Feathers (11 page)

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Authors: Jacqueline Woodson

BOOK: Feathers
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“It was the right thing,” I said again. “Trevor was just sitting there in the snow.”
“And why do you think the Jesus Boy went over to him?” Samantha asked. But she wasn’t looking at me. She was looking over at the Jesus Boy. “I mean, you know—after he said those bad things about Trevor’s dad?” She frowned. “After he showed his true colors and all. And me thinking that maybe he’d come here really being Jesus and all.”
I looked at Samantha. “Maybe he is,” I said.
“You’re crazy. Jesus would never say something about somebody’s daddy.”
“But he wept,” I said. “You said so yourself. And so did Trevor. So maybe Trevor’s Jesus!”
“That’s blasphemy,” Samantha said.
“I was hoping . . . ,” she said slowly. “I was hoping so hard that Jesus had come back and had come right into our classroom. And the hoping turned into believing, I guess.” She put her head on her fist and stared at the Jesus Boy. “But Rayray was right. Why would Jesus come
here,
to this side of the highway, to Price.”
“But he did, Samantha. The Jesus Boy did.”
“But he’s not the real Jesus.”
“Maybe he is. Maybe there’s a little bit of Jesus inside of all of us. Maybe Jesus is just that something good or something sad or something . . . something that stays with us and makes us do stuff like help Trevor up even though he’s busy cursing us out. Or maybe . . . maybe Jesus is just that thing you had when the Jesus Boy first got here, Samantha. Maybe Jesus is the hope that you were feeling.”
“You don’t make any kind of sense,” Samantha said.
But I did make sense. Maybe I only made sense to me. But maybe I was the only one I
needed
to make sense to.
20
Ms. Johnson says everybody has a story. She said some of us are afraid to tell ours and that’s why when it comes time to write something, we say we have writer’s block. Ms. Johnson says there’s no such thing as writer’s block. She said it’s just your mind saying to your body,
I ain’t trying to write that jive.
Everybody laughed when she said it like that because, mostly, Ms. Johnson speaks proper.
“Then what does your mind want your hand to write?” Ms. Johnson asked the class.
Trevor was tracing the letters on his desk. Rayray was staring out the window. I looked down at my blank paper, my pencil in my hand and my hand and mind real still and quiet.
“Frannie?” Ms. Johnson looked at me.
I shrugged. “A story?”
“Maybe,” Ms. Johnson said. She walked slowly over to Rayray and turned his head gently toward the front of the room. She walked over to Trevor, lifted his pencil out of his hand.
“If the story is the truth,” Ms. Johnson said.
“But that’s nonfiction then,” somebody said.
“The truth in your heart. My daddy says we all have a truth in our hearts.”
It was the Jesus Boy speaking. He even surprised Ms. Johnson. But she tried to hide it by smiling.
“Exactly,” Ms. Johnson said. “Write what your heart tells you to write.”
We all looked around the room at each other. Nobody said anything.
“My heart’s not saying a
nything
,” Rayray said. He slumped down in his chair. “I
hate
this.”
Ms. Johnson walked back to the front of the room. “Think of a day in your life,” she said. “Any kind of day—where something big happened or nothing at all happened. Something important or something just regular, like you ate a sandwich while watching some cartoons.
Anything.
Just try to write down every single detail you can remember about it.”
The Jesus Boy raised his hand. “When I was three years old, my mama and daddy brought me home and told me that they’d be my mama and daddy from that point on—”
I heard someone whisper, “So that’s it! He’s adopted!” but the Jesus Boy didn’t hear. Or maybe he ignored them.
“And from then on, that was my mom and that was my dad. But I don’t remember anything about that day, so how can I write it?”
Ms. Johnson nodded. “That’s an excellent question. How do we write what we don’t remember.”
We all just looked at her.
“How about,” she said slowly. “How about
imagining
how something felt.” She turned back to the Jesus Boy. “Imagine how that day must have felt for you,” she said.
And slowly, the Jesus Boy smiled as though all the memory was suddenly flooding back into his brain.
I looked down at my paper. There were a million days in my head, all of them marching all over each other. All of them coming from my heart and feeling like my heart-truth. I didn’t have the slightest idea where to begin. There were all kinds of thoughts swirling around in my head and it felt like the whole class dropped away and disappeared and all that was left was me and my pen and my paper and the whole wide world spinning around me. I felt dizzy with all those thoughts, had to put my head down on the desk.
“Frannie, are you okay?” I heard Ms. Johnson asking. Her voice sounded like it was coming from real far away.
I nodded into my arm but didn’t lift my head. “I don’t even know what the first line to write would be,” I said.
“Begin at Frannie’s beginning,” Ms. Johnson said.
The first word I ever learned was
now.
Sean said I was not even two years old when he showed me the word—middle fingers against your palms, thumbs and pinkies up and your hands moving down.
I lifted my head and took a deep breath.
My brother taught me to speak,
I wrote.
I grew up inside his world of words . . .
21
That afternoon, as Samantha and me walked home, the Jesus Boy came running up to us. Samantha looked at him without really looking at him. Now that she’d discovered he wasn’t really Jesus, it was like she couldn’t care less about him.
“Hey,” the Jesus Boy said.
“Hey yourself,” I said back.
Samantha just watched us.
“I’m swimming tomorrow,” he said. “It’s Saturday.”
I looked at him and nodded.
“So if you go to the rec center, you’ll probably see me.” He smiled.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay,” he said back. Then none of us said anything.
“I guess I should head home then,” the Jesus Boy said.
“Okay,” I said again.
He turned, then turned back again. “Hey Frannie,” he said. “It would be cool if I saw you there.”
For the first time, he didn’t look calm. He looked nervous and a little bit scared.
“Maybe it was somebody you knew,” I said, signing the words at the same time. “Before your mama and daddy brought you home. Maybe there was somebody who you knew who knew how to sign, right?”
The Jesus Boy smiled. “I remember and I don’t remember. That’s crazy, right?”
I thought about Mr. Hungry, how he stayed with me even though I didn’t remember a single thing about the commercial. “It’s not real crazy,” I said. “Just a little bit crazy.”
Samantha stared at us.
“If you see a empty pinball machine,” I said, “get it. And stay on it until I get there.” I gave him the peace sign.
The Jesus Boy looked confused for a minute. Then he smiled. Then the smile got a little bit bigger. “See you tomorrow,” he said.
Me and Samantha watched him walk away.
“Was he trying to ask you on a date or something?”
I stared at his back.
We started walking again.
“Nah,” I said. “He’s just a new kid. That’s all. Remember when I was the new kid?”
“That was a long time ago,” Samantha said.
“You forget a whole lotta stuff by the time you’re eleven and a half, Samantha. But you don’t forget
that
. It stays with you. Always.”
Samantha turned again and watched the Jesus Boy. “It would have been nice, Frannie. It would have meant all that
believing
and
hoping
I do all the time means something, you know.” She took my hand. “If he had really been Jesus, that would have been nice.”
“Yeah,” I said, squeezing her hand. “I would have asked about Lila—if she was okay. If she was having fun.” I looked at Samantha. “And I would have asked about the one that’s coming—about all the ones that are coming all over the world . . . I would have asked Him if we were all gonna be all right.”
I looked up at the sky and took a deep breath.
“Some days,” I said. “I just want to know that we’re all gonna be all right.”
We walked the rest of the way without talking, Samantha holding tight to my hand.
22
The baby inside Mama’s belly grows and grows. This morning, I wake to find her in the rocker by the window, staring out into the sun. She looks beautiful sitting there with all the light around her.
“Hey sleepyhead,” she says. “Can you believe this sun? After all those weeks of snow?” She smiles. “Your daddy just went out to get some muffin mix. This one craves the same things you did.”
I craved burgers,
Sean says. He is in his blue pajamas and has his head against the wall next to the stereo speaker. There is soft music coming out. Sean puts his hand on the speaker and sways.
Just like a true basketball star.
I don’t know what burgers have to do with basketball, but I don’t tell Sean.
Everything in the living room is lit up bright gold by the sun. I stand there staring at the way it falls across the couch and the coffee table and Mama in her rocking chair and Sean on the floor beside her.
Ms. Johnson says each day holds its own memory—its own moments that we can write about later. She says we should always look for the moments and some of them might be perfect, filled with light and hope and laughter. Moments that stay with us forever and ever. Amen.
On the stereo, a man with a beautiful high voice is singing about a bridge over troubled water.
When darkness comes,
he sings,
and pain is all around. I will comfort you . . .
Maybe later, I’ll tag along with Sean to the rec center. Maybe I’ll watch him play and think of evil things to say to the hearing girls.
Maybe I’ll stand in the hall and find some new graffiti on the posters. Maybe I’ll beat the Jesus Boy at pinball and be the pinball champion of the world.
I climb onto Mama’s lap and put my head against her shoulder, my feet hanging all the way down to the floor. Sean rolls his eyes and signs,
Big baby.
But Mama just laughs and puts her arms around me.
And if Samantha shows up, maybe we can all three hang out together and she can start to see the Jesus inside the boy inside the Jesus Boy.
Maybe.
“Let the baby have some room, Franny,” Mama says, shifting a little.
From somewhere inside Mama’s belly, a tiny foot kicks at me.
“For a little while longer,” I say, “I’m the baby in this family.”
“For a little while,” Mama says.
And in case you didn’t know,
Sean says.
A little while isn’t long at all.
I stick my tongue out at him and he laughs.
I know that,
I say.
A million times I know that!
Then I put my head on Mama’s shoulder and close my eyes, the sun warm against my face, the man’s voice on the record getting softer and higher. Then fading away.
Each moment,
I am thinking,
is a thing with feathers.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
With so much love and thanks to Nancy Paulsen, who has always seen the book inside the mess that is the early draft.
Toshi Reagon, Patti Sullivan, Jill Harris, An Na, Valerie Winborne, Jana Welch, Linda Villarosa, Jane Sasseen, Jayme Lynes, patient listeners that you are—thank you.
The young people in Cynthiana, Kentucky, in St. Louis, Missouri, and right here in Brooklyn at New Voices Middle School—thanks for listening.
And thanks also to Toshi G., Omilana, Gus and Jo, Ellison, Tashawn, Kali, Nicky, Juna, Lissa, Baby June, Ming, and Ella. Each day, you are my feathers.
Turn the page for a sample of
Jacqueline Woodson’s newest book,
Peace,
Locomotion
Imagine peace.
 
I think it’s blue because that’s my favorite color.
I think it’s soft like flannel sheets in the
wintertime.
 
I think Peace is full—
like a stomach after a real good dinner—
beef stew and corn bread or
shrimp fried rice and egg rolls.
 
Even better
 
Than some barbecue chicken.
 
I think Peace is pretty—like my sister, Lili.
 
And I think it’s nice—like my friend Clyde.
 
I think if you imagine it, like that
Beatles guy used to sing about?
 
Then it can happen.
 
Yeah, I think
 
Peace Can Happen.
—Lonnie Collins Motion,
aka
Locomotion
Dear Lili,
As you know, in a few days I’m going to be twelve. That means two things:
1. In six weeks, you’ll be nine.
2. In nine more years, I’ll be twenty-one and then I’ll be old enough to take care of you by myself. And when I’m twenty-one and you’re eighteen, I’ll still be your big brother and kind of like the boss of you. But I won’t be mean. And if you want, we can keep living in Brooklyn. Maybe we’ll even find a place near your foster mama’s house because I know you like it a lot over there since it’s right near the park and there’s a cool playground and stuff. When we’re together again, I’ll take you to that playground myself so you won’t be missing it. Even if we’re big, we can still go, right? I see big kids at the one over here sometimes. They hang off the jungle gym and go down the slide. They be acting all crazy and having a real good time.
When we were small, Mama used to take us to the playground over by where our old house was. Since you were still real little, she’d have to go with you down the slide. “Lonnie, you take your sister down the slide now,” she’d say sometimes.

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