Fire from the Rock (14 page)

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Authors: Sharon Draper

BOOK: Fire from the Rock
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Sylvia's mother gave a warning look to her sister, then said to Sylvia, “You want to help?” She offered her a pile of green stamps. Mama brought them home from the grocery store and saved them to redeem them in books. When the books were full, they could be redeemed for gifts and prizes. “Glory streams from the table of daily life,” her mother said cryptically.
Rarely did Sylvia completely understand what her mother meant when she quoted those sayings of hers. “Do I have to?” Sylvia asked with a sigh.
“No, but when I save enough books to get you a record player so you can play those ridiculous rock and-roll songs you seem to like so much, you'll be sorry you didn't help.”
Sylvia wanted a record player more than anything, so she pulled up a chair and grabbed a pile of the stamps. She slid them across the wet cloth on the table to moisten them just enough so they'd stick in the book.
“How many books do we need to get a record player?” she asked, looking at the small pile of completed booklets.
“About twenty-five—the same number I need to get a new electric coffeepot.” Her mother gave her a smile.
“No fair! You don't even drink coffee!” Sylvia told her, pointing to her teacup.
“Your daddy does.”
“I think I deserve a record player more than Daddy needs a coffeepot. He likes the way you make his coffee on the stove, anyway.”
“Hush while you're ahead, child,” Aunt Bessie said then. “Paste and hope.”
Sylvia sat down and ran a strip of stamps over the wet cloth. As she worked, her fingers quickly became tinged with green and slightly sticky.
“I heard they're going to try to integrate a few schools this fall in Virginia and Tennessee also,” Sylvia's mother commented.
“I pray for those children. They should only have to worry about learning their times tables, not how to dodge rotten eggs or rocks being thrown at them,” Aunt Bessie said bitterly. “You heard anything from the school folks here yet?”
“No, but I read in the newspaper that the Arkansas Senate passed not one, but four segregation bills. One made attendance not mandatory at all integrated schools,” Sylvia's mother replied.
Sylvia looked up with amazement. “What? That means white kids can skip school and not get in trouble. No fair!”
“Who said anything about fair?” Aunt Bessie replied angrily, making her stamps so wet they refused to stick in the booklet. “They don't want us in their schools, and they're not going to make it easy for anybody who tries.”
“What a cost. What a cost,” Sylvia's mother said, shaking her head, “that we must pay for progress.”
“Speaking of cost, did you hear they're paying the Jews over a thousand dollars each if they survived Auschwitz?” Aunt Bessie asked as she pasted another page of stamps, a little less wet this time.
Sylvia looked up with interest as she remembered that hot day in Mr. Zucker's store. She had learned in school about the horrors of the concentration camps during the war. Over six million Jews had been killed, similar to the millions of Africans that had been killed during the time of slavery. She wondered if that payment involved Mr. Zucker, and if it did, if he would apply for the money. It didn't seem like something he would want to remember or call attention to.
“They deserve more than that,” Sylvia's mother replied with a shudder. “They were starved, tortured, and humiliated. So many of their families were gassed like animals, then burned in giant ovens. It's horrible what people can think up to hurt one another.” She touched Sylvia gently with green-tinged fingertips.
Sylvia's mind reeled as she thought about kids her age being sold at auction, or being executed in a concentration camp, or being lynched like Emmet Till. And here she was, getting ready to volunteer to be persecuted for going to school. She shook her head.
“Not much has changed,” Aunt Bessie said quietly.
Sylvia spent the rest of the afternoon with her mother and her aunt, pasting the stamps into the books, and soaking in the edges of their adult conversation.
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 17, 1957
Miss Ethel Washington held a sheet of paper in her hand, which trembled slightly. Sylvia could see only that the words on it were typed in two neat columns. The class was silent-even Calvin had no jokes today.
“May I have your attention, please,” Miss Washington asked, even though the room was so quiet it echoed.
She spoke quietly and deliberately. “According to research done by the Little Rock Board of Education, five hundred and seventeen Negro students who live in the Central High district are technically eligible to attend Central High School.” She paused. “Of that number, eighty students and their parents originally expressed an interest in being seriously considered. As of today, forty-two students are still willing to be considered to be the first students to attempt the integration of Central High.” She stopped again, removed her glasses to wipe them clean with her handkerchief, and slowly replaced them on her nose.
“So will those students go to Central?” Calvin asked in a surprisingly quiet voice.
“Not so soon, Mr. Cobbs. There is a process that must be followed. The remaining students must be interviewed by a committee of the school board.”
“Why?”
“To make sure that they are the right people for the job—because it will be difficult.”
“Anybody in here on the list?” Calvin asked.
“The only student in our class who still remains on the list is Sylvia Faye Patterson,” Miss Washington replied quietly. Sylvia sat up straighter at her desk as the rest of the class turned to look at her. She felt like a bug under a microscope.
Lou Ann glanced at Sylvia, then nodded her head in Reggie's direction. Sylvia turned to look. He was frowning.
Candy Castle leaned over and whispered to Reggie, loud enough for Sylvia to hear, “You know who to call when she's up at Central being Miss Chocolate Chip in the vanilla ice cream. You get lonely, I always got extra candy at my house.” To his credit, Reggie tried to ignore her while some of the other boys chuckled at the less than subtle hints she was dropping.
Calvin said out loud, “I'm proud to know you, Sylvia. And if you ever need somebody to make you laugh, just call me and I'll tell you a dirty joke!”
Sylvia smiled at Calvin and thanked him.
Some students glanced at her with envy, others with pity. Finally she bowed her head—the stares were sharp and almost painful.
Calvin raised his hand again. “When are the interviews?” he asked. Sylvia was grateful that he was asking, because she wasn't sure if she could even talk at that point.
“Sylvia Faye must report tomorrow after school,” the teacher replied.
Sylvia swallowed hard and glanced up at Miss Washington, who tried not to look concerned. But she noticed that her teacher's fingertips silently drummed her desk for the rest of the afternoon.
Sylvia gave her parents the information at dinner. She found she had very little appetite.
“What are you gonna say to them, Sylvie?” Donna Jean asked as she tried to cut her pork chop.
“I have no idea, DJ. I guess I'll try to convince them I'm a good person,” Sylvia replied.
DJ finally gave up on her knife, picked up the pork chop with her hands, and bit into it with gusto. She ignored her mother's frown of disapproval. “You need to be more than good. I think they're looking for perfect!”
“White kids aren't perfect,” Gary said sullenly. “Not even close.”
“They don't have to be,” Donna Jean told him. “They're white!”
“It is true that often we have to try twice as hard to receive half as much,” their mother admitted. She scooped more gravy onto Gary's plate.
“I just want an equal chance,” Sylvia said quietly. “Are you coming with me tomorrow, Daddy?” Her father had remained unusually quiet during the meal.
“Yes, child, I'll be there. I want that committee to know you've got a strong family behind you. I'll speak my mind if I have to.”
“Really?” Sylvia was surprised.
“Have you ever known me to sidestep an opportunity to talk in front of a group?”
Sylvia shook her head. “No, Daddy.” She couldn't believe he was being so supportive.
“Are you scared, Sylvie?” Gary asked.
“Terrified,” she admitted. “I really don't know what to expect.”
“You want me to go in your place?” he asked, only half jokingly.
“I really do wish you could,” she told him. She stirred her food, but ate very little.
“I'd tell those stupid white folks to keep their old school!” Donna Jean said suddenly.
“Donna Jean!” her mother cried out. “I won't have you talking like that! Mind your mouth, young lady.”
“But, Mama,” DJ wailed. “Why can't things just stay like they are? We're happy at school, and we don't have to worry about bad people hurting us. What's so great about being with white people anyway?”
No one seemed to have an answer. Gary started to speak, but was silenced by a look from his father.
“The world is changing, baby girl,” Mr. Patterson said quietly. “Whether we want it to or not.”
Mrs. Patterson motioned to Donna Jean to come to her. DJ climbed on her mother's lap and snuggled close. Her mother rocked her as if she were still a baby. Sylvia cleared the table. Gary went to his room, unusually silent.
After dinner her father retreated to his favorite chair to read the Little Rock newspapers, but he seemed to have trouble concentrating. He flipped from page to page hurriedly instead of his usual careful, slow method of going through the paper.
Sylvia sat on the hassock near his chair and asked him shyly, “Daddy, do you think the kids at Central will like me?”
“Of course they will, Sylvia Faye,” he told her, not looking up from the paper.
“That's not what I mean, Daddy. Do you think I'll fit in with them, with the things they talk about and like to do?”
Her father hardly ever looked right at her—he sometimes looked in her direction, but Sylvia always got the feeling that something else more important had his attention. But at that moment, he looked directly at her, then gave Sylvia one of his rare smiles. “If the kids at Central are as smart and talented as you are, Sylvia Faye Patterson, they'll be mighty special. And if they have any sense, they'll be proud to call you their friend.”
Sylvia sat there stunned. Her father rarely gave her a direct compliment. She gave him a hug and hurried off to her room to check on Donna Jean.
Wednesday, April 17-evening
All I can think about
is what it would be like to go to school with white kids, with kids who think Elvis Presley is cute and Frank Sinatra is dreamy. Kids who have blond hair and blue eyes. When they knock, the doors always open. They expect good stuff to happen for them, and it does-like a magic wand or something. These kids don't know what it feels like to have a store clerk make you put your money on the counter so they don't have to touch your hand. These kids don't ever think about the fact that the history books we use in school have nothing about famous Negroes, and no pictures of colored people except for a few photos of slaves.
Maybe Reggie is right-I should just stay where I belong, where I'm safe and happy and accepted. I'd miss so much if I left the friends I've gone to school with since first grade. Parties. Dances. Clubs. Basketball and football games. I've heard the Negro kids would not be allowed to participate in any of this stuff at Central.
It's their school and their world. They have their customs just like we do-football teams and cheerleaders and dances and such. I guess I would feel funny if I was told that I would have to go to school with little green men from Mars. But I'm not green—I'm human just like they are.
I've never been inside Central High School, but besides the fact that it's huge, huge, huge—covering one whole city block, it's got to be just like any other school, right? Lockers. Shiny, waxed wooden floors. A library filled with thousands of books waiting for a thirsty kid like me to gulp them down. A cafeteria that always seems to smell like tomato soup, no matter what they're serving.
Teachers—some fair, some biased, probably a few who are angry—all smarter than me and maybe not willing, but able to teach me. And students. Not all of them would be horrible racists. Many will want to help, and would be kind? Right? Rachel, for example, will be there. She would stand up for me, wouldn't she? Would she be afraid to tell people that we were friends?
Last week someone painted another swastika on the door of Zucker's store, Rachel told me. This was the third time in the past few months. Rachel suspects the Crandalls next door-probably Johnny and his hateful hoodlum friends. She said the first time it happened, her father sat down on the ground and cried—that must be awful watching your daddy shed real tears. She and her parents stayed up all night washing the door and repainting it. Three times the door has been painted. Three times.
If Rachel can't be safe in Little Rock, how do I stand a chance?
THURSDAY, APRIL 18, 1957
Sylvia Faye Patterson!” the harsh female voice called out. “Yes, ma'am,” Sylvia replied, standing up quickly from the wooden chair at the far end of the long, empty hallway. Her mother squeezed her right hand, and her father squeezed her left, but she suddenly felt chillingly alone.
“Enter!” the woman commanded from the other end of the hall.
“Yes, ma'am,” Sylvia said again as she hurried toward the voice. A large, curtainless window let in the full impact of the afternoon sunshine, so Sylvia could only see the silhouette of the woman with the strident voice. Her parents seemed to be miles behind her.

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