Yankee Girl (18 page)

The men whispered with Mrs. Taylor, then started hustling people outside. Next thing I knew, Inez and I were back out on the porch.

“Y'all wait outside,” said one of the men. “Some folks want to speak with Miz Taylor in private.”

“What's going on?” I whispered to Inez.

“I 'spect some big shots is wantin' to see Miz Taylor without a bunch of people gawkin'. Maybe the vice pres'dent or Martin Luther King. Somebody like that.” She squinted into the setting sun. “You need to be goin', child, if you want to make that last bus. Is there somethin' I can tell that little Taylor girl for you?”

“Sorry,” I said as I turned towards the bus stop. “Tell her Alice Ann Moxley says she's sorry.”

Mama had a fit about my going to the funeral home, even after I explained about Mr. Culver and Mary Martha and Inez.

“What did I do wrong?” I asked over and over.

Mama couldn't tell me. All she said was, “All those screaming rednecks. So unpleasant.” The news cameras hadn't just filmed movie stars.

I looked at Mama, and I didn't see just her. I saw a grown-up who didn't know the answer and didn't know the question. Because she didn't want to. Because it was unpleasant. Mama never wanted to see anything unpleasant.

I felt sorry for Mama.

Reverend Taylor was buried in Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, D.C. I saw Valerie and her family on Walter Cronkite with President and Mrs. Johnson at the White House. Valerie looked so sad, I bet she didn't even know where she was.

A couple of days later, Mary Martha brought a copy of
Life
to school.

“Look,” she called, waving the magazine. “Look who's on the cover.”

The sixth grade crowded around Mary Martha and
Life
. Valerie and her little sister were on the cover! Valerie's arm was around Lucy, who clutched a white Raggedy Ann doll.

Mary Martha riffled the pages until she found the story: SORROW IN MISSISSIPPI: CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER REVEREND CLAYMORE TAYLOR ASSASSINATED. It was mostly pictures from the funeral. Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier shaking hands with Mrs. Taylor. Martin Luther King preaching. The girl in the daisy dress hugging Valerie. The caption read “Daughter Valerie Irene is comforted by her cousin Demetria Taylor”. So that's who that girl was.

The first bell shrilled across the playground. Mary Martha closed the magazine.

“I didn't know Valerie's middle name was Irene,” I said as we lined up.

“There's a lot we don't know about Valerie.” Mary Martha's eyes looked sad. “Alice, about not going with you that day…”

“S'okay,” I mumbled.

“No, it's not okay,” Mary Martha said firmly. “I let you down.”

“I don't get it,” I said. “I mean, the flowers were your idea in the first place.”

Mary Martha swallowed hard before she answered. “You know, the only reason I took up that flower money was manners. It was poor manners not to.”

“But wasn't it poor manners not to take them?”

Mary Martha gazed off across the street at a yardman on his knees, weeding a flower bed. “The thing about manners is they're easy. It's easier to be nice to people than nasty. If you're nice, people think you're a good person. But sometimes manners aren't enough, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Feeling brave, I said, “So when Valerie comes back, maybe we should try to be her friends? She's really nice when you get to talking to her.”

“Friends? Us?” Mary Martha sounded scared. “It's not that easy, you know.”

“Yeah, I know. But maybe if there are two of us being friends with her, it won't be so hard. Just think about it, okay?”

“Okay. I'll think about it.” Mary Martha smiled. “We both need some new friends.”

She had that right. If it weren't for Mary Martha, I could go a whole school day with no one speaking to me. Not even Jeb. I missed him.

Then one morning on the bus, he slid into the seat next to mine.

“Sorry I've been such a goob,” he said, staring at the back of Ralph's head.

“Oh yeah? What changed your mind?” He wasn't getting off that easy.

“Inez. She gave me what-for. Said riding that bus by yourself was the bravest thing she'd ever seen a white person do. She also said she wasn't making pimiento cheese until I apologized.”

We looked at each other, then burst out laughing. I knew it wasn't the pimiento cheese; Jeb really
did
think I was brave. That was better than wearing his ID bracelet. Well, almost.

I wasn't the only one in trouble over Reverend Taylor's funeral.

“Mama says Miss Gruen has lost her mind, going to a nigger funeral,” said Saranne.

“My daddy said the same thing.” Debbie flipped her sheepdog bangs out of her eyes. “Says public schools is going to the niggers. He's sending me to Council School next year.”

Other classmates would not be going on to Belson Junior High. Skipper's daddy was sending him to military school in Alabama.

“All that marching and saluting. Might as well join the army and get it over with,” Skipper griped.

No one was surprised when Leland announced he was going to Council. Karla said she wanted to, but her parents couldn't afford it.

“I reckon I'll be stuck going to school with niggers for ever,” she grouched.

And I'd be stuck with Karla and her fingernails for ever. I hoped she'd find someone else to torture in seventh grade.

Junior-high orientation was the last day of school. The sixth graders would ride the bus over to Belson to get our schedules and lockers and find the rest rooms. Could anything bigger possibly happen in our lives?

Something did, the Sunday before orientation.

“Alice, would you bring in the paper?” Mama asked as I staggered out to the kitchen. I hated getting up early, but Sunday school started at nine.

“I'm not dressed.” I poured myself a bowl of Cocoa Krispies.

“You've got your robe and slippers on.” Mama sipped her coffee. “Who's going to see?”

A lot of people. Namely, Jeb.

“How come Daddy didn't bring in the paper?” Usually Daddy finished the crossword puzzle before I got out of bed.

“Because he came in very late. Big arrests last night. Now, scoot.”

The paper lay at the end of the driveway in the storm gutter. I hoped I could grab it and hurry back inside before anyone saw me.

I clutched my nylon robe, which was missing buttons, scurried down the drive, and snatched up the paper. The flimsy rubber band holding the rolled paper snapped, and paper sections exploded all over the yard.

“Rats, rats, rats,” I muttered as I gathered the sports and comics and want ads. Last, I picked up the front news section.

That's when I saw Miss LeFleur. Two pictures. Dead centre of the front page.

The headline: TEACHER ARRESTED IN CLAN RAID: BEING HELD IN TAYLOR SLAYING.

I forgot to hold my robe shut. Forgot who might be watching. Forgot about breakfast and Sunday school. I stood in the driveway and read about Miss LeFleur.

The first picture was from her college yearbook. It looked just like her; hair in a perfect flip, a string of pearls around her neck.

The other picture…well, if the paper hadn't said it was Miss LeFleur, I wouldn't have guessed. She was flanked by two policemen gripping her upper arms. Her hair was all messed up. She crooked her elbow over her face so no one would recognize her. I did. I recognized her charm bracelet.

Even with the bracelet, it was hard to tell. This woman wore tight short-shorts with an equally tight short-sleeve sweater. The sweater was pulled up and you could see her belly button. Miss LeFleur's belly button!

I read on. Miss Claudia LeFleur had been arrested with her boyfriend (Miss LeFleur had a boyfriend?) and a car full of dynamite. They had been caught wiring it to a Negro church. In her purse was a KKK membership card and a list of other places they'd planned to bomb. More churches, civil rights leaders. FBI agents. The police had found a map in their car. A map plotting the way to Tougaloo. Where Reverend Taylor was killed.

The paper drooped in my hand. I spied a plaid bathrobe at the end of the driveway next door. Jeb.

“Whaddya think of this?” he called, waving his paper. We walked towards each other, meeting by the Mateers' pine tree.

“But Miss LeFleur was so nice,” I burst out.

“Yeah,” Jeb said. “She don't seem the type to blow folks up.”

All year I had told myself that bad people were easy to spot. They were stupid like Leland, or mean like Karla. But Miss LeFleur was a grown woman. A teacher. Nice to everybody.

Everybody but Valerie. I remembered the Lysol in Miss LeFleur's desk.
She don't mean anything by it,
Jeb had said.

But she had.

The ground shifted beneath my feet, as if there had been an earthquake. I knew there hadn't been. Only in my heart.

Jeb and I suddenly realized we were standing in the middle of the yard in our nightclothes and looked away from each other.

“Reckon I need to get ready for Sunday school.” Jeb refolded his paper.

“Yeah, me, too.” I looked at the paper again. There was another story under the first one, interviews of people who knew Miss LeFleur. Some went to Miss LeFleur's church. They said she was a fine Christian. Sang in the choir. Never missed a Sunday.

She was missing this Sunday.

I pasted the headline in my scrapbook on the next-to-last page. One more page to fill, and the book would be finished.

I looked at the red fake-leather book with the word MEMORIES in curly gold letters on the front. I looked again at the picture of Miss LeFleur being arrested.

Keeping a current-events scrapbook was such a kid thing to do.

When this one was full, I wouldn't start another.

“All your fault, Yankee Girl.” Karla's nails dug into my wrist. “If your FBI daddy stayed up North where he belonged, ain't none of this woulda happened. Miss LeFleur was framed by them nigger-loving Commies.”

Jeb galloped over to the rescue. “Hey, Karla. Go pick on somebody as ugly as you are.”

Karla let go of my wrist. “Take your old nigger-loving girlfriend, Jeb Mateer.”

I rubbed the half-moon nail marks.

“Oh shut up, Karla,” said Jeb.

Karla shot him the bird finger and stomped off.

“Stay away from her, y'hear?” Jeb gave me a warning look. “I ain't gonna bail you out all the time, y'know.”

Monday, Tuesday.

I waited for Valerie to come back to school.

I'll make it up to you, Valerie. I'll be your friend.

Wednesday, Thursday. Still no Valerie. At least I had Orientation Day to take my mind off stuff.

“Orientation is a big deal. You want to look good, but like you could care less,” Pammie told me. “Get it?”

I didn't, so Pammie went through her closet, looking for just the right outfit.

“Not bad at all.” She studied me in her white hip-hugger skirt and turquoise-striped shirt with matching polka-dot necktie. “Now, if we could just do something with your hair.”

I flipped through a
16 Magazine.
“Why can't my hair look like this?” I showed her a picture of Jane Asher.

“Because you don't iron your hair,” said Pammie.

“You mean like with an iron and an ironing board? Should I?” I couldn't imagine Jane Asher running a steam iron over her long red hair.

“Nah, your hair's too short. You'd just wind up ironing your ears.” Pammie squinted at me again. “You need hair straightener. They have do-it-yourself kits down at the Tote-Sum.”

So that's what I did. I blew two weeks' allowance on a box of Straight and Swingy that Pammie put on for me. She left it on too long and cooked my head, but it didn't turn out half bad. I didn't look like Jane Asher, but I didn't look gross, either.

Friday and Orientation Day arrived. Decked out in Pammie's outfit and my straight if not swingy hair, I marched into 6B for the last time. The bulletin boards were bare, chalkboards washed, our
New Directions in Math
workbooks dumped in the giant trash barrel behind the cafeteria. Miss Gruen had packed away the odds and ends from her desk. This was her last day at Parnell, too.

Last day or not, Miss Gruen looked the same as ever. Old-lady lace-up shoes, brown dress, and a necklace that looked like watermelon seeds.

I knew I should say something to her, but what? I couldn't say “It's been fun,” because it hadn't. I couldn't say “I really liked having you for a teacher,” because I hadn't. I guessed I'd just say “Thank you, ma'am.” And really mean it. She'd like that. Especially the “ma'am” part.

I looked around the room. So many empty desks of kids who wouldn't be going with us.

Tommy, whose daddy had a new church in Tupelo. Leland, who was going to Council with Debbie. Andy, who to Jeb's disgust decided to follow Debbie.

“Council don't even have a football team,” Jeb argued.

Skipper came flying through the door just as the tardy bell rang.

“Thought you were going to that military school,” said Saranne.

“Talked Daddy out of it,” he panted as he landed in his seat. “Told him Belson had a better football team.”

For the last time 6B said the Pledge and the Lord's Prayer.

Miss Gruen cleared her throat.

Uh-oh. Lecture time.

“It has been quite a year,” she began. “I hope we are all better citizens than we were in September.”

From across the room I caught Mary Martha's uncomfortable look.