With the Might of Angels (21 page)

“Will there be a Negro milkman, too?”

Daddy nodded.

Mr. Pelham was glad to shake some hands.

Reverend Collier then introduced another church visitor. He motioned to the back of the church, encouraging the guest to come forward.

It was Mr. Dunphey!

He stepped to the pulpit and stood next to Reverend Collier. I blinked to make sure I was not dreaming this up. But as soon as Mr. Dunphey told us about being a teacher at Prettyman,
and writing the letter to the newspaper, and believing in change, I knew this was no dream — I was wide awake.

My heart’s
beat-beat-beat
proved I was far from asleep.

Mr. Dunphey told the congregation about being asked by Mr. Lloyd, our school principal, to leave Prettyman. And he told us about going back to Boston, but thinking twice on it.

“Change starts with one person, then another, then more. I’m only one man, but progress can start with me, and with each of us.”

Mr. Dunphey’s words got some people to clap.

He said, “School administrators can kick me out of Prettyman, but nobody can make me leave Hadley.”

Reverend Collier said, “Brother Dunphey, you are a shepherd for peace.”

And there it was, another
H
word at our church—
Happy
!

At home, I showed Mama and Daddy the scribbles and pictures Goober had made in this diary book.

A sharp frown pinched at Mama’s face. Daddy’s, too.

Daddy went to his truck and came back with a roll of brown paper used to wrap laundry packages. He pulled out two long sheets, spread each on the floor of our living room.

“Goober, Dawnie,” he called. “We’ve got work to do.”

I was not in the mood for chores. Or folding linens. Or hanging shirts to dry.

Daddy instructed us to each lie flat, faceup, on one of the paper sheets. I looked at Mama, then Goober. They were as puzzled as me.

“Be still,” Daddy said. “Goober’s first.”

Daddy pressed Goober’s open hands flat down on the paper, and pulled his arms away from his sides. With Mama’s laundry pencil, he traced Goober’s outline — head, neck, arms, legs, hands, and each finger. Goober started to giggle, then wriggle. “Daddy, you’re tickling me.”

I was next — head, arms, neck, legs, and the outline of my hair. Goober was right. It did tickle.

Mama watched, and knew just what to do next. She taped the tracings to our living room’s biggest wall. She printed our names on the bottom.

She handed me and Goober each a laundry pencil. “Write
good
words. Draw
nice
pictures,” Mama instructed.

Goober and me, we didn’t waste any time. On the inside of my silhouette I wrote: “SMART. BRAVE. INTENTION. POGO. HOME RUN.”

I drew baseballs and frogs and bells and lots of 42s, Jackie Robinson’s jersey number.

Goober’s pencil got busy, too.

He wrote: “GOOBER. BOY. ME. FREE. RUN. FLY.”

His drawings covered the whole page, inside the tracing and out.

He drew dancing peanuts, smiling peanuts, peanuts playing in leaves, and peanuts with wings.

When we were done, Mama said to Daddy, “Curtis, I will never badger you again about hanging wallpaper in our living room. We now have the prettiest walls on Marietta Street.”

We got our first delivery from Pelham’s Dairy today. That milk tasted real good with my buttered toast.

Tonight Mama made me a warm cup of milk before bed to help me sleep before the exam. But as welcome as that warm milk was, I can’t sleep.

I’m writing during the black-night hours that churn slowly before the in-between. For three nights in a row, sleep has not been my friend. Two days till the exam.

It’s
still
raining, but less.

Can you cram for an exam?

Can you scram from an exam?

Is there ham at an exam?

I’m getting punchy!!

Today was the Seventh-Grade All Competency Exam. The rain had stopped, but there was wet everywhere. I’m sure Bethune’s red bricks have stained the streets. After days of downpour, that school is probably a puddle of mud.

The air was thicker than biscuit gravy this morning. Mrs. Taylor had opened our classroom windows. No breeze came. Just heaviness everywhere. Mama made me wear galoshes to school. If there’s one thing that makes your feet sweat, it’s
galoshes. And the one thing that makes the rest of you sweat is sweaty feet.

Mrs. Taylor handed out each test packet, facedown. She looked at the wall clock. “Students, begin,” she said. I flipped my test packet over faster than a spatula flips a burnt pancake. At the top of my test it said
Science for the Ages,
the name of my Biology textbook. Daddy had been right. Here was my gift.

The first section of my test was all about the dead frog! I had to draw its innards and explain how they work. So, I was starting off the exam with real good thoughts in my mind. That set the tone for the rest of the test.
Real good.

I set my pencil to work, labeling the frog’s stomach, liver, and heart.

My own heart was beating a happy dance of relief. Not once did I need to use my pencil eraser. I was sure of my answers. By the time I got to the parts of the test that had to do with government and algorithms, I was warmed up and feeling fine.

The questions about “The Three Questions” didn’t stop me one bit. By now, me and Mr. Tolstoy were buddies.

When I was done, I reviewed my work. I put down my pencil. I watched the minute hand rise
on the clock. I’d finished with two minutes left to flex my sweaty toes.

The exam is over. Even with the gift that came in getting a test that started off with frog dissection, I feel like
I’ve
been dissected. Oh, my innards!

Gertie was glad for so many exam questions about democracy and the branches of American government.

“Easy, easy, pillow squeezy” was how she described her test.

I’m
just glad Gertie’s got know-how about branches, and I’ve got a brain for frog’s legs.

Now we wait. For our grades.

Sunshine!

At last.

Warm sunshine.

Happy sunshine.

Shine on, sunshine!

My tree mop is worn from the winter weather. But with so much sun, its ropes are dry and dangling.

The mop is as stringy as ever, and ready to play.

This afternoon I reared back with my bat, swinging righty, then met the mop —
bam!
— and sent it soaring.

If that mop could sing, it would have joined me for a chorus of “Welcome Spring.”

I asked Mama if I could please get my pogo stick out from the cellar. “Patience, Dawnie” was all she said.

That means no.

Before now, I never gave the first days of May a second thought other than to mark the beginning of my birthday month. But this is May with a capital
M
.

I was awake before the dew even knew what to do. With Daddy now working for Mama, he drove
me to Ivoryton, let me out at Waverly Street, where we usually part ways on foot.

Waddle greeted me this morning! The markings on her face were the same, but she looked different somehow, smaller. She was partway under a rosebush, scuttling back to where I couldn’t see, out again to greet me, then back to hiding.

Mrs. Thompson’s rosebush was beginning to shed its winter brown. There were no blooms yet, but come summer, pink buds will bring joy.

I followed Waddle to the spot under the bush. I pulled back the low parts of green. Waddle’s whiskers twitched.

She had four baby raccoons suckling her!

They were tiny as newborn kittens, and just as hungry. None of them had face masks or tail rings. Just fur, and tightly shut eyes.

I whispered, “Waddle, you’re a ma! You’re a beautiful ma!”

I left Waddle to her babies, letting a small singsong fill my thoughts:

Waddle’s a ma … Waddle’s a ma …

When I got to the front of the school building, the new bell was there, but was covered in what looked like blue silk.

The Prettyman Bell was waiting for its unveiling.

The entire school gathered, with seventh graders standing in a row closest to Mr. Lloyd.

Mr. Lloyd spoke into a megaphone. “This bell will serve as a salutation to all who enter Prettyman Coburn School each morning. And the bell will usher students out in the afternoon. The power of its sound will be in the hands of our new Bell Ringer.”

Gertie nudged me.

Mr. Lloyd continued. “Our seventh-grade class has the Bell Ringer privilege beginning this month, and extending through the 1955–1956 school year.”

I wanted Mr. Lloyd to stop talking. I was eager to see the Prettyman Bell. But Mr. Lloyd, he sure was taking pride in his megaphone.

“As our seventh-grade teachers tally test scores, the question remains — who will the Bell Ringer be?”

Quietly, with my lips making the words, I prayed a silent prayer:
me, me, me.

That’s when Mr. Lloyd unveiled the Prettyman Bell. He flung off the blue silk, let it flutter behind him. That bell was as big as Goober! It was a brass dream come true, waiting proudly on iron hinges.

My prayer rose up, this time from the deep place somewhere between my heart and belly. The spot where hard wanting lives.

Me … me … me …

How long does it take to grade some tests? It’s been a week since we took the Seventh-Grade All Competency Exam.

The Prettyman Bell is ready for a ringer.

I’m sick and tired of clapping erasers.

I can’t take another minute of Mama’s flypaper and fan.

Enough chalk dust!

Before the sun even knew it was morning, I was awake in bed. Now that spring’s here, light comes sooner into my window. The in-between is the bluest blue, with silver-pink curling in at its edges.

Our whole house was asleep when I crept to the cellar to get my pogo stick. I know Mama had told me not to go near the stick until my birthday, but
between
waiting
for the exam results, and
waiting
to see if I’ll become the Bell Ringer, and
waiting
for me to turn thirteen — I’m
sick
of
waiting.

I pushed past cobwebs and puddles left from so many days of rain, to the back corner of our cellar’s canning closet where my pogo had been stored.

When I pulled the chain that turned on the ceiling bulb, the closet was lit, yellow, dim. There’s not much to that closet. What you see, is what you see. And I could see that my pogo stick was gone! I looked under the potato bin and behind the canning shelf where Mama had stored pickles all winter. No pogo stick. Anyplace.

I couldn’t help what I did next. “GOOBER!” I shouted.

Daddy and Mama came running. Daddy was holding a flashlight. Mama held Goober’s hand.

I was breathing hard, like
I’d
been the one racing to the closet.

“Where’s my pogo?”
I hollered.

Mama said, “Where’s your patience, Dawnie? You were supposed to wait until your birthday to come looking for that stick. You disobeyed me.”

I kicked at the potato bin. I was thinking on what to say.

Daddy said to Mama, “Should we punish her, Loretta?”

Mama said, “Yes, Curtis, let’s punish her.”

Daddy told me to follow him to the subcellar, a cramped, tiny space where our house pipes live. Only the two of us could fit.

Daddy pointed the beam from his flashlight. He moved toward the direction of the light’s ray, which he’d fixed to shine onto an odd shape leaning against the dirt wall. Right then, in our subcellar, Daddy
unveiled
my punishment. There was no blue silk, like the fabric that had covered the Prettyman Bell, but a burlap sheet had kept the surprise hidden — a new pogo stick! A red Ace Flyer with green tassels at the end of each handle.

Mama called, “Has she gotten her punishment?”

Daddy peered through the small opening that led up to where Mama and Goober waited. “I’ve socked it to her good,” he said.

This is the best punishment ever!

Warm weather has a way of putting people in a good mood. Yolanda came over today. I showed
her how high I could jump on my new pogo stick.

Yolanda made up a rhyme, right on the spot.

We giggled at the whole silly thing.

I now know four things for sure about Gertie Feldman.

Gertie Feldman is the daughter of a doctor.

Gertie Feldman is smart.

Gertie Feldman is a big faker!

Gertie Feldman will be my true good friend for a long time.

Our exams came back today. I scored high, but not high enough to be named Bell Ringer. I missed two out of twenty-two questions, and lost points for misspelling
metamorphosis
and
nucleus.

Gertie got a perfect score on her test. She gained three points for spelling everything right.

This afternoon there was another assembly,
this time to name the Bell Ringer. Mrs. Taylor made me finish clapping erasers before the gathering. When I arrived at the bell, I was covered in chalk dust, like always at that time of day. Mr. Williams, the janitor, had come with me. Miss Cora and Miss Billie, the ladies from the cafeteria, were there, too.