Belle Teale Read online

“You,” he says quiet-like to Darryl, but it’s mean quiet, not kind quiet, “better not come to the party.”

  “This is not a party for your people,” adds Vernon.

  “You have already poisoned our school, you are not going to poison —” Little Boss is saying when suddenly someone else is at Darryl’s side.

  It’s Miss Casey.

  “Ray Stomper,” she says, “let me remind you of something. You too, Chas and Vernon. Darryl is a student at Coker Creek and he has as much right to attend a school party as you do. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” the boys mutter.

  Miss Casey, she stands at the end of our table until the boys have settled back in their seats.

  Meanwhile, I am getting an idea. But I wait until me and Clarice and Darryl are off by ourselves on the playground before I say anything about it. Then the idea about bursts out of my mouth.

  “Guess what,” I say. And then I go on and tell them. “I just got an idea.” I am so excited that my voice is a little trembly. “Darryl, what if everyone knew what costumes you and me were going to wear to the party, and then on Halloween night, we switched them. Little Boss and them, they would spend the evening with me, I mean they would think it was me but it would really be you, and then at the end of the party we would throw off our costumes and Little Boss and Vernon and Chas would see that they had played games and all with you. They would be so surprised! And then they would know that you are not poison or anything — just another kid at the party.”

  While I have been talking, Darryl’s eyes have been growing bigger and bigger. But he doesn’t say anything, so I ask him what does he think.

  “Oh, Belle Teal. I — I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, Little Boss would just about kill me.”

  “No, he wouldn’t. You all will be at the party. He couldn’t do anything to you in front of everyone. You haven’t been to the party before, Darryl, but some parents come too. It isn’t only for kids. There’ll be plenty of grown-ups there.” I look at Clarice. “Don’t you think it would be fun?” I ask her.

  Clarice makes a face like she isn’t sure. Finally she says, “Darryl, I don’t think anything would happen to you. Plus, it will be our chance to make a point with the boys after everything they’ve been saying. But Belle Teal, how are you going to make this work? One thing, you won’t be able to say a word all night long. People can tell your voices apart, you know.”

  “Oh, we can figure that out,” I reply.

  Clarice is still frowning. “And what makes you think the boys are going to want to spend time with us at the party, anyway? We just had a fight with Vernon and Chas.”

  “They’ll get over it. They always do,” I say. Us and the boys are enemy-friends. Sometimes I think even their meanest teasing is because secretly they like us. And also because practically nobody else in our class will pay them any mind.

  Darryl, he says then, “I still don’t have a good feeling about this.”

  “Darryl,” I reply. “Think of every darn thing those boys have said since the very first day of school. All you are going to do is show them how they are wrong in their thinking. And I’ll be doing it with you.”

  A teeny smile is appearing on Darryl’s face. He has changed his mind around, I know it. So before he changes it back, I rush on with things. “Now, we will also have to make sure our costumes cover every inch of our bodies,” I say. Our skin can’t show anywhere. What could we be?”

  The three of us sit down under a tree to think. By the time the bell rings we do not have a lick of an idea, but we like our plan better and better. We are going to teach those boys a lesson.

  It takes us several days of thinking and talking under the tree at recess before we smooth out our plan. The first costume we decide on is a devil for Darryl (but really for me). Clarice, she says Shari just gave her a bunch of her old Halloween costumes, the ones from Sherman’s. The oldest is a devil costume and it is perfect because since devils are supposed to be all red, it comes with a red hood, so my entire head will be covered. I can add red mittens and socks to cover my hands and ankles. And I will come up with a spooky, gravelly devil voice. No one will be able to tell if it’s Darryl or me talking like that.

  We have to think a lot longer before we come up with a second costume. Finally one day, Darryl, he looks at me and Clarice and says like a cartoon mad scientist, “I’ve got it!”

  “What?” I cry.

  “Mickey Mouse,” says Darryl.

  “Mickey Mouse?” says Clarice.

  “Yes. Mickey Mouse wears gloves on his hands. And he talks in a little high squeaky voice. Belle Teal and I can work on the voice until we both do it the same, just like we did for the devil voice.”

  “What about your head?” asks Clarice.

  “I know,” I say. I am just a whiz at Halloween costumes. “We can paint a big paper bag to look like Mickey’s face. Darryl can wear the bag over his head.”

  “Hmm,” says Darryl. “A paper bag . . .”

  “Remember, this is supposed to be my costume,” I say. “And it would be just like me to make a paper-bag Mickey head.”

  Darryl and Clarice and me look at each other.

  “Well, I think it would work,” says Clarice.

  “All we have to do is make sure everybody knows what our costumes are going to be,” I say.

  Now when I think of the Halloween party I get a shivery feeling of excitement. I make sure I write up every inch of our plan in my journal.

  On Halloween morning I sneak my costume on in my room and walk into the kitchen dressed as Mickey Mouse.

  “Good morning!” I say in the squeaky voice that Darryl and I have worked out.

  Gran looks up from setting the table and jumps a mile. “Lord above,” she says, her hand over her heart.

  I whip off the paper bag head. “Gran, it’s just me,” I say.

  Gran is not smiling. She stares at me.

  I work to pull off my gloves and Mama’s big old black snow boots I hope look like Mickey’s shoes. “Gran, it’s me,” I say again. “Today is Halloween, remember? This is my costume. We have our Halloween parade at school this afternoon, and the party tonight.”

  “Halloween,” scoffs Gran. She turns to the stove. “Haints and ghouls . . . haints,” she mutters again, and shakes her head.

  “You coming to the party tonight?” I ask. “You and Mama? Mama doesn’t have to work.”

  “Oh, I don’t know.”

  “You have to come.”

  Gran, she doesn’t say anything. I’m not worried, though. Mama will drive me to the party. She always does. And Gran will come with us, and she and Mama will stay and have a good time.

  Lordy, it is hard to pay attention in school today. Not only is Halloween tonight, but tomorrow and Friday there is no school so the teachers can go to their annual meeting down in Wyatt. Miss Casey is nice about our noise and fidgets, though, and when we come inside after recess she even surprises us with cookies and soda before we put on our costumes for the parade.

  “Well, here is my Mickey Mouse costume,” I say loudly as me and my classmates rummage around for our things. “Darryl, where is your devil stuff?”

  “It’s right here,” says Darryl as he pulls the red hood out of a bag and holds it up.

  I hear a small titter then and find HRH Vanessa looking my Mickey head over. “I guess you made that yourself,” she says.

  “I always make my costumes. Don’t you?”

  “No. My mother makes them for me,” replies HRH grandly. She is putting on this ruffly dress and these lacy mitteny things and a bonnet of frills.

  Well. Mama has never once made a costume for me. She is not really one for creative pursuits. That is my department. I bet HRH’s mother has never taught her shorthand squiggles, though.

  “What are you supposed to be?” I ask Vanessa.

  “Why, I am Little Bo Peep. This costume won me an award in the Mechanicsville Hallo
ween Festival Parade last year.”

  I could not care less about HRH’s darn award. I just want to be plain sure that everyone in our class knows I am Mickey Mouse and Darryl is a devil.

  The parade is fun. Mr. Walter himself hands out prizes at the end. I don’t win a prize, but HRH, she wins for the most beautiful costume in our class. She gloats at me. But all I can think about is the Halloween surprise that me and Darryl and Clarice are planning.

  The Coker Creek Elementary School Halloween party always begins at six-thirty on the nose. By then, it is full-on dark. On this Halloween, the air is as cold and the sky as clear and the stars as sparkly as a Christmas Eve. Mama drives Gran and me down the hill in our old car. We rattle and bump along and talk about when we might be able to have the heater fixed. The Mickey costume is in a pillowcase on the seat beside me, the paper head folded up neat-like with no hard creases.

  “What time is church, Adele?” Gran asks Mama for the one millionth time since Mama has said we have to hurry through supper to get to the party.

  “Not church,” Mama reminds Gran. “The Halloween party at Belle Teal’s school.”

  “With the haints and ghouls,” I say helpfully.

  “Where are your church gloves at, honey?” is Gran’s reply.

  I don’t answer.

  When we reach the school I fly out of our car ahead of Mama and Gran. “See you later!” I call. I have to find Darryl and Clarice. We agreed to meet in the hallway by the library.

  I am the last to arrive.

  “Hurry!” whispers Clarice loudly.

  No one is around, but we are not taking chances.

  First me and Clarice help Darryl put on the Mickey costume. Last thing, he pulls off his shoes, and tugs on those boots. Then he and Clarice help me with the devil costume, and I put on Darryl’s sneakers, which we already know fit me because we had a trying-on.

  Clarice, she is a hobo. The hobo and the devil and Mickey walk calm-like down the corridor to the allpurpose room. I do not know about Darryl, but my heart is pounding.

  We stand at the entrance to the party. “Darryl,” I whisper, “over there, that’s my gran and my mama. Just in case they try to talk to you or something. Did your parents come?”

  “Just my father. My mother had to work. She was afraid because Winnie and Terrence weren’t allowed to come, but I said I really wanted to go to the party. So my father drove me, but he’s waiting outside in our car. In case there’s any trouble.”

  I adjust the eyeholes of the devil head. “Okay,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  We have not taken more than four steps when a monster, a vampire, and a mummy surround us. It is Little Boss, Vernon, and Chas. Little Boss, he edges closer and closer to me until he is stepping hard on my toe. When I try to pull my foot away, he steps down even harder, but I refuse to let on that he is hurting me. I don’t know if Darryl sees what is happening, but he says in our squeaky Mickey voice, “Hey, you guys! Let’s go play some games.”

  I want to take just a moment to look around the room, which is all decorated with the orange and black decorations we have been making during art, and hung with streamers and fake cobwebs. A big orange moon is rising over the refreshments table with its plates and plates of cookies and cakes and Halloween candies and the big punch bowl. All of our teachers are in costumes, and a few of the parents are too.

  The parents who have stayed for the party are grouped up at one end of the room, talking and laughing and eating. I see Mama and Gran with Mr. and Mrs. Baker. I look around for Big Boss and am relieved when I don’t see him. If he thought that under the devil costume was one of the Negro kids, well . . . a shiver runs down my back and I shake it off. Then I remember the day Darryl walked to school by himself for the first time, and how he hurried along like a monster was after him. I shiver again.

  I have to catch up with Clarice and Darryl. They are halfway across the room by now. I start to squeeze through the kids who are crowded around the game booths. It is easier than I thought it would be. Everyone moves aside for me. I am pleased — until I feel the wet spray around my eyes as somebody spits at me. My stomach rolls over and I have to take in a breath. Then I raise my fist to clobber whoever did that, but it occurs to me that Darryl would never hit someone, and besides if I start a fight I will spoil our surprise.

  So I wipe off my eyes with my sleeve and keep going.

  Clarice and the boys are at the penny-pitch booth. Darryl, he is hanging back, letting the others go in front of him. As I catch up with them, I hear Little Boss say to Darryl, “You go first, Belle Teal.” He is being awfully nice to me, I think, but then, Halloween is his favorite holiday. Maybe he’s trying to make up for all his meanness lately.

  Mickey Mouse steps up and starts pitching pennies. He isn’t very good. I watch him, wishing I could yell out, “Go, Darryl!” but of course I can’t.

  Just as Darryl loses completely, someone whomps into me from behind. I turn around and see a sixthgrader dressed as a bat. He’s glaring at me. I hurry to Clarice’s side for safety.

  “Come on, Darryl, you take a turn,” Clarice says to me.

  And at that, Little Boss, Vernon, and Chas stalk off. They pull Mickey Mouse after them.

  “Look at them,” I whisper to Clarice.

  “I know,” she whispers back.

  It’s like the boys are trying to prove to Darryl that I am their friend. I have not been very nice to them this fall, I think. Darryl and Clarice and me have been our own little group for weeks now. But then I think of name-calling and spitting and shoving and I remember why I started to ignore Little Boss and them in the first place. This is a very complicated thing.

  Me and Clarice follow after Mickey Mouse and the boys.

  “Oh, Lord, there’s Vanessa,” says Clarice as we push through a group of kids at the apple-bobbing tub.

  HRH is coming toward us with a cup of purple punch from the refreshments table. We are all set to walk right on past her, haughty-like, when suddenly she seems to trip and she falls forward and spills the entire cup of punch down my devil shirt.

  “Oh, my!” she exclaims. “Look what I have done to your costume, boy.”

  I notice that she does not say she is sorry. I want to point this out, but know that Darryl would not do that. It is up to Clarice. She does a fine job.

  “Vanessa Mathers, there was nothing there for you to trip over,” she says at full volume. “You did that on purpose.”

  I am peering downward, trying to see what my front looks like. The stain is huge. I feel terrible until I remember that this is just one of Shari’s hand-me-down costumes. I don’t think Clarice will mind too much.

  Still, now when the other kids look at me they point at the stain and laugh. I feel like I have wet my pants.

  We catch up to Darryl and the boys. They are standing at the refreshments table. I see Darryl trying to fix himself a plate of food, but his Mickey gloves are making things difficult. Little Boss, he notices and says, “Here, Belle Teal. Let me help.” He has not been so polite to me since the end-of-school party last June.

  Little Boss piles a plate with cookies and candy. I see Chas and Vernon watching him. When Little Boss hands the plate to Mickey and says, “How’s that?” they start to snicker. And a strange feeling creeps over me. I think maybe Little Boss has a crush on me. Which I have suspected before, but he has been so horrible this year that I have forgotten about it.

  Darryl accepts the plate and the boys move on.

  Is Little Boss ever going to be surprised when me and Darryl take off our costumes, I think.

  Clarice and me wait on line for cups of punch. When I finally reach the head of the line and hold out my hand to take the cup from the punch-server, the kid behind me reaches out and grabs it first. And the kid behind her grabs the next cup.

  I am thirsty, but I decide to step over toward Mama and Gran for a moment. I am hoping to draw a little comfort from them even though they don’t know who I am.

  “Adele
,” I hear Gran say to Mama, “what are all these haints doing at church?”

  I leave quickly. I am separated from Clarice, and I feel nervous. For the rest of the party, I do not leave Clarice’s side. Sometimes we hook up with the boys, sometimes we are on our own. It is almost nine o’clock, just before the party is to end, when we manage to whisk Darryl away from Little Boss and Chas and Vernon. Darryl is holding a ball and paddle, a prize Little Boss won for him at the ring toss.

  “It’s time to take off our costumes,” I whisper to Darryl. “The party is almost over.”

  “I feel kind of bad,” says Darryl. “Little Boss is being so nice to me.”

  “That’s the point,” I say. “Let’s show him who he had so much fun with all night.”

  Clarice calls the boys over to us. The six of us are standing right in the middle of the whole party. “One, two, three,” says Clarice.

  And Darryl whips off the paper Mickey head while I pull off my devil hood.

  Little Boss and Chas and Vernon stare at us. So do a bunch of other kids. They are so quiet that for a moment it seems to me the whole party is quiet. That is not true, though. There is still a roar of noise around us.

  But the boys’ faces, they are not at all what I pictured every time I imagined this moment. Suddenly I see what I have done. My knees go weak and I grab onto Clarice’s hand.

  In the next second, Chas flicks forward like a snake’s tongue and throws his whole plate of food on the floor. Then he lunges for Darryl with his hands in fists. Quick-like, me and Clarice jump in front of Darryl.

  “Hey!” I say to Chas. “Don’t you touch him.”

  Chas looks around and sees a teacher nearby, so he backs off.

  Then Travis, this fourth-grader, he looks at Little Boss and laughs. “You!” he cries. “You gave your prize to the nigger boy!”

  “He —” Vernon starts to say.

  “You all spent the party with him!” Travis is hooting at Vernon and Chas and Little Boss, whose faces have turned bright red.

  A small crowd of kids are collecting around us, but suddenly Little Boss, he isn’t looking at me or Darryl or any of the kids. His eyes have lifted up and moved across the room. I look where he is looking and my own eyes fall on Big Boss. He is slouched by the doorway, leaning against the wall in a pair of dirty jeans, his jaw working on a wad of chewing tobacco. He is glaring at Little Boss.