Tallahassee Higgins

  After Uncle Dan left, I picked up Melanie. "Liz will send for me in just a few weeks, I bet," I whispered to her. "She'll miss me so much she'll get all sad, and Bob won't know how to cheer her up the way I do."

  I pulled my Glinda the Good Witch Magic Wand out of my backpack. The stick was bent and the star was crooked, but I waved it through the air and tapped Melanie lightly on the head. "Be happy," I crooned, and then I swooped around the room on my toes.

  Unlike Liz, Melanie didn't laugh at my Glinda routine, but she looked happy. Picking her up, I gave her a little shake and made her say, "Liz loves you more than anything in the whole world, Tallahassee Higgins. You're the only person who can make her truly happy."

  Sitting Melanie on the bureau, I rummaged through the stuff in my backpack, trying to find some underpants that didn't have holes in them. I only had four pairs, and all of them were the Sunday kind—holy. Hoping Aunt Thelma wouldn't follow me into the dressing room at the mall, I put on the least raggedy ones, yanked on my jeans and a T-shirt, and ran downstairs.

  Fritzi was waiting for me in the hall, growling like a killer dog. I tried to walk around him, but he blocked my path and snarled.

  "Nice dog, nice dog." I stretched my hand toward him the way Liz had taught me. "Let them smell you," she always said, "so they'll know you aren't threatening them."

  I guess the message didn't get through because Fritzi continued to growl and then to bark—sharp, loud yapping sounds.

  "Tallahassee, leave that dog alone." Aunt Thelma stepped into the hall and picked Fritzi up. Kissing his nose, she said, "Come on, sweetie, I'll give you a puppy bone."

  "I wasn't doing anything to him," I told her. "For your information, he was trying to bite me. Are you sure he doesn't have rabies or something?"

  When she didn't answer, I stuck my tongue out at Fritzi, who was growling at me over Aunt Thelma's shoulder.

  "Sit down and eat, Tallahassee." Aunt Thelma put a bowl on the table next to a glass of orange juice. "We haven't got all day."

  "What's this?" I poked at the warm gray stuff in the bowl, thinking she must have given me Fritzi's food by mistake.

  "Haven't you ever eaten oatmeal?" she asked coldly. Neither of us had forgotten the scene we'd had upstairs, and the air in the kitchen was heavy with unspoken words.

  I looked at the cup she was holding. "I'll just have coffee." I tried to sound as cold as she had.

  "Coffee?" Aunt Thelma couldn't have looked more shocked if I'd asked for a beer. "Coffee is for adults, not children. You eat that oatmeal, Tallahassee. Breakfast is the most important meal of the day."

  Sitting down across from me, she put her cup on the table. I could see the steam curling up from it and smell the good coffee aroma. Then she opened the newspaper to the crossword puzzle, picked up a pencil, and started filling in the blanks.

  I don't know how long we would have sat there if Uncle Dan hadn't come through the back door, huffing from the cold. "Are you two ready?" he asked.

  "When Tallahassee finishes her breakfast," Aunt Thelma said.

  "I told her all I wanted was coffee, but she won't even let me have one cup." I glared at Aunt Thelma, but she had her head bent over the crossword puzzle as if it were the most important thing in the world.

  Uncle Dan looked at my oatmeal. "It's cold, Thelma. Maybe you should give her cornflakes instead."

  Aunt Thelma shot him a dirty look, but she poured some cornflakes into a bowl and put it down in front of me. Then, sighing loudly, she dumped the oatmeal in the garbage disposal.

  After I'd eaten enough to satisfy her, I pulled on my sweatshirt and followed them outside to Aunt Thelma's car, an old Ford. I got into the back seat, which smelled like Fritzi, and Uncle Dan struggled to start the engine.

  "Roger's truck used to sound just like this," I told Uncle Dan. "He said it was because it needed a new choke."

  Uncle Dan nodded and Aunt Thelma muttered something about not knowing I was an automobile mechanic. Finally, the car started and we set off for the mall.

  ***

  By the time Aunt Thelma had finished dragging me from one store to another looking for sales, I had a green and blue ski jacket, a new pair of jeans, and three sweaters, plus socks, underwear, and mittens. I hated to think of how much money Aunt Thelma had wasted, but I promised her that Liz would pay her back. "Every cent," I said. "Even though I don't need any of these clothes."

  On the way back to Oglethorpe Street, we passed a McDonald's. "Can we eat dinner there?" I leaned over the seat, addressing my request to Uncle Dan.

  "Certainly not." Aunt Thelma reared her head back like an angry horse. "You had a hot dog at the mall. That's enough junk food for one day."

  In my opinion you can never have enough junk food, but I knew better than to try telling Aunt Thelma that. Instead I slumped in the backseat and wondered what Liz was doing. Ten to one, she and the mother stealer were eating Big Macs somewhere.

  ***

  After dinner Aunt Thelma and I had one more fight. This time it was about television. I wanted to stay up and watch The Bride of Dracula on Creature Feature, but Aunt Thelma reminded me that my bedtime was nine-thirty on weekends.

  "You certainly can't stay up until two in the morning watching a horror film," she said.

  "Liz lets me see anything I want." I glared at Aunt Thelma. "And she never makes me go to bed."

  I'm sure Aunt Thelma thought I was lying, but I wasn't. I'd been watching horror films all my life, partly because Liz was scared to watch them by herself. And I'd always stayed up till I fell asleep, usually on the floor in front of the television set. Then Liz would carry me to bed.

  "Well, you aren't living with Liz now." Aunt Thelma turned off the television, right in the middle of an old Fantasy Island rerun. "So go on upstairs before I lose my temper."

  "Can't I at least watch the end of Fantasy Island?" I asked. "It's one of my favorites. This woman is going to drink from the fountain of youth—that's her wish—and then she's going to find out it's really awful to see everybody you love get old while you stay young, and the dwarf is going—"

  "That's enough, Tallahassee," Aunt Thelma rudely interrupted me. "If you know the show so well, you don't need to see it again."

  "But I don't remember all of it," I said. "I forget how it ends. There's always this twist, you know, and—"

  Aunt Thelma put her hands on my shoulders and turned me toward the stairs. "Go to bed," she said. "This minute!"

  "You hate me!" I yelled at her as Uncle Dan came up from the basement. "You hate Liz and you hate me!"

  "You do something with her," Aunt Thelma said to Uncle Dan. "I can't put up with this behavior."

  "All I wanted to do was stay up and see The Bride of Dracula," I told Uncle Dan, "but she won't even let me watch Fantasy Island."

  "You be a good girl and do what your aunt tells you, Tallahassee," Uncle Dan said gently as Aunt Thelma stalked off to the kitchen with Fritzi at her heels. "You know it's your bedtime."

  I opened my mouth to argue, but Uncle Dan just shook his head. "Go on, now," he said.

  Unhappily, I went to my room, undressed, and got into bed with Melanie. "Well," I whispered, "things aren't getting any better, are they?"

  "I hope Liz sends the money for your ticket soon," I made Melanie say. "Or we'll both go nuts."

  Holding silly old Melon Head in my arms, I stared at the shadows on the ceiling and thought up stories about the shapes they made. If I looked real hard, I could see Liz and Bob riding on a motorcycle right over my head. Liz's hair blew around her face, almost hiding it, but I knew she was thinking about me, feeling lonely for me, wishing I was there to do a little dance for her or tell her a new knock-knock joke.

  Chapter 6

  SUNDAY WAS A GRAY DAY, full of rain and wind. I managed to avoid Aunt Thelma by spending most of the afternoon in Liz's room, reading her old horse books and worrying about school. What were kids like in Maryland? My clothes, my hair, my accent—everything about m
e might be weird. Suppose they laughed at me? Suppose nobody wanted to be friends with me?

  Before I went to sleep that night, I had a long talk with Melanie. "I've gone to ten schools," I told her, "because Liz never likes to stay in one place for more than a few months. And I've only had about three friends in my whole life, but it never mattered because I had Liz. Now I'm all by myself."

  I hugged Melanie and stared at Liz's horses galloping across the flowered wallpaper. "Do you think anybody will like me?" I asked Melanie.

  "Of course they will," I made her say. She was very loyal. "All the girls will want to sit next to you at lunch and the boys will fall madly in love with you."

  That made me laugh. "Even though I have big teeth and a zillion freckles?"

  I made Melanie nod her head. "That's just what they like in Maryland, I hear. Big teeth and freckles and red hair. And don't forget, you can tell jokes and walk on your hands and turn perfect cartwheels and draw almost anything. Not everybody is as talented as you are, Tallahassee Higgins."

  "But they might think I talk funny. And suppose I don't know how to do their math and stuff?"

  "Well, you just have to stay here for a little while," Melanie said. "Then you'll be in California where the sun always shines and the sky is always blue and the leaves never fall off the trees."

  With that thought to comfort me, I fell asleep.

  ***

  The next morning, after Uncle Dan left for the phone company, Aunt Thelma drove me to school. Normally, she told me, she would be at work before I left the house, but the bank had given her special permission to come in late today. She wanted to make sure I got to school on time.

  "Now pay attention to where I'm going, so you'll know how to get home," Aunt Thelma said as she pulled out of the driveway. "It's only six blocks, and you'll probably meet some other children to walk with."

  "Do any kids my age live near us?" I was watching a girl with long, brown hair walking along behind three younger boys, probably her little brothers. The boys were pushing and shoving each other, quarreling about something, and the girl was doing her best to ignore them. She stared at us as we drove past, and Aunt Thelma waved at her.

  "That's Jane DeFlores and her brothers," she told me. "They live in the house behind us."

  I turned and looked out the rear window at Jane and her brothers, still fighting, as they dwindled away in the distance. "Is she nice?"

  Aunt Thelma nodded. "She's a lovely little girl."

  Before I could ask her any more questions, we pulled up across the street from the Pinkney Magruder Elementary School. It looked like a jail. Dark-red brick, two stories high, little windows, and big, green doors at the top of a flight of cement steps.

  Off to one side the playground swings blew in the wind, their chains making a sad, clanking sound. Kids ran around shouting and yelling. It made my stomach hurt just to think about meeting so many strangers.

  "Did you know your mother went to school here?" Aunt Thelma asked. "And Dan and I, too." She smiled and smoothed her coat. "It seems like yesterday."

  To me it seemed more like a hundred years ago. I simply couldn't imagine Aunt Thelma or Liz walking up these steps, going through the big, green double door into the dreary tile hall, breathing in the smells of spaghetti and hot dogs, floor wax and chalk dust. Frankly, it made me feel as if the building were full of ghosts.

  In the office Aunt Thelma paused at a counter and waited for the secretary to look up from her typewriter.

  "I was here last week registering my niece, Tallahassee Higgins." Aunt Thelma nudged me forward.

  The secretary looked through a pile of papers on her desk. "Oh, yes, you're all taken care of, Tallahassee. You'll be in Mrs. Duffy's class—Six-B in Room 201. I'll buzz somebody to get you."

  "Wait a minute, Tallahassee, I almost forgot." Aunt Thelma opened her purse and pulled out a key on a long chain, the kind you see most often attached to bathtub plugs. "Take this and don't lose it. I'll be home around four-thirty. You can have a couple of cookies and a glass of milk, but I expect you to clean up any mess you make."

  Sticking the key in my pocket, I looked at the floor, too embarrassed to meet her eyes. Did she have to talk to me as if I were a baby while the secretary leaned over the counter listening to every word?

  "Here's Dawn," the secretary said as a girl walked into the office carrying a hall pass. "This is Tallahassee Higgins, honey. Will you show her where Six-B is?"

  Dawn's eyes slid over me, taking in my stiff, new jeans, my big teeth, and my shaggy hair, blown every which way by the wind. Wishing I'd brought a comb with me, I said good-bye to Aunt Thelma and followed Dawn out of the office.

  Walking behind her, I noticed that her hair was layered in perfect waves, her jeans fit just right, and her pale blue sweater matched her running shoes. Dawn was the kind of girl everybody wants to sit next to, and I was sure that all the knock-knock jokes I knew wouldn't impress her; she would have already heard every one of them.

  "I never met anybody named Tallahassee before," Dawn said as she led me down a long hall. "I always thought that was a city, not a person's name."

  I stared at the tan tiles under my feet and wished Dawn hadn't zeroed in on my name first thing. It was so embarrassing, and I'd never quite forgiven Liz. Oh, she had her reasons. "Higgins is such an ordinary last name," she always said when I complained. "I wanted something to jazz it up a little. Not Ann or Mary, they're too boring. You were born in Tallahassee, so I thought, why not?"

  Then Liz would laugh and say, "Just be glad you weren't born in Peoria or Kalamazoo, kid."

  Glancing at Dawn, I tossed some hair out of my eyes and said, "It's an old family name, but when I grow up I'm going to change it to something prettier. Like Tiffany or Meredith."

  "I don't like my name either," Dawn said. "When I have a kid, I'm just going to call it honey or something and when it's old enough it can pick out its own name."

  We paused by a water fountain and got drinks. Then Dawn asked me where I was from.

  "Florida," I said. "I'm just visiting my uncle and aunt for a couple of weeks. Then I'm moving to California. My mother's on her way to Hollywood."

  "Really?" Dawn looked impressed. "Is she an actress?"

  "Not yet," I said, "but her boyfriend knows a lot of people in the film industry, and he's sure she's going to be a big star."

  Dawn sucked in her breath. "Aren't you excited?"

  "Well, sure." I hesitated. What if I told Dawn that Liz was being considered for a role in a movie opposite somebody like Richard Gere? Would she believe me?

  "Here's Six-B," Dawn said. "I'll save you a place at our lunch table, and you can tell me all about your mother. Okay?"

  The minute we stepped through the door, everybody stopped talking and stared at me. A tall woman with gray hair got up from her desk and smiled at me.

  "Welcome to Pinkney Magruder Elementary School, Tallahassee." Mrs. Duffy took my hand and squeezed it warmly. "We're so glad to have you," she said. Her voice was as soft and warm as her hands.

  After introducing me to the class, she told me to take an empty seat by the window. "Your books are there already, just waiting for you. We're doing a review unit on fractions."

  I sat down and stared at the initials carved into the top of my desk. If there was anything I hated more than math, I couldn't think what it was.

  After a few minutes I glanced across the room at Dawn. She and a couple of other girls were passing notes back and forth. From the looks they sent my way, I was sure Dawn was telling them about my mother, the movie star.

  I noticed Jane DeFlores, too, sitting a couple of rows away. She caught my eye and smiled, revealing a mouthful of metal braces.

  "Tallahassee, do you know the answer?"

  Startled, I stared at Mrs. Duffy and the problem she had written on the blackboard. It was long and horrible and full of weird symbols. The boy across the aisle waved his hand, bouncing up and down in his seat in his eagerness to be calle
d on, and a girl poked me and whispered something about finding the common denominator, whatever that was.

  My face reddening, I shook my head. "In my school in Florida, we hadn't gotten to fractions." Which wasn't exactly true. We'd gotten to them, but I hadn't paid any attention because I knew we were moving.

  I expected Mrs. Duffy to frown or look cross, but she just smiled sympathetically and said we'd have to work on them after school or something. Temporarily relieved, I slumped farther down in my seat and hoped she wouldn't call on me again. Didn't she realize I was just visiting here?

  After social studies and English, the bell rang for lunch, and Dawn and her friends, Terri and Karen, walked to the cafeteria with me. Although I could smell hot dogs and spaghetti and maybe a little sauerkraut, today's meal was pizza, green beans, bread, and cherry Jell-O.

  As soon as we sat down, Dawn leaned toward me. "Do you have a picture of your mother?"

  I handed her a picture Roger had taken last summer at the beach. Liz was wearing a bikini, and her long hair blew in the breeze. I was standing next to her, squinting into the sun and hugging Roger's dog, Sandy.

  "She's beautiful." Dawn showed the picture to Karen and Terri. "You don't look at all like her," she added.

  "I take after my father." I slipped the picture back into my wallet and pretended I didn't hear Karen whisper, "Too bad."

  "So is she really going to be a star?" Terri asked.

  Before answering, I took a deep breath. "She might get a part in Richard Gere's new movie," I said. "He's seen her photograph, and he's really interested in her."

  "Richard Gere?" Dawn choked on a mouthful of pizza. "Are you serious?"

  I nodded. In my imagination I saw Liz in a studio, the lights shining on her golden hair as she and Richard played their parts. The scene was so real to me, I felt as if I were gazing into a crystal ball and truly seeing the future.

  "The movie's called The Island," I began, "and it's about a beautiful woman who's on a honeymoon with her new husband, Richard Gere. She has a daughter by a previous marriage, but she leaves her with a cruel aunt while she goes off to the Caribbean."