Icy Sparks (5 page)

M
onday, the first day of school, took me by surprise. After all my worrying and waiting, it sneaked up on me like a leg cramp in the middle of a dream. Before I knew it, I was putting on my new red calico dress; and Matanni was frying eggs and bacon.

During the previous two weeks, I had kept my impulses in check. My interior thoughts had calmed down; no longer were they arguing the pros and cons of me, transforming themselves into a separate entity, more powerful than I was. No major jerks, pops, or repetitions. I'd get little impulses, but they were more like tics, wee little movements of my neck and head, nothing like my previous goings-on in the root cellar. In fact, they were so subtle that no one noticed them. Still, I was worried. I never knew when the jerks would take over. When they did, people would find me out.

“Go sit down,” my grandmother said, as I tapped across the kitchen floor in my black patent-leather pumps with white clip-on bows. My lace-trimmed socks were turned down and skimmed against my shoes. I felt the sharp-edged jabbing of the heel into my right foot and knew that a blister, round as a quarter, was forming.

“I need some help,” I said, approaching my grandmother from behind, holding a brush and green ribbons.

“Icy!” she said, stepping back on my shoes.

“Ouch!” I said, and jumped back.

“I can't cook and fix your hair at the same time.”

Pouting, I walked over to the kitchen chair and slumped down. “I picked out these green ribbons.” I put the hairbrush and ribbons on the table, then flicked the rubber bands that were wrapped around my wrist. “I'm nervous,” I added. “It's my first day, and I want to look pretty.”

“You got butterflies,” my grandmother said. “If you eat a good breakfast, you'll feel better.”

I bit my lip. “I ain't hungry,” I said. “I'm too scared to be hungry.”

“School ain't never bothered you before,” my grandmother said, pulling biscuits from the oven. “What's got you in such a tizzy? You've been feeling better for weeks.”

I picked up my glass of tomato juice, stared at the thick red concoction, took a sip but—feeling queasy—set it down. “Janie Lou said that the fourth grade teacher is mean,” I replied.

“Janie Lou?” my grandmother said, arching her eyebrows.

“You know, Joel McRoy's cousin,” I explained.

She nodded. “So?” she said, lifting her eyebrows again.

“So,” I continued, “she spanked Prissy Evans last year for picking her nose and slapped Maggie Mullins for nibbling on her nails. Hit her hands with a Ping-Pong paddle. Janie Lou said that she's from Chicago and came all this way to save our minds and souls. I mean, she don't even like it here.”

“Nonsense,” Matanni interrupted. “You don't even know the woman. You ain't once mentioned her Christian name.”

“Her name is Mrs. Stilton,” I said confidently. “And she's a Catholic, too,” I blurted out, knowing full well that bit of news would worry my grandmother. I looked right into my grandmother's eyes. Neither of her eyebrows was lifted now. She was listening, all right. “She believes in the Pope and practices her singing every day 'cause she's just hankering to go to Italy and audition for the Pope's choir. Even Janie Lou's preacher has heard about her. One Sunday, he warned the whole congregation, ‘If you don't watch out, you, too, will be following false prophets and worshiping idols.' Right then and there, Janie Lou knew who he was referring to. Janie Lou calls her Mrs. Zombie. And do you know why?” I didn't give Matanni a chance to reply. “'Cause her irises are so dark you can't see her pupils. She looks like one of the walking dead.”

Matanni blinked twice, shook her head, and scolded, “Don't believe everything you hear!” Then she snatched up a knife and began buttering a biscuit. “Now drink your juice.”

“I told you,” I sassed, “I ain't hungry.”

My grandmother grabbed my plate and marched toward me. “Now, listen up, Miss Icy Sparks. In this here life, we all got things we don't want to do. All of us have our bad days. So don't go taking yours out on me.” She plunked down my breakfast. Staring at me were two over-easy eggs, three slices of bacon, and a biscuit.

“I'm sorry,” I mumbled, then stabbed an egg with my fork and slowly brought a piece of it toward my mouth. “I'm as jittery as a horse.” I choked on the rubbery sliver of egg white, groaned, and spewed tomato juice and egg all over the table.

“Icy, are you okay?”

I shook my head, leaped up, and raced to the bathroom. Matanni chased after me.

“Icy, are you okay?” she asked.

I heaved over the toilet, unable to answer. Then, totally exhausted, I lowered the lid, folded my arms on top of it, and plopped down my head.

“Icy, are you all right?” she asked again from the doorway. “Say something, please!”

I stood up. “I'm okay,” I muttered, shuffling to the door. “I feel better now,” I said. “Will you braid my hair?” I asked, extending my wrist with the rubber bands wrapped around it. “I want to wear my new ribbons.”

Matanni put her hand on my forehead. “No fever,” she pronounced. “Just nerves.” She took my hand, led me over to the sink, where she turned on the faucet, and splashed cold water over my face. “I don't understand it,” she said as she dried my skin. “School ain't never bothered you. By fall, you're aching to go.” She combed her fingers through my hair. “Stay right here,” she said. “I gotta fetch your hairbrush and ribbons. Don't worry none. We'll make you look real pretty.”

I stared at my pale face in the bathroom mirror. My eyes were bleached out and dull. My hair seemed wilted and dead. Like a dead cat's hair, I thought, one that has been dead in a ditch for weeks. Suddenly I understood why Miss Emily hung cheesecloth over her mirror. “If I had me a piece of cheesecloth,” I whispered, “I'd hang it up, lickety-split.” But I had no cheesecloth and watched dismally as my grandmother, all smiles, scurried into the bathroom and, with hairbrush and ribbons, went eagerly to work.

P
eavy Lawson was the first person I saw. He and his frog eyes occupied the first seat of the first row near the door. When I entered the room, he jumped up and waved his hands at me. They looked like frog's feet—greenish yellow, webbed, and slimy. I blinked and looked again, but he had hidden them in his lap. Now he winked at me, his frog eyelids flying up and down like blinds. A wide, thin grin covered his face. I tried to find his lips but couldn't. Frogs, I guessed, didn't have lips.

“Howdy, Icy!” He lisped the
cy.
When he spoke, his tongue—slender and blood red—shot out a full five inches. “Howdy, Icy,” he lisped again, the tip of his tongue curling up when he spoke.

I concentrated on my own eyes, tried to sink them way back into my skull, and said, “Peavy Lawson, why don't you jump back into that pond where you belong?”

He popped out his eyes, then rolled them up into his head. “We can jump together,” he said.

I snapped my eyes shut—unable to tolerate the sight of him—and blindly shuffled forward. When I bumped into the large wooden desk and heard the class laughing, I opened my eyelids and slid into the first empty seat I could find. The minute Peavy Lawson leaned way over into the aisle, flashing me a huge, froggy grin, I knew that I had picked the wrong desk since I was only a few seats down from him. My face reddened, and I stuck out my tongue. I opened my hands, turned my palms upward, and spit into both. Then, I slapped them together and rubbed them fiercely back and forth, all the while staring into Peavy Lawson's amphibian eyes.

“Hey you, young lady! You're Icy Sparks, aren't you?”

I heard the voice and turned my head toward the classroom door.

“What in the world are you doing?” Mrs. Stilton barked. “I'm beginning to question Miss Palmer's high opinion of you.”

I looked at Mrs. Stilton's long nose and her squinty, black eyes and was too frightened to speak. A long quiver started from the nape of my neck and shook me down my spine to the tips of my toes. This ain't no jerk, I thought. This is just plain fear. My desk began to bang against the floor.

“Icy Sparks!” Mrs. Stilton screamed.

I clamped my hands over my ears.

“Remove those hands, young lady!”

I froze.

“Remove them or else!” she warned.

Still, I couldn't move.

“Okay, you asked for it!” she said.

Deliberately, she walked toward her desk and pulled out, inch by inch, the top drawer. In slow motion, she picked up a Ping-Pong paddle, then held it up high for the class to see.

I gasped, but my hands stayed put.

With the paddle held upright in her hand, she strode toward me.

I abruptly closed my eyes, and she disappeared like melting celluloid blotting out an actor when the film projector breaks.

“You think you can make me disappear?” she said.

I pressed my hands against my ears.

“You think you can shut me out?”

My eyelids were tightly shut.

“You think I'm not important?”

I held my breath.

“Well, listen up!” she screamed. “Mrs. Eleanor Stilton is your teacher, and you'd better accept it!”

I bit my bottom lip and sat rigidly still.

Whack! The paddle burned my right hand.

“Do you hear me?”

Whack! It burned my left. Whack, whack, whack!

My ears tingled. My jaw ached.

“Do you understand?”

I tried to speak. Syllables dissolved.

Whack, whack, whack!

My face melted. My hands fell from my ears. My eyes flew open.

“Who is your fourth grade teacher?” the pointed face asked.

“You are,” I muttered.

“And what is my name?” the voice thundered.

“Mrs. Stilton,” I said.

“Finally!” The voice gasped relief. “Students, this was your very first lesson. I hope you've paid attention.”

“Yes, ma'am!” resounded the frightened voices of Mrs. Stilton's fourth grade class. The loudest of which was mine.

By lunchtime, the enormity of my situation had seeped into my mind like the odor of turnip greens permeating the air. I understood that some awful harm was confronting me. From now on, every answer I gave would have to be precise; every word would have to be calculated, ensuring my survival. If I didn't control myself, the urge to jerk, pop, and repeat words would take over, and something horrible—the worst thing ever to happen to me—would occur.

At the table, Emma Richards sat beside me. She held her nose while she slipped a smidgen of turnip greens into her mouth. “I can't taste them this way,” she said.

“Don't eat them,” I told her.

“I gotta,” she said. “Mrs. Stilton heard me telling Sallie Mae how much I hate this stuff, and she said I had to eat all of it. Every mouthful of it, she told me. I seen what she done to you.”

“Then you best eat up,” I said, forking down mouthfuls of greens, hoping to show Mrs. Stilton what a good girl I really was. When she passed by my plate, it would be sparkling clean. “I like greens,” I said, shoveling more into my mouth. “Pokeweed, collards, mustards. Patanni said that I'm like Essie, our milk cow, 'cause I like greens more'n meat.”

“I like chicken and dumplings,” Emma said. “That's about the only thing I really like, except for candy.”

“I like pull candy,” I said. “Miss Emily Tanner makes the best in the world.”

“It's too gooey.” Emma made a face. “I like proper sweets like those chocolates in Valentine boxes.”

I stuffed more turnip greens between my lips and, with a full mouth, proclaimed, “I like blackberry cobbler. My grandma makes the best.”

A hand tapped my shoulder, and I glanced up. “You like what?” Mrs. Stilton asked.

“I like vegetables,” I said, with the glob of greens mashed in my mouth. I smiled and tilted my plate upward so that she could see how clean it was becoming.

Mrs. Stilton popped me on the shoulder. “You're talking with your mouth full,” she said, “and ruining everybody's meal.”

I quit smiling, closed my mouth, and swallowed. “Patanni calls me a cow,” I tried again, “'cause I like vegetables more than meat.”

“Then you'd be called a vegetarian,” Mrs. Stilton said, “and that's not healthy.”

“That don't…mean…I—I don't…like meat,” I stammered. “If someone gives me meat, I'll eat it. I ain't spoiled. There is hungry people in China.”

“There are hungry people in these parts,” Mrs. Stilton said.

“Yes, ma'am,” I conceded, “there are hungry people all over this country.”

“Not in Illinois,” Mrs. Stilton said, wheezing air through her nose. “We don't have hungry people in Chicago.”