What I Came to Tell You (6 page)

After lunch Grover’s class went outside to recess. Ashley Galloway and some other girls played four square on one end of the basketball court. Grover and Sam Newcomer, who lived up the street on Edgemont, played HORSE on the opposite end of the court. Grover and Sam had been friends for as long as Grover could remember. When they were little, they had played in the Bamboo Forest all day. As they’d gotten older, they’d ridden bikes through the neighborhood, skateboarded and on weekends often spent nights at each other’s houses. Grover’d preferred spending the night at Sam’s, because Sam always had the latest computer game and Sam’s parents didn’t mind if they played them late into the night. Grover never mentioned this to his mother, although he was pretty sure she knew why he was yawning so much the next day.

But since the accident, Grover hadn’t spent much time with Sam, keeping to himself in the Bamboo Forest. Sam had come by early on, asking him to go ride bikes or come try out his new PlayStation but Grover always had weaving to do. About all that was left of their friendship was playing HORSE every day after lunch. Grover never won but it was a tradition, and the boys never felt free to do anything else until they’d played their one game.

After his shot swished through the basket, Sam said, “The new girl is pretty.” Emma Lee sat across the playground, underneath a huge sycamore, reading.

“She moved into the rental house,” Grover said. He caught the ball, shot and the ball bounced off the rim. “H,” he said.

“Have you talked to her?” Sam’s second shot swished through the basket.

“Why?” Grover asked. His shot missed the basket altogether.

“You have to get over this.” Sam shot, another swish.

“Get over what?”

“Your fear of intimacy.” Sam’s father was a psychiatrist.

“Speak English,” Grover said.

“Your fear of the opposite sex,” Sam said.

“I’m not
afraid
of girls,” Grover said.

“You never talk to them.”

“I talk to Mira.”

Grover looked in the direction of a black girl who was playing hopscotch with a group of girls off to the side. Mira Hodges was the smartest girl at Claxton. Like Grover, she lived in Montford. Sometimes he called her when he forgot to write down their
homework assignment.
Mira, this is Grover. What was our social studies homework?
She’d tell him. He’d say,
Thanks
, and hang up. Mira left a card on his desk that she’d made. On the front, she’d drawn a hand holding out some flowers, and on the inside it said, “I’m so sorry about your mama.” He kept it on his dresser.

Sam made a long shot that swished through the net.

“Nice shot, Sam!” Ashley waved from the other end of the court.

Sam waved back halfheartedly.

“You have to get over your fear of intimacy,” Grover said in a low voice.

Ashley had flirted with Sam for years and expected him to take her to the Claxton Christmas Waltz, a sixth graders’ dance the school had been holding every year since 1922. All sixth graders had to attend. Most kids went to the dance in safe clumps of boys and girls.

After Sam skunked Grover at HORSE, Daniel Pevoe, a tall black boy who’d transferred in this year, and was real competition for Sam, began to play him. Grover sat off to the side and pulled a worn Rubik’s cube out of his coat pocket. Jessie had slipped it into his hands at the funeral home. It got Grover through not only the visitation, but the funeral and the whole afternoon and night of people coming to his house, bringing food and telling him and Sudie how sorry they were. It got him through months of sleepless nights, and through all the being in places he did not want to be, which was everywhere except the Bamboo Forest.

After recess, his class went back inside, and as Grover sat down at his desk, the new girl tapped him on the back.

“Are you named after the Grover in
Look Homeward, Angel
?”

How’d she know? Most kids thought he was named after a Muppet
.

“Mama told me your daddy runs the Wolfe house,” she said.

Instead of looking through a baby name book, Grover’s parents had flipped through Wolfe’s novel for both Sudie’s and Grover’s names. Grover was named after a character who died early. Why couldn’t they have named him one of the normal brother names in the book, like Ben or Steve?

Later that afternoon, when Mrs. Caswell was writing extra credit challenge words on the blackboard, the new girl tapped him on the back again.

“You’re a good artist,” she whispered.

Grover stared at her blankly.

“My brother took me over to your mama’s grave.”

“Who said you could go over there?” Grover whispered.

“It’s a free country,” she said.

He turned back around, but she tapped his shoulder.

“I like your tapestries,” she said.

In a little while, he felt the girl tap him again.

“Now what?” he asked.

“You can’t keep her to yourself,” she said.

“What are you talking about?”

“The dead belong to everybody,” she said. “Take it from me.”

Grover looked at her a minute. “It’s none of your business!”

“Grover, do you have something you’d like to share with the rest of the class?” asked Mrs. Caswell.

“No, ma’am,” he said.

Grover sat there, looking straight ahead, but his mind was on this new girl sitting right behind him. He waited for her to tap his back again and when she did he was going to let her have it.

It was only about half an hour later, when Mrs. Caswell was in the middle of a lesson on the Cherokee Indians, that Grover had calmed down enough to hear what the girl had called his weavings.
Tapestries
.

Every day at recess the new girl read underneath the sycamore tree, and every day Grover stole glimpses of her while Sam beat him at HORSE or while he worked his Rubik’s cube. Who knew what else she’d figured out about him? He needed to keep an eye on her, which was hard to do with her sitting behind him. In class, she was smart. Right up there with Mira. More and more Mrs. Caswell called on Emma Lee instead of Ashley or one of her friends. Grover overheard those girls whisper things about the way she dressed, the way she talked.

The new girl had been at Claxton about a week when one day at recess while Grover played Sam in HORSE, Mrs. Caswell sat down and started talking to Emma Lee. After a while, Mrs. Caswell hugged her and got up. Mrs. Caswell stopped by where Ashley and her friends played four square, said something to them and then walked on up to the top of the hill where Miss Shook, the other sixth-grade teacher, sat on the teacher’s bench.

Miss Shook had been Grover’s fourth-grade teacher. Tall, fat and jowl-faced, she yelled a lot, wasn’t too bright and didn’t like boys, especially quiet boys like Grover. Often when he had been sitting quietly doing his work, she’d call on him, saying, “What are you up to, Grover?” One time she’d accused him of cheating on a math test. It was only after his mother proposed that Miss Shook give him another, harder test and Grover still made a 100 that Miss Shook left him alone. Lucky for Sudie, Miss Shook had been moved from fourth to sixth grade last year.

Ashley and her friends had stopped playing four square and were talking something over. They didn’t look so eager now. He saw them draw straws. Ashley must’ve lost, because she was the one who, slowly and looking back at her friends, walked over to Emma Lee. Emma Lee looked up from her book. Ashley flipped her blonde hair back over her shoulder, tilted her head and, looking everywhere but at Emma Lee, said something Grover couldn’t hear.

Emma Lee closed her book and followed Ashley to where they’d been playing four square. She began playing with them. She was taller than all of them and quicker too. Even in that long coat of hers. Sam had finished skunking Grover when Ashley and her friends, looking irritated, came down to their end of the basketball court. Emma Lee followed behind, grinning.

Grover noticed Matthew standing out on the sidewalk in his old Army coat, looking through the fence in their direction, his fingers curled around the chain-link fence.

“Who won?” Sam asked the girls.

Ashley smiled, and putting on a fake mountain accent, said, “Emuh Leeeee diyud.”

Emma Lee’s smile faded, her brown eyes darkened and she went still.

“Are you boys finished?” Ashley asked. “We want to play HORSE. You want to play with us?”

“That’s okay.” Sam backed up a little.

Ashley turned to the other girls. “Should we play HORSE? Or should we play another game?”

“Like what?” asked Stacey.

“Yeah,” said Marcie, “like what?”

“Hmmm,” Ashley said, tapping her chin and frowning. She snapped her fingers. “I know!” She turned to Emma Lee. “Let’s play H-I-L-L-B-I-L-L-Y.”

Grover wasn’t positive what happened. All he knew was that one minute Ashley was standing and the next she wasn’t.

“What happened here?” Mrs. Caswell asked. Grover didn’t see how his teacher had covered so much ground so quickly.

“She … she slapped me,” Ashley said in a surprised, trembling voice. She gingerly touched her cheek where a hand mark slowly bloomed. The other girls helped her up and dusted leaves off the back of her sweater.

“Emma Lee?” asked Mrs. Caswell. “Why did you slap Ashley?”

“She knows good and well why,” Emma Lee said calmly.

“We were trying to include her, like you asked,” Ashley said.

By now most of the kids on the playground had gathered around.

“Did anyone else see what happened?” Mrs. Caswell looked around the circle of kids.

Grover looked at his feet.

Mrs. Caswell took Emma Lee’s arm. “We’ll have to pay a visit to Mrs. Dillingham.”

As Grover watched Mrs. Caswell lead Emma Lee away, he and all the other kids knew what going to Mrs. Dillingham meant. That’s when he remembered seeing Matthew, but when Grover looked to where he’d been standing along the fence, he saw Matthew was gone.

The bell sounded that recess was over. As Grover and Sam walked toward the building, Mira came over and asked, “What happened?”

“They called her a hillbilly,” Sam said.

Mira shook her head and sighed. “Those girls …”

“It wouldn’t matter if Mrs. Dillingham knew,” Sam said.

Grover was sure his friend was right. Mrs. Dillingham always said she didn’t care why somebody hit somebody. It was an automatic suspension. Still, he couldn’t help admitting that he wouldn’t have minded if Emma Lee never came back to school.

When Mrs. Caswell finally returned with Emma Lee, Emma Lee disappeared into the cloakroom, probably getting her backpack. When she came back out, she’d taken off her coat. She walked to her desk, pulled out her science book and started reading. Grover
glanced across the room at Sam, who gave a shrug. Everyone in the class was looking at Emma Lee. Never had anyone who’d hit anyone escaped suspension. Grover wondered if Mrs. Caswell had somehow convinced their principal to give the girl another chance. He went back to reading his science book, but he kept thinking about his mother and how she would’ve taken him aside and asked him to look out for the new girl. He went back to his science book one more time but he couldn’t absorb the words on the page.

Unable to stand it any longer, Grover set down his book and with an exasperated sigh said, “Hillbilly!”

Mrs. Caswell looked up from a paper she was grading. “Pardon me, Grover?”

Grover felt his classmates look up from their books. “Ashley called Emma Lee a hillbilly. That’s why she hit her.”

“I see,” said Mrs. Caswell, looking at Ashley, who was looking at Grover like
Do I know that kid?
It was probably the first time since they’d made that hygrometer together back in third grade that Ashley had noticed him.

Mrs. Caswell slid her chair back, got up and walked slowly to Ashley’s desk.

“I didn’t
call
her anything,” Ashley said.

“No?” asked Mrs. Caswell.

“I said I wanted to play a game called … that word he just said.”

Mrs. Caswell cocked her head. “What word was that?”

“The one he just said,” she said again, her face getting redder.