Show Time (11 page)

Even after a long day of school and practice, she loved to make up new moves and combinations. Sarge seemed to look forward to it, too. Since he’d thought so much about how to get from rock to rock when he had two good legs, he knew really interesting things you could do with your body. And he spent time studying
the basic jump rope handbook, so he had lots of ideas when Keisha got there to share the snack that Mama packed for them. Ms. Allen and Ms. Perry sent the recorded music from Razi’s concert home with her brother, so that Keisha and Sarge could work on her “fun roping” together. The most interesting part for Keisha was that the moves were not … well … routine, but different every time. They didn’t have to practice it over and over because what they were doing was just for fun.

Keisha “tuned out and tuned in,” jumping through the first call for dinner, cheers over the latest basketball victory or arguments over cards. She interpreted the music while Marcus asked PFC Simon about cantilevers—whatever they were—and while Savannah, Marcus and Big Bob demonstrated the springiness of the squirrel bungee jump with a bag of rice from the kitchen. Sometimes, someone even started playing other music on the piano!

It was crazy. But since it was only for fun, it didn’t matter.

All this jumping gave Keisha an appetite as big as Daddy’s.

“Savannah?” Keisha said one afternoon while they sat waiting for Grandma and Big Bob to say good-bye to the servicemen and women and head
home. “When people say they’re as hungry as a horse … what does that mean? Do horses eat more than other animals?”

“I think it’s just because horses are big,” Savannah replied. “They don’t eat much more than a cow or a pig. At least ours didn’t.” Whenever she talked about their farm, Savannah got that faraway look that made Keisha think she was picturing Alabama in her mind.

“I like to watch you jump rope,” Savannah said, staring out the windows at the birds. At dusk, they were very active. “More the way you do it here than at school. I know this isn’t the right way! In dressage, we had to do everything just so or they took off points. But there’s something about the way you do your fun roping that reminds me of home.”

“I wonder what it is.…” Keisha wasn’t sure she understood.

Savannah shrugged. “Maybe just bliss.”

Keisha looked into Savannah’s sad eyes and thought about the apartment her friend had told her about—on the second floor of Savannah’s aunt’s house.

“Home in Alabama. You know.…” Savannah got to her feet and started to snap her fingers. “Sweet home Alabama …,” she sang, “where the skies are so blue.”

There was something in the way Savannah tried to be cheerful that made Keisha’s heart hurt. How hard
would it be to leave your dad and half your family and come north with just your mom?

Grandma always said divorce was hard on everybody. It was one thing to know it … another to feel it.

“Want to have dinner with us tonight?” Keisha asked Savannah.

“Can I call my mom?”

“Yup. And I can ask my dad. We can work on our Civil War reports. Grandma is the best researcher.”

Keisha was one of the few kids she knew who could ask somebody for dinner at the last minute and have their mama be happy about it. Mama was proud of the way she could stretch a meal, and that night, she stretched it to fit Big Bob and Savannah just like that.

They were having harira, Mama’s newest soup, and the whole family—even Razi—loved it. Mama had learned to make harira from a Moroccan lady she met at the Mediterranean Island grocery store, which specialized in foods from all over the world. Harira had vegetables and beef, but also other things like garbanzo beans, tomatoes, rice and a big squeeze of lemon. Mama made it just the way the lady told her, only the Carters used the word “chickpeas” instead of “garbanzos” because if you said “garbanzo” in the kitchen, Razi would hop up and down like a kangaroo for just long enough to knock something on the floor.

Tonight Mama served the soup with fat breadsticks and showed Savannah how to tear out the soft part and make a spoon you could eat. The warm kitchen, the spicy soup flavored with cinnamon and a spritz of lemon, and lots of conversation and laughter brought some color back to Savannah’s cheeks.

“Now … back to our squirrel project,” Big Bob said, helping himself to another breadstick. “If the weight of an average squirrel is—”

“—between one and two bags of rice.” Grandma finished Bob’s sentence and slipped a parasol and a pink straw into Savannah’s milk. “That’s to keep things colorful,” she explained.

“I’m just wondering how much spring we need for the diving board when we—”

“You didn’t say anything about a swimming pool, Big Bob,” Razi blurted out.

“Razi, don’t interrupt Big Bob.” Daddy took the breadstick plate. “I’m guessing the average squirrel weighs about what this plate weighs. Wait a minute, minus two breadsticks.” And to help everyone imagine the average squirrel’s weight, he helpfully put the extra-weight breadsticks on his own plate.

“What if the squirrels don’t know how to swim? What if they’re afraid of the deep end? And then a bigger squirrel named Gregory Thompson pushes them under the water and they can’t get—”

“Who is Gregory Thompson?” Mama wanted to know.

“It’s a squirrel
playground,
not a pool, Razi. And they’ll need some diving-board spring to get up to the dried-corn bungee rope.” Grandma twisted the top of her parasol between her fingers, thinking. “What I really want to discuss,” she continued, “is Mt. Mercy. I’ve been doing a little research about squirrels on campus, and I think the folks over at the University of Michigan have come up with a very clever way of handling the ‘to feed or not to feed’ question.”

“Speaking of feeding, are there more breadsticks, Fay? I don’t want to take two when the plate hasn’t made it around the table for seconds.”

Mama smiled at Daddy. “As my father used to say, ‘It is the wife who knows her husband.’ Check the oven.”

“To continue,” Grandma said. “Did you know that the club that boasts the most members at the University of Michigan is the squirrel-feeding club?”

“You’re kidding, right, Mom?” Daddy had his back to the table since he was pulling the extra breadsticks out of the oven.

“I am
not
kidding. Since we can’t re-locate the offending squirrels,” Grandma continued after blowing noisily on her soup, “which would be impossible—and cruel at this time of the year, since we’d be forcing them to leave their nests and food stores—this college club’s enthusiasm has given me an idea for re-
directing
the Mt. Mercy squirrels away from the administration building
and
helping Ms. Pontell keep the president’s rug pristine.”

In the rare silence that followed Grandma’s pronouncement, Keisha felt a tug on her blouse. “Does your family always talk like this?” Savannah whispered in her ear. “I know you’re talkin’ English, but I don’t have the faintest idea what is going on.”

The USA Jump Rope regional meet was held in Detroit, a city Grandma called the birthplace of civilization since it was the home of the Detroit Tigers, Motown Records and Bommarito’s Detroit-style pizza.

In the last year, Keisha had been to Detroit twice. The first time was when the FFGs went to the Detroit Institute of Arts and the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Then last summer, the Carter family spent a whole day going back and forth between the Detroit Science Center and the Children’s Museum.

Today’s trip was completely different. Keisha and the team would take the bus and stay overnight, while the rest of the Carters would drive separately in the truck and return that evening. Grandma and Big Bob would go in his Bonneville. Though Sarge wanted to come, his doctors weren’t sure about extended travel and hours in the bleachers. Grandma had promised to videotape Keisha’s routine for him.

The bus got off I-96 and drove through a neighborhood a lot like Alger Heights.

Keisha watched all the buses waiting their turn
to pull in to Central High School. She read the names printed on their sides: Jackson Public Schools, Saginaw Public Schools … her tummy did a scissors move with a crisscross turn.

“Okay, Steppers.” Coach Rose blocked the aisle as soon as the bus stopped. “Let’s remember you are representing Langston Hughes and the city of Grand River today. Be professional, respectful and kind—and don’t put your jump ropes down, you’ll never find them again! Now … let’s go win a trophy!” Coach Rose bounced down the bus steps and into the crisp morning air.

Keisha, Aaliyah and Wen joined the mass of jumpers heading into the brick school building. It looked almost like a castle with big, high turrets. Inside,
the Steppers had to line up against the wall by the library while Coach Rose completed team registration. Everyone got a number to pin to their T-shirt. Then they walked two by two into the gym.

Keisha smiled to herself when she saw the huge Central High gymnasium. If Razi were here, he would shout out, trying for an echo. But even echoes would be lost in the sound of hundreds of jumpers stretching out, practicing double Dutch, finding their teammates and getting to know the competition floor. Coach Rose had the Steppers find their home base—the first three bleachers on the visitors’ side. That was where they could leave their water bottles, snacks and warm-up jackets when they went to compete.

He handed around the sheet that told when, where and in what event each team member would compete. Keisha was number 2,236. She would perform in double-Dutch speed first and single speed in the early afternoon, and she was the last slot in the final freestyle event.

What a drag! Her tummy would be crisscrossing all day long as she saw and heard about the other jumpers.

“Let’s do a lap and see everything.” Wen grabbed Keisha’s hand and tugged her along.

“Wait for us!” Keisha turned to see Marcus, Jorge and Aaliyah hopping up and down, trying to find them in the crowd.

Marcus still had a pencil stuck behind his ear from when he was doodling on the bus. “Hey, do you think at lunchtime Coach will let me go outside and draw this building? It looks like a European castle!”

The Steppers managed to make it all the way around the gym by forming a line and grabbing the shoulder of the person in front of them. When they got back to home base, it was time for them to split up and go to their separate events.

Keisha, Aaliyah and Wen started off strong in double-Dutch speed. As it turned out, Aaliyah’s booming voice was a big plus in a room with all that noise. She and Wen twirled furiously for Keisha, helping her get a personal best. With Aaliyah’s and Wen’s quick skipping, their threesome advanced to the finals.

Marcus and Jorge also advanced in boys’ single speed jumping. Though Keisha didn’t make it, Wen—who’d been working hard on her wrist motion—moved up to the final heat along with Aaliyah, who also made it to the finals in double unders.

They had never seen such tough competition. During warm-up, Keisha watched the jumpers from Flint’s Eisenhower Elementary Cadettes and Detroit’s Campbell Elementary Buzzing Bees. Their skipping was fierce. The Detroit jumpers used old-school style, sitting back low during the speed events and pumping with their
knees. It was faster, but it made your thighs just burn!

Though she tried not to make a big deal of it, Keisha’s freestyle routine stayed in the back of her mind like a thistle bur all day long. At three in the afternoon, she was stretching and doing some warm-up skipping when Coach managed to pull together everyone who wasn’t involved in a heat.

“You have done your school and your city proud today,” he said. “Three personal bests! We can go back to Langston Hughes with our heads held high.”

“But it’s not over yet!” Marcus said. “Maybe we’ll bring home a trophy.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Coach said. He pushed his baseball cap back on his head. “According to my calculations”—he glanced at his clipboard—“you would have to have three firsts in the final round to land in the top three. Looking at the splits here, Marcus and Aaliyah have a chance in speed jumping … and
maybe
Aaliyah can edge out those crazy jumpers from Saginaw in the double unders.…” Coach stopped talking and stared at the wall, lost in thought.