Also Known As Harper (9 page)

“‘I'!” Randall shouted it out before Hemingway could get his mouth around it.

“That's right,” I said. “But hush up and give Hem a chance with the next one.”

He didn't look to be hushing up, so I gave him a Mrs. Rodriguez look and he pressed his lips together hard.

I pointed to the next word. “This one's a hard one, so I'm going to give it to you for now. It's ‘ride.'” I tapped the page. “Remember that one, because it comes up a lot in this book.”

The book didn't have a whole lot of plot to it. It was all about people riding their bikes like the picture on the cover. But Randall and Hemingway couldn't wait to turn each page. New words were always like that for me, too.

Mrs. Rodriguez thought fifth-graders had lots of wasted space in their brains. She made us write down a new word each day. We had long lists rolled up in our desks. Every time we got to the bottom of a page, she'd let us tape another sheet across the bottom.

I looked at the Knotty Pine alarm clock. The class was probably doing spelling right then. I imagined
myself sitting at my desk, adding to my list and finding the perfect word to use in my new poem. I could almost feel that rolled-up paper in my hand.

I let out a long breath and wondered if I'd ever get to add to my list again.

 

 

 

 

 

AFTER A WHILE
, I said, “That's enough for now.” I closed Randall's book and handed it to him.

He pushed my hand back. “Why don't I leave it with you? Then you can teach me some more tomorrow and I won't have to worry about losing track of it.” He held up my backpack. “You could keep it in here, maybe.”

He was kind of nervy, that Randall, but I think he was what Mama called “hungry for words.” Mama said our people were like that. We could never get enough stories.

He looked at me with his eyebrows up, like he was getting ready to beg. “Sometimes things get wet at my house.”

I couldn't figure out why things would get wet in their motel room, but I took the book back and looked
at the side wall, stacked high with all we'd been able to carry in our car. “All right. I guess I could keep it with Hem's handwriting books and such.”

He smiled like I'd just given him a handful of cash. “Thanks.”

I stuffed my towel in my backpack and tucked my motel key into the little zippered pouch in the front. When we got outside, Dorothy and her wheelchair were gone, but Lorraine was still there. She sat on a block of concrete that marked the end of a parking space. She had her sketchpad on her lap, and she was drawing with markers.

“Mama buys her all the paper and markers she wants,” Randall said. “She thinks drawing might help her get her words out.” He pointed at a marker on the ground in front of Lorraine. “She never uses the orange. She doesn't throw it away or anything. She just takes it out first thing and leaves it there until she's done.”

I knew why she did it. The orange probably made her think of the fire. When she took out the orange, she was most likely reminding herself not to think about it.

Lorraine saw us coming and started stuffing her markers back in the box.

“Hey, Lorraine.” I made a point of not looking at the orange marker.

She smiled at me and wiggled her fingers hello.

“They want to go swimming again.” Randall smoothed his hand over his name tag. “We'll have to change into yesterday's stuff.” He pulled his shirt down. “Mama hates it when we make too much laundry.”

Lorraine nodded and stood up to lead the way. But she didn't stop at any of the motel rooms to change her clothes, which I thought was real strange. She didn't seem like the kind of person who would ignore what her mama said.

Then, when she led us over the crumbled concrete around back and down the narrow path past all the blackberry bushes, I got really confused. And Randall kept chatting away to Hem, as if he didn't even notice how far we'd gone.

“Hey, Lorraine.” I cleared my throat loudly, in case her thoughts were getting jumbled inside her head, along with her words. “Haven't we gone too far?”

She smiled and shook her head. She didn't look confused at all.

“It's just a little farther up.” Randall pointed
down the path, where the trees were getting farther apart.

I was starting to ask him what he was talking about when I realized they didn't live in the motel at all. I saw where they lived.

It was beautiful and Lorraine knew it. I could tell by the proud way the corners of her mouth tilted up when she saw I'd noticed it.

At least half a dozen tents were scattered through the trees. Some even had a little indoor furniture they were using for the outside. Up ahead, a man sat next to a red square of a tent. He leaned back in a brown plaid armchair, reading his newspaper.

I didn't know how I knew, but I was sure as anything that the green tent with the squared-off top was theirs. As soon as I laid eyes on it, I got that same happy, relaxed feeling I'd gotten when I first met Lorraine.

Someone had added on to the tent to make it bigger. Clotheslines were strung from one tree to another right next to the tent. Hanging from each of the clotheslines was the most beautiful cloth I'd ever seen. Greens, yellows, and reds on one piece, and turquoise, purple, and royal blue on another, bursting
out from the center of each cloth as if the colors were traveling out to meet us.

“It's batik.” Randall said it slowly, like it was two words—“buh teek.” His voice had the same pride in it as Lorraine's eyes and smile. “Mama makes the cloth. She learned from her mother.”

“It's like a fancy painting.” I wanted to touch it, but I didn't want Lorraine to get mad. Some people didn't like anyone touching their stuff. The only thing I didn't much care for was the long black plastic tarp that hung overhead of it all. But I figured it to be their rain protection.

Lorraine pointed at what looked like bicycle tracks in the dirt.

“Mama's at the food bank,” Randall said. “They got extra cheese this week. She always gets them to give her the extras, and she passes it out to the people that can't make it down there.”

I looked across the way at a woman eating at a card table. She sat in a knobby dining-room chair that looked just like the ones we had from my grandmother.

“We're not usually allowed to have people over when she's gone.” Randall looked behind the first batik cloth as if he was checking to be sure. “But
Mama won't mind you being here. You're special company. She knows all about your story writing.”

Lorraine nodded and held back the other cloth so I could walk past.

When I went behind the cloth, I gulped down a big burst of air. Bright color was everywhere. But there was no orange. Their mama must definitely have known how Lorraine felt about orange.

Purple, green, and pink paper lanterns were hanging up high from one end of the tent to the next. They looked like the kind we made in school last year for Chinese New Year.

But the floor was the absolute best. More of the batik cloth was covering the ground, and all around the edges of the room were dozens of pillows in all my favorite colors from the crayon box. The ones with fancy names, like “periwinkle” and “azure.” I knew those to be the exact colors, because the pillows had name tags, just like Lorraine and Randall. In fact, everything there had a name tag, from the tree stumps to the big sitting rock in the corner. Some of them were fresh and crisp, like on the front of the tree-stump cushion, and some of them had the corners coming up, as if they'd been there awhile.

I couldn't help myself. I had to sit down on that
tree-stump cushion and get a close-up view of the batik cloth behind it. It was as if my favorite poems traveled out of my brain and onto that cloth.

Lorraine smiled and looked at Randall.

“She knows how to make it, too,” Randall said. “But I'm not allowed. You have to use hot wax.”

Lorraine shooed Randall and Hem away with a quick flick of the back of her hand.

“You go wait out front,” Randall told Hem. “I'm going to change into my swimming clothes.”

Lorraine unzipped the cloth door, and she and Randall went off into the main part of the tent. I stood so I was in the very middle of the batik room. I leaned my head back and let all the color zigzag into my brain.

It was something blue and flower-shaped that snapped my brain to attention. It was pushed to the edge of the tent and almost completely covered in cloth.

I knew what it was before I'd even lifted up the cloth, because there was no mistaking the bright green paint and blue flower decals.

 

 

 

 

 

HEM WALKED BACK
into the tent, and I wondered how long it would take him to recognize it.

I ran my finger along the outside edges of a daisy decal, and Randall came up beside me and smiled.

“Mama brought that home for Lorraine last night.” He peeled back a corner of the cloth and patted the front of the top drawer. “She said it might be hard to fit it in the car when we leave here, but she couldn't pass it up. So it's an early birthday present.”

Lorraine nodded, her eyes smiling real big.

“Mama said you got to jump at a bargain when you see one, and that yard sale had a whole slew of them.” Randall smoothed his hand along the side of the dresser.

Lorraine looked plenty proud of that dresser, and
I could see she wanted me to be all excited for her, like a good friend would. She pointed at a daisy decal.

But she didn't need to point it out to me. I knew every petal with my eyes closed, since I was the one that had put all of them on there. Those daisy decals were one of my birthday presents two years ago. I'd put them on with tape first, before I'd actually peeled off the backs. I'd wanted to get them spaced right. Once you stick them on, they're there forever. At least I thought so. Unless the entire dresser gets moved.

I couldn't breathe quite right.

It wasn't till Hem finally got himself a good look that the tears started in the corners of my eyes.

“That looks just like your dresser, Harper Lee.” Hem tried to get closer, but Lorraine blocked his way. I didn't blame her, though. That dresser was now her birthday present, and she didn't want any grubby little-boy fingerprints dirtying it up.

I put my head down and pressed my fingertips up against the middle of my forehead and tried to keep the tears back. “Come on, Hem. We've got to go.”

“What do you mean?” His voice told me he was getting ready to put up a fight. “We're going swimming. Remember?”

I'd never been a very good liar, so I tried not to look at Lorraine, or my dresser. “I can't believe I forgot about our appointment.” I lifted up my wrist like there was a watch on it.

“Appointment?” That got Hem's attention right away. “Mama didn't say nothing about a doctor today.”

“You guys come by later.” I waved at Lorraine and Randall. “Couple hours or so.” I hooked my arm through Hem's elbow and pulled him out of the tent before the wailing started. All Hem had to do was think on the word “doctor,” and he started screaming his head off.

I pulled him out of earshot of the tent and gave his arm a good squeeze.

“Mama didn't say nothing about a doctor today,” he said again, his voice all high and squeaky.

I bent down so I was about two inches from his forehead and took his face in my hands. “Settle down, now, Hem. All I said was ‘appointment.' We are not going to the doctor, so relax. I can't think when you go on with your voice all squeaky like that.”

Everything was coming at me in a jumble right then, and it was hard for my brain to figure out what to think about first. When we drove away from our
house, I hadn't thought anything would happen to all we had left behind. I had tucked it all into a safe place in my mind. In fact, when I'd thought about it, I'd made myself picture everything the way it always was, in its rightful place in our house. Not being sifted through in Winnie Rae Early's camping trailer, or stacked in a pile in her old shed. Or worse.

Hem looked at me, his mouth wide open like he was still getting ready for a good scream.

I leaned in close. “No shots today. All right?”

He nodded slowly and spit his breath out, one burst at a time, as if he wasn't quite ready to believe me yet.

“All right, then.” I pulled some gum out of the pocket of my sweatshirt and handed him a stick. “Here. Get your jaws moving on this. We've got some walking to do, and you've got to get your energy up.”

I unwrapped a stick for myself and tried to concentrate on getting a good chew going. I couldn't let Hem see me cry. He was riled up enough as it was. I tried to think about how I was getting back to school, but I couldn't push the dresser out of my mind. I could still feel the stickiness of the daisy decals as I peeled off the back and found the perfect spot for each one. I remembered how those decals fancied it
right up so it didn't look like a baby dresser anymore. I had been so proud of the way it looked. Even Daddy had said how nice it was.

It was at least a half-hour's walk to our old place, and another day I might have actually enjoyed it. I was feeling warm enough to unzip my sweatshirt, and there were almost no cars on the road. But there was a nagging, heavy feeling moving from side to side in my stomach, and Hem cranked up a good whine by the time we were twenty minutes into it. Every time Hem's high voice started to get to me, I kicked a rock off into the ditch beside the road.

I didn't know why, but the walk down the last road to our house felt different. I'd gone over that same path at least two times a day for the last few years, but today it seemed unfamiliar somehow. I had passed the same three maple trees, with the branches that tangled into one another, but it almost seemed as if they were telling me I didn't have a right to be there anymore.