P.S. Be Eleven (10 page)

I knew Uncle Darnell's head from all the rest. Even though he didn't have to kneel, Uncle Darnell got down on one knee and held out his arms. Fern forgot how scared she was and went running to him and jumped up into Uncle Darnell's arms. It was the first time I saw that Fern was getting too big to be jumping in someone's arms. Vonetta only saw that she wasn't being hugged and said, “What about me?” tapping her toe. Uncle Darnell said, “Get over here, Net-Net. Sugar me up.” Uncle Darnell had been saying that to us for as long as I could remember. It was funny because his skin tasted of salt when my lips finally reached his cheek.

I was so glad to see my uncle and to just have him here. Here, right here. Standing before us with everything he went overseas with. Arms and legs. No bandages or crutches.

Big Ma could walk perfectly well, but she moved like she was hurt, and Pa had to help her along. When she reached Uncle Darnell, he stood up and wrapped himself around her or she wrapped herself around him and they didn't let go for a long, long time.

He and Pa embraced, but only for a few seconds. Then Pa slapped Darnell on the back and they shook hands.

He took off his hat and put it on Vonetta's head,
and boy, did she like that. She said, “Uncle Darnell, I'm bringing you to school for show-and-tell.”

Then Big Ma said, “Oh, no, you're not. Take that army hat for show-and-tell and be glad you have that. And that your uncle is home.” Then Big Ma started to cry again. I could have kicked Vonetta.

Pa was about to grab his green army bag but Uncle Darnell reached and got it, as if Pa was too old and too weak.

When we all walked across the field toward the Wildcat, I kept looking at us. All of us. I couldn't help but see how much Uncle Darnell looked like Pa and Big Ma. Then, how we looked like him. And how we looked like Pa and Cecile. And Big Ma. How we all fit together even though Cecile was thousands of miles away. But I knew Cecile and Pa didn't fit together. And she and Big Ma never fit together. But at least I could see how my sisters and I were both Gaithers and Johnsons. And that was just fine. For now, walking with my family, I felt good and selfish, which was how Cecile told me to be, one night in Oakland. I enjoyed having my uncle, my father, my grandmother, and my sisters all to myself. I enjoyed the way it used to be in our house on Herkimer Street.

Uncle Darnell had things he didn't have when he left for boot camp and then Vietnam—and I'm not talking about things in his duffel bag. He had a harder, older look on his face, like he'd never do the Watusi again. I could see it in his eyes the same way I could see Big Ma filling up with prayer even when she wasn't saying a word. Uncle D was darker. Probably from being out in the sun. His brows sat atop his eyes, protecting them like he still needed shade. Veins I'd never noticed before streamed along his arms and legs. He had hard and sharp muscles where he was lean and smooth. I didn't know how the jungle smelled, but whenever I hugged him I smelled wild tree vines beneath his shaving cream and toothpaste. One thing was
for sure. He had given Pa all of his dimples, and Pa had given Uncle Darnell his long face.

We tried to give our uncle breathing room but we hung on to him every minute of the day. Even when we weren't on him physically, we surrounded him. We just couldn't stop, and as he tried to put himself in order we gathered around him, excited like puppies, waiting for him to pull exciting things out of that tall green bag.

“Delphine has a boyfriend,” Fern tattled.

“Is that so?” My uncle looked straight at me and I felt my skin warming up.

“He's my pen pal,” I said, trying not to make a big deal of it. If I put up a fuss my sisters would never stop teasing me.

“But he doesn't write her any letters so she has to dream about him,” Vonetta added.

“I do not dream about him.”

Heckle and Jeckle performed up a storm for Uncle Darnell. Heckle became Hirohito writing letters about love and go-karts, and Jeckle became me and wrote back in letters about love and Jackie Jackson. Uncle Darnell gave them the little bit of haw-hawing they were after and then told them to cut it out.

“Tanya Bailey,” Vonetta said, “got silk pajamas when her daddy came home from Vietnam.”

“Who'd want some old silk pajamas?” Uncle Darnell asked, his eyes twinkling.

“We would!” we said all at once.

“Is that so?” he asked.

“Yeah, Unc. We want a souvenir,” I said, glad that the subject had changed.

“So cough it up,” Vonetta said.

“Start coughing, Uncle Darnell,” Fern said.

“Only thing I got in here are dirty socks, dirty drawers, a helmet, and a canteen,” he said.

“Y'all leave your uncle alone,” Big Ma scolded. “He just got home and you're on him like he's Santa Claus. Let him rest.”

We still sat around him, waiting to see what would come out of his bag. To our disappointment, he pulled out a canteen, a helmet, and a lot of army things. Then he grinned like my old uncle, and he didn't look hardened and long-faced like I had thought. He hummed and grinned like he had that time he braided Vonetta's and Fern's hair together, and they couldn't get unloosened from each other. He dragged out the suspense, poking around at the bottom of his bag until we yelled, “Uncle D!” Then he pulled out some folded cloth. Silk cloth. Two blue. One yellow. When he threw them to us, each cloth opened to silk robes and we screamed and paraded around in them. Vonetta was hard to live with. She got the yellow silk robe.

Big Ma outdid herself cooking up all of Uncle Darnell's favorites. He sat and talked more than he ate, and Big Ma kept clucking and fussing. “What's the matter, son? Don't
you like your chicken-fried steak?” Only he and Pa had those huge cuts of floured and fried meat on their plates. Vonetta, Fern, Big Ma, and I had make-believe steaks. Pork chops.

Uncle Darnell left a lot of food on his plate. Before I could get a piece of his steak, Big Ma slapped my hand, grabbed his plate, and wrapped it in tinfoil. “I'll heat it up when you're hungry.” She shook her head. “Those Vietcong took my baby's stomach. At least you're home, praise the Lord.”

“Praise the Lord,” we all sang, including Pa. We meant it in a joking way. Big Ma wasn't pleased.

Pa and Uncle Darnell stayed up talking, then the house fell quiet and every light in our house went out.

I was in a deep, happy sleep. I soon awoke to banging and shouting. Then heavy footsteps that ran from Pa's bedroom into the parlor room where Uncle Darnell slept. I heard Pa's and Big Ma's voices.

“Easy, man. Take it easy.”

“A mercy, Jesus. A mercy.”

And “You're home, man. Look around, Darnell. You're home.”

Fern came running out of her room but Big Ma told her to get on back to bed. She came running into my room and jumped into my bed.

“Delphine. They're shooting Uncle D.”

“No one's shooting at Uncle D.”

“Vietnam's shooting him.” She said “Be at nam.”

“Vietnam's way over there, Fern,” I told her. “Uncle had a bad dream.”

“He's scared, Delphine. Uncle D's scared.” And she looked scared.

“He'll go back to sleep,” I told her. “He'll be okay.”

Mr. Mwila walked down the space that separated the girls and Ellis Carter from the boys, to hand out our second attempt at essay writing. I twisted and craned to catch an Excellent, Very Good, Good, or Satisfactory on someone's paper. I couldn't help but be competitive. If Ellis got a Very Good, I knew I'd get an Excellent. If Frieda earned an Excellent, I knew I'd get a Very Good. But if Frieda got a Very Good, I'd have to be content with Good. Even after a few weeks I didn't know what kind of marker Mr. Mwila was. He explained things, brought in articles for social studies, and demonstrated how things worked in science and in math more than he quizzed us, so it was hard to
know if I'd be skipping along or struggling like on heavy laundry days.

No one with an essay in their hand was saying anything, but they studied their marked sheets and made faces before turning their papers right-side down.

Lucy received her paper and did a little chair dance. I wrote better than Lucy, so I grew cheerfully anxious to get my paper.

While I had been watching my classmates, Mr. Mwila had placed my essay on my desk swiftly and then gave Ellis his paper.

Finally. I saw what everyone else had seen. Red squiggles. Lines. Dots. Horizontal half-moons jumped from one word over others to get to another word. The words beneath the horizontal half-moons had a line running through them that ended in a squiggle. The poor words looked like a wriggling trout on a speared hook. I also found myself making faces at my own paper. And then I got to the end of the page where the only words written were:
Good first effort. See me
.

I leaned to quickly read Ellis's paper.
Good first effort
. Then I turned to my right to see Frieda's paper. Her paper also had a lot of the same squiggles, half-moons, and the words
Good first effort
. No matter which way I turned my neck, no one else had
See me
following their
Good first effort
.

I pushed my fat pink eraser over the
See me
and tried to look up at the board like nothing was wrong, but my stomach quaked. I couldn't imagine why Mr. Mwila wanted to see me. With all of those red lines and squiggles dancing around on my essay, I wasn't foolish enough to think he meant to tell me anything good. If Mr. Mwila had anything wonderful to tell me, he would have used a gold star or written
Excellent
across my paper.

“According to Miss Merriam Webster, solidarity means being of one mind.” I couldn't have thought of a better way to begin my essay. Solidarity was my main subject. From there I wrote how the Black Panthers used “solidarity” to talk about “the people” being united as one people. I couldn't figure out why my teacher wanted to see me.

Danny the K raised his hand and before he was called on, he said, “What does all this mean, Mr. Mwila?” He was echoed by yeahs, one of them mine.

Mr. Mwila said, “You have submitted your first drafts to me and I have returned them.”

“Giraffe!” Danny the K said. “Did Mr. Mwila say ‘giraffe'?”

“Daniel McClaren.” Mr. Mwila was firm but calm. “The corner.”

Danny the K stood up without protest and slinked to the front of the room. He stood facing the corner with his hands by his sides.

“Now,” Mr. Mwila said, “you've written your first drafts.”
He wrote the word on the blackboard.
Draft
.

When Big Ma said “draft” she spoke about our cold house during the winter. When Uncle Darnell said “draft” he meant he was going into the army to fight the war. I knew our teacher wasn't talking about a cold house or the army. Still, it was a wonder Miss Merriam Webster kept everything straight in her dictionary.

Mr. Mwila told us everything about what a first draft is and what a great opportunity a first draft provides. He said a first draft isn't meant to be marked on, because it was an “idea paper.” First drafts are meant to be thought about. Rethought. Then rewritten. And wasn't it good to have a chance to improve upon our first effort?

He didn't mean for us to answer, but we all said no. Even Rukia.

I was certain no other sixth-grade class was being taught how to write an essay this way. Main subjects. Subtopics. First drafts. Second drafts. Squiggles and half-moons. And no grades.

Mr. Mwila thought his teaching was just grand. He drew each squiggle and explained what it meant. “Proofreading marks and drafts go hand in hand.”

“Like Michael Sandler and Evelyn Alvarez,” someone piped up from the boys' side when Mr. Mwila was turned toward the board.

Evelyn tossed her head to deny that she was Michael's girlfriend. It wasn't official, but Evelyn's brothers let
Michael walk to school with them, and they weren't friends with him. Everyone knew he was really walking with Evelyn. At least Evelyn didn't have to worry if anyone would ask her to the sixth-grade dance.

That didn't stop Lucy from liking Michael Sandler.

When the second bell rang, the students with musical instruments went to band class and the rest of us were on our way to chorus. Before I reached the door, Mr. Mwila stopped me. I had forgotten about the
See me
but he hadn't. Lucy and Frieda waited for me but he told them to hurry along to class.

I stood at his desk not knowing what to expect.

“Delphine,” he said. “You're in grade six?”

I nodded and couldn't figure out why he started out asking what he already knew.

“As such, you're a leader in this school. An upperclasswoman. You're in the highest grade in our school.”

And taller than every boy, except Ellis, and taller than most teachers. Including Mr. Mwila.

I answered, “Yes,” to break myself from nodding.

“Then how is it that an upperclasswoman in grade six would believe Merriam-Webster was female?”

I heard his question correctly. His accents were so clear. The King's English and whatever his people spoke in Zambia. I heard him but I was in shock like I had
walked into a glass wall. I didn't know what to say. He had to repeat the thing he had just told me. “How is it that an upperclasswoman in grade six would believe Merriam-Webster was a female?”

“She is,” I told him. “Isn't she?” My breathing was fast and my mouth dry.

“Delphine Gaither. I'm excusing you from chorus this period. Instead, you'll go to the library and write an essay on Merriam-Webster. So, first, you'll go to the encyclopedia for an overview. Then seek out other sources and begin your essay.”

“Sources?”

“Books. Magazines articles that you'll use in your essay.”