Belle Teale Read online

  I shiver. I would not want to be Big Boss’s son.

  “Little Boss,” I say, “we have to tell Miss Casey the truth.”

  Little Boss looks absolutely terrified. “No!” he says. “I mean, not yet.”

  “But we have to tell her. Darryl’s in trouble for something he didn’t do. In trouble with the police.”

  “I know, I know, but —” Little Boss pauses, licks his lips — “just . . . just give me until tomorrow, Belle Teal, okay? I swear I’ll tell tomorrow. But first I have to figure a few things out. Don’t say anything to anybody until then.”

  I glance around to see what Miss Casey’s doing, and what do I find but she is watching us. Watching Little Boss and me. She gives us a long look before she turns back to the angel Gabriel’s silvery wings.

  When school ends that day, every single person in our class sees Big Boss’s pickup parked out front, and Big Boss leaning against the hood with a cheekful of chewing tobacco, waiting for Little Boss.

  I look around our room — at Little Boss, at Darryl, at Clarice, at Miss Casey, all of them troubled.

  “Darryl,” Miss Casey says gentle-like as we are putting our coats on, “I believe I’ll drive you home today.”

  “I’m coming with you,” Clarice announces.

  “You’ll miss your bus,” Miss Casey replies.

  Clarice doesn’t care.

  Little Boss shuffles toward the door on his crutches, and I think he looks as lost as Gran sometimes does.

  “I’ll walk you to your father,” I tell him, since I know Darryl is in good hands.

  And so me and Little Boss set out down the hall. I carry Little Boss’s notebook for him, like Big Boss did this morning. When we reach the doorway, I draw in a slow breath and step outside. Big Boss catches sight of us right away. A smile creeps across his face when he realizes I am helping Little Boss. We make our way along the front walk, and I can’t help but remember the first day of school this fall when the walk was lined with those shouting parents.

  The closer me and Little Boss get to Big Boss, the harder my heart beats until I think it might explode right out of my chest. Finally I can’t take it any longer. We are twenty yards away from the pickup when I say to Little Boss, “Do you think you can manage this?” and I hand him his notebook.

  “Yeah,” replies Little Boss. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow,” I say.

  “Okay. Bye, Belle Teal.”

  “Bye.”

  I watch Little Boss continue down the walk, watch Big Boss watch him. And I see Big Boss’s mean eyes suddenly narrow as he looks at something behind me.

  I turn around.

  Now Darryl is starting down the walk. Miss Casey is next to him, her arm across his shoulders. Clarice is on his other side, and she loops her arm through his.

  I stand there and look from right to left — from Darryl and Miss Casey and Clarice, to Big Boss and Little Boss. Big Boss, at first he can’t take his eyes off Darryl. But then all of a sudden he says something low under his breath, and straightens up and hustles into the truck, slamming the door shut behind him, leaving Little Boss to struggle in on his own.

  I am not surprised to hear Big Boss gun the motor as the truck roars away.

  I do not know it then, but that is the last time I will ever see Little Boss.

  After school that day I sit with my secret for as long as I can stand it, which is until after dinner. By then I am bursting, and decide it will be okay to talk with Mama or Gran. But Mama is off studying for her secretarial exams, and I do not know how late she’ll come home. And Gran, well, she goes into her room to get ready for bed and comes out a few minutes later in another entire outfit.

  “Gran, you’re not going to sleep in that dress, are you?” I say to her.

  And Gran, she looks so confused that I feel something break inside me.

  It is not the night to talk to Gran.

  So I find my journal under my bed and turn to writing in it again. I scribble down all my thoughts about Little Boss and Big Boss and Darryl and this fall. I am so thankful that tomorrow the truth will be told and everyone will know who did what, and that Darryl was just a kid sitting at home visiting with Reverend Watts.

  The funny thing, though, is that I keep waiting to get the glorious feeling about all this truth, but it doesn’t happen. I fall asleep with a small, empty ache in my chest.

  Mama is still asleep when I wake up the next morning. She has left me a note saying she didn’t come home until after midnight last night, and that she is going to take today off from the R U Sleep Inn in order to study some more. I am glad about all the studying, but that ache in my chest is growing, and I really want to talk to Mama. Or to some adult. Maybe I can talk to Miss Casey after Little Boss does.

  On the school bus that morning, Clarice just chatters and chatters about Christmas. I try to listen, but finally I have to tell her that I have a little headache, and then Clarice quiets down, but she is hurt.

  I feel bad, but I have to focus in on Little Boss. He does not come to school, though. Right away I am worried. Oh boy. Big Boss and his temper. He would be some mad if Little Boss said he wanted to tell the truth about Saturday. Then I think, what if Little Boss ended up going straight to the police all by himself and now Big Boss is in jail? After all, Big Boss lied to the police.

  My mind is a whirl.

  If Big Boss is in jail, where is Little Boss?

  I try to concentrate on other things. It is a busy day. We have a spelling quiz and we have to work on Christmas compositions and that afternoon we have another rehearsal.

  At the end of the day I ask Miss Casey if she knows where Little Boss is, and she says no, and I see something worried in her eyes.

  That night I can’t stop thinking about Little Boss. I have a very bad feeling. I wait and wait for Mama to come home, my eyes following Gran as she wanders around the kitchen in her summer nightie, humming “Juke Box Saturday Night,” and later saying that my, this is the coldest summer she can ever recall.

  To my relief, Mama comes home just after nine o’clock. She has not even sat down yet when I say, “Mama, I have to talk to you. It’s important.” Then I surprise us both by bursting into tears.

  Mama, she puts her arms around me and holds on tight until I calm down enough to talk. Then I say, “I know the truth about Little Boss and Darryl,” and I tell her what Little Boss told me.

  “But he didn’t come to school today,” I add, “and I don’t know why. I should never have told him he had to tell Miss Casey the truth.” A new thought occurs to me. “Maybe he ran away!”

  “Precious, whatever has happened, it isn’t your fault.” Mama searches through her pocketbook for a cigarette, but gives up before she finds one. She sits us down on the couch, leans back, and puts her feet up on a table, which Gran never used to allow us to do.

  “Nothing you did was wrong,” she says. “You had to give Little Boss a chance to deal with this in his own way. Someone does have to tell the truth, though. But it does not have to be you. Or Little Boss. I will talk to Miss Casey tomorrow, okay?”

  I nod. “When?”

  “On my lunch break. I’ll drive over to school.”

  “Okay.”

  On Friday morning, I get on the bus trying to feel hopeful. Just because Little Boss missed school yesterday doesn’t mean he won’t be there today. I settle next to Clarice, and am staring out the window when Chas and Vernon invade my thoughts.

  “Guess what,” says Chas.

  I am tired of his games. “Just tell me,” I say.

  “We went over to Little Boss’s yesterday and no one was there.”

  “So?”

  “He means no one lives there anymore,” says Vernon. “What?” I exclaim, and Clarice looks up from the book she is reading.

  “It’s all empty, the house,” says Chas. “Their stuff is gone.”

  “They moved on,” adds Vernon.

  I think of a million questions, but I c
an’t ask them because I am still the only one of us who knows Little Boss’s story.

  That morning I look at our classroom clock at least one million times. Mama’s lunch break at the R U Sleep Inn begins at noon sharp. I figure Mama can be at school by 12:10 if she leaves work immediately.

  Chas and Vernon haven’t wasted any time spreading the news about Little Boss around school, so Miss Casey heard it the second she stepped into our classroom, and right away she disappeared down the hall, probably to talk to Mr. Walter. But she won’t know the full story until Mama arrives.

  Which is at 12:13. I am sitting in the cafeteria eating lunch with Clarice and Darryl, but mostly I am keeping an eye on the hallway. At exactly 12:13, I see Mama enter Coker Creek Elementary, carrying her red pocketbook, which is her good one, and wearing her fancy coat over the Adele uniform. She heads for the school office. I don’t know exactly what happens after that, and I don’t care too much, just as long as the grown-ups take care of everything.

  What I do know is that at the end of the day, Miss Casey, looking pale and very, very tired, tells us what we have already heard, which is that Little Boss won’t be a part of our class anymore. She says that we will miss him, and adds that we will have to find ourselves a new king for the pageant. Which is how Trey Beeber, the shepherd, becomes a permanent king.

  It is not until sometime the following week, though, that Miss Casey moves Little Boss’s desk out of our room. One day it is there, the next day it is not.

  When I wake up on Saturday, the day after Mama comes to school, I feel limp and exhausted, like I’ve had the flu. Just for right now I can’t think about white people hating colored people and fathers who shouldn’t be fathers and boys with bruises. I do think about one thing, though — that I did right when I told Little Boss to tell Miss Casey the truth.

  Mama reminds me about that time and time again over the weekend. And she takes a whole afternoon off from her studying so’s she and I, just the two of us, can have lunch at the counter at Sherman’s, and then look for a Christmas present for Gran.

  On Monday, Darryl gives me glorious news. He says the police went to his house on Saturday and told them they got word that Big Boss had made up the story about Darryl. They are white policemen and they don’t apologize to the Craigs, but they let them know Darryl is off the hook.

  And so at school we get on with things. The news about Darryl spreads quickly. We keep up with our rehearsals, and Trey does a fine job as our new king. Also, we get our costumes in order. Except for Vanessa, who insists on those pink ballet slippers as her shepherd shoes.

  On the Friday before Christmas, Mama comes home with an early gift for us.

  “I have received my secretarial certificate,” she says. She holds it aloft for Gran and me to see. “And now I am looking for a job in Mechanicsville. I believe I will find one by the new year. First thing, once I get a job, I am going to pay back the school account.”

  I look up from where I am sitting on the floor in front of the fireplace. “Are you really going to get a job in an office, Mama?” I imagine Mama going to work wearing nylons and skirts, and blouses with ties at the neck. She will sit behind a desk with a typewriter and a plant on it, working for a boss who calls her Mrs. Harper, only he pronounces it like Mizz Harper, but that’s okay. Mama will be such a good secretary that her boss, he will constantly say, “Mizz Harper, what did I ever do without you?” Mama is beginning to seem like a character in City Lights.

  “That’s what I’m looking for,” Mama replies.

  “And you’ll only have to work at one job and you’ll be home for dinner every night?”

  “I hope so, precious.”

  I feel so joyful that I leap to my feet and run into the kitchen, where I turn on the radio full blast and twirl the dial around until I find Christmas carols, and then me and Gran and Mama sing along with them for the rest of the evening.

  Christmas keeps us all so busy that before I know it, it’s the last day of school before vacation, the day of the pageant and the program. I wake up that morning the way I have waked up for I don’t know how many mornings now, which is thinking about Little Boss. I wonder where he and Big Boss are, how Little Boss’s foot is healing, if Little Boss is already enrolled in a new school somewhere. Or maybe Little Boss and his daddy are on the run from the police.

  I feel my heart start to pound, so I play the trick I have taught myself. I pretend my mind is a fairy tale, and I tell those thoughts that now I have to banish them, and poof, away they go. Except that they always seem to sneak back the next morning.

  I am enjoying a nice little rest in my warm bed when I catch sight of my Mary costume draped over the back of a chair. And suddenly I am full awake. I dress in a hurry and rush into the kitchen. I decide I had better eat a good big breakfast because I won’t be able to eat again until after the pageant and it will not do for Mary’s stomach to grumble onstage. I am eating scrambled eggs and biscuits when I hear the grinding of gears and know that Bernette is coaxing the bus up our hill.

  “Uh-oh,” I say. The Mary costume is waiting in a bag by the door, but the fruitcakes, they are still in the pantry.

  “What’s wrong?” asks Gran.

  “The bus is here, and I haven’t packed up the fruitcakes yet. The ones for the school program.”

  “Don’t worry, honey,” says Gran. “Your mama and I will bring them with us this afternoon.”

  Mama has taken another day off work so’s she can go to the program. I consider waking her up to tell her about the fruitcakes, because I don’t trust Gran an inch. But I don’t want to embarrass Gran, so a few minutes later I am running to the bus, the bag with my costume in one hand, the fingers of my other hand crossed tightly.

  “Where’s the fruitcakes?” is the first thing Clarice says as I slide into our seat.

  I make a face. “I was late. I didn’t have time to get them. Gran said she and Mama will bring them this afternoon.”

  Clarice raises her eyebrows at me. I think she is going to say something about how maybe it isn’t wise to trust Gran with such a task. Instead, she says, “I wonder what Vanessa is up to.”

  I glance at the front of the bus. HRH Vanessa is sitting there with her legs crossed, very prissy. I realize she didn’t oink or smirk or hum the song about the Clampetts as I passed by. She barely even looked at me, and now she is just staring at the back of Bernette’s head.

  That morning Miss Casey tries to get us to concentrate on our studies, but of course we can’t. At last she decides that one final pageant rehearsal might count as some sort of social studies lesson. So we gather up our costumes and head for the auditorium. A few minutes later, our costumes on, I find myself standing next to Vanessa, who has been unusually quiet all morning. I am about to edge on over to Clarice, when I decide it wouldn’t kill me to be nice to Vanessa for once. After all, this is not a very good day for her, what with her wanting to be Mary and the part going to me and all, and now she has to play a shepherd and everyone has been teasing her about the ballet slippers.

  So I say, trying my hardest to forget about all our fights, “Your mother hemmed your costume perfect, just like you said she would.”

  Vanessa nods and turns away.

  How rude.

  I tell myself HRH doesn’t matter, and I am not going to let her ruin this day for me. I turn my attention to hoping Gran remembers to bring the fruitcakes to school.

  Around eleven o’clock it begins to snow. I love snow, but now I think, please, please don’t let the program be canceled. Not when I am going to play Mary. But an hour later our guests begin to arrive. And Miss Casey, sounding as excited as I feel, announces that it is time to go back to the auditorium. “Remember your costumes!” she calls as we line up at the door.

  Miss Casey leads us single file through the hall and into the auditorium. All us Coker Creek students are going to sit in the front rows whenever we are not onstage. Clarice and Darryl and me make sure to grab three seats together. We tur
n around and look behind us at the parents and grandparents and little brothers and sisters and other special guests.

  “My parents are here,” says Darryl, craning his neck around. “They’re sitting with Winnie and Terrence’s parents and Mr. Walter.”

  My excitement is growing, especially when I spot Mama and Gran, and Mama holds a bag up high to let me know she has the fruitcakes. I smile. I am so happy Mama is here. She told Mr. Titus she just had to have another day off, that she wouldn’t miss this for the world.

  That auditorium is noisier than a hundred school buses full of kids. Everyone is talking and laughing. The adults are calling, “Merry Christmas!” to each other. The kids are talking about Santa and presents and choir practice.

  Just when I think I can’t wait another second or I will explode, Mrs. Portman, our music teacher, steps onto the stage and welcomes our guests to the Christmas program. The auditorium is dim, the snow falling outside the tall windows, and the room is hushed except for little rustlings and scrapings and here and there a cough. An enormous wreath with a red ribbon is hanging at the back of the auditorium, and a decorated tree is standing at one end of the stage. It is like all of a sudden I am wrapped in Christmas.

  Our program goes grade by grade, starting with the littlest kids and ending with the oldest ones, but skipping our class since the pageant is last. Each class files onto the stage, sings carols or puts on a skit or reads poetry, then returns to their seats in the auditorium to watch the rest of the program. It is fun, but I am getting fidgety, waiting and waiting.