Jakarta Missing (24 page)

“You know what this calls for, don't you?” Melanie whispered.

“What?” Dakar looked at Melanie, puzzled.

Suddenly they both said together, “The magic place.”

They ran all the way there. Dakar couldn't get her breath because she couldn't stop laughing. But they didn't stop running when they got to the magic place. They ran in circles in the melting snow, shouting, “Monkey toe, camel bones, petals of lotus, three. Elephant tusk. Hair of dog. Bark of sycamore tree. Wing of eel. Tooth of snail. Golden lion's mane. Giraffe's eyelash. Murmur of bat. Three silver birds flying home in the rain.”

Dakar's head felt light and zingy. This kind of magic making was fun.

“I just have this feeling that everything's going to work out,” Melanie said.

Dakar hugged her. True friendship must be another one of those things that sent magic slivers into the world. “Me, too,” she said.

Nothing could shake her feeling. Jakarta spent almost the entire weekend in the gym. Sunday afternoon Mom drove Aunt Lily and Dakar over to the school so they could watch Jakarta practice. “You've got to see how many threes she can make when no one's guarding her,” Dakar told them.

On Monday morning Dakar visited the wall o' jocks, just for good luck. “Don't feel bad,” she felt like saying to Promise Johnson. “Your record stood for ten years. They'll probably keep your name up there somewhere.”

“It'll be okay. It'll be okay,” she found herself whispering all through the day.

Monday night she offered to do the dishes to make the time go faster. When she was finished, she did a little two-step into the living room, feeling a jittery exhilaration, exactly as if she were the one who was headed for glory. “Hey,” she said, “I think it's time. We should go.”

Dad was cleaning ashes out of the fireplace. He sat back on his heels. “So early?”

Aunt Lily put her pen down with a flourish. “Last game of the season. The gym will be jam-packed. Dakar, will you get my cane from the hallway?”

“Coming?” Mom asked Dad, almost casually.

“I'm tempted.” He smiled. “But I think I'll say no. I'd rather encourage mending and building in my children than crushing and winning.”

“Your daughter is quite a girl,” Aunt Lily said. “Was she always athletic?”

“Always,” Dad said. “When we couldn't find her in Maji, we'd look in the schoolyard and she'd be kicking the soccer ball around with the older schoolboys.”

“She certainly is a natural at basketball, like my mother,” Aunt Lily said.

“The thing that stands out most in my memory,” Mom said, “is that if she ever got a challenge in front of her, she went after it tooth and nail. I suppose it's genetic. Naneh, Jakarta's birth mother, was determined to get out of her own sheltered upbringing. She talked her parents into letting her be an aide in the school because the headmaster was a friend of the family.”

“Yes,” Dad said dryly. “Naneh came to Indonesia because she wanted to do something for people and not simply be a pampered Persian princess. Her daughter just wants to play basketball.”

Mom ignored him. “She once told me a story about her father's mother. Apparently Naneh's grandmother was from a wealthy but a village family, and after her son married into a sophisticated city family, he commanded his mother to learn to read so she wouldn't appear so provincial. One day he visited her, and she told him, ‘Son, you commanded me to go to school. I didn't want to, but I did your bidding, and I have learned to read. Now, my son, I must tell you that if you command me to quit my school, I will not.'”

Good, Dakar thought. Jakarta had Strong Woman Genes from at least her great-grandmother on. She'd need them tonight. Everyone said the Storm was a tough, gritty team.

Dad stood up and walked over to the table. “Jakarta has a brilliant mind, too.” His voice sounded frustrated and a little sad. “I always thought she'd find a way to wipe out malaria or something. Did you know that somewhere in the world a child dies of malaria every twelve seconds?”

Aunt Lily motioned to Dad, who helped her push back her chair. “I know what you mean,” she said. “After Otis was killed, Iris said to me, ‘Wouldn't you feel better if he had at least died doing something useful?' And I remembered the time Otis once told me that when he went to meet his Maker, his only hope would be to say he'd been an artist, creating sculptures in the air.”

Dakar had a sudden image of what Great-Uncle Otis must have looked like, turning quadruple somersaults, making air sculptures with his tightly tucked knees.

“On the other hand,” Aunt Lily said, using Dad's arm to help her stand up, “in confirmation class in a little Lutheran church long ago, on an evening when we had
lefse
with gooseberry sauce, the pastor had Iris and me memorize what one of the Church Fathers wrote: ‘The glory of God is man fully alive.'”

“We'd better go,” Mom said. She sounded edgy. “Or we won't get any seats at all.”

Suddenly Aunt Lily's finger was on Dad's chest like a pin popping a balloon. “Jakarta might not be saving any lives or changing the world,” she said. “But when she plays, she creates something beautiful.”

In the stunned silence Dakar could tell from their expressions they both wanted to say more. Neither one did.

Finally Aunt Lily reached for her cane. “Merciful heavens,” she said crisply, “let's not be late to see Jakarta set the school record.”

They were almost out the door before Dad was there, pulling on his coat. “You're right,” he said. Aunt Lily gave him a sharp look, and he laughed. “If we wait any longer,” he said, putting his arm around her, “we might not get a seat.”

T
he gym was rocking with noise by the time they got there. Dakar stepped through the door and stared up at the packed seats. The back-flipping cheerleader was doing her flips down the length of the gym. The high school band was playing. Some kids had painted their faces maroon-and-gray and were standing at the edge of the court with their arms around one another, shouting and doing high kicks. Dakar spotted Andrea's purple hair. If Mom and Dad weren't here, Dakar would be with the others, locked in the middle of a human chain. Her heart felt as big as all Africa.

“Where should we sit?” Mom was shouting.

“I don't know.” Dakar looked helplessly around. They should have left even earlier. The gym was already so full. And Aunt Lily shouldn't be climbing too many steps.

“Hey!” It was Pharo, standing up, waving. “Seats over here.”

Dad started in that direction, and Dakar let Aunt Lily and Mom go next. She wanted to sit at the end where she could go outside for a few minutes if it got too tense. They'd almost reached Pharo when she realized his mother was sitting beside him in a bright red coat, waving a little maroon-and-gray flag.

“Are you having a hallelujah moment?” Dakar called to her.

“I am,” she called back. “Your sister has this whole town cheering together for something. And that's a hallelujah thing.”

Dakar loved watching Pharo introduce Mom and Dad and Aunt Lily to his mother. “You have lived in Africa,” the cook said, shaking her head. “Now there is a firmament that's full of the glory of God.”

“Yes, these three have been out changing the world,” Aunt Lily said loudly, settling beside her. “But sometimes people get weary.”

“Doesn't the Good Book say not to be weary of well-doing?” the cook asked tartly.

“It does,” Aunt Lily said, just as tartly. “But another wise writer says those who make up their minds to go and see the world must needs find it a weary journey. Some of us are going to do crossword puzzles and make quilts and soup, and when spring comes, we need someone to show us how to plant a garden in this soil.”

The cook settled back and nodded. “I'll help you put in the peas and beans if you folks will tell me all about Africa while we hoe.”

Cartwheels of sound suddenly rippled along the crowd, and people started leaping to their feet. The basketball team must be coming in. Dakar thought, as she jumped up, that Aunt Lily and the cook would be perfect friends. She could imagine the two of them—no, all five of them—Mom, Aunt Lily, Jakarta, the cook, and Dakar, standing in a tight, warm circle, planting beans. What about Dad? She sneaked a look at him, and he smiled and crossed his eyes at her.

The roar in the gym was dizzying. Dakar listened to the announcer's voice booming above it, and then the band started in on the school song. When the cheerleaders were introduced, they made a pyramid and flung the little pompoms into the stands. Aunt Lily caught one. She waved it wildly when the announcer called Jakarta's name and it was Jakarta's turn to run through the circle of paper and out into the middle of the floor. Jakarta had by far the loudest cheers. Even though Dakar had been so sure everything was going to be fine, she could feel nervousness rippling under her skin.

Within minutes she knew Jakarta must be nervous, too. Almost before anyone knew what was happening, the Storm had leaped out to a ten-point lead. Their tall center beat out the Wildcat center on the opening jump, and the Storm forward who drove in was fouled as she made her basket. She made the free throw, and that was three points right there. At the other end Jakarta shot a trey, but the ball rolled off the rim. “Two rolls and no coffee,” the announcer said as the other team got the rebound and turned the possession into another two points.

Before you could blink, Dakar thought, the Wildcats had suddenly fallen apart, making only one basket to the Storm's six. “It's coming down around us like Jericho,” the cook murmured.

“Come on, Wildcats!” Dakar screamed. Her throat felt scratchy with longing. She looked at Dad. He had a faraway expression on his face. What was he thinking? Would it make him feel better to see the Wildcats lose?

Jakarta didn't let the team unravel. When the coach gestured to call time-out—his voice drowned in the noise—Jakarta instantly made the T with her hands. Pharo tapped Dakar's shoulder. When she looked up, he said, “Jakarta knows what's up. She's coming out of this huddle supaloafed.”

Dakar laughed. “She taught you that word?”

“The Storm point guard is on her like skin. That's the problem.”

He was right, Dakar saw as the play started again. Jakarta couldn't seem to get a clear and open shot. But after she had forced a couple—and missed—she seemed to shake herself and settle down. By the end of the first quarter she had only two points, but she also had a bunch of assists. Most important, Pharo pointed out, the Wildcats were eating into the Storm's lead.

By the half the Wildcats were down by only three. While the team trotted out of the gym, carried by waves of sound, Coach Svedborg looked as if he might explode. “Uh-oh. Lecture time,” Pharo said. Jakarta had her head down. When she got to where they were sitting, she glanced up and gave Pharo a half-smile. But it was Dad her eyes locked on to for one long, slow moment. Then she was gone.

They could still win, Dakar thought as she walked back toward the concession window to buy popcorn for Aunt Lily. Was there still a chance Jakarta could get her record? She tried to remember how many points Jakarta had made before in her good halves. The Storm's guards were definitely holding her down.