Ola Shakes It Up (13 page)

I watched them for a couple more minutes. I wanted to know how Lillian had taught Grady to do those tricks when he wouldn't even do simple things like sit or stay for me, but I also felt sort of mad. Even Grady didn't need me. Then I started to feel bad. Lillian was probably teaching Grady those tricks to surprise me. She knew how frustrated I was that he wasn't learning anything. Lillian was doing something nice for this family again.

I walked out of the kitchen and grabbed my coat and hat from the closet. I didn't want to ruin Lillian's surprise. I would go see Mr. Elijah by myself. When I went outside, the cold air hit me in the face and made it tingle. I walked down the street in the direction of the old lady's house, but I didn't see her anywhere. She had finished spreading out all her leaves, and you couldn't even see the brown grass of the lawn anymore. I looked at it for a couple of seconds. It was sort of pretty. The lady had even left a big pile of leaves in one corner that was perfect for jumping into.

I looked around. There would be nobody outside to see me.

Then I remembered my promise to Mama. I was supposed to behave myself better than that. The lady who lived in this house would probably report me.

I started walking again. When I reached Mr. Elijah's blue-and-white house, I saw that he was standing in his doorway with another man. Mr. Elijah noticed me and called out, “Just Ola! Exactly the person I want to see.”

I had tried correcting Mr. Elijah about my name, but he didn't seem to understand. As I got closer to them, I noticed that the other man was much younger than Mr. Elijah and
very short. He was also very red in the face. He looked embarrassed about something.

“Just Ola, this is my son-in-law, Mr. Julius Jones,” Mr. Elijah introduced us cheerfully. “I was just telling him about your tree-climbing expedition. Again.”

“Hi, Mr. Elijah. Hi, Mr. Jones,” I said uncomfortably. I felt like I had interrupted something important. Mr. Jones had turned even redder when he found out who I was.

“H-How d-do you do,” Mr. Jones stammered. He took a deep breath and looked at me steadily. He had nice brown eyes. “I'm very sorry about your accident.”

“I'm okay now,” I started to say, but Mr. Elijah cut me off.

“Ought to be ashamed of yourself,” Mr. Elijah muttered, giving his son-in-law a hard look. “It's a crime, I tell you. A real crime to this town.”

Mr. Jones ducked his head again. “Okay, Pop.”

“Used to be a time when people were more free around here.” Mr. Elijah wagged a finger at his son-in-law. “Until you came along.”

I looked back and forth at them, confused. It was hard to believe this was Mr. Elijah's no-good son-in-law. He looked like such a nice man.

“I've got to go, Pop.” Mr. Jones shuffled his feet nervously. “Please tell Janet I'll be home for dinner. Goodbye, Just Ola.”

“You better be here on time, 'cause we won't wait on you,” Mr. Elijah called after him. Mr. Jones scurried to his car and drove off quickly. “Come on in, Just Ola.”

I followed him inside. “Mr. Elijah, what was that all about?”

Mr. Elijah grinned. He was wearing a blue flannel shirt and a baseball cap that said W
ALCOTT
W
ARRIORS
on it. “That was my no-good son-in-law, Just Ola.”

“What's so bad about him?” I asked.

“Why, Just Ola, he's responsible for all of this.” Mr. Elijah spread his arms wide and waved them up and down.

“For what?” I asked, looking around. All I saw was a nice hallway with a gray carpet and black-and-white photographs on the wall. Mr. Elijah's house was built just like ours, with the stairs in the front and the kitchen in the back. I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

“For this neighborhood, Just Ola! He's the one that designed it,” Mr. Elijah grumbled, leading me to the kitchen. He went to the pantry and pulled out a bag of lemon cookies.

“Really?”

“Went to some fancy architect school—Walcott College wasn't good enough for him.” Mr. Elijah continued grumbling. “Came back home and built this cookie-cutter neighborhood.”

I smiled at that. Mr. Elijah was right. The houses in this neighborhood did look like they had all been cut with the same cookie cutter. And Mr. Jones had designed them. No wonder Mr. Elijah had been giving his son-in-law such a hard time.

“And now,” Mr. Elijah said in an injured tone, “he won't do anything about it.”

I sat down at the wooden kitchen table. It had a pretty yellow gingham tablecloth on it. “But he doesn't look too happy either, Mr. Elijah.”

Mr. Elijah grinned and plunked a plate full of cookies on the table. “That's because he's consumed with guilt. Want some hot apple cider?”

I nodded eagerly. “Mr. Elijah, I saw the strangest thing this morning. One of your neighbors was putting leaves back on her lawn.”

Mr. Elijah picked up a large green pitcher. He brought it to the table and poured apple cider into two big green mugs. “That must have been Mrs. Angelo. She does like her leaves.”

I picked up a cookie. “That doesn't make any sense.”

Mr. Elijah sat down. “Makes plenty of sense, Just Ola. That neighborhood board has fixed it so they have a company that cleans up all the elderly residents' lawns. Mrs. Angelo woke up last week and found all the leaves on her lawn had disappeared. Came to the graybeard committee meeting sniffling and talking about leaf-stealing thieves. So we arranged to get her a few bags of leaves.”

I took a small bite out of a cookie. The graybeard committee was the neighborhood senior citizens' club. Mr. Stern used to be in charge of it, but last year the other seniors voted him out and made Mr. Elijah president. “But Mr. Elijah, she put more leaves out there than she had before. You can't even see the grass anymore.”

“She'll be jumping around in them later on, too,” Mr. Elijah added.

I looked up. “But it's against the rules to play out in front of your house.”

“That rule's for children. It doesn't say anything about
grown adults frolicking in some leaves.” Mr. Elijah smiled slyly.

I stared at him for a minute. “Mr. Elijah, you all are breaking the rules in the neighborhood on purpose.”

Mr. Elijah sat back in his seat and crossed his arms. “Not breaking them, Just Ola. Stretching them. If we stretch them so far they break once in a while, well, then we're real sorry.”

I smiled. Mr. Elijah was just like me. He liked to shake things up, too.

“We could use a person such as yourself, Just Ola. To organize the kids in this neighborhood.”

“Me?” I shook my head glumly. “I don't even know any of the kids in this neighborhood except Otis — and that's 'cause of Aeisha. I don't think they like me.”

Mr. Elijah put his mug down. “That's 'cause they don't know you. Not a single one of them has the kind of fire you do, Just Ola. They need you around here to help them out. Shake things up a little.”

I shook my head again. “I couldn't help even if I wanted to, Mr. Elijah. I'm restricted from using my planning powers. You saw how mad Mama was after my fall.”

“Now, Just Ola, I'm surprised you'd let a little thing like parents stop you.”

“Mama's no little thing, Mr. Elijah. And now that Dad isn't around as much, she'd probably be the one who'd end up punishing me. She'd probably pack me up and ship me to Greenland.” I got to my feet. I didn't feel like talking anymore. It was making me feel bad that I couldn't help Mr. Elijah.

Mr. Elijah escorted me to the door. “The offer's good for a little while, Just Ola. You think about it.”

I nodded and walked out the door. It was nice feeling like somebody needed and wanted me, but I didn't have to think about Mr. Elijah's idea. I couldn't help Mr. Elijah without any friends, and I didn't have any in this town. But there was more to it than that. I wasn't so sure I
wanted
to help. I hadn't realized it until that moment, but I was still hanging on to the hope that we might move back to Roxbury someday. If I made friends here in Walcott and helped to change the whole neighborhood, then I wouldn't have anything to complain about anymore. I'd really be stuck here. For good.

got up bright and early on the next Saturday to get to the newspaper before Dad did. I dragged Grady down the stairs with me and opened the front door. Our rolled-up copy of
The Walcott Sentinel
was lying at the bottom of the stairs. It only came twice a week, since Walcott was so small it didn't have enough news to fill a daily paper.

“Fetch, Grady,” I ordered, letting go of his collar. Seeing Grady do all those tricks the other day with Lillian had convinced me that some of my training must have finally sunk in with him. That was why Lillian had been able to get him to do those other tricks —I had already broken him in for her.

Grady perked up his ears and looked at me.

“Go get it!” I commanded, patting him on his back.

Grady looked at the newspaper and groaned.

“We're just gonna get colder sitting here with the door open,” I said, shivering. I knew he could do it. “Come on, boy, fetch it!”

Grady sat down.

I sighed and ran down the stairs to get the paper. I was gonna have to ask Lillian what her secret for training Grady was. I lifted my head as I leaned down to pick up the paper. I could hear the faint sound of a baby crying. I figured it must be Davis, Otis s little brother. Poor Otis. That baby had to have some powerful lungs for me to be able to hear him. I looked across the street. I could see Mrs. Spunklemeyer standing in front of the windows on the second floor, holding the crying baby. She looked as tired as she had the day she dropped off the pie at our house. Aeisha said Otis was such a genius that he didn't have time to care about things like clothes and looking good, but I had my own ideas about that. I thought Otis s looking so bad had more to do with his mama. She was so tired from taking care of Davis that she didn't have time to see to Otis. Mr. Spunklemeyer was in the navy and was on a ship for six months, so Mrs. Spunklemeyer was taking care of Otis and Davis all by herself. I looked at her for a few more seconds before I picked up the paper and ran back into the house, where it was warm and comfortable. If we'd still been in our old neighborhood, I would have gone over there and helped Mrs. Spunklemeyer, but things were different here.

Grady barked and gave me one of his open-mouth dog smiles as I closed the door.

“You're useless, Grady,” I lectured him, heading toward the kitchen. “You and me have to have a long talk about whose dog you are.”

Grady whined.

When we entered the kitchen I saw that Lillian was already
up, cooking breakfast. She was singing something under her breath that sounded like a church spiritual. I was glad to see she was in a good mood. She was dressed better, too, because Mama had taken her shopping for new clothes. But it wasn't just her new clothes that Lillian was happy about. She had been saving the money Mama and Dad paid her for working for us, and yesterday she had sent some of it home to her mother and sisters, along with a long letter written in Kreyol. I knew Lillian was happy that she could help her family. That was the main reason she had come to the United States, and it made her feel better about leaving her home.

“Bonjou
, Lillian,” I said in my best Kreyol accent. I climbed up on a stool and spread the paper out on the counter.

“Good morning, Ola,” Lillian said slowly and formally. She was practicing her pronunciation. We had made a deal where I would help her with English and she would teach me Kreyol. Lillian liked her English class. She had even made a friend there who was from Romania, and they called each other on the phone all the time to practice speaking English.

Lillian walked over to put a plate of toast on the counter. There must have been fourteen slices of toast on the plate. Some of them were toasted light, some were medium, and some were almost burnt. Lillian must have gotten carried away with using the toaster.

“Thanks,” I said. I was glad Lillian was in a good mood, but I was hoping she didn't expect me to eat all of that toast.

“What are you doing?”

I looked up and saw that Aeisha had come in, still wearing her pajamas and red bathrobe. She was barefoot, as usual. “I'm reading the paper.”