With the Might of Angels (3 page)

This morning, Reverend Collier talked about integration. He even took out the New York newspaper Daddy had shown me, and read from it as part of his sermon. He rattled the paper, turned it into a fluttering fan to cool off his parishioners.

“This is the truth. Right here,” he proclaimed. “In the
New York Times
from a week ago last Tuesday.”

Seems everybody had read the same article Daddy had shown me. And for anyone who hadn’t, Reverend Collier spelled it out for them. “Chief Justice Earl Warren from the Supreme Court says, ‘Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.’ ”

The
amens
started up. Reverend Collier flapped and fluttered the New York paper. “Says here that separating black children from others of similar age and qualifications because of their race” — ten more
amens
before the reverend could finish — “generates a feeling of inferiority as to their status in the community that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely to be undone.”

You would have thought Reverend Collier was announcing that the Shepherd’s Way choir was getting new silk robes with gold trim.

“Glory be!” shouted Miss Eloise, our choir director.

“Hallelujah!” flung forward from somebody behind me.

“Amen!” rose on all sides.

When we got home, I asked Mama if I could please put on my Keds and go outside. She was so busy peeling potatoes that she shooed me off with a quick, “Go play, child.”

Soon as I laced up my Keds, I was the one filled with:

Glory be!

Hallelujah!

Amen!

I ran to find Goober, who was perched under the tree mop, crunching on his peanuts.

Why is everyone making such a big deal about the Stepping Up ceremony? We’re not really stepping
up
to anyplace.

Even though we’re going from sixth grade to
seventh grade, we’re staying at Bethune, like all the other colored kids in Hadley. All we’re doing is stepping
over
from the elementary “division” — the side of the building that faces Monroe Street — to the middle school “division” — the wing that lines Crossland Avenue.

We’re stepping
over
to more chewed pencils, more stinky bathrooms, more books with missing pages. And did I mention that Bethune does not have a library?

Today, along with Yolanda and Roger, I took the test Mr. Calhoun described to us last week.

It started off easy enough, and I was even humming “When the Saints Go Marching In” just to stay awake.

I wrote, checked off boxes, and filled in blanks without even sweating. But then something strange happened. Not strange like a noise or a bird flying in the window. But strange inside me.

Suddenly, I knew the answers, but I
didn’t
know the answers, too.

The test was easy as cake, but it started to feel hard somehow.

It was when my mind began to stray that this happened. I looked around at the other kids in the room and wondered,
What is this test really for?
That’s when I struggled with the answers.

One question I will never forget:
Provide a word beginning with the letter
M
that defines a powerful force that propels in a tumultuous fashion.

I read it over and over again.

I broke it down.

…
a powerful force … that propels …

Since the clock on the wall is broke, I couldn’t tell how much longer we had left to finish the test. I don’t know what the word
tumultuous
means. I didn’t want to just write anything, because if I’d wanted to change my mind I wouldn’t have been able to erase my answer — my chewed-up pencil had a bitten-off eraser. Why hadn’t I brought my new red pencil from Goober?

Mr. Calhoun gave us a time warning. “Two more minutes.”

And for the first time ever, I started to sweat a test!

…
beginning with the letter
M …
a powerful force that propels …

I wanted to chew hard on some of that
Wrigley’s gum that was stuck in a wad under my desk.

Finally, with Mr. Calhoun’s “One more minute” warning, I wrote: “MY pogo stick.”

I’ve been trying not to think about the Stepping Up ceremony, but it’s now a week away, and I guess I should get my speech together. I don’t even have a title for the speech, or any idea about what I should say.

I don’t believe in the boogeyman, but I
do
believe in the Panic Monster — a big scary thing that scoops you up and does the
shaboodle-shake
all over your insides.

Mama calls this
nerves.
I call it a puddle under my arms, a dry throat, and teeth set to chatter.

The Panic Monster has got me in his claws right now, and won’t let go.

Mama came into my room with the dress from Millerton’s on a hanger. She wanted me to try that
thing on. The dress rustled under the paper Mama had draped over it. By punching a hole through it with the hanger, the dress stayed covered from its shoulders to its hem. I tried to pretend I’d fallen asleep, but Mama wasn’t having it.

“That is the fakest snore I will ever live to hear,” she said.

I giggled. “Can I try it on tomorrow?”

Mama considered me for a moment. She peeled back the dress’s paper drape. “Well, I suppose we should let the creases fall out from the dress before trying it on,” she said.

I went back to making phony snore sounds.

Kaaaa … shooooo … Kaaaa … shoooo …

That left Mama giggling, too.

Daddy loves baseball as much as me. Today he showed me how to choke up on the bat, to grip it firm at its base so my swing packs more power.

“Then
meet
the ball,” Daddy instructed. “Make friends with the ball as the pitch approaches you. No matter how fast it comes, say, ‘Hey, ball, it’s me and you, baby.’ Then swing at it. And
when you swing, be
intentional,”
Daddy said. “Go at it fully — mean to do what you mean to do.”

Daddy and I practiced in our backyard for near to an hour. When the sun got too hot, Mama brought us lemonade.

“Let the child rest,” she told Daddy. “She needs to come inside and work on her speech for the Stepping Up.”

Mama had that Peach Melba thing in her hand. She’d removed the paper covering completely. “Come, Dawnie,” she coaxed. “You need to try this on.”

“I’ve been playing, Mama. I sure wouldn’t want to get dirt or grass stains on that pretty dress.”

That worked better than fake snores. Mama didn’t even answer. She turned back toward the house, holding the dress away from her.

Daddy must have seen the relief come to my eyes. “Are you
ever
going to try it on?” he asked.

“I gotta write my speech” was my answer.

“I suppose the dress won’t really matter unless your speech is ready,” he said. Then he told me to think of the speech as
meeting
a baseball with a bat. “It’s you and your message, coming together,” he said. “Keep it simple.”

I wish it
was
simple. I have not written a single word of that blanged speech!

So, right here, right now, I’ll start.

Hey, speech. It’s you and me. Simple, right?

How come, then, I can’t think of something
simple
to say?

I thought maybe if I wrote down some of the reasons why I don’t want to give the Stepping Up speech, it’ll help me get to reasons why I might
like
to give it, and then maybe I’ll actually think of what to say for the speech.

Reasons I don’t want to give the Stepping Up speech:

1. I don’t want to wear the Peach Melba dress.

2. I don’t want to wear the hard black shiny shoes.

3. Even though I have the gift of gab, it doesn’t work for giving speeches.

4.
Stepping over
doesn’t deserve a speech.

I’ve had my pogo stick for as long as I can remember. It’s rusty and rickety, and it squeaks, but it still works.

I slammed hard on its pedals today, hoping a bunch of pogo jumping would bring on some good ideas for my speech.

Not one speech-y thought came. Punching the pavement with my pogo sure felt good, though.

That pogo’s spring is on its last leg, but it keeps going. My own legs are getting stronger every time I pump.

The Panic Monster doesn’t ever sleep, no, no, no.

He gets into his rhythm, and
works.
Tonight he’s going double-time.

Shaboodle-shake-shake. Shaboodle-shake-shake.

I’m as rattly as a loose screw in a can.

Tomorrow is the Stepping Up ceremony.

The only speech I know is the Pledge of Allegiance.

Panic Monster, have mercy!

It’s just after the in-between. I’ve been up most of the night. Now the sun is showing off the very top of her head.

Morning soon.

Still no speech.

S
haboodle-shake-shake.
S
haboodle-shake-shake.

Today was the Stepping Up ceremony, and in all my twelve years of life, I have never
stepped
like that.

Getting ready to go to Bethune was the worst part.

The Peach Melba dress didn’t fit me right. When I came out of my bedroom, Mama and Daddy were like two hovering chickens, peck, peck, pecking.

The Panic Monster flaring up alongside my parents didn’t help matters. I was sweating
more than a cold pitcher of iced tea set out on a hundred-degree day.

“The dress is too small,” I said.

I turned around so they could both see that the dress’s zipper would only go halfway.

“Square your shoulders, Dawnie,” Daddy said. “That’ll help.”

Who knows how a father figures out stuff like that? But Daddy was partly right. When I stood straight-straight, with my shoulders pressed back and my neck lifted, the dress seemed to fit better.

“We can’t take any chances,” Mama said, scurrying off to get her sewing basket. “Stay just like that, Dawnie.”

I didn’t move. I held my breath, even.

Mama came quick with a needle and peach-colored thread. She started stitching from the place where the waist of the dress joins the body part of the dress — Mama sewed me in! The only thing closer was my skin.

I have other dresses I could have worn, but they’re homemade and plain, and I knew Mama and Daddy were set on me wearing the dress from Millerton’s. Besides, I don’t dare challenge Daddy and Mama, not ever. So I let Mama do her needle-and-thread busywork up the length of my back.

When Mama bit off the final tail of thread, I still had my shoulders fixed, and my neck stretched as straight as my pogo stick.

It got worse. Mama wiped down my new shoes with Vaseline to make them even shinier. Isn’t patent leather shiny enough?

My face came next. Same Vaseline. Same high shine on my forehead, cheeks, and nose. Then there was the talcum powder. “To keep you dry,” Mama explained.

I coughed and coughed as Mama doused me with that thick talcum. The powder helped dry my sweat. But by the time we left, I was a ginger-snap cookie, decorated with powdered sugar, sewn up in a Peach Melba dress.

“Pretty Dawnie,” Goober said, clapping. “Want a peanut, pretty Dawnie?”

I reached for a peanut. “Thanks, Goob.”

But Mama was quicker than me. She snatched that peanut faster than a hen grabs at a kernel of corn. “No eating before you’re about to give a speech. It weakens the voice, dulls the smile.”

We walked to Bethune, like always. On our way, we met up with Yolanda and her ma and daddy. “You look good in that dress, Dawnie,” Yolanda said. “But you’re walking funny.”

I didn’t answer. Between the talcum still rising off me and my Peach Melba trap, I could hardly breathe.

The whole school — all four hundred and seventy-two students and their families — filled every corner of Bethune’s gymnasium. Night crawlers in a can had more room than we did, all squeezed together in that hot, cramped place.

There were three chairs on the stage, where me, Yolanda, and Roger were meant to sit before delivering our remarks.

Roger and Yolanda settled into their chairs right away. I didn’t dare sit. One bad move in that dress, and Peach Melba would be done for.

“I’ll just stand,” I told Mr. Calhoun.

“Suit yourself, Dawnie.”

Roger spoke first, then Yolanda. They each said short thank-yous to their families and teachers, and talked about how glad they were to be “stepping up” to seventh grade.

Alls I could think about was the Pledge of Allegiance and the Peach Melba dress that was now choking me. The talcum powder wasn’t doing its job. (The Panic Monster has a way of killing anything that’s even the least bit helpful.)

I was so overcome with terror that I couldn’t
even remember the Pledge of Allegiance. The wrong words kept filling me up.

I pledge allegiance to perspiration …

Then came the Panic Monster for the tenth time today, his sharp claws lifting me from the puddly place under my arms. His loud-as-thunder
shaboodle-shake
rattling inside my head.

Mr. Calhoun announced that I was the sixth grader with the best grades. That throughout my time at Bethune, I showed “very bright promise,” and that I had brought honor to Mary McLeod Bethune’s legacy.