The Best Bad Luck I Ever Had (23 page)

“Time to eat, dear,” said Mrs. Walker as she put down the tray and gently shook her husband awake.

Mr. Walker rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. “What time is it?”

“After nine, Sunday evening.” Mrs. Walker took a bowl of soup from the tray.

“Sunday!” Mr. Walker exclaimed. “I’ve got to be in Selma tomorrow for the postal exam.”

Mrs. Walker shook her head. “You’re in no condition to go anywhere.”

“Leah, I’ve got to take that exam. Without it, there’s no hope of getting a transfer.”

Mrs. Walker sat down on the bed. “What time is the exam?”

“Eight in the morning.”

“It’s no use. The last train already left.”

Mr. Walker propped himself up on his elbows. “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”

“You’ve been delirious the past three days!”

“If I don’t get that transfer . . .”

“I know what’s at stake here,” Mrs. Walker snapped. “But I figured I’d rather have my husband alive in Moundville than dead in Boston.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. I’m not dying.”

“But other people are! I’ve got to wash the bodies for two more funerals tomorrow and . . .” Mrs. Walker covered her face with her hands. “I’m sorry. I’m just so tired, I don’t know what to do.”

There was a long silence. It got more and more uncomfortable, till finally I said, “I could drive you to Selma.”

Mr. and Mrs. Walker turned to look at me.

“Dr. Griffith trusts me to drive into Selma to pick up his supplies,” I explained. “I know the way.”

Mr. Walker smiled. “You’d do that for me, Dit?”

“Sure.”

Mrs. Walker shook her head. “No way. Absolutely not. I will not let a child drive you all the way to Selma in the middle of the night.”

“Dit’s not a child,” Emma snapped. “He’s thirteen!”

“And you’ve done so much for our family,” I added. “I’d be glad to help.”

In the end, Mrs. Walker gave in. She had to. ’Cause of the flu, there really wasn’t anyone else.

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PA AGREED TO LET US TAKE HIS CAR. MADE me feel real proud. He wanted to drive Mr. Walker himself, but Mama wouldn’t let him since he still had a fever. It was decided that Emma would go with me so in case something happened, at least there’d be three of us. Mrs. Walker wanted to go too, but she had the two funerals the next day and Mama still wasn’t feeling that well herself.

We tucked Mr. Walker into the backseat of the car and covered him with blankets. Emma sat in the front, and I was behind the steering wheel. Mrs. Walker handed us a basket of food, told us for the thousandth time to be careful, and we drove off.

Vines hung like thick snakes on the trees alongside the road. It was the coldest April anyone could remember. An icy rain fell, coating the leaves and branches so that they glimmered in the moonlight. Mrs. Walker had packed us a big thermos of strong coffee. Made me feel real grown-up every time Emma poured me a dark black cup. Mr. Walker dozed in the backseat. Every once in a while, a tree branch gave way with a large crack and fell to the ground. ’Cept for the moon and the car’s lights, it was as black as the belly of an eel.

Me and Emma shivered in the front seat. We were wrapped in blankets, but it was so cold, I could see my breath as I drove. Another tree branch fell under the weight of the ice, and me and Emma both jumped. I had to drive at a snail’s pace. And the truth was, I’d never driven at night before.

Emma groaned. “I just thought of something.”

“What?” I asked.

“If you hadn’t offered to drive, Daddy wouldn’t have been able to get to the exam.”

“And?”

“My family would’ve had no choice but to stay in Moundville.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t thought of that. Would I ever learn just to keep my dang mouth shut?

We drove in silence for a while longer. Suddenly, there was a loud pop. I thought it was another tree branch till I saw the white smoke billowing out from under the hood.

“What’d you do?” asked Emma.

“Nothing!”

Of course ’cause I was looking at the smoke, I didn’t see the ice. Next thing I knew, I was pointing the steering wheel straight and the car was turning, turning till we were sliding sideways down the road. Did exactly what Dr. Griffith told me not to do then—stamped down on those brakes hard as could be.

That did what Dr. Griffith had warned me it would do—set the car off spinning faster than one of baby Robert’s tops. Emma screamed and gripped the door. Mr. Walker woke up with a snort, yelling, “Stop the car, stop the car,” over and over, like that was gonna help. I started praying, but the only prayer that came to mind was “Jesus, Joseph and General Lee” and I didn’t think Emma would like that too much, seeing how Lee was a Southern general, so I just said it in my head. I was pretty sure we were all gonna die, so it didn’t much matter what I did anyway.

The car spun around at least twice till we were sliding down the road backwards. Finally I decided to try the brakes again, and I guess we were off the ice because they worked this time. Sort of. We skidded off the road and only ran into a small tree, thanks to my steering while looking backwards over my shoulder. Well, if I’m being real honest, I think I accidentally steered us into the tree, but the important thing was the car was stopped and none of us was dead.

I think Mr. Walker might still have had a touch of fever ’cause he started crying, “Praise the Lord,” over and over again, and it was just about as annoying as yelling, “Stop the car.” Emma finally told her pa to hush and then I knew he really was sick because he listened to her.

That’s when I got scared. We were two children out alone in the woods with a delirious adult and a broken-down car.

“What happened?” said Emma.

“Don’t know,” I said.

We slid out of the car and I opened the hood. Didn’t know what I was looking at for a moment, but then everything Dr. Griffith told me slowly started to come back. I pointed. “So cold, the water must’ve froze in the radiator. Pressure blew the top right off.”

Emma was impressed. I knew she was ’cause she opened her mouth like a fish but couldn’t get nothing out, just nodded and closed her lips again.

“Gotta get to Selma,” Mr. Walker moaned from the back of the car.

“So what do we do now?” asked Emma.

I checked the radiator again. It was about dry. “We need to go find some water.”

So me and Emma tramped off through the woods. The fog was so thick, it was like stepping through a rain cloud. We stayed close to each other. I carried the cup from the thermos.

“Emma?” I asked.

“Yes?”

“Want me to tell your daddy we couldn’t find a stream?”

Emma shook her head. “He wouldn’t believe you.”

Right then, I think he would’ve believed me if I’d said I was Abraham Lincoln. But I didn’t want to scare Emma. We pushed through some underbrush and stood on the edge of a small creek. The moonlight sparkled on the water. I leaned over to fill the cup.

“Want me to have an accident?” I asked, looking at Emma’s reflection in the water.

“What?”

“If I did, we wouldn’t get there in time,” I said quietly.

“But you’d get in trouble with your pa for wrecking his car.”

I shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“You’d do that for me?” Emma’s eyes were wide.

“Yeah.” I stood clutching the freezing cup.

Emma smiled. “I don’t want you to do that, Dit.”

“Do you want to leave Moundville?”

Emma shook her head. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had.” Then she kissed me on the cheek. Before I could move, she dashed up the hill and disappeared into the fog. I touched my cheek and went to follow her.

Once we added the water to the radiator, the car started up just fine. Steam still trickled from the hood, but the engine sounded strong. I had to take it real slow on the icy patches, but there were stretches of dry road that were okay. Mr. Walker went back to sleep. I kept glancing at Emma, but she wouldn’t meet my eye.

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WE GOT TO SELMA AROUND SIX IN THE morning. The hotel where the exam was being held was right next to the drugstore where Dr. Griffith always bought me lunch. We parked the car out front, then Mr. Walker went into the lobby to register for the test. The fever’d finally broke in the night and he seemed a lot better.

Me and Emma wandered into the steaming kitchen to warm up. We sat on the radiator shivering, still in our jackets and mittens. All the guests I had seen in the hotel were white. All the cooks in the kitchen were colored. One of them gave us a friendly smile and brought us each a mug of hot chocolate.

“Thank you, sir,” said Emma to the cook.

He nodded and returned to his post.

For a moment, we sipped our drinks quietly. “Emma?” I asked.

“What?”

“You’ll write to me, won’t you?” I asked. “When you’re back in Boston.”

“Maybe Daddy won’t pass the test.”

I gave her a look. Mr. Walker was as smart as his daughter.

Emma sighed. “Yes, I’ll write.”

“And visit in the summer?” I pressed.

She shook her head. “Mama wouldn’t like me coming down south alone. But you could visit me in Boston.”

I’d never been out of Alabama.

“Or maybe we’ll move to Virginia,” suggested Emma.

“Richmond,” I answered confidently.

“Or Connecticut.”

“Hartford.”

“Or New York.”

“New York City?” I asked.

“Albany.”

“I knew that,” I said with a smile. We sipped our hot chocolates. The cook made the hotel’s morning bread, dumping empty flour sacks onto the floor.

“Nothing’s gonna change, is it?” I asked. Sounded like there was a frog in my throat.

Emma turned toward me. “Dit, everything’s going to change.”

I didn’t look at her. Just stared at my hot chocolate. It was thick and sweet, made with real chocolate and milk. Just the color of the skin on Emma’s cheek. “Why’d you do that?”

“Do what?” she asked.

I touched my cheek.

“Oh.” Emma exhaled. “I don’t know.”

I finished my hot chocolate. The cook came over to take our mugs. “Where you kids from?” he asked.

“Moundville,” Emma replied.

“Moundville,” the cook repeated when he returned to pounding the rising bread. “Ain’t that where that Negra murdered the sheriff?”

“It wasn’t murder,” I snapped, “it was self-defense.”

“Really?” asked the cook. “They didn’t put that in the papers.”

“We were there,” Emma insisted.

The cook shook his head. “You kids,” he mumbled to himself. “Active imagination.” He emptied more bags of flour into a huge vat. The flour filled the air like a white fog. Like the mist that had surrounded us the night before when Emma gave me my first kiss.

Emma abruptly stood up. “I have an idea.”

We spent the next hour loading empty flour sacks into my pa’s car. Emma wouldn’t tell me why ’cept to say it was important and it had to do with Doc and she would explain later. Right when we finished with the sacks, Mr. Walker came out of the hotel.

“I don’t think I missed a question,” he said proudly. “They won’t have any reason not to promote me now.”

That was just what I was afraid of.

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