Harry Sue (12 page)

“I was told that you have been asking about me.” He spoke slowly. “Knowing how you feel, it must be a relief to discover up close that I am not black.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Granny spit out. She was on her guard.

“For myself, I was much relieved …,” he continued, looking now into the distance, ignoring her question. It wasn't hard to trump Granny in the thought department, especially when she was mad. I inched closer, still staying out of sight.

“You see, I have a habit of disliking cranky women, white women who throw down my cooking without a taste. Yes, it's true. I have a real prejudice against bitter, dried-up shrews. But seeing up close that you are not white gives me much relief as well.”

There was a grittiness in his voice like the teeth in the back of his mouth were touching when he spoke. I realized that if I came forward at that moment, he would hate me now, as he hated Granny, would think of us as road dogs and mark me as his enemy.

And today wouldn't be such an awful waste.

So why was it so hard to pull myself forward and into the light and to pretend that Granny was in my crew? I held back. But then I told myself that this African was slow to hate, and desperate times call for desperate measures, which is something I
read in a book somewhere and, unfortunately, had a lot of cause to remember.

So I did it.

“Harry Sue?” he said, sounding all confused.

I sure did like the way he said my name. And then he surprised me with a smile, a big one, like he was seeing an old friend, and he held out his hand to me, but Granny slapped it away.

“Nobody touches her,” Granny said. “And I'm as white as they come, you dirty nigra. Don't you dare say I ain't. I'm an American!”

He kept looking at me and smiling, as if her words were having no effect on him whatsoever.

Just before she slammed the door, he said quietly: “This explains much, my friend.”

And to Granny, through the door: “You may keep the dish. It is a present from Sudan.”

Sink and Dip had crept up behind us. Granny ordered Sink to get the broom.

When Sink came back with it, Granny said, “Get somebody out there to pick up that crap.”

Sink turned to me and started to repeat Granny's words. Normally, I'd just let the broom and dustpan clatter to the floor, but not today. I was curious.

I went outside. I picked at the big pieces of pottery. They were burnt orange, like the color of the sun just before it slides off the earth in the summer. And there was such a smell there, like dirt after a
rain. Only sweeter. It made my stomach put up quite a fuss. So I pinched a chunk of meat that lay in one of the bigger pieces of the dish and put it in my mouth. It melted on my tongue, sweet and hot and tender. I took another piece of something green: a pepper, I think, and it tasted the same, only with a bit of crunch. I reached into my shirt pocket and pulled out the slice of bread I'd been working on when Mr. Olatanju arrived at the door. I dipped it in some of the gravy, careful not to eat anything that had touched the ground. It made even Granny's stale white bread taste like a holiday.

I glanced up to see her peering down at me through the little window in the front door. I heard her slide in the dead bolt, locking me out.

I just gave Granny a big smile and took another bite.

“Now, Harry Sue, honey, you're not going to break the law or hurt any innocent children with this, are you?” Mrs. Dinkins asked as she handed me a big creased grocery bag folded down and held together with a chip clip.

We were standing in her kitchen and, with the light streaming in, I noticed how faded it had all become. Her clothes, the curtains, even the counter-tops and the plates looked like they'd been there in just that position for more years than I'd been on this earth.

She was wearing the loose shirt and baggy khaki pants I'd seen on her a hundred times before. It made me think that she probably hadn't gone shopping for anything new to wear since the day
the phone call came in from the Ottawa County Sheriff's Department.

“Mrs. Dinkins,” I said, forcing myself to breathe in. “The only people I hurt are the ones who deserve it. It's called the school of hard knocks. There are just some people who need to learn that Harry Sue doesn't take it on the chin.”

But Homer's mom wasn't listening. She was kneading her shoulder and looking out the window in the direction of the tree house.

“She's up there again,” she said, worry stirring up the words. “That therapy woman. She's got ideas, Harry Sue. Things she wants to try on Christopher. But I don't know about all that. Gettin' his hopes up. Comin' down is so hard.”

But I wasn't really listening to her, either. I was wondering if you could suffocate on dust. There was so much dust here, hanging heavy in the air. The sun pointed to it. I knew if I grabbed the curtains, they would cough dust. The whole house was covered in an avalanche of dust….

I needed air, so I held up the bag and said, “Thanks for this, and don't worry, Mrs. Dinkins,” knowing full well that was like telling a shark not to swim. Worry was how she got from four-thirty to five-fifteen and from five-fifteen to six-thirty.

But right now I couldn't attend to Mrs. Dinkins. I needed to see Homer and to tell him about what had happened with Granny and the art teacher. I
wanted to tell him how you could win a fight with Granny without throwing a punch, how Mr. Ola-tanju had scored a KO by telling Granny she wasn't white, which was pretty much the same as if he'd caught her on the chin.

Yes, I knew J-Cat was there. Hadn't I seen the Volvo, two tires over the curb? I put the bag in my teeth, unhooked the rope, and started to climb, hoping she was nearly through turning Homer and airing his butt. But as I got near to the hatch, I heard a sound like my worst nightmare exploding in my ears. It was coming from Homer, coming from his throat. He was coughing on something and he couldn't even turn himself over.

As soon as I hauled myself into the tree house, I bit down on the chip clip out of shock, spilling Mrs. Dinkins's bra, the batteries, the tennis balls, and the wire all over the floor. That's because, before I even got a glimpse of Homer, I saw J-Cat, spread-eagled on the other side of the picture window. Her ugly sundress flapped around her bony knees, which were making two red circles on the glass. She was doing something that little kids do, smushing her face into the glass, making her lips look like helpless worms, her nose like a prizefighter's.

And Homer … Homer was laughing.

I lay on the floor, panting, relief and anger competing inside me.

“Harry Sue? You okay?” Homer was craning his neck to see me.

I pulled myself up and stood next to his head. “I just thought … the noise …”

I stopped and looked up at J-Cat, who'd made both hands into circles and was looking through them at me like she was peering through a pair of binoculars.

How could I tell Homer I didn't recognize the sound of his laughter?

“Harry Sue's got boobs! Would ya look at those?”

My new figure was causing quite a stir as we lined up for class the next morning.

“Yeah, right,” Nick Nederman said. “That's a boob job. You can't grow those things overnight.”

Waterhead. Like he knew what he was talking about.

Ms. Lanier looked me over. She knew there was more to my hooters than the hard round bumps that met her eye. But the morning bell rang and there was milk money to collect and attendance to take and a whole list of other boring teacher-type things to attend to.

I just smiled and waited for the thoughts to
connect in Jolly Roger's small brain that, come recess time, he should grab hold of my bra strap and give it a good yank.

I'll tell you one thing, with all the itching and the adjusting, I have no idea whatsoever why girls make such a fuss over growing these things.

Meanwhile, Violet was mooning over me like I was her new boyfriend.

“Ma says we're gonna have you over for dinner, Harry Sue, for a thank-you.” She leaned in close to me and whispered, “You like chicken-fried steak? What you got stuffed in there, anyway? I put a little Kleenex in mine sometimes, but that's not really cheating. Rosejane says they got padded ones with little foam things called ‘cookies’ down at Sears in the Marshfield Mall, but Ma says I might as well wait until the real ones show up, else why do people always want to invite trouble?”

My, she rattled on, bumpin' her gums about every imaginable thing. I realized then I didn't have to worry so much about punishing myself for saving her. Having to listen to Violet go on about brassieres and foam cookies might just be worse than lockdown.

We were inside by now, sitting at our desks. Ms. Lanier was up front working out a math problem. As if the numbers weren't confusing enough, now she was adding letters to the mix.

“If
x
equals six,” she said.

My question was this: If
x
equals six, why don't people just say so and be done with it? And while we're at it, what worldly purpose does a girl like Violet Chump serve? She couldn't KO a baby bunny, nor did she have the sense of a chicken-fried steak. I mean, the Scarecrow in
The Wizard of Oz
had more brains than her with just straw stuffed in a burlap sack.

I sighed, thinking about the long road ahead of me. I can tell you right now, it wasn't made of yellow brick. Not since I got me another misfit for my crew, somebody I'd have to protect from Jolly Roger, somebody whose tears I'd be mopping up with the worn-out hem of my skirt.

That's the kind of reward I get when I stick my neck out.

Still and all, I thought, trying to look at the bright side, I was partial to edible food of any kind and chicken-fried steak, just the idea of it, was making my mouth water. I never did figure how Dorothy got to be so plump and rosy-cheeked. If you read that book, you'll see for yourself all she ever eats until she gets to Oz is nuts and bread and a piece of fruit now and then. I rubbed at the tennis balls banded against my chest to relieve the terrible itch and settled in until recess.

In the joint, you get respect for being plain. Harry Sue does not play mind games. She lets you
know right up front when it's on. That way, you can decide whether to put it down and back away or enter in of your own free will. I always gave the boys a taste of what they had coming. That way, if they decided to bite, it was their own fool business.

At recess, those boys circled around me like a pack of hungry wolves.

“Nice potatoes, Harry Sue. I guess you really are a girl.”

“And a fine girl like me deserves to be treated with a little respect,” I said, rearranging my boobies. “So don't be touching any parts of me or you're in for the shock of your life.”

“Not much of a shock to discover them things aren't real,” Nick said. Thought he was a regular PhD, Nick did. I knew a cell warrior when I saw one. Got lots to say in a crowd, but get him alone with a shank at his throat and he'll PC up in a hurry.

“I'm talking a real shock here. Watts, amps, sizzle.”

I don't think I could have made it much plainer.

But the problem with these juveniles is they have no impulse control. They weren't even hearing me. Jolly Roger glanced around at his road dogs with a look that said,
Ready?

They looked back.
Oh, yeah
, and started to close in.

“All right, gentlemen,” I said, “but don't say you weren't warned.” And I took off running so they'd get a clear shot at my back because, of course, that's where the trigger was.

“There's only one person in Trench Vista history who could dream up a mechanism like this,” Mr. Hernandez said, peeling back the outer covering of a tennis ball and extracting a taped bundle of industrial, size-C batteries. “And that's Christopher Dinkins.

“Christopher Dinkins,” he repeated, putting his hands behind his head and leaning back in his chair. “Now, there was a boy with promise. Do you remember his science project, Harry Sue, on the trajectory of spitballs? I tell you, that modest little display taught our students more about physics than I could accomplish in a weeklong unit at the middle school.

“What promise …” He sighed and shook his head. “How's he doing?”

“Fine,” I mumbled, careful not to show Mr. Hernandez any respect
and
to let him know I did not want to get into it about Homer.

“I really should go visit.”

He had turned in his seat and was looking out the window now, talking more to himself than to me. “I'm sure time weighs heavy after an accident like that. His mother is homeschooling him, I hear.”

I wanted to tell him not to bother about the visit, that he'd never make it up the rope in his condition, and furthermore, what would he say once he got there? That Homer had promise?

That was all I needed.

Mr. Hernandez rubbed at his eyes under his glasses and turned back to face me.

“But let us return to you, Miss Clotkin.” He lifted up Mrs. Dinkins's frayed old brassiere. “There is nothing in the Trench Vista code of conduct that covers electrocuting one's peers via the metal stays of a device solely intended for the purpose of keeping body parts from shifting during transit.”

To my extensive relief, he dropped the bra and thumbed through the rule book again, just in case.

“In point of fact,” he continued, “we don't cover electrocuting at all.” He looked up at me and sighed again. “Could it be that the architects of this document underestimated the intelligence of our students? Or could it be, Harry Sue, that the mastermind
of this plan has more time on his hands than he knows what to do with?”

Without meaning to, I gave Mr. Hernandez a look.

This look was not in the current edition of the Harry Sue catalog of looks. But over the next couple weeks, I decided it had to be in the next one. I used it that much. It was the look the Wizard gave Dorothy when she called him a phony.

Bingo
, said the look.
You got that right.

Mr. Hernandez seemed satisfied.