Chapter 3
On Saturday morning, I sat at my desk with my books in front of me. I still had to solve 10 math problems. Courtney was right; homework was nothing but trouble. How could anybody get through this?
I wondered what her desk looked like right now, filled with books and papers. Cheri’s desk was never cluttered with a lot of schoolwork, but she always managed to get A’s.
Maybe if I had an extra list of math problems already done, then I could hand it in place of the assignment. It would be my emergency list in case I couldn’t get the stuff Sister assigned to us finished in time. I’d write down a whole sheet of math problems and just throw answers in there and keep it handy as proof that I did something. At least I’d have answers down on paper to make it look like I had worked on math problems. One question was probably the same as the others anyway, so if I guessed on one, I could guess on them all. How long could it take?
I pulled three sheets of loose-leaf paper out of my desk and began filling them with math problems. I’d save the sheets and carry them inside my backpack in case I needed them. But first I’d make sure the entire paper was covered with straight rows of figures.
I wondered if Courtney’s homework looked neat like my extra-math problem sheet. Why was it that she never showed it to anybody?
Cheri’s handwriting was straight and tall on all her assignments. She wrote her numbers and letters larger than I did. Sister always complimented her on penmanship.
My writing was so small Sister sometimes had a hard time reading it. After the three sheets were done, I held them up in front of me to study the print. It wasn’t too small. I filed the sheets neatly inside my backpack between my spelling book and my notebook binder. I thought the added paper made a pretty picture inside my bag.
I pulled out my history book and flipped through the pages. I could do the spelling assignment Monday while on the bus. The only thing left was my extra credit homework in American history and I didn’t know how I would get that out of the way.
“Anybody want anything from the supermarket?” Pop hollered from downstairs.
I leaped from my chair and crashed into Terence and Kriston in the hallway. All five of us older kids raced down the staircase, into the kitchen, and started yelling out orders to Pop.
“Hold on, hold on!” Pop exclaimed in exasperation, waving his wallet in the air.
“I want to come,” Terell cried.
“Me too,” Kriston added.
“Did you finish your homework?” Pop asked.
I thought a moment. Did he mean did we ‘finish starting it’ or ‘going over it’? I had finished starting my homework.
“Yes,” the rest of them said.
“Good,” Pop said.
Mom kept a weekly shopping list of the things we needed pinned to the fridge. Pop snatched the list and told us to wait for him in the carport. He gave me the keys, so I assumed that I was in charge.
“Get out,” I told my brothers.
They raced out to the family van.
“I got the front!” Terell said, grabbing the door handle.
“Wait a minute,” Kriston started. “You sat up front last time. It’s somebody else’s turn.” While they argued, I peeked at the sky through the dangling, weeping willow branches and took a deep breath.
Fresh air and sunshine poured everywhere, into the trees, the bushes, and the grass. It was the perfect day for a car ride.
I butted Terell out of my way and opened the door. After Pop locked the house up and headed toward the van, he saw five sons in the front seat and one daughter in the back, just the way I liked it.
Well, he didn’t like it. He sent four in the back against their will and buckled up Austin in the car seat behind him.
“All right, listen,” Pop said, backing the van out of the driveway. “Behave yourselves this time. I’m not spending three hours in a supermarket searching for you people and reimbursing the store for damages. It won’t hurt to act civilized for once, please.”
Kriston sat up. “That was an accident,” he explained. “I didn’t mean to knock over all those cartons on purpose. I couldn’t see them.”
“That’s why you should try walking forward from now on, son,” Pop said.
We rode down the street. I looked east, at all the roads that led to the beach. I opened the window and sniffed the air to see if any scent was blowing in from the ocean. I couldn’t tell. I guessed the beach was too far away to smell from Alexandria.
“You plan on buying me something?” Tyrone asked Terell.
I glanced down at the coins cupped inside his hands.
Terell shook his head no and shoved the money into his side pocket. He leaned his head back on the seat and curled his lips into a tight grin.
As always, when we reached the supermarket, my brothers dashed for the entrance, and each one grabbed a shopping cart.
“Wait a minute,” Pop bellowed, handing me Austin.
“We only need one shopping cart.”
“Well,” Kriston started, “we thought we could divide the list up and go down separate aisles to get it done faster.”
Pop hesitated, then he tore out sections of the list and handed one to each son. Smiling, they rolled their carts in four directions.
Twisting through winding aisles, Austin and I waited as Pop stocked up on fruits and vegetables. At the end of canned goods, I spotted a large cardboard photo of people sitting on a beach drinking soft drinks. In the picture, an ice chest stacked with ice cubes and bottles was placed under the beach umbrella. The people in the picture wore brightly colored bathing suits that looked dry.
I stood close to the picture to see if I could fit into the scene. If I had a shell, I could hear the waves and pretend that I was at the beach too. Maybe a spray of water would pour over the aisle to warn us of the next big wave coming, and then I could be part of the adventure.
Nothing happened.
It didn’t matter; I would be at the beach soon enough anyway. I looked up at the ceiling and smiled at the big blue sky that I knew was just above it.
“Justine,” Pop called, rolling the cart to another section.
I hurried back to him. In the household aisle, Pop picked a can of bug repellant off the shelf and placed it in the cart. His selection meant that more bugs would be coming out from their winter nests, and we would need something to keep them off our skin. Bumblebees, wasps, gnats, mosquitoes, and the occasional dragonfly, were other signs of summer.
Swinging Austin’s hand, I followed Pop down a ramp leading into the refrigerated section of the supermarket. If there were tracks on this ramp, it could have been the start of a roller coaster ride. I looked up at the blue and white crepe paper arched across the aisle. This could have been where the roller coaster gets pulled up the tracks for the first big dip. I glanced back at the top of the ramp, where I had seen the cardboard picture of the beach, and imagined the dip just over the rim.
We turned down another aisle and I saw assorted colored coolers on display beside the wall. One was the color of my favorite icee, blueberry. We headed toward the frozen food section, where ice cold drinks and snacks were spread out like prizes of cool fresh treats against the summer heat.
Pop stocked up on frozen vegetables and paid no attention to the coolers as we headed back up the ramp.
Later, as we approached the cashier, my brothers stumbled ahead with their carts overflowing with popcorn, chips, peanuts, cookies, ice cream candy bars, five kinds of soda, an ice chest, and a folded kiddie beach chair.
They must have thought that Pop was blind. “All right,” he said after he walked past each cart and pulled out exactly what was on the list, “put all that back.”
Eight eyes bulged and four lower lips dropped.
“You didn’t hear me the first time?”
Slowly, four carts were wheeled back to the aisles.
Sadly, I watched the beach chair and ice chest being carried away.
After waiting in front of the supermarket for
20 minutes, riding home, storing the groceries, and getting kicked out of the kitchen, it was Saturday afternoon clean up time.
My brothers got out the rags to dust off the furniture. I hauled the vacuum cleaner out from the hall closet, plugged it into an outlet, and began vacuuming the living room carpet.
Eying the bottom of the stairs, which led back upstairs to my desk, I pulled the vacuum to the other side of the hall and began cleaning up the rug. It was fun feeding the vacuum cleaner and watching the dust and dirt get swallowed up the tube. I wormed the hose around the potted plants by the window and beside the stairs, which were still leading up to my desk.
I suddenly felt insecure for some reason. It didn’t seem like I was where I was supposed to be at the moment. Bad thoughts were sinking into my head and I had nothing to push them out. What did I need to clear my head and how would I find it? I didn’t know.
Then I realized I had vacuumed the same spot under the spider plant 10 times. I was still squatting beside the snake plant, when through the leaves I saw my brothers huddled together in the middle of the living room. I switched the vacuum off.
“But I need one more quarter for show and tell,” Terell said.
“You’re taking money to show off at school?” Terence asked.
“No, it’s to get something.”
“You don’t buy things for show and tell,” Tyrone explained to him. “You take something you already have.”
“I’m not buying something,” he said. “I’m paying to get something done.”
They looked at each other.
“Who’re you paying?” Tyrone asked.
“It’s a secret,” Terell said. “He told me not to tell in case everybody else might try to bring the same thing.”
Terence leaned toward him. “It’s somebody from school?”
“I told you: I can’t tell you.”
Kriston raised his arm. “All that junk in your room,” he said, “why can’t you just pick something out?”
“I didn’t see anything worth picking,” he said. “And I want it to be good.” I watched him put his rag and spray can away with the same confident look I had always seen in Courtney. As small as he was, Terell was sticking to his decision to do things the way he wanted. He wasn’t about to let anyone tell him otherwise.
Terence turned to Tyrone. “You got change for a buck?” he asked, digging into his pants pocket.
“Ask Pop,” Kriston suggested.
“Nah, he’s still in the kitchen,” Terence said.
I switched the vacuum back on.
“Hey Justine, give me change for a dollar,” Terence hollered.
Stopping in mid-swing of the vacuum, I demanded to see the dollar.
“Let me see the change,” he replied as he pulled out his dollar bill.
Moving the vacuum hose and forgetting it was on, I accidentally sucked Terence’s dollar up the hose and into the sac.
He looked at me. I looked at him.
“You took my buck?” he asked in amazement, blinking his eyes. “You took my buck!”
I looked at him. He looked at me.
I dodged under Mom’s spider plant as he lunged at me. I swung around her tall snake plant and bolted up the staircase. “Dad!” I screamed. “DAAAAAAAAD!”
I burst into every bedroom, around and over the beds, and back out to the hall until I remembered that he was still in the kitchen. I swooped under Terence’s arms as he tried to pounce on me and raced back down the stairs, crashing into Pop on his way up.
Holding me in one hand and Terence in the other, he demanded, “What is the problem? Didn’t I tell you about running in this house?”
“She vacuumed my buck!” Terence howled.
Pop looked at me. “You put his money in the vacuum cleaner?”
Shrugging, I told him, “It was an accident.”
“Well then you ‘accidentally’ get it out.”
Reassuring his grip on Terence, I slowly crossed over to the vacuum cleaner, unfastened the bag, fished for the dollar, shook the dust off, and handed it to Terence.
Mission accomplished, Pop headed back to the kitchen.
Terence smoothed out his bill. “Now,” he calmly stated, “let me see the change.”
I put the vacuum cleaner away and headed up to my bedroom. I gave him four quarters.
“Terell!” he yelled, rocketing down the stairs. I folded the dollar and slipped it into my backpack’s side pocket.
I decided to stay upstairs and try some more homework. I sat at my desk and thought about flipping open a textbook and stared at 10 incomplete sentences I had to fill in with action, linking, and helping verbs.
This could take forever, I thought, rubbing my head. I clutched my pen. A light breeze raised my curtain and I peered through the window at Courtney’s bedroom.
She wasn’t there. Maybe she was down in the kitchen helping her Mom. They were having tortillas for supper.
I felt a rumble in my stomach and glanced out my bedroom door at the staircase post and wondered what was going on down in our kitchen.
Maybe I couldn’t work because I was hungry. I needed food.
I dropped my pen and traipsed back down to the kitchen.
Pop was dressing up a chicken. “Will Mom be home for supper?” I asked, taking a whiff.
“You mean to tell me somebody in this house finally realized their mom was missing?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at me. “She’s over at Grandma’s taking it easy.” Pop could only be referring to his mother because her mother had passed away years ago.
“Is she that sick of us?” I grinned.
“Grandma wants her to stay off her feet,” he explained, placing the last spoonful of stuffing inside the chicken.
I felt cool air swirling down from the ceiling fan.
“She never was too comfortable with these up-to-date procedures on pregnancy.” He covered the chicken and placed it in the oven. “She wants Mom in the house resting her bones. Grandma always said holding a baby for nine months puts a lot of wear and tear on a body.”
And yet she went and had another one, I thought to myself. I crunched on a chopped cucumber, thinking about Pop’s younger look-alike brother Uncle Darrick.
I folded my arms across the cabinet and watched Pop rinse his hands under the faucet, the cool water splashing down on his brown skin. His boyish face and gentle sad eyes carried a worried look in them. Did he miss Mom?
“Okay,” Tyrone said, barging in. “What do I do?” He headed toward the oven and reached for the door handle.
Pop gripped both of his arms and led him straight toward the dinette. “You place the mats,” he instructed Tyrone. The last time Pop let Tyrone loose in the kitchen was the last time he’d let him loose in the kitchen.
“Let me try,” Terell begged, a newcomer. He pushed a stool in front of the sink, climbed up, and flipped the faucet handle. He ripped off a strip of celery from the stalk, put some dishwashing liquid on it, and with rapid arm swings rubbed it under cold flowing water. Then he tossed it into the colander and ripped off another one.
I leaned toward the dinette. “Uh Pop,” I whispered, urging him back into the kitchen.
He handed Tyrone the napkins and froze in his tracks once he saw Terell.
Finished with his wash, Terell climbed down the stool, balanced the full colander on his head, and then shoved the whole thing into the oven. Brushing his hands with satisfaction, he strutted out of the kitchen.
Pop rushed to retrieve the colander from the oven. “Go watch him,” he commanded Tyrone and me.
Thinking about those quarters and his mystery purchase, I wondered if Terell ever really knew what he was doing.
“Whatever happened to Mom?” Kriston asked, as we wandered into the living room.
“She’s at Grandma’s,” I told him.
Just as our rear ends hit the couch, the doorbell rang, sending the huskies into a full-blown bark.
“I giddit!” Austin hollered, running. He reac
hed up for the doorknob and pulled the door wide open.
“Hey Austin,” Janot said as she and her little brother Trevor walked in.
Only once in a while would Janot and Trevor come to my house. Soft-spoken and patient, something about her put my brothers to the test. A person couldn’t always be quiet. They must speak out, express themselves. And my brothers didn’t let up until they helped a mild-mannered person reach that goal.
I wondered why the boys were so quiet. Tyrone and Kriston were lounging on one end of the couch and Terence and Terell were spread out on the floor. All of their eyes were on Janot.
“Come on.” I pulled her up to my room, leaving Trevor playing with Austin.
“Cheri still home?” Janot asked, sitting on the edge of my bed. Her sparkling brown eyes were just like Trevor’s, except she carried a frightened look.
“Yeah,” I said, pushing the power button on my stereo. “But Monday morning it’s all over.”
“Mmm,” she said, looking down at the floor. “So how long does your mom plan on staying pregnant?”
“I don’t know. She’s over at Grandma’s now. I can’t believe it’s been 10 months. They must have miscounted.”
Watching Janot’s lips tighten up, I didn’t really think she was interested in Mom’s pregnancy, but I didn’t know if I should ask what was wrong.
“My friend Deborah got grounded last week,” she said, hugging one knee.
“For what?”
“For getting an F and two D’s in school.”
I flinched at my unread textbooks. Sunshine encircled the whole stack as if the powers above were encouraging me to pick up the books and study. “Were her parents mad?”
“Huh, yeah,” she said, twirling her dark ponytail. “Now she’s stuck in her room every day after school and all weekend. And forget about summer vacation. No phone calls, no visits, no TV, no trips.”
I thought about the summer list that Courtney had made for us and started fantasizing about my grades again. How did everybody else in class catch on so fast? Had they found a secret brain department and I was the only one left still looking for it?
I shook that thought out of my head. “You’re acting like school’s just started,” I told her. “Stop, it’s almost summer. We don’t have anything to worry about now.” I hugged my throw pillow. “I can’t figure out all my work either. But that doesn’t mean we automatically flunk.”
“My dad says that some people over-study.”
Over-study? I glimpsed at my closet where most of my books were still buried.
“Do you have those parent-teacher meetings in your school?” she asked, leaning against my bedpost.
“Reign of terror? Yeah.” I got up.
“Guess what I found out,” she challenged, leaning toward me. “Our teachers make photocopies of our schoolwork before they hand it back.”
What? Was I hearing right? “Who told you this?”
“Remember, Deborah gets stuck in detention a lot. She saw a set of copies of our test papers on the teacher’s desk after they had been handed back to us two days earlier.”
“Why would they do something like that?” I asked.
“As proof, I guess.”
The nuns! Did they know about this?
“If they keep a copy of everybody’s stuff,” she said, clutching her necklace, “then what’s the point in hiding it? Our parents will eventually find out. Then what are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” I told her sincerely, rubbing my head. “Now you got me worried.”
“Sorry.”
“I can see why Clarence was dead set on doing that chemistry project a while back.” I brooded over Tyrone’s friend. “You know he really did want to mess up the school.”
His teacher had him suspended from class with 10 different assignments, each one to be signed by his father, along with a daily clean-up job, under their supervision, inside the church.
“All right, what’s it going to be? The TV set or the stereo?” Tyrone asked as he and Kriston slithered in the room.
“What’re you talking about?”
“What’re you sacrificing to stay out of trouble?” he asked.
“What trouble?”
“The trouble you get for snooping around where you’ve got no business.”
I crinkled my forehead, confused.
“And don’t go saying it was all Tanya’s fault because nobody made you go into any stairway with her,” he said.
“Who told you that?” I exploded, jumping off the bed.
“Never mind that,” he said. “What’re you paying to shut me up?” He tossed my furry dolphin in the air.
“You little snot-nosed bugger!” I sneered at him.
“Excuse me,” he said and back-stepped out the room. “Pop!”
“Wait a minute!” I pleaded.
“Well come on now, I ain’t got all day.” He came back inside and flopped down on my bed.
How could he do this to me? I was his sister. And how the heck did he find out? Nobody else was in the stairway, except for that guard. Somebody must have been peeking through a window or a peephole somewhere, somebody that he knew.
Even though I got to the doorway entrance, I knew Tyrone had me cornered. I didn’t know how he always knew my business, but he did. Why couldn’t somebody ever catch him at something?
I sighed. My precious TV set with all my cartoons and favorite reruns. But my stereo. It was the only thing I had to help me through hard times. One press of the power button and all my troubles faded away.
“Look,” I started, “I’ll do anything you say. Clean your room, do your homework, anything! Just don’t tell Pop.”
“You don’t even do your own homework,” he said as his gaze rose to a point above my head and Janot backed up against the bedpost. Kriston had already ducked behind my dresser.
I clutched my throat, about-faced, and saw who I knew would be standing in the middle of the doorway, causing everybody else to disappear.
“Downstairs,” Pop ordered. “Now!” He stepped aside as we inched out into the hall and ran down the staircase.
I doubted that Janot would be coming back anytime in the near future.