Jessi's Secret Language

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Letter from Ann M.Martin

About the Author

Scrapbook

Copyright Page

I happen to be very good at languages. Once, my family and I went to Mexico on vacation, and during the week we were there, I practically became bilingual. (Which, in case you're not sure, means able to speak two languages really, really well. In this case, English and Spanish.) If I weren't so good at languages, this story might never have happened.

The story also might never have happened if I weren't so good at ballet. If you think about it, ballet is just another kind of language, except that you talk with your body instead of with your mouth. I feel like I'm talking in circles, though, so let me start my story. I'll begin it on the morning of the day I was going to try out for a part in the ballet that my dance school was planning to put on. My family and I had only been living in Stoneybrook, Connecticut, for a few weeks at that time….

I woke up before my alarm went off. I've always been able to do that. But for some reason, I always set it anyway. Just in case I should have a mental lapse and
not
wake up on time. The reason I get up early is so that I can practice my ballet.

Every morning, I wake up at 5:29, hit the alarm before it can go off and wake everyone else up, chuck my nightgown, and put on my leotard and warm-up stuff. Then I tiptoe down to the basement. No matter how quiet I am, I know Mama always wakes up and listens to me make my way to the basement. That's just the kind of mother she is. I hope she goes back to sleep after she sees that everything is as it should be. But I'll probably never know. Even though she and I are very close (which is how I know she wakes up when I do), I'll probably never ask if she goes back to sleep, and
she
probably doesn't know that I know she wakes up. It's not the kind of thing you need to talk about.

The
barre
in the basement is one of the nice things about moving to Stoneybrook. As I mentioned earlier, we haven't lived here very long. In fact, until we moved, we had lived in a little house on a little street in Oakley, New Jersey. I was born there. Well, not in the
house
— in Oakley General
Hospital — but my parents were already living in the house.

Maybe I should tell you a little about my family now. (I'll get back to the
barre
in the basement in Stoneybrook. Really, I will.) Here are the people in my family: Mama; Daddy; my eight-year-old sister, Becca (short for Rebecca); my baby brother, Squirt (whose real name is John Philip Ramsey, Jr.); and me — Jessi Ramsey. I'm eleven, and my full name is Jessica Davis Ramsey.

My family is black.

I know it sounds funny to announce it like that. If we were white, I wouldn't have to, because you would probably
assume
we were white. But when you're a minority, things are different.

Of course, if you could see me, there wouldn't be any question that I'm black. I have skin the color of cocoa — darkish cocoa — soft black hair, and eyes like two pieces of coal. That's how dark brown they are. They're the darkest brown eyes I have ever seen. My sister Becca looks like a miniature version of me, except that her eyes aren't quite as dark. Also, she doesn't have my long, long legs. Maybe that's why she's not a dancer. (Or maybe it's because of her stage fright.) And Squirt looks like, well, a baby. That's really all you can say about him. He's only fourteen months old.
(By the way, he got his nickname from the nurses in Oakley General because he was the smallest baby in the hospital. Even now, he's a little on the small side, but he makes up for it by being extremely bright.)

As I said, we used to live in Oakley. I liked Oakley a lot. In our neighborhood were both black families and white families. (Our street was all black.) And Oakley Elementary was mixed black and white. So was my dancing school. My grandparents and a whole bunch of my cousins and aunts and uncles lived nearby. (My best friend was my cousin Keisha. We have the same birthday.)

Then Daddy's company said they were going to give him a big raise and a big promotion. That was great, of course. The only thing was that they also wanted to move him to the Stamford, Connecticut, branch of the company. That's how we ended up here in Stoneybrook. The company found this house for us in this little town. My parents like small towns (Oakley is pretty small), and Daddy's drive to Stamford each morning isn't long at all.

But — I don't think any of us expected the one bad thing we found in Stoneybrook: There are hardly any black families here. We're the only
black family in our neighborhood, and I am — get this — the only black kid in the whole entire sixth grade at Stoneybrook Middle School. Can you believe it? I can't.

Unfortunately, things have been a little rough for us. I can't tell if some people here really
don't like
black people, or if they just haven't known many, so they're kind of wary of us. But they sure weren't very nice at first. Things are getting better, though. (Slowly.)

Things started getting better for me when I met Mallory Pike. I think she's going to be my new best friend. (Actually, she
is
my new best friend, but I feel funny saying that — like it might hurt Keisha somehow.) Mallory is this really nice girl in my grade who's part of an eight-kid family. And she got me into a group called the Baby-sitters Club, which has been great.

Well, now I'm way, way ahead of myself, so let me get back to the
barre
in the basement.
Barre
is just a fancy French word for “bar.” You know, that railing that ballet dancers hold onto when they're practicing their
pliés
and stuff? Our new house is so much bigger than our house in Oakley, and Daddy's job pays so much more money, that he and Mama set up this practice area in the
basement for me. It's got mirrors, and a couple of mats (for warm-ups), and of course, the
barre
.

On the morning I've been telling you about, I practiced in the basement until I heard Mama and Daddy making coffee in the kitchen. That was my clue that it was time to shower and get dressed for school. I kissed my parents good morning, and then ran upstairs. As I passed Squirt's room, I heard him babbling away, so I went inside and picked him up.

“Morning, Squirts,” I said as I lifted him from his crib.

“Ooh-blah,” he replied. He says only four real words so far — Mama, Dada, ba (we're pretty sure that means bird), and ackaminnie (which we
know
means ice cream). Otherwise, he just makes funny sounds.

I carried Squirt into Becca's room. Becca was still in bed. She has a terrible time waking up in the morning, so I dumped Squirt on top of her. I can't think of a nicer way to wake up than to look into Squirt's brown eyes and hear him say, “Go-bloo?”

Becca began to laugh. She tried to scold me at the same time. “Jessi!” she cried, but she was laughing too hard to sound cross. It's easy for me to make people laugh.

Becca and I got ready for school, and I changed Squirt's diaper. Then the three of us went downstairs and joined Mama and Daddy for breakfast.

Breakfast is one of my favorite times of day. Another is dinner. This isn't because I like to eat. It's because I like sitting at a table and looking around at my family, the five of us together, joined by something I could never explain but that I can always feel.

“So,” said Mama, as soon as we were served and had begun eating, “tryouts today, Jessi?”

“Yup,” I replied.

“Are you nervous, honey?”

“The usual, I guess. No — more than the usual. It's not just that I want to be in
Coppélia
. It's also that I don't know how tryouts are going to go at the new school.” The ballet school that I got into in Stamford is bigger, more competitive, and much more professional than the one I'd gone to in Oakley. I know I'm a good dancer, but even though I'd auditioned and gotten into the advanced class at the new school, I was feeling sort of insecure. The most I could hope for at the tryouts that afternoon was not to make a fool of myself. I don't plan on becoming a professional ballerina — I just like ballet, and the way I feel
when I dance — but still I wanted to do my best at the tryouts.

“What's
Coppélia
?” Becca wanted to know.

“Oh, it's a great ballet,” I said with a sigh. “You'll love it. We'll have to go see it, even if I'm not in it. It's a story about a dollmaker named Dr. Coppelius, this really lifelike doll he creates — that's Coppélia — and Franz, a handsome young guy who falls in love with the doll. He sees her from far away and thinks she's real.” I realized I was getting carried away with the story, but Becca looked interested, so I continued. “That's not the only problem, though. See, Franz is engaged to Swanilda (she's pretty much the star of the show), and when Swanilda thinks Franz has fallen in love with another woman, she feels all jealous and hurt. After that, the story gets sort of complicated. Swanilda even changes places with Coppélia, and poor Dr. Coppelius thinks his doll has come to life. In the end, everything is straightened out, and Swanilda and Franz get married, just like they'd planned.”

“And live happily ever after,” Becca added.

Mama and Daddy laughed. And Daddy said to me in his deep voice, “I know you'll do fine this afternoon, baby.”

“Maybe,” I replied. “We'll see. Thanks, Daddy. I just hope I don't fall over Madame Noelle or crash into a mirror or something.”

That time we all began laughing, since I'd never done anything like that and wasn't likely to. I was still nervous, though.

“Okay, girls. Time to get a move on,” Mama said a few minutes later.

Becca and I swallowed the last of our breakfasts, flew upstairs, and had a fight over who would get to use the bathroom first. In the end, we went in together and brushed our teeth in record time. Then we began the mad scurry to get out the door and on our way to school. I always think there's not that much to do in order to get ready, but one of us usually loses something, and then Becca gets into a panic about school. (Lots of things about school upset her.)

That morning it was, “Mama, we're having a
spelling
bee today!”

“Becca, you're probably the best speller in your class. Don't worry.”

“But I can't get up there in
front
of everyone.”

“Think of me,” I told her. “Tryouts this afternoon. I have to dance in front of my whole school.”

Becca didn't look comforted.

I took her hand and led her out the front door. “Don't forget,” I called over my shoulder to Mama. “After ballet I have a meeting of the Baby-sitters Club.”

And then Becca and I were off. Our day had begun.