Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere (21 page)

It seemed like the whole Lower Ninth turned out for that Welcome Home crawfish boil. Memaw and Mrs. Tilly had sung praises right over the top of Mr. Jasper Junior Sr.'s jazzy saxophone playing in the middle of our road. That had been a great day. The day the soldiers came home. The day Uncle T-Bone came back in one piece.

“Hey.” Stella Salazar's voice snapped me back from remembering. “Your name's Armani, right?” She smiled when she said my name. I liked the way she said it, she made it sound pretty. I nodded, wishing I could smile back.

“I remember your name,” she said, “because that's the name of my favorite perfume.” I liked her.

Sealy threw herself into the girl and wrapped her arms around her. “I remember you!” Sealy squealed. “You're Stella!” They hugged good and tight so long a stranger would've thought they was family. Even after the hug ended, my sister kept right on hanging on poor Stella. My arms were too heavy for hugging.

From somewhere in the belly of the crowd, ear-splitting screams tore through the thick air. Quick
pop-pop-pop
firecracker-like sounds made my insides twitch.

Stella's smile fell right off her face. “Where are your parents?”

Sealy's eyes filled with tears. I swallowed hard and tried to open my mouth to speak, but my lips wouldn't separate. I wondered if Stella could feel Sealy wiping her nose on her Army shirt.

Stella reached down and unbuttoned a long pocket on her pants. She pulled out a bottle of Coke and handed it to me. I forgot all about the times Mama had drilled it into my head about not sharing on account of not knowing exactly where another person's mouth has been.

After me and Sealy took some sips, I offered the bottle back to Stella. She waved her hand in a way that told me she didn't want the bottle back, most likely 'cause her mama taught her the same rule about germs.

Stella was fidgety. “Tell me where your ma—”

Somehow I got all folded up in Stella's strong arms where I cried harder than I thought possible, and blubbered on and on about my missing family. Stella kept saying, “Shh, shh, it's okay, I know, I know,”
and then some words in Spanish I didn't understand. She sniffled a couple times before she bent down on one knee in front of me. She tipped my chin up with her finger. My eyelids were heavy and tired.

“How long has your mama been gone, Armani?” She said the words soft and quiet, like we were sharing a secret.

I shrugged and looked back up at the sky. I grabbed the sleeve of my shirt so I could clean the tears off my face.

“She's been gone a long time,” Sealy said, staring down at the ground.

Khayla started to stir and Sealy went over to her. I was grateful 'cause I couldn't move. I felt like I was up to my knees in cement and it wasn't 'cause of Memaw's boots. It was 'cause all them cinder blocks piling up on each other in my chest had somehow settled in my feet, making it so I couldn't move from the spot I was in. I didn't know if I was
ever
gonna be able to move—anywhere—ever.

Khayla woke up and went straight to fussin' about her tummy aching. Stella picked her up and rubbed on her back. Muffled voices, talking mostly in numbers, came pouring out of the walkie-talkie she had strapped to her shoulder. Deep creases spread across her forehead. She turned her back to me and talked gibberish into the walkie-talkie. She whipped around and looked at me and Sealy again, then took a deep breath.

“Come on,” Stella said, with a nod of her head.

“What? Come where?” I asked. I stood there like a dummy, watching her shift Khayla in her arms. Sealy looked at me with her saucer eyes and I could tell her bottom lip was fixin' to pout out.

“You can't stay here, Armani. It's not safe. There are buses.” She looked around, lowering her voice to a firm whisper. “They brought in buses to get people out of here, especially kids and women.”

This was the best news I'd heard in days. I think I might've even smiled. I could tell Sealy was feeling the same as me, 'cause when I caught a glimpse of her out of the corner of my eye, she was smiling real big and bouncing on her tippy-toes, all excited. She still had them weird, unblinking saucer eyes, though.

“We goin'?” Khayla asked.

“Yep.” I smiled all sweet at my baby sister, then smiled just as sweet at our new friend Stella. “That's right, Khayla-girl, we're gonna go all right.” I was just a-nodding my head up and down the way Georgie was famous for doing. “We're gonna go find Mama, then get on a nice bus and get right on outta here.” I was a rambling, smiling fool. “Ain't that right, Miss Stella?” I nodded at Stella, confirming our plan.

I didn't like the way she tipped her head to the side and her eyebrows went and got all lost again in her pulled-back hair.

“What?” I said. I was ready to go.

“Armani, we can't go find your mama—there's no time. Besides, it's impossible. There's too many people and it's going to be dark soon. The last bus is leaving in fifteen minutes. We have to go
now
.”

“What are you sayin'?”

“She's saying we have . . . to go with . . . out May . . . ma.” Sealy had crying hiccups.

“Well, we can't,” I said.

Stella let Khayla slide down her leg till the girl was standing on her own feet. Then she put her arm around my shoulder and led me away
from my sisters. “Sealy, I just need to talk to Armani for one sec, okay?”

Sealy sniffed and nodded.

Stella stopped walking after we'd gone a good ways from my sisters. She rested one hand on each of my shoulders. “How old are you, Armani?”

I blinked a tired blink. “What day is it?”

“It's Tuesday. August thirtieth.”

“Tuesday?” A whooshing sound filled my head, like the wind moving our world upside down when we was stuck up in the attic and my birthday cake went floating. . . .

“Armani.”

I looked at her and the sounds of the chaos around us came rushing back into my ears. “I'm ten.”

“Oh, man. Ten?” Stella looked up at the sky and closed her eyes.

“Well, ten an' two days.” I sounded pitiful even to my own self.

She took a deep breath and looked at me with a familiar softness around her eyes that made me wonder if Stella had a kid of her own. “Okay, look, I'm only telling you this because you need to understand.” Another deep breath. “Bad things are happening here. You and your sisters can't stay here. Not tonight. Do you understand?”

“But what about Mama? We can't just leave her.” That stupid shaking that starts in my toes was already making its way up the back of my wobbly legs.

She put her hand up under my chin and squeezed just enough to where it felt like a chin-hug. “You know what I think?” she asked with a little smile.

I shook my head.

“I think I know why your mama left you with the younger kids while she went to get your baby brother the help he needs. She did it because she trusts you and she knew that you could handle it.”

The wobble in my legs was going away. “I bet you're a real responsible girl, right?” I shrugged but nodded in a “yeah, sort of” way. I stood a little taller. “Your mama and daddy would want you to leave here on the bus.” Stella paused, and stopped smiling. “I'm serious when I tell you that you
can't
stay here tonight.” Her smile was completely gone and she had that hard, soldier-like look in her eyes again.

I cleared my throat and looked past her shoulder at Sealy, who was watching me real close. “Well, where's the bus going? How will Mama an' Daddy find us?”

“I don't want you to worry about that right now. You just get to a safe place away from here, and I'll do my best to find your parents and tell them where you are.” Loud mumbled voices came pouring out of the walkie-talkie again. “We have to go, Armani. They're about to start loading the last bus.”

“Well, maybe we can just wait for Mama in there.” I pointed at the huge Super Dome lurking up behind my sisters and a million other people.

“You can't go in there!” Stella all but bit my head off. “First of all, it's about a hundred and six degrees inside the Dome. And besides that, it's no place for little kids.”

I forced my shoulders back, trying to stand a little taller. “I'm not a little kid.”

“Look, I don't have time to argue with you, Armani. I'm trying to help you because T-Bone's like a brother to me.” Stella took a deep breath and turned her head, before looking back at me with them big, round brown eyes. “You have to trust me. Do it for them.”

I looked over at my sisters. Sealy was just staring. She was so small, standing there like that.

“Hey,” Stella said. “You okay?”

No, I'm sure NOT OKAY. Can't you see that my family is disappearing right before my eyes? I'm NOT OKAY. Nobody's ever gonna be OKAY again. EVER
. I screamed in my head.

“I guess,” I said in a shaky voice too soft to be coming from me.

Where was Mama?

Specialist Stella Salazar held Khayla with one arm and her rifle in the other. Sealy had hold of a loop attached to Stella's Army pants and was all but running alongside of her to keep up. People stopped pushing and shoving and got out of the way when they seen the soldier with the kids stuck like Velcro coming.

I walked fast and stiff as a board, thinking my chest would burst from the scream I was holding in. I forgot again and tried to grab hold of the locket that wasn't there.

There it was. The bus. I don't know exactly what I was expecting, but I know for sure it wasn't no school bus. There must've been about a hundred thousand people all up in there around that bus.

My heart stopped when the door snapped shut and it started rolling inch by inch away from the crowd of people. I seen ladies smacking the sides of the bus and even throwing perfectly good full water bottles at it. Seemed like everyone was yelling and cussing and acting a fool.

My insides twisted into a knot. I sucked in a gulp of bus fumes when I seen that there was another bus hiding behind the one that just left.

The doors to the bus flew open. A soldier stepped out onto the steps with his legs spread and his rifle up in plain sight for everyone to see. People shoved and pushed and hollered. Two more Army guys came.

“Stay with me,” Stella shouted.

I grabbed hold of one of the loops on Stella's other pant leg and put my head down, letting her lead the way. All I could see was feet, lots of feet.

We were at the door to the bus. Stella was talking fast to one of the soldiers as he came down off the bus steps. He nodded at her and she turned to me. She didn't even waste time trying to put on a smile. “Okay, this is it.”

My eyes were jumpy, looking every which way, hoping that Mama was up in the crowd somewhere.

Sealy was looking at me all puppy-eyed and sniffling. She wiped her snotty nose across her shoulder.

Khayla wouldn't let go of Stella. I tried my best to peel the girl's fat fingers away from Stella's neck, but my legs went to wobbling and Khayla wasn't budging. I felt like throwing up.
What am I supposed to do
?

Get on the bus, NeeNee. It's gonna be all right. Get on the bus
.

Memaw's voice was as loud and clear as ever. I could even hear the hum and smile behind her words.

My head cleared. I knew Memaw was standing beside me. I could
feel
her. A calm fell over me.

“What are we going to do, Armani?” Sealy tugged on my arm.

“We're gettin' on the bus,” I said, as sure as I'd been about anything
since leaving my other life behind. And just like that, Khayla slid into my arms like it was exactly where she wanted to be.

A loud crackle of noise poured out of Stella's walkie-talkie. “I need to go,” she said. She bent down and hugged Sealy. She straightened Khayla's lime-green headband and cupped her hand around one of her cheeks and kissed her there. Khayla never lifted her head off my shoulder or said a word.

Stella held her arm out to me and I fell into her with my whole body. I buried my face in the rough camouflage shirt and she kissed my forehead. “Please find Mama and tell her where we're goin'.”

“And Daddy too,” Sealy added.

“I'll do my best,” Stella said. She started walking away. Me and Sealy stood there watching her go. She stopped and half-turned. She tapped her closed-up fist against her chest two times, pointed straight at me, and hollered, “Stay strong!” My breath got caught. I nodded before she turned to go.

“I will,” I whispered.

Specialist Stella Salazar marched off into the sea of crazies.

With Khayla in her usual spot up on my hip and Sealy hanging on to the back of me, we slowly made our way up the bus steps. My nerves were wearing down fast. People were shoving and hollerin', not one bit happy that we'd skipped to the front of the line. Sweat was pouring in my eyes and my arms were trembling from the weight of my baby sister. I kept telling myself,
Stay strong
.

When we finally made it to the top step, I all but stopped breathing when my eyes adjusted to the dark of the bus and I seen all the people. There's a certain way a school bus looks all jam-packed with kids
going to school, but it takes on a whole different look when you stuff grown, wore-down people up in there like that.

I barely took two steps into the aisle, when the stupid bus driver stuck her arm out in front of Sealy and said, “Nope, that's it. I can't take no more.”

“Armani!” Sealy hollered.

I tried to lift the lady's arm, “Oh, she's with me. She's my sister.”

“I don't care who she is. I take seventy-five. Not seventy-four—not seventy-six. Seventy-
five
. Period.” The lady had one blue eye that was looking at me and one that was floating off on its own. I didn't like looking at her.