Rabble Starkey
Lois Lowry
* * *
Houghton Mifflin Company
Boston
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Lowry, Lois
Rabble Starkey
SUMMARY. Many things change for twelve-year-old
Rabble Starkey, her mother, and her best friend,
Veronica Bigelow when Veronica's mother becomes
mentally incapacitated and the Starkeys move in
with the Bigelows.
[l Friendship—Fiction 2 Mentally ill—Fiction
3. Mothers and daughters—Fiction] I. Title
PZ7 L9673Rab 1987 [Fic] 86-27542
ISBN 0-395-43607-9
Copyright © 1987 by Lois Lowry
All rights reserved For information about permission
to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Company, 215 Park Avenue
South, New York, New York 10003
Printed in the United States of America
EB 10
1
Veronica looked over from her desk and whispered to me when she saw Mrs. Hindler go to the supply closet and take out construction paper.
"Family trees," Veronica whispered. "I bet you anything."
But it wasn't no big secret or surprise. All the girls around us was whispering the same thing: family trees.
You get decimals in sixth grade, at least in our school, at least in our town of Highriver. Decimals in Math, and in Geography, South America, with all the capitals and major products and names of mountains you can't spell or pronounce, not even if you practice at home and study.
And family trees. Family trees is something Mrs. Hindler done with the sixth grade at the beginning of every year, so me and Veronica knew it was coming.
Mrs. Hindler stood up in front of the class with a piece of construction paper all marked up so's it looked like an apple tree with people's names printed right inside the apples.
Then she showed us on the board, with chalk, how it worked. You put your own name in first, see, right in the middle apple, with your birthday printed in smaller, underneath. Then all your folks become apples on the limbs. Mrs. Hindler showed us how she had a brother named Ralph, and where she had written in his apple: Ralph Weaver (Weaver was her name, too, she said, before she got married to Mr. Hindler) and his birthday. Then, under that, it said "Dec."
"What does dec mean?" Roger Watkins called out. Old Roger, he always forgot to raise his hand, so's he seemed rude, but he really wasn't so bad.
Mrs. Hindler picked out the "Dec." with her long, pointy red fingernail and stood there looking mournful. "My brother Ralph has passed away," she said. "That's what it means."
"Oh," Roger said. "My grandpa is dec," he added. "I'll write that in under my grandpa's name."
Everybody started murmuring, thinking up who in their family was dec.
"It means 'deceased'," Mrs. Hindler explained. "It's an abbreviation for 'deceased'." But I don't think many people was listening. They was all still talking to each other about who they knew who was dec. I could hear old Norman Cox in the back row, saying his dog was dec. Norman Cox's dog was double dec, if you ask me, run over by both front and back wheels of the J. C. Penney's delivery truck last spring.
Leaving school that afternoon, me and Veronica, we was each carrying our piece of construction paper—mine was yellow, hers was blue—and thinking about our family trees. Letitia and Felicia Saunders came past us, laughing, and we laughed with them.
"You should've asked her for a whole pack of paper!" I called to them.
One of them—I never could tell which one, since they was identical twins and always dressed alike—called back, "Our tree won't have room for any leaves! Just nothing but apples!"
The Saunders was the richest black family in Highriver, and also the one with the most children. Mrs. Saunders, she had a baby every single year, and there was something like thirteen of them already. Letitia and Felicia always had their hair done up in them rows of fancy braids, and so did all their sisters. I could never figure out how their mother had time to braid all that hair. But maybe she had maids. Their daddy owned a big factory that made doorknobs and stuff, and they lived in an enormous house with religious statues in the yard. I always wanted to see the inside, but the twins, though they was friendly enough in school, never invited kids to their house. I suppose it was full enough already.
Veronica and me headed home. "I don't even have no sisters or brothers, not even any dec," I said, gloomy-like. "You got Gunther, at least. But my old apple will be all by itself there in the middle."
"Yes. I have Gunther. But Mrs. Hindler said we could put cousins in, and I don't have a single cousin, Rabble. You told me you have a million cousins."
That cheered me up a little, when I remembered that cousins could be apples. "That's right, I do! Some dec, even. My cousin Liddie got herself killed one summer falling off a tractor. Course she shouldn't of been on a tractor at all, she was only about five years old, so her big brother got into lots of trouble for riding her with him."
"You can put 'dec' after her name," Veronica said, "and then write her brother's name in black ugly letters, since it was his fault."
"Yeah, I might." I thought about that, remembering my cousin Joth, a fat blond boy with pale blue eyes. After Liddie slipped off the tractor that summer, Joth always slunk around all furtive and scared-like, looking behind him now and then as if somebody might sneak up and get even.
"I don't even know nobody's last name, among my cousins," I confessed to Veronica. "I gotta ask Sweet-Ho tonight. I hope she remembers."
Veronica pushed her hair back out of her eyes and glared at her sheet of blue paper. "I know everybody's names," she said, "but I don't have very many. I'm going to have the barest, dumbest-looking tree in the sixth grade."
"You want some of my cousins?" I asked. "I don't need 'em all."
"Maybe. Let's do them together, tonight, so if we need to borrow back and forth, we can, okay?"
I nodded, even though I knew I didn't need to borrow none from Veronica, having so many of my own already. But it makes people feel better if you try to come out even. I wouldn't mind if she wanted to loan me Gunther for my tree, since I didn't have no brothers and I liked Gunther, having known him since the very day he came home from the hospital newly born, four years ago. "Gunther Philip Bigelow" could look pretty fine, printed all neatly inside of an apple. Mrs. Bigelow surely had some severe and worrisome problems, but she had a grand history of choosing names for her children. Veronica's middle name was Gwendolyn, and between her two names she had more syllables than anybody I knew.
We was just coming around the corner by the Bigelows' house when Norman Cox came by on his bike, heading home. We could see his family-tree piece of construction paper—his was green—sticking out of the notebook in his bike basket.
"Gonna work on your family tree full of rotten apples, Starkey-Parkey?" he yelled.
I ignored him mightily. I made a motion to my ear, like I was turning off my hearing aid. My Great Aunt Elna used to do that for real.
"How about you, Bigelow-Pigelow?" Norman yelled at Veronica. "Who you got on your tree, besides crazies?"
Veronica tossed her head, ignoring him same as me, but I could tell she was embarrassed. Norman skidded past us on his bike, up toward the Coxes' driveway. His rear wheel skittered some pebbles toward us, stinging our legs.
Usually I make a practice of making no reply to rudeness. But it overstepped the bounds of decency, what Norman said to Veronica, calling attention to certain family problems. I yelled after him finally. "At least Veronica and me don't got a father who wears a dress!
" I yelled.
It wasn't fair, really, since Norman's father wore work pants just like everybody else's father, most of the time. He only wore that long dress at church on Sundays, like the rules said he should, and I couldn't really fault him none for that. But sometimes you just lose your common sense when you feel the need to yell something hurtful.
Norman only laughed a spiteful sort of laugh, and sped away, holding his middle finger right straight up in the air where everybody in the neighborhood could see it, even his own mother if she happened to be looking out the window.
Shoot, it wasn't even really my neighborhood, either, if you want the whole entire truth. Me and Sweet-Ho, we was just hired help at the Bigelows. We didn't own a house or even pay rent. We just lived in two-rooms-and-a-bath up over the Bigelows' garage and held our breath tight every time Mr. Bigelow idled his Plymouth so the fumes drifting up through the floor and seeping through our braided rug wouldn't knock us flat dead.
But Veronica was just my age, twelve, and so we was friends. The differences between her and me didn't matter. I didn't much care that she lived across the yard in that bedroom all ruffled up and fancy because, shoot, she didn't care about it and made fun of the ruffles herself. And I sure wasn't jealous that she was filling out and getting a womanly figure all of a sudden while I was still a skinny Minnie. Veronica herself hated the thought of it, and slept on her stomach without fail, trying to mash her chest in so's it would stay flat. Both of us knew that once you start getting a big womanly chest, that's when lifelong trouble and sorrow begins.
We knew that secondhand from observing Veronica's mother, whose life was crowded with trouble, weighted down with trouble, even though she pretended otherwise and always without no exceptions had a smile pasted on her lips, even when she slept. Veronica and me, we spied on her once for that very reason, and it was true, Mrs. Bigelow slept smiling, and that is one of the saddest things I have ever learned through spying.
Even more, we learned about womanly trouble and sorrow from Sweet-Ho, who sometimes would talk to us about it in the kitchen of the Bigelows' house after supper was done. Gunther, he'd be all put to bed by then; and Mrs. Bigelow, well, she'd be off by herself same as always, roaming about the house, touching things, smiling and smiling. And Mr. Bigelow would go back to the office.
Veronica and me would set in the kitchen watching Sweet-Ho clean up, sometimes helping her put things away, now and then picking at leftovers before they got sealed up. Then when she was done, Sweet-Ho would pour us all a glass of iced tea, and we'd set there at the table, Veronica with her arms folded across her chest to mash it in, Sweet-Ho with her shoes kicked off both to soothe her feet and also so's Veronica and me could admire her toenails, which she kept painted a deep, romantic crimson.
We'd coax her a little—Sweet-Ho liked to be coaxed. Then she'd tell about the trouble and sorrow that came to her once she filled out.
And Sweet-Ho, she knew for real, from experience. Shoot, she was only fourteen when she had me.
Veronica and me spread out our construction paper on the table and started to explain to Sweet-Ho about the trees.
But Veronica interrupted the explanation. She was still remembering what happened on the way home from school. "I sure do dislike Norman Cox, Sweet-Ho," she said. "He yells remarks."
"Me too," I said. "I hate Norman Cox more than anything."
"Did anybody ever yell remarks at you, Sweet-Ho, when you were twelve?" Veronica asked.
I settled back in my chair, even though it wasn't very comfortable, being wood, and me being bony. All of our talk about Norman Cox was just part of the coaxing so that me and Veronica could get Sweet-Ho to telling about her own past troubles, stories we'd heard a hundred times before. But so romantic and sad and sweet that Veronica and me, we got all choked up again and again, listening.
Sweet-Ho folded a dishtowel and hung it up to dry. She sat down with us at the table and ran her fingers through her long hair. "Starting when I was just about eleven or twelve," she said. "Remarks and more than remarks, sometimes. Grabbing at me if they thought nobody was looking."
Veronica wrapped her arms around herself, as if someone might grab. "What did you do?" she asked.
Sweet-Ho grinned. "I punched Tracker Stargill flat one time. Gave him a bloody nose."
"You hated Tracker Stargill," I pointed out, since I had heard the story so often before. "He had no brains. He was still in third grade when he was fifteen."
"Wonder what ever happened to Tracker Stargill," Sweet-Ho said suddenly, looking into the distance almost as if her memory might be back there, behind the kitchen range, maybe, or through the window. "He'd be thirty years old by now."
"Probably still in third grade," I hooted. "World record for number of years in third grade!"
"Tell about Ginger Starkey next," suggested Veronica. "Rabble and I have to work on these trees for school, but I want to hear about Ginger Starkey first."
"You pour the iced tea, Rabble, honey," Sweet-Ho said. I unwound my feet from the rungs of the chair and went to the refrigerator. Sweet-Ho always needed something to sip before she talked about Ginger Starkey.
She cooled her hands around the glass when I brought it to her. Me and Veronica tasted ours and added sugar.
"He had that ginger-colored hair," Veronica said, prompting. "And he had already finished tenth grade several years before, and you were just in eighth." Sweet-Ho smiled. She has a wonderful smile, and she doesn't use it just any old time. Sweet-Ho's is an occasional, important smile, and she's never wasteful of it.
"He had that ginger-colored hair," Sweet-Ho began, "and it was the first thing I noticed about him when I saw him. It was a hot day, one of those days when the sun makes everything seem as if it's moving, you know? And you have to squinch your eyes up to slits, even just to see, because it's so bright—and lord, there was this bright ginger-colored hair, shimmering in that heat. And I didn't even see anything else at first, just that hair. He was sitting in the driver's side of a blue Ford pickup, parked in front of Appleby's General Store, and I had walked to Appleby's to get some—what was it, now? I forget."
"Molasses," Veronica and I said together.
"Right. Molasses, for my mother, because she needed it for the cinnamon cookies she was about to bake, and she thought she had some, but when she went to reach for it, it just wasn't there. She had a suspicion that Verna Cooper had come right into the house and borrowed it without asking when nobody was home. Well, anyway, that must be fate, because if we hadn't needed molasses, and I hadn't gone down to Appleby's to get some at that exact moment—"
"—because the pickup was about to leave, right?"
"Right. Its engine was running, and Ginger Starkey was only just waiting for the fellow he was with, who was inside Appleby's buying some cigarillos. They were going to go to the stock-car races, Ginger and—I can't remember his name—"
"It don't matter. His name don't matter," I interrupted, knowing she would search and search for that name, but it would never be there.
"Then he saw you, and you saw him," Veronica said, all dramatic-like.
Sweet-Ho held the icy glass against her mouth. She licked its cold side. She smiled. "He saw me and I saw him, and that was it. I never even completed my errand before I was climbing into that truck and we exchanged a few smiles and a few words and then we was driving away and clean left his friend behind as well. And there I was only thirteen years old, and Ginger Starkey, he had finished tenth grade and been out of school for three years—he was probably twenty, even—"
"And you'd never been with a guy who drove his own pickup before, and next thing you knew—"
She took the story back from me. "Next thing I knew, we was already in the next county and I made him stop so's I could send a postcard to my mother."
"And the postcard said—" That was Veronica asking. Veronica always liked what that postcard said.
Sweet-Ho laughed. "'Dear Mama, I have gone off to get married and I forgot yo
ur molasses. By the time you get this my name will be Sweet Hosanna Starkey.'"
"She forgave you, though," I said with satisfaction.
"She forgave me because I came home with a ginger-haired baby," Sweet-Ho said, "and my mama, she was a pushover for babies of any kind, and she'd never seen one with hair like that before." She reached over and ran her fingers down through my hair. "It's still just as pretty as your daddy's was, Rabble."
But I pulled away. I don't care none about having pretty hair. "Tell how she named me, too, Sweet-Ho."
"Well, I was just young and foolish, you know? And Ginger Starkey, he didn't care. I didn't know it, but by the time you was born he was already making his getaway plans. Lord, he'd probably pulled up that pickup beside some other little girl with eyes for ginger-colored hair. So when you came and I asked him what to name you, he didn't say nothing or indicate any interest, and me, all I could think of was movie star names, and I couldn't even choose one for all that. So you went a month with no name, and then another month with no name and no daddy to boot, because Ginger Starkey was gone by then. And then I got on a Greyhound and went back home, and first thing Mama said after she saw you was—"
Me and Veronica said it together: "'Look at them sea green eyes. Look at that ginger-colored hair. Lord, lord, trouble lies ahead for this child.'"
"That's exactly what she said," Sweet-Ho went on.
"What did she mean, trouble?" I asked. "I never have no trouble."
Sweet-Ho grinned. "It was just her way of saying that you would grow up beautiful."
"So she gave me a Bible name."
"That's right. She said, "'We'll stave off what trouble we can with a Bible name.'"
"Parable Ann Starkey," I announced with pride.
"I have more syllables," Veronica said. "But you, Rabble, you've got the more meaningful name. And you've got your daddy's pretty ginger-colored hair. And once you fill out, Rabble, then, sure as anything, you're going to have—"
"Trouble and sorrow," Sweet-Ho said, but she was laughing. "Come on, you two, let's get at those family trees or you'll both of you flunk sixth grade."