Something to Hold (6 page)

He looks surprised. "Yes?"

"Mr. Nute ... um ... I'm wondering about the song."

"Yes," he says again, slowly.

I glance around the room. Everyone else is looking down.

"Well ... we're talking about what makes America great—courage and vision and stuff..." This sounds dumb, but I place my hands on my desk to steady myself and keep going. "I'm wondering how it fits."

"We're proud of our state song," he says.

I nod. "But, Mr. Nute"—I flail around for a way to put this—"it's about you and me and Franklin..."

Franklin's head jerks up. He shoots me a look that says,
Why are you dragging me into this?

I've got to spit it out. "The song's
only
about us."

"What are you talking about?" Mr. Nute asks. And then his eyes narrow. "Stand up if you have something to say to me."

I stand slowly, holding on to the back of my chair to keep my knees from shaking. Across the room, Jewel turns in her seat. Her face flat, she holds my gaze. Then she frowns and shakes her head quickly. The message is clear:
Leave it alone.
The image of Mrs. Queahpama tapping her chest pops into my head.

Jewel rises up from her desk. Mr. Nute swivels his head and narrows his eyes at her. "What about the courage," she says, looking around the room, "of the people who were already here?"

I am stunned that Jewel is standing up for me. She just said exactly what was on my mind, what I couldn't find the words to express.

Red is spreading up Mr. Nute's neck and all over his bald head. When he speaks, his voice is tight. "I have
never
had a student question my teaching," he says.

I get a sinking feeling.

Mr. Nute breathes in deep. His eyes slice the air between us. "Go wait for me in Mr. Shanahan's office."

I can barely breathe, and blood pounds in my ears. There is no movement anywhere, as if all the kids have melted away. Leaving everything in my desk, I walk up the aisle and follow Jewel's sweater down the hall.

Mrs. Wyatt looks up when we come through the office door. "Yes?"

Then she looks past Jewel and sees my face. "What's wrong, honey?"

I stand in front of her desk like a big goof, unable to respond. I'm in shock. I've never talked back to a teacher or been sent to the principal. Jewel waits silently beside me.

"Mr. Nute sent us to see Mr. Shanahan," I finally tell her.

"You?" she asks. She frowns over at Jewel.

Mr. Shanahan opens the inner door to his office.

"Trouble down the hall," Mrs. Wyatt tells him, tipping her head toward Jewel.

They think she did something,
I realize.

Mr. Shanahan holds the door open and says to me, "Come on in. Let's see what's the matter."

He closes the door and motions me toward one of the two big wooden chairs in front of his desk. "Why don't you tell me what happened," he says gently, sitting down in his chair.

"It's not Jewel," I say. "She was just sticking up for me."

His eyebrows go up. "Really? What is it, then?"

Mr. Shanahan sits with his elbows on the arms of his chair, his legs crossed. He's so calm that I stop feeling ashamed and just tell him—about the song, Columbus Day, the animals who were people.

"I didn't mean to be rude," I say at the end. "I just had some questions."

Mr. Shanahan nods for me to go on.

"Mr. Nute said we're all immigrants, but that's not true."

He leans forward. "Did you say that to Mr. Nute?"

"Well, Jewel kind of did." I talk to my hands. "That's what made him so mad."

Mr. Shanahan chuckles, and I look up. His face is serious but his eyes aren't. "You think your class should read something different?" he asks.

I shrug. "I think I should have kept my mouth shut."

Mr. Shanahan smiles. "Well, it's obvious that you meant no disrespect. You understand that Mr. Nute is the teacher, and it's up to him to determine the curriculum." He pauses, and I nod. "So I don't see any need for punishment."

Then he adds, "I expect you to apologize to Mr. Nute, of course."

I nod. I knew that was coming.

I leave his office and sit down by Mrs. Wyatt's desk while Mr. Shanahan talks to Jewel. When she comes back out a few minutes later, her face hasn't changed. Still closed off and blank.

Mr. Shanahan opens the office door for us. "You'd better get on back to class now," he says, and we slip under his arm and through the doorway.

The hall is empty and quiet. Jewel starts toward Mr. Nute's room, then stops and turns around. "You've got a lot to learn," she says, shaking her head.

"About what?"

"Did you think Mr. Nute would
care
what you had to say?"

"Well, yeah ... I hoped so."

"He doesn't know the first thing about us." Jewel shakes her head again. "Some people aren't worth the effort."

"So why did you speak up?"

For a second, Jewel stands there. Then she sighs. "'Cause you were making a mess of it," she says. "But you were right."

***

When the last bell rings and all the kids hurry outside, I walk up to Mr. Nute's desk. He sits with his head down, grading papers.

"I'm sorry."

"Uh-huh," he says. He doesn't look up, just keeps slashing red pen across the long division problems in front of him. I'm not sure if that means I can go or if I'm supposed to say something else.

After a moment, Mr. Nute sets down the pen and frowns at me. "You want my advice?" It's not a question. "Stay away from her."

"Jewel?"

He nods. "She is going nowhere. None of them are."

How can he say that about his students?
Mr. Nute sounds like those girls in Sunday school.

My heart pounds in my throat, but my mouth goes ahead on its own. "If you feel that way," I ask quietly, "why are you here?"

Mr. Nute shakes his head, his eyes frowning. "It's a job." He turns back to the papers on his desk. "They will drag you down if you let them."

Mr. Nute picks up the pen again, and I am dismissed.

H
OWIE
leans his nose into the backstop, his fingers hooked into the thick wire mesh. In the student tide that spreads over the playfield between the dining hall and the school, Howie anchors himself in his own little radioactive zone and watches every pitch.

My brother is the only kid who'll stand beside him. Joe doesn't even seem to notice the gap between them and everybody else. He and Howie chat away, watching the game. I'm hoping they don't yell something stupid when I have to bat.

It's the first time I've tried to play. Pinky kept bugging me to get in the game. She says it's the way to make friends in this school. I'm not sure I believe her. I saw what happened to Franklin that first day. But I finally got up the nerve and ran out into left field, even without a glove.

And now I've worked my way all the way up to the backstop. I'm having fun, and so I make sure to keep away from Raymond, who will bat in front of me. I don't want to give him any reason to pick on me, so I slide a few steps away from Howie and Joe.

Benson goes up to the plate and wags the bat at his shoulder. "Babe Ruth looks for his six hundredth home run," he chatters at Jewel, who is on the mound. Jewel winds up and pitches. Benson crushes the ball past third.

"Go!" shouts Howie. Like all the words off his tongue, this comes out kind of thick. The kids standing around the backstop snicker, but Howie doesn't seem to hear them.

Benson stops on second—a ground-rule double because the ball got caught under the snake slide, way over at the playground. Raymond is up next. While the fielder runs to get the ball, he takes two big cuts with the bat.

Jewel catches the ball, holds it ready, then throws. Raymond cracks it dead on and is around first base before Pinky, in the outfield, sees it coming her way.

Pinky does what I would do—she ducks—and the ball bounces over the back fence and onto the highway. A home run.

When Raymond stomps on home plate with both feet, Howie jumps up and down, rattling the chainlinks of the backstop. Raymond stands still and stares right at him. "What're you lookin' at?" he says. I take a few more steps to the side, moving out of Raymond's line of sight. He shakes his head. "Spaz."

"C'mon—who's up?" Jewel calls from the mound. It's my turn to bat, but Raymond hasn't moved from home plate.

"I'll be up," Howie offers, like he didn't hear what Raymond said.

Something bad is going to happen. I look over to the other side of the field, where a teacher stands by the tetherball pole, playground whistle dangling from her hand. She's too far away. I pick up the bat.

"I'll be up!" Howie says again.

Raymond turns his back on him. "You can't play," he says. "'Cause you're a moron."

By the way Howie's face dissolves, I know he heard this time. He pushes himself away from the backstop and lopes across the field. Joe runs after him. Howie is just a dot by the time he gets to the swings and slumps down on the grass.

I drop the bat in the dust. "Why do you
do
things like that?" I yell at Raymond before I can stop myself. "Howie never hurt anybody." I can feel my throat close up.
Oh, God. What am I doing?

Raymond stares at me, his face closed. The other kids are silent. I think of all the ways that Raymond could react, and I press my thumbs into my fists to keep from shaking. But I'm not sorry for what I said. Howie deserves to have somebody stick up for him.

***

I'm in my bedroom changing out of my school clothes when Mom calls me back to the kitchen.

"Honey, I need you to go over to McKenzie's for some milk," she says. She pulls a dollar out of her wallet and sets it on the table.

It is only two blocks from our house, past the brick office building, then across the asphalt that spreads out from the store. People park wherever they want to, and I have to keep my eyes open so I don't get run over.

Mr. McKenzie sells groceries and a lot more—beads, buckskin and cradleboards, hardware and sporting goods. He has a museum of old photos, arrowheads, and baskets in the back. And the store is also the post office, so the back wall is covered with little glass-doored metal boxes, one for each family. One of the first things I learned at Warm Springs was how to twirl the knob to click open the combination lock—right 10, left 4, right 8—to get our mail.

It is pretty quiet now, before the after-work rush. Just a few cars parked up next to the store, including a big station wagon with California plates. Two older men read their mail on the bench by the front door, leaning back in the sun that warms the concrete block wall. I push open the "In" door and then hold it for a mom wrestling a big bag of groceries in one arm and a toddler in the other. The lady says thanks, and the little boy gives me a one-tooth grin.

I'm thinking about how cute that kid is when I almost walk right into the rump of a big white woman in culottes. She looms over the single checkout counter, herding two scrawny kids. She holds two bottles of pop in one hand, money in the other, waiting to pay. I sidestep at the last second as a paunchy man comes up with a big bag of potato chips.

"Here, Marge—get this, too," he says, and pushes the bag into her arms. She juggles the stuff and scowls at him.

They're not from here. The California car must belong to them.

There's a crowd around the cash register, and then I see why. One red pomegranate sits on the counter, and a little girl who can barely see over the top is counting out pennies one by one. Jewel stands behind her, one hand on her shoulder.

Before Jewel sees me, I duck behind the magazine rack and go to the dairy case. When I come back up with the milk, nobody has moved.

The clerk, a high school kid, leans against the cash register, watching the little girl. He has rung up the purchase, but it doesn't look like she has enough money.

The lady with the pop gives an irritated sigh. "What's taking so long?" one of her kids whines.

"Can't you speed this up?" the lady asks the clerk. He just shrugs.

"Look," the man says, "we're in a hurry." Like that should make a difference.

The little girl pulls the last coin out of the handkerchief she has clutched in her hand. She puts it on the counter and looks up at the clerk.

"Not enough," he says. "You need five more cents."

"Good Lord!" says the man. He turns to his wife. "Marge, give the papoose a nickel so we can get out of here."

The little girl's eyes widen. I can just feel the quick thumping of her heart. Ignoring my own quickening pulse, I push past the fat man up to the counter. "Here." I shove the dollar at the clerk. "This will cover it."

He puts the milk and the change in a bag and hands it to me.

"
Hey, we were here first!
" the man bellows, but I whirl around and get myself right out the door.

I'm several quick paces across the parking lot when the door jingles open behind me. "Wait up!"

I turn. Jewel stands in the doorway, the little girl beside her. She hesitates, then they walk toward me. The little girl is clutching the fruit in her hand.

"Why'd you do that?" Jewel asks.

I don't know how to answer. A grownup should know better than to talk to a little kid like that. "Just wasn't right," I finally say.

The little girl reaches up and takes Jewel's hand, and her face seems to relax.

"Your sister?" I ask.

"My cousin," says Jewel. "Her name is Tela. She gets paid for chores at the boarding school. So we come get a treat on Fridays before we go home for the weekend." Tela gives me a shy smile.

The California family rushes out of the store without their bottles of pop. The kids are crying, and they pay no attention to us.

The sky is fading. At home, Mom is waiting for the milk. "I gotta go," I say.

"We owe you." Jewel points to the bag.

I shake my head. "Nah, it's my mom's money."

Jewel grins, nodding. The cousins cross the street and head back up to the school. As I start walking, I wonder who is coming to pick them up and how long it takes to get home. And I wonder what it's like to live away from your family so that you can go to school.