shoes.
We didn’t waste our afternoon in a mall! And we had tons of laughs, especially over a padded bra that each of us tried on—as earmuffs, knee protectors, bunny ears. As the party winds down, Melissa and Emma T. head outside to play. They quickly return, shocked and unhappy.
“What happened to your tree house?” Melissa asks.
“What happened to your tree?” Emma T. moans.
I tell everyone about honey fungus, and how the tree had to come down. They don’t cheer up much. So I tell them about the scions that we’ll graft onto a living tree in the spring. That helps, but they’re still glum.
So I tell them my idea. I talk about “food miles” and the great taste of local food. And I tell them about the patch of dirt at school that’s about to get “paved over” with grass.
“Why don’t we go out one evening and plant it with food?” I say.
Three girls yell, “Yeah!” Everyone else is thoughtful.
“Wouldn’t we get in huge trouble?” Afareen asks.
“For what? For planting food?” I ask.
“For going against the principal.”
“The principal goes against us every step of the way,” I say. “She doesn’t care about the Earth. But we don’t have time to not care. The ice caps are melting, and we’re losing plant species every day. The time is now.”
“We have to be able to look after it,” Deirdre points out. “To water it and weed it.”
“There’s a water tap right there,” I say. “My mom has an extra hose in the basement. We could schedule work parties.”
“We could invite people to help,” Deirdre muses. “Put up a sign, like, If you eat this food, please give back by doing twenty minutes of weeding.”
Everyone starts talking at once. Well, a few are quiet.
“No way,” Olive finally says, shaking her head. “No way, no how. I’m not doing it.”
“Come on, Olive,” I urge. “We’re making a point.”
In the end, half of GRRR! likes the idea, a few are undecided and four, including Olive, are against it.
“If you do it, you can’t claim it as a GRRR! action,” Olive says. “We aren’t all on board.”
“Fine,” I shout. I’m furious. I look out the window at the emptiness where the apple tree had been. I feel that a garden is owed to me. “Or maybe it means you aren’t part of GRRR!”
The room goes silent. A few girls start gathering their clothes and books. When everyone is gone, I stomp to my room and give the lovers’ telephone a yank. I mean to pull it out of Olive’s window and back to my house, but it snaps in two.
That evening Olive and I don’t talk. And we certainly don’t meet in the tree house. I snap at Mom at supper and ask to be excused before dessert.
“You’re tired,” Mom says soothingly.
I’m tired, all right. I’m tired of Olive always being so careful and good. Also, I think furiously, I organized the clothing exchange for her, and she never thanked me.
Chapter Thirteen
“Nice outfit,” Mom says at breakfast. I’m wearing my kilt with the dragonfly T-shirt and leg warmers I made last night. I used the sleeves of an old sweater. “I noticed Deirdre got the dress you practically lived in last summer,” Mom says. “I’m surprised you gave it away.”
“It was hard to give stuff up at first,” I admit. “Even if it didn’t fit me anymore. But it got easier. I mean, the dress doesn’t mind who wears it.”
“One of my favorite writers, George Bernard Shaw, said people become more attached to their burdens than their burdens are to them,” Mom says.
“Cool,” I say. I wonder if Olive is a burden. Maybe I’m more attached to her than she is to me.
“Hey, Liza?” Leland asks. “Did Silas and I do a good job helping with the clothing exchange?”
“Yes, of course you did.”
“Oh.”
“Why?”
“You never said thanks.”
“I didn’t?”
“No,” Silas says.
“Sorry, you guys,” I say. “Thank you. Thank you very much. You were amazing.”
I take ten deep breaths, reach for the phone and dial Niall’s number. He’s busy on the roof, his mom tells me. She asks if I could swing by. I hop on my bike and pedal through the park. I stop at Richard’s bench for a moment, but I don’t feel that he’s watching anymore. It’s just a little lonely.
Then there’s a rustling in the bushes. A large raccoon wanders out, sniffing at the ground. It’s not at all interested in me.
Niall’s house is what you call ramshackle. It’s an old shingled thing, painted light blue.
Three teenagers are doing surgery on an old car in the driveway. Two ancient-looking cats snooze on frayed rattan chairs on the rickety porch. A mower sits in the middle of the overgrown lawn. Tumbledown as it is, it’s alive. I’d take this place over a five-thousand-square-foot mansion anytime.
Niall’s mom emerges with a pie in her hands and points upward. Niall is on the roof, wrestling with what looks like a black snake. “He’s building us a solar shower.” His mom beams. “Niall, you’ve got a visitor!”
“Niall’s got a visitor!” the teenagers tease. My face gets hot. Niall looks down and smiles. “Come on up!”
His mom sends me up the ladder with a plate of pie and a mug of tea for us to share. It’s an awkward climb.
As we sip tea, I tell Niall my idea and GRRR!’s plans. He immediately starts planning an irrigation system. “I’m glad you want to help,” I interrupt. “I’m also hoping, well, that BRRR! will agree to us using the three hundred dollars from the bike wash. We could use it for plants and tools.”
Niall looks at me funny. He studies my nose, lips, hair. He catches me watching him and gulps.
“Okay,” he blurts. “I’ll talk to the guys. I’ll call you later—or how about I bike to your place?”
